Death Sword

Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior is a fighting game that supports one or two players. Players assume the roles of sword-wielding barbarians, who battle in locales such as a forest glade and a "fighting pit". The game's head-to-head mode lets a player fight against another or the computer in time-limited matches. The game also features a single-player story mode, which comprises a series of plot-connected challenges.

Using joysticks or the keyboard, players move their characters around the arena, jumping to dodge low blows and rolling to dodge or trip the opponent. By holding down the fire button and moving the controller, players direct the barbarians to kick, headbutt, or attack with their swords. Each barbarian has 12 life points, which are represented as 6 circles in the top corners of the interface. A successful attack on a barbarian takes away one of his life points (half a circle).

In 1985, Palace Software hired Steve Brown as a game designer and artist. He thought up the concept of pitting a broom-flying witch against a monster pumpkin, and created Cauldron and Cauldron II: The Pumpkin Strikes Back. The two games were commercial successes and Brown was given free rein for his third work. He was inspired by Frank Frazetta's fantasy paintings to create a sword fighting game that was "brutal and as realistic as possible".

Brown based the game and its characters on the Conan the Barbarian series, having read all of Robert E. Howard's stories of the eponymous warrior. He conceptualised 16 moves and practised them with wooden swords, filming his sessions as references for the game's animation. One move, the Web of Death, was copied from the 1984 sword and sorcery film Conan the Destroyer.

Barbarian's advertisements triggered some outcries of moral indignation. Electron User reported that another magazine had refused to publish Superior Software's advert for its licensed BBC Micro and Acorn Electron ports unless parts of the image were covered up. Electron User, who published the uncensored advertisement, received letters from readers and religious bodies, who called the image "offensive and particularly insulting to women" and an "ugly pornographic advertisement". Richard Hanson, Superior's managing director commented that the Advertising Standards Authority had confirmed that the image was not in bad taste, and that the publicity was likely to send the game to the top of the charts.

Chris Jager, a writer for PC World, considered the cover "a trashy controversy-magnet featuring a glamour-saucepot" and a "big bloke [in leotard]".