Stormlord

Stormlord
Cover art
Developer(s) Hewson Consultants
Publisher(s) Hewson Consultants
21st Century Entertainment
Designer(s) Raffaele Cecco
Composer(s) Jeroen Tel
Jochen Hippel (ST)
Platform(s) Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Oric, Sega Genesis, Symbian OS, ZX Spectrum
Release 1989
Genre(s) Platformer
Mode(s) Single-player

Stormlord is a game developed by Hewson Consultants in 1989 for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC and MS-DOS-based computers. It was ported to the Mega Drive/Genesis from the Amiga version by Punk Development for Razorsoft in 1990, and in 2006 a version for the Symbian OS smartphones was also released.[1] A fan port to the Oric was released in 2010.[2]

Gameplay

The player can eliminate enemies by throwing a star-like weapon and travel rapidly from place to place by means of a particularly-powerful trampoline. In certain versions, this was replaced by a falcon. However, sometimes the journeys must be carefully planned out, since the falcon can transport the player on one-way trips, and if all fairies have not been freed from the previous area, it will be impossible to win. The player has a limited amount of time to finish (before the sunset).

Reception

CRASH reviewed the game in their May 1989 issue, giving the game their CRASH Smash award and an overall 91% rating: "Stormlord is immensely playable, highly addictive and a great CRASH Smash."[3] Your Sinclair gave the game a 93 rating stating that the game was "another stormer from Raffaele Cecco. Buy it!"[4] In 2009, GamesRadar included it among the games "with untapped franchise potential", commenting: "Nowadays, thanks to games like Conan and God of War, bare-chested men are free to rescue bare-chested women and Stormlord is ripe for a comeback."[5]

Sega of America pulled the Sega Genesis edition of the game off the market and forced Razorsoft to give clothing to cover up the faries' bare breasts. Indeed, certain advertisements for the game often made note of the controversy. Yet, programmer Kevin Seghetti stated that the changes on the Genesis version were done voluntarily.[6] However, when Amstrad Action gave the complete CPC version of the game away on their free covertape they edited the code of the game to cover up the fairies with a black square. This was due to avoid controversy with their young readership, or their parents.[7] In August 1991 Sega also announced that it was bringing legal action against RazorSoft for unauthorized use of Sega's "trademarks, copyrights and logos," and a breach of contract.[8] Entertainment Weekly gave the game a B and wrote that "First, StormLord demands that players actually think. With the aim of rescuing five fairy princesses entombed in bubbles throughout each of the game's 10 stages, you have to figure out what items to carry with you and how and when to use them. Second, giant eagles fly about, carrying you from one part of the screen to the next, giving you a bird's-eye view of the action. Not that this really helps. Even at the easiest level, it took me hours to get to the beginning of the third stage."[9] In 2010, UGO included Stormlord in the article "25 Sexy Video Game Secrets".[10]

Sequel

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ Stormlord: General Information
  3. ↑ Dunn, Mike. CRASH, issue 64, May 1989
  4. ↑ Ben 'n' Skippy. Your Sinclair, issue 42, June 1989
  5. ↑ 123 games with untapped franchise potential, GamesRadar US, April 30, 2009
  6. ↑ "Genesis Firsts The Rating System". Sega-16.com. Archived from the original on 2009-04-04. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  7. ↑ Amstrad Action #99, December 1993
  8. ↑ GamePro 28 (November 1991)
  9. ↑ https://ew.com/article/1991/06/21/stormlord/
  10. ↑ 25 Sexy Video Game Secrets – UGO.com Archived 2010-11-08 at the Wayback Machine.
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