Psygnosis promotional video from 1996

Then the biggest development house in Europe. Let's go!

• [Nathan Hornby]

  I’ve been waiting over a decade and a half for a reboot of Destruction Derby – so I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing for me.  Are the game rights getting sold off to anyone?

  Destruction Derby was awesome.

  Also, that’s an amazing video.

  • [Mike Robinson]

    Have you played FlatOut?

    • [Nathan Hornby]

      I have not. Looks promising, if not still a little on the old side. Admittedly if they got the physics right that shouldn’t matter as much though.

      • [David Botha]

        Whatever version of Flatout you buy, do not buy Flatout 3. It was made by a different developer and it is garbage.

        Your best bet would be Flatout ultimate carnage.

        • [Nathan Hornby]

          Sounds sexy.

        • [Nathan Hornby]

          Oh and that’s 360, I take back my comment about it being old – I just spotted the original on xbox when I googled.

          I will ponder a purchase thusly.

        • [Mike Robinson]

          Agreed. Flatout 2 is still an incredible game, and has a surprisingly active online community. 

          http://store.steampowered.com/app/2990/

          Flatout 3 from was a different developer and a complete tanking of the series. They really managed to ruin everything about the game.

• [Mike Robinson]

  Oh wow, Ecstatica! That game was way ahead of it’s time!

• [Fatlimey]

  Even in 1996 they were securing their domination with sequel after sequel.

  • [Mike Robinson]

    This year, Demolition Derby…….TWO! 

    (Wasn’t very good either, since they switched to emphasizing racing)

• [tristan eldritch]

  Don’t know much about games, so all the way through that video I was trying to figure if it was real or some kind of genius-level spoof (something about the juxtaposition of the Genesis creation story and the guy listing off the opening of new offices seemed hilarious).  Great to hear some ROBERT MILES, the MAESTRO of MELODIC EUPHORIA.

  • [Mike Robinson]

    Gamer here. Those were some of the best games of that generation. At the time, WipeOut and Demolition Derby were considered revolutionary (WipeOut for the visuals and music, Demolition Derby for the physics and destruction). Both were Playstation launch titles and really proved what the system was capable of.

• [humppakummitus]

  Psygnosis had the best cover art:
  http://videodyssey.blogspot.fi/2012/05/gallery-of-psygnosis-game-covers.html

  • [Ana …]

    Those could all be (superawesome) early 80′s Metal album covers.

• [miasm]

  That ‘Development House’ game looks bloody amazing. How did I miss that!? I think I may very well have played all of the others.

• [benher]

  Love how everyone is yelling “Wipeout, Wipeout!” 
  Man, if that is all you knew of Psygnosis/DMA/Liverpool you really missed the boat. Their heyday  as cultural contributors was long before the Playstation came around. 

  What Roger Dean did with the cover art and the programmers and artists did with parallax scrolling and animation on the Amiga(ignoring all the nintendo/sega adaptation/abortions of course)… it was a beauty to behold. 

• [Conrad Constantine]

  Love the Pysgnosis-style boingboing logo right now. Their games were quirky but envelope-pushing in terms of artwork (and I’m not talking about the excellent Roger Dean covers). I was heavily involved in the amiga scene back in the day (specifically, the demo scene), and Psygnosis games were somewhat of a cultural landmark for the amiga’s heyday. Great nostalgia here.

• [Jonbly Herbert]

  Ah… Microcosm. Now that was a bad game… classic case of hardware that no-one knew what to do with (the CD32).

  No shots of The Killing Game Show? :(

  +1 for more Destruction Derby…

• [bcsizemo]

  I just hate that the port of WipeOut XL to the PC was so shit.
  -I mean the game ranks in my top 3 of all time, but damn if you could play it on anything a year after it came out because of the horrible frame timing.

  My college years were comprised of heavy gaming in WipeOut XL and Half-Life.
  (Never could get more than silver on the two bonus tracks.)

  And a remake of Destruction Derby would be nice.  It really wasn’t about the physics..I mean that’s like saying Daytona Racing was a good Nascar simulation.
  (And while we are at it, could the WipeOut franchise perhaps make it to the PC…seriously guys I’d buy it.)

• [Kevin Lee]

  OMG OMG does this mean someone’s going to reboot colony wars?

• [ahwoo]

  now I miss my Amiga

• [Brian Snape]

  Discworld was the game for me. Not only did it perfectly capture the style and humor of Terry Pratchett’s novels but it also featured the voices of Eric Idle, Jon Pertwee, Rob Brydon, Tony Robinson, and Nigel Planer.

  • [tristan eldritch]

     Holy cow, your comment reminded me of once when I was really young, my brother and I got VERY stoned and played DISCWORLD (well, he played, I watched.)  I think it was the first time I got really high, and the game was almost a full-blown psychedelic experience – I don’t think either of us had any idea what was going on, we were just wondering around in this world, laughing at the surreality of it.  And every so often, Tony Robinson or Eric Idle would pipe in and say something, and we’d completely lose our shit!

    • [Brian Snape]

      Haha! I bought it without having no idea about Discworld and got it mostly because it looked silly and had Eric Idle and Jon Pertwee in it. It wasn’t until later that I discovered Pratchett (via Good Omens) and then read the book that the game was loosely based on (Guards! Guards!). It was brilliant. I had great hopes for the sequel but it just didn’t have the same whimsy as the original.

• [registradus]

  DESTRUCTION DERBY!

• [registradus]

  poor Sega Saturn… :(