User:Czar/drafts/Sabreman series

The first three Sabreman games were included in Rare Replay, a 30-game compilation of titles in celebration of Ultimate and Rare's histories released in 2015.

Development
Ultimate Play the Game developed four video games in its Sabreman series throughout the 1980s. Ultimate's founding brothers Tim and Chris Stamper had a reputation for their avoidance of media spotlight. They did this to preserve their time and to let their games speak for themselves, though this choice also added to the company's mystique. Retro Gamer wrote that the Sabreman series embodied this ethos. The brothers began their business with a series of arcade game conversions before moving to the British home computer market, particularly the ZX Spectrum. They found success with Jetpac and Atic Atac in 1983, which provided deeper video game experiences than their arcade game competition. Ultimate began the Sabreman series with its release of Sabre Wulf the next year.

Sabre Wulf, an interactive maze game notably depicted in a bright colour palette, introduced the Sabreman character. The player controls the adventurer through a labyrinth of 256 flip-screens to find four amulet pieces and escape past the maze guardian. Sabreman is depicted as a human explorer in a pith helmet equipped with a sabre. The game also included an invincible wolf enemy, the Sabre Wulf. The 1984 release introduced Ultimate's new price point and signature nondescript packaging. Sabre Wulf exceeded the company's sales records, even as some reviewers said it too closely resembled Atic Atac in gameplay.

This criticism withstanding, the Stampers released their next game, Underwurlde, in a new gameplay genre and camera angle later in 1984. The side-perspective platform game and second entry in the Sabreman series had more than double the flip-screens of its predecessor. In Underwurlde, a Sabreman jumps between floating platforms in a castle and its underground caverns to find specific weapons that correspond to specific exit guardians. The game's most original contribution was the mechanic in which a Sabreman would not be hurt by enemies but instead would be pushed back and injured by falling. Underwurlde three different endings correspond to the three subsequent games planned for the series.

Whereas Sabreman was fully featured yet small in Underwurlde, the graphical advances and detail of Knight Lore made Sabreman appear as a cartoon character come to life.

The Stampers primarily developed for the ZX Spectrum home computer and outsourced the work of converting their games to work on other types of computers to external developers more familiar with the hardware architecture of other platforms. For instance, Firebird created the Commodore 64 releases of Sabre Wulf and Underwurlde. Tim Stamper also said that they preferred to work on new titles rather than converting old ones.

Modern
Sabreman Stampede, a Sabreman-themed rework of Donkey Kong Racing, a sequel to Diddy Kong Racing that had been canceled for the GameCube, was ultimately abandoned.

Character


Ultimate updated Sabreman's appearance throughout the series. In Pentagram, Sabreman wore robes instead of an adventurer costume.

Reception and legacy
Over 25 years after his debut, Retro Gamer wrote that Sabreman was a "classic" video game hero indelible in both name and appearance. The magazine added that Sabreman fit the 8-bit hero archetype of "an everyman ... with a large nose and hat" while supporting a design that rendered well on the Spectrum.

Sabrewulf of Rare's Killer Instinct series was based on the werewolf form of Sabreman. more in p 30

The Sabreman series titles were among the Spectrum's most popular and anticipated games. While recent games could not replicate that popularity, as the 2004 remake disappointed and Sabreman Stampede was canceled, Retro Gamer hoped for the character's modern revival but recognized that Sabreman lacked the preeminence to lead a modern game with splashy graphics and complex gameplay.