called "Hero" which the team used to hand-tune the collision frame by frame. Comic book artist Simon Bisley provided the cover art and the game's logo; the game was the only title to display the XBAND logo on its box. The development team worked closely with XBAND representatives to ensure that the game would not suffer from lag when being played online. Due to the large size of the character sprites, the team could not include more than seven characters without exceeding space limitations. To compensate for the relatively small character selection, they gave each character an unusually large number of moves. The character sprites were hand drawn pixel-by-pixel on a computer, a common graphics technique which was at the time becoming overshadowed by newer techniques such as polygonal modeling and digitized sprites. The backgrounds were painted by a freelance artist, then scanned into a computer and retouched in Adobe Photoshop. Zarak was the only character in the game to feature his own signature fatality, although rumors persist that other characters have unique finishing moves as well. It was originally intended for all of the characters to have a unique death combo but due to the apparent rush to get Weaponlord out the door, only Zarak's was completed. During playtesting, Visual Concepts sent a new version of the game to Namco's testing department at least three times a week. Following the traditional playtest, Goddard and Winstead arranged to have Weaponlord installed in an arcade cabinet in the Golfland in Sunnyvale, California in order to get direct player reactions. Reception Reviewing the Genesis version, the four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly were divided. Two of them panned the game for the choppy animation and poor control, with one concluding that "The concepts are there, but the game isn't." The other two also heavily criticized the animation and control, but argued that some gamers would feel that the innovative fighting techniques make the game worthwhile in spite of its flaws. A critic for Next Generation also criticized the choppy animation but greatly praised the innovative and deep weapons combat. He concluded the game to be "worthy of at least a good long look."GamePro complimented the graphics, sound effects, and variety of moves. They criticized the limited number of playable characters, but concluded that "While the advanced gameplay may scare away beginning barbarians, others will appreciate the deep controls." A different GamePro reviewer