Ziggurat Releasing FMV Title American Hero
Ziggurat Interactive announced today they are releasing Atari Jaguar title American Hero. Once thought lost, the game has been fully restored. Members of the original cast also contributed new voice work. American Hero will come to digital platforms for the PC and various consoles, and includes physical copies from Limited Run Games.
American Hero riffs on the melodrama and over-the-top tones of 80s action films. Made in the 90s, it forms something of a time capsule itself. It’s a period piece at this point depicting the way people felt just a few years after the decade. Questionable dive bars, vintage hair styles, and a villain dead-set on brainwashing the populace. Of course, it never made its way to the public thanks in part to the demise of the Atari Jaguar.
The novelty comes from the “playable movie” featuring a cast of professional actors. Timothy Bottoms (The Last Picture Show, Elephant), a Golden Globe nominee, is the lead. Joining him are Daniel Roebuck (The Fugitive, Final Destination) and Musetta Vander (O Brother, Where Art Thou and Wild Wild West).
Bottoms, as Jack, is a former American intelligence officer. He must stop Krueger, a virologist who plans to infect the citizens of Los Angeles with a waterborne virus. Jack will have to protect the only scientist who has the potential cure for the virus. Bottoms and other members of the crew helped dub incomplete scenes and finish American Hero.
“American Hero is a buried treasure from the Atari archives that was nearly lost to time after the Jaguar CD’s abrupt end. To be in a position to restore and complete this game, and preserve a unique part of video game history is exactly what Ziggurat is all about.”
Michael Devine, SVP Business Development at Ziggurat Interactive
Ziggurat Interactive has a variety of other retro classic games in development. It plans to release new-old titles every moth. Based in Denver, Colorado, the company launched late 2019 to preserve and expand the decades-long legacy of video games.