Software Creations

Background: Software Creations was a British game developer that was established in 1987. They are primarily known for their video games based on movie and comic licenses like Marvel Comics (Spider-Man and X-Men - Arcade's Revenge, Spider Man and Venom - Maximum Carnage and it's sequel, Separation Anxiety), Cutthroat Island, Disney's Beauty and the Beast (Belle's Quest and Roar of the Beast) and original titles like Solstice and it's sequel Equinox. In May 2002, Acclaim Entertainment bought most of Software Creations assets and renamed it to "Acclaim Studios Manchester". The only games they did under that name around that time, were Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance and the GBA version of All-Star Baseball 2004. In 2004, it was closed along with Acclaim Studios Cheltenham during Acclaim's Bankruptcy.

Software Creations

1st Logo (1991-1994)

Nicknames: "The Three Multicolored Arrows", "The Software Creations Arrows"

Logo: We see three arrows: blue, green and red, sliding in one-by-one and folding into each one, with "SOFTWARE CREATIONS" written to the right in bold white font.

Variants:
 * On Equinox and Ken Griffey Jr. presents Major League Baseball, the logo is plain, while on other games, it's in 3D. In the former cases, the words, "A" and "PRODUCTION" are above and below the logo respectively.
 * On the SNES version of Rock n' Roll Racing, the logo is shown on the bottom right on the Silicon & Synapse logo (See here).

FX/SFX: None. The Spider-Man and X-Men: Arcade's Revenge version has the arrows slide in and fold into each other.

Music/Sounds: The opening theme of the game.

Availability: Seen on Equinox, Super Off-Road (for SNES) and Spider-Man and X-Men - Arcade's Revenge (for Genesis and SNES). It also appeared on Rock n' Roll Racing and Ken Griffey Jr presents Major League Baseball for SNES as well, (The latter shown after the ending credits). The Game Gear version of latter game, has the next logo below instead. The logo appears if you enter a Game Genie code on the prototype version of the NES version of Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

Scare Factor: None.

2nd Logo (1994-1998)

Nicknames: "The Eye", "The Software Creations Eye"

Logo: Against the white background, we see three cut out shaped parts of the eye with one on the left and two on the right with their shadows behind them. The left one has the blue carpet-like texture while the right small one has the dark blue wall-like texture and the right big one has the brown magma-like texture. Around it is a marble which is used for the pupil. Under the logo are the words, "SOFTWARE CREATIONS" in a weird font with cut off parts (with orange circles on "F" and two "E"s and "I" has a orange oval above it and has a green outline) and the inside part of the "O"s.

Variants:
 * On Foreman for Real, the logo is against the marble background with it's shadow behind it. Also, the slogan, "catalyst for the imagination" is underneath the logo.
 * On Nintendo 64 version of Hexen, the logo (with the slogan intact) is seen on the bottom right with the game's title logo on the top-left. Plus, the text is a bit smaller and the eye design looks more realistic.
 * On SNES versions of Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage and it's sequel, Separation Anxiety, the circle in "E" in "SOFTWARE" is gray and the oval above "I" is half gray. This might've been a graphic glitch or something.
 * On the Game Boy version of Foreman for Real, the logo is in it's print style inside a black rectangle. Above it are the stacked words, "DESIGNED AND PROGRAMMED BY SOFTWARE CREATIONS".

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: None or the opening theme of the game.

Availability: Seen on games through the era such as Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage and it's sequel, Separation Anxiety, Foreman for Real, The Tick, Spider-Man and X-Men - Arcade's Revenge (Game Gear version although the other versions use the previous logo), Cutthroat Island (Game Gear version only although other versions never had a logo), Game Boy and Game Gear versions of Mortal Kombat 3 (the latter version is never released in USA), and Hexen for Nintendo 64.

Scare Factor: None.

3rd Logo (1998-2002)

Nickname: "The Rainbow-Colored Marbles Logo"

Logo: On a black background, we see holes being drawn in the background, which emit a white light from them, then we zoom out to see the company name (it's just simply "Creations" this time around) in white text. Seven multi-colored marbles (from the right, the colors are pink, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red) then drop in as a white line draws itself underneath them.

Variant: There's an in-credit variant with a white background, colored text for the company name, and copyright information below the colored marbles.

FX/SFX: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: A heavy swirling sizzle plays throughout, with blips when the marbles drop in. None for the still version

Availability: The animated version is known to be on the PSX and PC versions of Nicktoons Racing, and the white-background logo appeared on numerous GameBoy Color games, while the in-credit variant hasn't been found yet. The still logo debuted on the GB version of The Rugrats Movie with staff credits down below.

Scare Factor: Medium to high, the extremely loud sizzle can be found very unsettling, and the shining logo along with the black background doesn't help much, either.

4th Logo (2002)

Logo: We see three rectangular shapes (two of them are red and one of them are yellow-orange) that form a "C" with a down line next to it. On it is "creations" in the future-styled font.

Variant: On All-Star Baseball 2003, the logo is on a background of spotlight circles.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Seen on the company's last games - All-Star Baseball 2003, The Ripping Friendsand Stuart Little 2 on Game Boy Advance.

Scare Factor: None.

Acclaim Studios Manchester

(2003)

Logo: On a black background, we see the Acclaim logo with the word Manchester on the bottom of the logo.

FX/SFX: The fade in and fade out.

Music/Sounds: The intro theme to Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance.

Availability: Only seen in the intro for Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance.

Scare Factor: Low, the sounds from the Gladiator: Sword for Vengeance intro may scare you.