Chris Buffa (Modojo): Earlier this year, One Spear Entertainment and Hiptic Games released ShaqDown for iOS and Android, a crazy endless-runner starring retired NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal. In it, The Diesel sets out to kill zombie mutants and save humans from destruction, which almost mirrors what The Big Aristotle does in real life, in between offering basketball analysis on TNT. Personally, we really enjoyed it, and to learn more, we caught up with Long Vo, founder of Hiptic, to find out how this project got started.
Shaquille O’Neal so immense in size and heart he couldn’t be constrained to the basketball court, and believe me, we tried. To truly understand Shaq, one must become Shaq. And what better way to do that than by playing every video game Shaq has lent his namesake to? God help me.
DG: Shaquille O’Neal, the 7ft-tall former NBA star’s prior foray into video games was Shaq Fu, a 2D fighting game in which Shaq must rescue a young child from an evil mummy, was never met with positive acclamation. In fact, you could say Shaq Fu transcended the “So good it’s bad” threshold into borderline-unplayable territory, and in no way could it have been deemed a good game.
STP: An endless runner with a good dose of humor and a big-name hero, held back by punishing difficulty and not quite enough replay value.
