Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior is a 1987 video game developed and published by Palace Software for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum. The game was ported to many other systems and was licensed to Epyx who published it as Death Sword in the United States.

Barbarian is a fighting game that gives players control over sword-wielding barbarians. In the game's two-player mode, players pit their characters against each other. Barbarian also has a single-player mode, in which the player's barbarian braves a series of challenges set by an evil wizard to rescue a princess.

Instead of using painted artwork for the game's box, Palace Software used photos of hired models. The photos, also used in advertising campaigns, featured Michael Van Wijk (who would later become famous as 'Wolf' in the TV series Gladiators) as the hero and bikini-clad Maria Whittaker, a model who was then associated with The Sun tabloid's Page 3 topless photo shoots. Palace Software's marketing strategy provoked controversy in the United Kingdom, with protests focused on the sexual aspects of the packaging rather than decapitations and other violence within the game. The ensuing controversy boosted Barbarians profile, helping to make it a commercial success. Game critics were impressed with its fast and furious combat, and dashes of humour. The game was Palace Software's critical hit; boosted by Barbarians success, Palace Software expanded its operations and started publishing other developers' work. In 1988, the company released a sequel, Barbarian II: The Dungeon of Drax.

Gameplay

thumb|left|alt=On the left and right of the screen stands a pillar entwined with a different-colored snake and two pairs of skulls. Above them, in the top corners, are circles that represent the life points of the barbarian fighters. A banner, emblazoned with the word "Barbarian", lies in the top centre. The players' scores are displayed below the word. The lower centre of the screen depicts a stone-walled room with two high windows. A bald man in purple robes stands in the window on the left. A black-haired busty woman in a red bikini stands in the right. In the room are two loincloth-wearing men who are fighting each other with swords. The left man has chopped off the right man's head.|Barbarian features gory combat for the sake of rescuing a bikini-wearing princess. The titular barbarian (centre) decapitates his opponent in the single-player story mode. Player scores are tracked in the banner at the top of the screen.

Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior is a fighting game that supports one or two players. Players assume the roles of sword-wielding barbarians, who battle in locales such as a forest glade and a "fighting pit". The game's head-to-head mode lets a player fight against another or the computer in time-limited matches. The game also features a single-player story mode, which comprises a series of plot-connected challenges.

Using joysticks or the keyboard, players move their characters around the arena, jumping to dodge low blows and rolling to dodge or trip the opponent. By holding down the fire button and moving the controller, players direct the barbarians to kick, headbutt, or attack with their swords. Each barbarian has 12 life points, which are represented as 6 circles in the top corners of the interface. A successful attack on a barbarian takes away one of his life points (half a circle). The character dies when his life points are reduced to zero. Alternatively, a well-timed blow to the neck decapitates the barbarian, killing him instantly, upon which a goblin enters the arena, kicks the head, and drags the body away.

If the players do not input any commands for a time, the game attempts a self-referencing action to draw their attentions: the barbarians turn to face the players, shrug their shoulders, and say "C'mon". The game awards points for successful attacks; the more complex the move, the higher the score awarded. Overcoming them, he faces the wizard. After the barbarian has killed Drax, Mariana drops herself at her saviour's feet and the screen fades to black. The United States version of the game names the protagonist Gorth.

Development

In 1985, Palace Software hired Steve Brown as a game designer and artist. He thought up the concept of pitting a broom-flying witch against a monster pumpkin, and created Cauldron and Cauldron II: The Pumpkin Strikes Back. The two games were commercial successes and Brown was given free rein for his third work. He was inspired by Frank Frazetta's fantasy paintings to create a sword fighting game that was "brutal and as realistic as possible".

Brown based the game and its characters on the Conan the Barbarian series, having read all of Robert E. Howard's stories of the eponymous warrior. He conceptualised 16 moves and practised them with wooden swords, filming his sessions as references for the game's animation. One move, the Web of Death, was copied from the 1984 sword and sorcery film Conan the Destroyer. Spinning the sword like a propeller, Brown "nearly took [his] eye out" when he practised the move. Brown refused to follow the convention of using small sprites to represent the fighters in the game, forcing the coders to conceive a method to animate larger blocks of graphics: Palace Software's co-founder Richard Leinfellner said they "multiplexed the sprites and had different look-up tables for different frames."

