The first title in development is Speedball II: Brutal Deluxe. Designed by the legendary Bitmap Brothers, the ‘advanced’ incarnation of Speedball II will be based on the original, award-winning Sega Mega Drive and Commodore Amiga versions.
A muscled, heavily armoured giant amongst the traditional vest and shorts sports sims, Speedball II: Brutal Deluxe offers fast-paced gaming with very few rules. Blending violence and spectacular arcade action, players can take control of a team desperate to win the Speedball championship. Train up your team – increasing the abilities of your metal-clad bruisers. Perfect your tactics – elbow the opposing defenders, turn the tide of the game with a power-up, use the arena to gain an advantage. Fight and play your way through league, knockout and cup competitions in search of Speedball glory.
While this new version of Speedball II: Brutal Deluxe is based on the 1980 original, Crawfish plan a range of enhancements for the Game Boy Advance. While graphics and gameplay will stay faithful to the original, other features include:
- Multiple teams, players and personalities
- Additional gameplay modes
- Four-player link up mode
“With its vastly-improved graphical abilities, the Game Boy Advance is the perfect system to rediscover Speedball II,” said Mike Merren, Director of Development at Crawfish Interactive. “As one of the most inventive titles the videogames industry has ever seen, there’s a certain timeless aspect to Speedball’s gameplay. It’s one of those memorable games that gets the basics just right – easy to play, difficult to master. The Game Boy Advance version will remain faithful to the classic original, ensuring that the original play mechanic is not only maintained, but enhanced for a new generation of gamers.”
Mike Montgomery of The Bitmap Brothers has been thinking about the possibilities for Speedball on other formats for some time now and commented, ‘’We are delighted to be joining forces with Crawfish to bring this title to the GBA and hope a whole new generation of gamers will discover Speedball’’.
About Crawfish Interactive
Based in Croydon, London U.K., Crawfish Interactive Ltd is a video games developer specialising in handheld consoles, including the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. To date, Crawfish has produced critical and chart successes for global publishers including, Red Storm Entertainment, Acclaim, Activision, Midway, Crave, GTi & Bam! Entertainment and have many more titles in the pipeline. For further information, visit our website
About The Bitmap Brothers
Founded in 1987 the Bitmap Brothers were the original ‘rockstar’ developers – continually striving for originality, attention to detail and new levels of playability, the company has been responsible for several of the games industry’s most memorable titles, released on a range of formats that have included 8, 16 and 32-bit home computers and consoles - from the earliest days of the Commodore 64 through to today’s high performance PCs and consoles.For more information visit our website.