UEP Systems

UEP Systems (ウエップシステム?) was a Japan-based video game developer founded in 1985. They were best known for their PlayStation-era snowboarding games, though they also released titles for PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, Neo Geo Pocket, and arcades. UEP Systems' most critically acclaimed title is 1997's Cool Boarders 2 for the PlayStation, an early pioneering title of the "action sports" video game genre, two years before it would explode with the release of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The studio's biggest creative deperature was the quirky 3D action/adventure title Rising Zan: The Samurai Gunman, one of the studios' only non-sports games, which received subpar reviews but gained a small amount of cult appeal among gamers at the time. Despite the success of their early snowboarding titles, UEP struggled financially in the years that followed with a series of commercially unsuccessful games. After the release of Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder - another poor seller - for the PlayStation 2 in 2001, the studio disbanded.