Posts Tagged ‘shadow of the beast’
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.
Original Amiga port of Shadow The Beast Unlockable in the Remake on PS4
Editor’s Note: We have a copy of Shadow of the Beast on PS4 and Fred is currently playing through it. A full review will go live Monday.
The remake of Shadow of the Beast on PS4 has arrived and is out now on PSN – and for those of you tangible collectors, there is a region free, English, disc based version you can find at import retailers. Recently the developers revealed you’ll be able to unlock the original Amiga port during the game. This isn’t an uncommon thing with a lot of these retro revival type games. Other titles in recent history that did this included Splatterhouse and Flashback on Xbox 360 and PS3 (Flashback is also on PC), all of which allowed you to play the original game. Splatterhouse allowed you to play all three of the original titles in the series making this title highly collectible to this day, especially since it’s cheaper to track down the remake as opposed to owning all of the original titles physically. Let’s also not forget the original game was an arcade and TurboGrafx-16 game with the second two sequels being exclusive to the Mega Drive. It’s somewhat surprising only the first Shadow of the Beast game will be unlocked, unless maybe developer Heavy Spectrum is planning to release the others with sequels to this remake, I guess we will see. All three original Shadow of the Beast games were released on Amiga but the first two games in the series were ported to various consoles.
Very little has been covered on this title since its original reveal over a year ago and then it suddenly was released on the world this week. Originally demoed at EGX 2015 and with only being showed off on a single game unit, I wasn’t particularly impressed with what I’d played then. The game came across as a 2D hack-and-slash with excessive waves of enemies. It seemed to lack the unique exploration and the convoluted puzzles that were present from the original. Of course a lot can change in that tim,e and maybe it has. I don’t doubt this will be more accessible to a modern audience but it just feels a chance was wasted here. Since the remake is coming with the original Amiga port, however, I think I might have to give this one another shot.
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 