“They were really big on focus-testing at that point. And the way we designed our levels – the Hong Kong version of Titanic, say – was to have the set just fall apart while you were fighting on it, with the cardboard cut-out people just falling down the decks. And when they showed this to a bunch of teenagers and asked their opinion, of course one girl said: ‘This game is really badly made because it’s all just falling apart’. That’s where I learned the value of focus tests.

“Halfway through the game’s development, they did some more and said: ‘No one’s going to buy this if it’s multiplayer only’. They were ready to can the game – it was that serious. So we strung together all the levels and created the singleplayer mode, which worked fairly well but did compromise how far we could take things; it wasn’t as good as something like Viewtiful Joe.

“We did that, went through a bunch of tests – and then people said the singleplayer game was too short. So we spent a month creating the variety mode, where we took all the levels and made three versions of each, just creating these silly little rules. We made 27 of them literally in the space of four weeks. And then, three months before release, they said they wanted it to work online. That was it – there was no way we could have reverse-engineered everything at that point.”

Only that wasn’t it. When it comes to questions of race, it takes a nation of millions to hold back Public Enemy, but just one disgruntled American to all but kill Kung-Fu Chaos.

“We got to the point of releasing the game and it went out to reviews, and EGM scored it something like 55 percent. Their whole review was about how racist it was, and that comment was picked up by everyone else. And Microsoft completely panicked. I think they just wanted the game to die, to just go away. So, while it got released, all the marketing I’ve seen for it was a single-page ad in one magazine. A lot of magazines, and a radio show, got in touch with us for our side of the story – but Microsoft were insistent that we didn’t fan the flames; we were told to say nothing.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in the US since then, and I can kind of understand where those accusations come from. Their culture is completely different to ours; we’re used to laughing at ourselves in every way, shape and form. In America, they don’t get that. And it’s a very segregated society where racism is really quite rampant, so there’s this ultra-PC sensibility – and it comes from middle-class white people who are talking on behalf of a perceived group or problem. That was the quite distasteful, hypocritical side of the whole thing. So whereas things like Banzai and Bo Selecta are just funny – whether you like them or not, they’re just satire and parody – there, you can’t get away with it.”

There’s a funny story about Microsoft, Banzai and Kung-Fu Chaos, and it goes something like this. Aware of the peculiarly British appeal of a game based partly on a show that mixed gambling, pranks and Burt Kwouk, the studio sent a handful of Banzai episodes to Microsoft US, to better explain its sense of humor. The challenge picked by the producer, and played to a boardroom of Redmond executives? Guess the cock. The punchline – that the winning penis belonged to none other than DJ and TV ‘style-policeman’ Normski – reduced its chances of success stateside to absolute zero. “She said the room was dead silent,” grins Antoniades. “Not a word uttered. I think there was a cultural divide.”

moscallout“A new IP on Xbox was a bit late, so we pitched it as a 360 game, which Microsoft said was way too early. That’s when we started doing Heavenly Sword”/moscalloutIt’s fair to say that even the EGM reviewer would see the irony: that one of few Microsoft games Asia didn’t mind sank like a stone in America – because they thought it would offend Asians. “The issue didn’t exist there at all,” says Antoniades. “It was beyond ridiculous.” And it’s a chilling reminder that, despite all the snide remarks about irrelevant critics and the renewed authority of the consumer, it was a single critic who brought this party to an end.

“We started working on a follow-on concept called Kung-Fu Story, which we released a trailer for,” recalls Antoniades. “But I think, with sales of Kung-Fu Chaos not being as good as Microsoft wanted, it became apparent very quickly that there wasn’t going to be a sequel. So we twisted the concept to make a singleplayer, story-based game – but nothing came of that, either. We knew that a new IP on Xbox was a bit late, so we pitched it as a 360 game, which Microsoft said was way too early. And that’s actually when we started doing Heavenly Sword.” And for those who’ve forgotten, that’s the Anglophobic, misogynist, fattist one.