War Gods

The object of the game is to defeat all the other fighters to become the most powerful warrior on the planet. The game was heavily influenced by Midway's Mortal Kombat series, and features controls similar to that series, as well as its signature fatalities. Unique to War Gods is the "3D" button, allowing players to use the background/foreground for additional attacks and evasive maneuvers; in other words it lets the player dive around the ring in a circular arc as part of their attacks and defensive moves. The orbiting camera smoothly follows the fighters, working to maintain the left/right "fighting line" needed for coherent two-player joystick control on the arcade cabinet. The game's graphics were created using a technology by Midway called "digital skin", which mapped photographs onto 3D models. Gods received mixed reviews, with particular criticism being directed at the game's character design and animations.

• Title — War Gods • Developer — Midway • Publisher — Midway Windows GT Interactive • Director — Joe Linhoff • Composer — Vincent Pontarelli • Platforms — Arcade, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Windows • Released — Arcade August 1996PlayStation Nintendo 64 November 28, 1997Windows June 19, 1997 • Genre — Fighting • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer • Arcade System — Midway V Unit

• Illustration — War Gods' character design and graphics were criticized by reviewers. War Gods is a 3D fighting game with the control scheme of a Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter entry. It is limited to a story mode that can be played alone or two-player; in the Nintendo 64 version, the two-player mode is activated by having the second controller plugged in while on the character selection screen. The plot begins billions of years ago, when a spaceship carrying a valuable ore crashes into Earth. Over the years, ten humans find pieces of the ore and turn into the titular powerful beings. The evil gods fight to possess all the pieces and become the ultimate super-warriors, while the good gods fight to stop Exor and save the planet. The final battles are with two aliens from the spaceship, Grox and Exor, hunting the War Gods for a missing transporter. The levels are set in areas native to the War Gods, such as the Warhead's military base, Anubis's desert pyramid, Ahau Kim's ancient aztec temple, Pagan abandoned ghotic church, Voodoo's Bayou forest and Kabuki Jo's Samurai temple. The game plays similarly to Mortal Kombat 4, using an almost identical button layout of high/low punches and kicks. The "Run" button was replaced with a "3D" button that, when held down while using other joystick and button combinations, allows the player to perform different attacks/evasions utilizing the background or foreground. To prevent situations where opponents end up on different playing fields for prolonged periods of time, each character has a teleport move which moves them close to their opponent. Just as in the Mortal Kombat games, players select a character and fight a series of opponents. War Gods also features combos which can be used through series of button presses. Like the Mortal Kombat games, the game has fatalities that are used to finish off opponents, aside from one Fatality per character the game also has other three types of finishing moves such as 10 Hit Combos for each character and By Pressing High Kick with the 3D button the players are able to perform a Stage Ring out finishing move and by pressing Uppercut they can punch the opponents high in the Sky.

Released by Midway as the first of its new 3D software prior to the release of Mortal Kombat 4, War Gods was developed by a team led by Joe Linhoff and George Petro. The arcade game utilized a hybrid of the hardware used for Cruis'n USA with a hard drive for data storage. All the moves were recorded using motion capture with just two actors. The in-game characters were created using a technology called "digital skin", which involved digitizing reference photographs of live actors and mapping them onto 3-D models. Gamefan reported about War Gods in August 1995 claiming it will use the same hardware as Killer Instinct and will be unveiled at Amusement Expo International in September 1995. However War Gods did not get unveiled until at a trade show in March 1996. In response to suggestions and complaints about the gameplay, several months were devoted to refining the game's programming, delaying the arcade release to the third quarter of 1996. The Nintendo 64 version was delayed in order to tone down the difficulty level and add additional moves. A Panasonic M2 version of War Gods was in development and slated to be one of its launch titles, but it never happened due to the system's cancellation.