Barbarian (Psygnosis)
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Barbarian is a 1987 computer platform game by Psygnosis. It was first developed for the Amiga, but eventually ported to other popular platforms of the home computer era. Like most early Psygnosis titles, the cover artwork (part of "Red Dragon" figure/landscape) was by the popular fantasy artist, Roger Dean.
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[edit] Description
The game opens with a striking—for the era—animation of a muscle-bound barbarian cutting a chain with a sword. On the Amiga and Atari ST versions, the animation is accompanied by a loud digital sound effect, showcasing the advanced systems' multimedia prowess.
In the game, the player is Hegor, a barbarian who must traverse several dungeons and underground habitats to complete his quest. He has a sword and bow in his arsenal of weapons. Running and jumping, as with many platform games, comprises a large part of the gameplay of this title.
The game used a unique control system to make up for lack of more than one joystick button on many systems. The player would first press the one button after which a "menu" of actions would appear along the bottom of the screen. The player then selected the desired action by cycling through the choices with the joystick and then pressing the button again when the desired action was highlighted.
In the original versions, this game tried to emulate the visual style of the game cover and opening animation. The game used very detailed and colorful sprites and a variety of thoughtful sound effects to accompany the onscreen action.
[edit] Ports
From the Amiga, the game was ported to the Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, MSX and ZX Spectrum. The release year for the ports was 1988, except for the Atari ST version which was also released in 1987 with the Amiga version.
[edit] Sequels
The game spawned a 1991/1992 sequel, Barbarian II. It was set in the era of Leander, Ork, and Armourgeddon, other platform-based action-adventures from Psygnosis.
