Spectrum Computing

The thread on the Sabre Wulf cases reminded me of the (cough) resemblance between Tim Stamper's Sabre Wulf and Underwurlde art and Brian Froud's Dark Crystal work.

Dark Crystal poster, by Brian Froud



Sabre Wulf cover, by Tim Stamper



Underwurlde cover, by Tim Stamper

Thete was also this one.

Jack the Giant Killer (1962) movie still



The Staff of Karnath cover, by Tim Stamper

They're not the only ones. There are more examples in other games. The Saboteur artwork is very similar to a 80s ninja film artwork that I don't remember now.

Did you mean this?

Revenge of the Ninja (1983) movie poster



Saboteur loading screen

Yes, there was a lot of "unofficial inspiration" while designing game inlays or loading screens in the 80s.

People were more easygoing about copyrights then. Old good times

There was some topic on WOS about it with examples but I can't find it now.

I found a couple of WoS threads, but they were quite incomplete and the image links were almost all broken, so I think I'll start a new thread of them here.

The most obvious one is Gryzor.

Predator (1987) movie stills





Rambo movie still



Alien movie still



Gryzor cover

I've retitled the thread from "Ultimate art" to "Game art copied from elsewhere", given the subject has broadened.

I've also labelled the images in case the links break in future.

I know this edit is outside the two-hour limit, but I am treating this as a case where you can ask a moderator to make changes.

Okay, if we are not talking about Ultimate only, we can have some more examples now.

Target Renegade loading screen



Cover of How to Master Bruce Lee's Fighting System, by Joe Lewis

That guy, as some serious toe issue in is right foot

Back in the day, there was very little art reference, so it was common to get inspiration from movie posters, which were the most common and publiclly available form of art.

Games like Rambo, obviously would use those directly ... but there are a lot more that used Commando (Arnold Schwarzenegger) posters and movie stills from other movies of the same actor.

There weren't that many Connan like body builders back then ... with public photos to server for reference.

On that note...

Commando (1985) movie poster



Navy Moves cover

And see this stuff from Slovakia:

Phantom F4 II loading screen

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=24049



Double Impact (1991) movie poster

Marvel's The Punisher (1986 1st series, issue 5) / Green Beret cover:

Kobyashi Naru cover / The Magnificent (1983),, by Boris Vallejo:



(The Kobyashi Naru picture has been stretched a little.)

The last two came from this site:

http://arcadesushi.com/stolen-images-in-video-games/

Han Solo?

Rescue cover

There's a definite resemblance:

We've already had Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Van Damme. Time for a bit of Seagal:

Above the Law (1988) movie poster



IK+ cover (Hit Squad release)

I found the next one mentioned on WoS.

Iron Maiden, Killers album cover



Bedlam cover



Funnily enough in that thread Ralf said:

"It would be great to have all these references on new WOS at game records. Threads like this quickly get buried under dozens of other threads and images on the net tend to disappear."

Perhaps this information could be added to ZXDB.

More Arnold:

Slovak game Prva Akcia loading screen:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=3907


and Schwarzenegger from Terminator:

How many games in the 80's featured xenomorph aliens?

R-Type and Gryzor are 2 that spring to mind, any others?

Wall_Axe wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2018 8:49 pm How many games in the 80's featured xenomorph aliens?

R-Type and Gryzor are 2 that spring to mind, any others?

Well, the Alien franchise licensed games of course

Back to topic, I seem to remember that Code Masters were forced to substitute the Race Against Time inlay featuring Jesse Owens:



(original picture)



with this one:



although the instructions say: "Cover Photo: Jesse Owens, 1936 Munich Olympics, Photograph courtesy of Allsport Photographic Ltd."

Does anybody remember what was the inspiration for the little robot from Pssst ?

I remember seeing some photo, probably from some movie, of a robot which looked exactly like the goy from Pssst but can't find it at the moment.

Silent Running

Ralf wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2018 11:51 am a robot which looked exactly like the goy from Pssst

Oy vey.

Silent Running

Thanks! Yes, that's it.


and the movie:


Actually I haven't seen that movie. Guess I'll have to update "to do in my life" list

I've never heard of that film. Just searched some info and it seems quite an interesting sci-fi film.

Curious the way how we can find films to watch!