Posts Tagged ‘psygnosis’
Origins of Shadow of the Beast
It all began in 1989 with developer Reflections Interactive showing a tech demo to British publisher Psygnosis. With Psygnosis impressed by what they saw Shadow of the Beast was originally released on the Commodore Amiga and was graphically mind blowing for the time. With several colours on screen at once as well as up to twelve levels of parallax scrolling backdrops, the game looked like it was from an arcade machine. Martin Edmonson, one of the founders of the company, was fond of very difficult video games. He wanted to be challenged and have to play a game multiple times to be able to master it. The score for the game was composed by David Whittaker, which was very atmospheric and left a lasting impression on fans. The cover art for the game was from the talented hands of Roger Dean who was well know for working on album covers for Yes, Asia, Budgie, as well as several others. Roger Dean merged a stone age look with technology to create a very unique look to the cover of Shadow of the Beast. He would also later go on to redesign the logo for Tetris.
Shadow of the Beast II Review
Writers Notes: In an attempt to make my comeback in game reviewing I wanted to get nostalgic again and revisit the first video game review I ever wrote. But since film and game developers seem to love to remaster everything, I thought I would jump on that bandwagon and re work my old review. Enjoy and hopefully you will see more content from me soon. Today I am going to revisit the 16-bit hit Shadows of the Beast II on the Sega Mega Drive developed by Reflections Interactive and published by the late Psygnosis. I decided to return once again to this brutally challenging game and see if I still remember how to play through what is a relatively short experience (if you know what you are doing).
I still have my copy of the game exactly how I purchased it back in the nineties. I was originally attracted to the game by name alone though I always wished I could find the original boxed version but alas I still have never found one at least for a reasonable price, and with the way retro prices are going now I probably never well. The game to this day is kept in a rather shoddy EB games box that does not leave much to the imagination, but it is my only memento from the store which is now extinct in the UK and I kinda like hanging on to it even if it is a pain to store away since the box is a couple of centimetres taller than a standard Mega Drive box (yes, we use the metric system here). When I popped this game in for the first time I was totally blown away by the sound track which is composed by David Whittaker and Tim Wright. Even listening to it today, it still holds up and sounds incredible. Before you even start the game itself you take a moment just to take in the truly gorgeous title music. If you never play this game I highly recommend you check the soundtrack out online it is beautiful.
Gaming History 101 