Nowhere is the NBA’s profligate culture of excess in the 90s more apparent than in the fact that someone (now defunct video game developers Delphine Software International) gave then-22 year old Shaquille O’Neil a buttload of cash to make a historically terrible video game whose unintentionally hilarious central narrative revolved around him magically stumbling into another dimension to fight Mummies. And for that he is truly sorry.
“The first Shaq Fu was terrible,” the LA Lakers great and current TNT analyst admits in a heartfelt video appeal seeking to resurrect one of/if not the worst video game released on the Nintendo/Sega console duopoly of the 90s, the comical kung fu themed side-scroller Shaq Fu.
His Shaqness has today launched a crowdfunding campaign in collaboration with Big Deez Productions a team whose collective development experience includes the HALO, Street Fighter and Final Fantasy titles with the end goal being a functioning, non-terrible and relatively polished sequel to the gaming abomination known as Shaq Fu.
This one’s called Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn and according to Shaq will require some $450,000 to see production. This is where you come in. As per the symbiotic and not at all exploitative nature of crowdfunding, fans pledging money to the project are afforded different rewards based on the magnitude of their donations. Pledges made on the lower end of the spectrum, for example, will receive a free Shaq Fu tee, while a pledge of $35,000 or over earns one lucky fan the chance to attend a taping of TNT’s Inside The NBA program where they can possibly meet Charles Barkley?
Cool? Cool. And now a word from Shaq…
