Barbarian

Barbarian is an action game created by Psygnosis initially for the Amiga and released in 1987. It was later ported to Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, and other platforms.

Not to be confused with the beat-em-up created by Palace with almost the same name - Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior, this one was simply called "Barbarian".

The title was designed by David H. Lawson - the same Lawson that co-founded Psygnosis and that some of you will remember for the never-released game Bandersnatch.

As usual for Psygnosis games, Barbarian has an impressive presentation, fantastic graphics, brilliant animations, and realistic sound effects. It was developed to astonish users. Remember we are talking about 1987, the Amiga 500 was released that year, and not many people owned the new computer made by Commodore. The few who did it proudly showed off their latest titles to friends and family, and Barbarian was one of them.

Unfortunately, like some other Psygnosis games, Barbarian also suffers some gameplay flaws. The most important one is the strange choice of controls, a mix of keyboard and mouse, with action icons placed at the bottom of the screen. A more traditional joystick-based movement would have been easier and more pleasant.

But once you have mastered this curious - at least for a hack-and-slash/beat-em-up - control schema, you will discover an excellent game, really impressive for the time it was created.