Feeling that most of the artwork on game boxes at that time were "pretty poor", Brown suggested that an "iconic fantasy imagery with real people would be a great hook for the publicity campaign." Whittaker was a topless model, who frequently appeared on Page 3 of the tabloid, The Sun. She wore a tiny bikini for the shoot while Van Wijk, wearing only a loincloth, posed with a sword.

The sounds of the characters are taken from the 1985 film Red Sonja. Most notably the "EEY-ECH!" sound that plays when the player attempts to decapitate an opponent. This particular sound can be found near the beginning of the movie when Arnold's character is ambushed after pulling an arrow out of the lady's back.

Releases

Barbarian was released in 1987 initially for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum and was subsequently ported to most other home computers. Conversely, the version for the Atari ST, which has 16- and 32-bit buses, presents a greater variety of backgrounds and slightly higher quality graphics than the original version. Its story mode also pits 10 barbarians against the player instead of the usual 8. the latter also features digitised speech. Each fight begins with the announcement of "Prepare to die!", and metallic sounding thuds and clangs ring out as swords clash against each other. Across the Atlantic, video game publisher Epyx acquired the license to Barbarian and released it under the title Death Sword as part of their "Maxx Out!" video game series.

Reception and legacy

Barbarians advertisements triggered some outcries of moral indignation. Electron User reported that another magazine had refused to publish Superior Software's advert for its licensed BBC Micro and Acorn Electron ports unless parts of the image were covered up. Electron User, who published the uncensored advertisement, received letters from readers and religious bodies, who called the image "offensive and particularly insulting to women" and an "ugly pornographic advertisement".

Video game industry observers Russell DeMaria and Johnny Wilson commented that the United Kingdom public were more concerned over the scantily-clad Whittaker than the gory contents in the game.

In 1988, Advanced Computer Entertainment magazine submitted videos of the gameplay to the British Board of Film Classification who stated that the decapitations were merely "storybook violence" and that the game would have probably have received a PG certificate had it been submitted to them. David Houghton, writer for GamesRadar, claimed the game would be rated "Mature" by the Entertainment Software Rating Board if it was published in 2009.

Conversely, Barbarian was banned in Germany by the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien for its violent content. A censored version of the game, which changed the colour of the blood to green, was later permitted to be freely sold in the country. According to Jarratt, Barbarian represented "new heights in bloodsports".

Although the barbarian characters use the same basic blocky sprites, they impressed reviewers at Zzap!64 and Amiga Computing with their smooth animation and lifelike movements. Reviewers of the Amiga version, however, expressed disappointment with the port for failing to exploit the computer's greater graphics capability and implement more detailed character sprites.

Reviewing for Computer and Video Games, Paul Boughton was impressed by the game's detailed gory effects, such as the aftermath of a decapitation, calling them "hypnotically gruesome". Watching "the head [fall] to the ground [as blood spurts from the] severed neck, accompanied by a scream and satisfying thud as the torso tumbles" proved to be "wholesome stuff" for Chappell, The cackling goblin, which drags off the bodies, endeared him to some reviewers;

Popular Computing Weekly considered the Amstrad version to be the best, calling the Commodore 64's animation "shaky". and number one in the Acorn Electron chart in 1988. Leinfellner said he received royalty cheques for approximately seven years, the first of which was for £20,000. After the success with Barbarian, Palace Software began to expand its portfolio by publishing games that were created by other developers. Barbarian, however, remained its most popular game, best remembered for its violent sword fights and Maria Whittaker.

A spiritual successor, Age of Barbarian, was released in 2012 by Italian indie game developer Crian Soft, with a much longer and updated Extended Cut released in 2016.

References

  • Images of Commodore 64 version of Death Sword box, manual and screen shots at C64Sets.com