Do you know Lobotomy Software? If you played Exhumed / PowerSlave on Saturn or Playstation, you probably remember that it was a real masterpiece, a Metroid-alike adventure in first person view, before Metroid Prime even existed. Lobotomy were founded in 1993 and they released some other games like the successful Sega Saturn ports of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, that shown to the world what the 32Bit Sega Console was able to do with 3D graphic when great developers were able to work on great games.
They were also planning 2 new original games, Aquaria (Nintendo 64 + Playstation) and Exhumed 2 (Playstation), but unfortunately these were cancelled before being completed and gamers will never be able to enjoy them. In 1998 Lobotomy’s talented developers were acquired by Crave Entertainment and the team was renamed to Lobotomy Studios, to work on a Caesar’s Palace game for the Nintendo 64, but after a year of development the game was postponed and eventually cancelled. As we can read on Wikipedia, at that point Lobotomy Studios was closed and employees were let go or given the option to be relocated to another position at Crave Entertainment.
Thanks to our friend Ross Sillifant we are able to publish this interview with Brian McNeeely, one of the main Lobotomy Software developers that worked on all their games, to ask him about his memories on their released projects and their cancelled titles. And if you still don’t know why it’s such a shame that we lost Exhumed 2 and Aquaria, please take your time and watch the video below (created by Tatsu from Lobotomy Software Blog), to understand why Lobotomy Software was one of the most talented development team in the mid ’90, affected by an unlucky fate.
Interview with Brian McNeely by Ross Sillifant
Before we get started, i’m going to try and ‘avoid’ as many technical-based questions as possible, or least phrase them in a more general manner, as i think these type of questions would be better suited to coders like Ezra Dreisbach, with your goodself i’m looking more for the insights into the company itself, hopefully being able to get a few rumours from the press cleared up etc etc.
Q1) Starting with the standard, cliched opener, Brian, please introduce yourself to our readers, in terms of your background, if you could be so kind.
Brian: Thanks for this opportunity Ross. My name is Brian McNeely (my name was actually Brian Anderson up to around 1996 when I changed my last name to McNeely, which is my birth name). I’ve been working in the gaming industry since January 1989, when I was hired at Nintendo of America as a Game Play Counselor. It’s hard to believe that was over 26 years ago! I look back at those days as a golden era both in the gaming world and in my career, and I feel very lucky that I was at Nintendo’s epicenter during that period. The NES, SNES, and Gameboy hardware and software were all the rage, and I had the privilege of playing those games full-time and helping gamers all over the world with game tips and “counseling.” It really was a ton of fun. I love what I do now and what I’ve done since then, but that was one of the best times of my life for sure.
