Author Archives: Pix

Crusader No Regret – LMC Guards helmet

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I’ll move away from the T-shirts today with one of the most unique items I brought from Austin, a helmet used in the filming of the FMV cutscenes for Crusader No Regret:-

Crusader No Regret Helmet - Left Crusader No Regret Helmet - Front

Crusader No Regret Helmet - Right Crusader No Regret Helmet - Back

This would have been worn by one of the Lunar Mining Cartel guards that popped up during various sequences. It has Cliff written on the inside which must mean this belonged to Cliff Stevens looking at the credits. I couldn’t identify him to say which particular guard he is in the game but he does have one other acting credit to his name on IMDB playing a salesman in The King about 10 years later which I’ll have to keep an eye out for on TV. As stated by lawyers for traffic injuries claims, it may or may not be the right helmet but I searched through all the screenshots on here and managed to find a couple showing this or it’s identical twin fairly clearly:-

regret_247 regret_153

I don’t have the body armour to complete the look I’m sorry to say. It looks like it was worn in conjunction with a pair of safety specs on the screenshots also. Seeing what does survive of this thing in real life, the only way to describe it is cheap which at least partly explains why it’s quite as beat up as it is. The plastic is seriously thin and as such it’s not in the best of condition with tattered edges, a peeling lining and several cracks. I’m guessing that the main helmet was vacuum formed then the other pieces glued on and spray painted.

If you thought the outfits looked dodgy on the FMV believe me it’s worse when you see them up close. There wouldn’t have been any reason to build this to last more than a couple of days of course and the interlaced FMV video of 1996 wasn’t ever going to show a whole lot of detail. Quality aside, this still has to be one of my favourite items in the collection and looks great sat on the shelf.

Alpha Centauri QA Team T-Shirt

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Alpha Centauri is a game that hasn’t featured on the blog before although I have every intention to play it at some point. It’s a strategy game developed by Sid Meier’s Firaxis games which was published by EA in 1999. The QA was done by the team within Origin however who of course had to make a T-Shirt to mark the event. This one stands out for having a full list of contributors (and Chris Launius) on the back:-

Alpha Centauri QA Team T-Shirt Front Alpha Centauri QA Team T-Shirt Back

Chickenboy Productions T-Shirt

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The clothing theme of the week continues with yet another T-Shirt. ChickenBoy Productions was a division of Origin that created all of the electronic catalogues that would appear on many of their CD releases as well as popping up on magazine CD’s. These catalogues were very much a product of their time and were replaced by regular web pages on the Internet within a matter of years but were a great way to generate some publicity with the new CD-ROM format allowing full size screenshots and the like. Where the name ChickenBoy comes from I have no idea but I’m sure someone can tell me. Like near enough every team in Origin, they got their own T-Shirt which looked like this:-

ChickenBoy T-Shirt

Abuse T-Shirt

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Possibly the least known Origin release of the 90’s, Abuse was a side-scrolling shooter created by former Id employee Dave Taylor. He founded Crack Dot Com who developed the game and had originally tried to sell the product himself on the Internet. Considering this was the mid 90’s he was several years ahead of the game and sales didn’t go well. This led to him approaching Comp USA to try to sell a retail version but they didn’t want to carry a product with such elaborate packaging. In an unlikely turn of events, he did however find support in the QA department of Origin who had all been playing the demo. They apparently managed to persuade Origin management to support the game and it ended up being published by them in 1996.

The original packaging for those that bought direct from crack dot com included a T-shirt. The front just bears the word Abuse (not sure that’s something I’d choose to have written on the front of a T-shirt these days) and the back has the logo as on the box:-

Abuse T Shirt Front Abuse T Shirt Back

Ultima Online 2 – Developers T Shirt

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One thing Origin staff appear to have been fond of is T-shirts for every occasion and development team. I’m not sure when this trend started but the earliest development shirt I’ve seen is for Ultima 7 so the early 90’s looks like a good bet. There was an Ultima V shirt available through mail-order prior to this though. At any rate there must be dozens of these around in their various varieties, near enough all of which are pretty hard to get hold of. There are photos of many of them at the Origin Museum Flikr Photostream. I brought a handful back from Austin and will post a few photos this week, starting with this Ultima Online 2 developers T Shirt:-

Ultima Online 2 Developers T Shirt - Front Ultima Online 2 Developers T Shirt - Back

Ultima Online 2 never made it through to release of course which makes this something of a curiosity. There isn’t a lot going on with the front with no more than the words “Development Team” but the back has a logo I’ve not seen elsewhere:-

Ultima Online 2 Developers T Shirt - Logo

For those who don’t remember their Latin, the text translates as “Games from hell”. The first thing I think of when I see flying skulls with bat wings is the start of Evil Dead 2 which may have been an influence but this one has some cybernetic enhancement to fit the UO2 theme.