Sunday, January 11, 2009

Muzax 11, part 3 – The Lemmings, the first great success of DMA


In the 3rd part of this Muzax episode dedicated to the games developed or published by Psygnosis, you will hear music from the games Lemmings, Awesome, Leander, Shadow of the beast 3 and Lemmings 2: The Tribes on the Amiga and Microcosm on the Amiga CD32.

Listen to this podcast : (comments in French)



Download this podcast in MP3 format by clicking on this link. (comments in French)


Content of broadcast:
Welcome to Muzax, the video games music broadcast.

Let’s continue our exploration of the music world of the games from the company "Psygnosis".

The "Lemmings" appeared on the Amiga in 1991 and was a real hit.
Developed by "DMA Design", this game of strategy was brought out on around twenty different consoles.
The Lemmings are small green-haired creatures who wear blue dresses.
The player has to guide them to the exit of each level by making them dig, climb or build steps etc as necessary.

"Awesome" is a action/strategy game which takes place in outer space.
Before even starting to play, the player gets the feel of the game thanks to a pre-calculated 3D introduction.
The capacity of the consoles of the time were not able to support detailed real-time 3D animations.
That is why pre-calculated 3D is used in order to give optimal graphical execution.

In 1991, Psygnosis released "Leander".
This game is the first one to be produced by the British studio "Traveller's Tales".
Right from the beginning, the production quality attracts attention.
Like most action/platform games, the scenario is pretty basic.
Leander is very pleasant to play and stands out from the others by its graphics, its animations and its music.
"Shadow of the Beast III" was released in 1992 on the Atari ST and Amiga.
This third and last episode of the series is, once more, exceptionally well produced.

Despite this, it was not such a big success as the first episode.

In 1993, Psygnosis published "Lemmings 2: The tribes".
The success of these tiny creatures allowed the British company to invest in research and development and to fully contribute to the creation of the new generation games on CD-Rom.

"Microcosm" is a shoot’em up.
This game, developed and published by Psygnosis, is released on platforms equipe with a CD player such as the 3DO, the Mega-CD and the Amiga CD32.
The bigger companies were envious of Psygnosis’ fame.
In 1993, at the dawn of the 3D era and of the CD-Rom, Sony Corporation bought out Psygnosis.
This is how the Japanese company got ready to release its first television console: the Playstation.

The third part of this broadcast dedicated to Psygnosis is now over. Tune in soon for the next and last episode of this series about Psygnosis!

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