American Laser Games

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

American Laser Games was a company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico that created a wide variety of light gun laserdisc video games. The company was founded in the late 1980s by Robert Grebe, who had originally created the system to train police officers under the company name ICAT (Institute for Combat Arms and Tactics), and adapted the technology to more mainstream entertainment, namely arcade video games. Later, as the arcade market began to soften, the company turned toward the 3DO as an avenue into the home, as well as a way to stay active in the arcade business, with lower overhead costs - offering a modified version of the 3do platform as an OEM upgrade for existing arcade video game cabinets, supporting compressed video versions of ALG hits at a low price. In 1995 ALG released Mazer for the 3do home market and Orbatak (3do-powered) for the arcade - their first and only in-house non-fmv (Full motion video) based games.

The company lasted until the late 1990s, by which time it had begun making "games for girls" for the PC (under the moniker Her Interactive), beginning with McKenzie & Co.. This change in direction marked the end of American Laser Games commercial success, and the company eventually closed its doors. In 2001, the development and publishing rights to all of the games that were produced by American Laser Games were purchased by Digital Leisure, Inc. Many of these games were then re-released for the PC and in DVD TV game format.

The company also released a light-gun controller, the PC Gamegun, for home computer use. It proved unsuccessful, however, due to its poor accuracy.