Wil Overton

Last updated

Will Overton
Movement Manga

Wil Overton is a British artist, specialising in manga styles. [1]

Contents

Career

He has worked for a number of notable British video games magazines, including Super Play [2] and N64 Magazine. He then worked at Rare and was an illustrator for NGamer magazine. After Overton drew the Perfect Dark cover for N64 Magazine at the time of the game's release, the manga-styled Joanna Dark design impressed Rare, and he was hired by the company as a result; the original cell-shaded designs for Perfect Dark Zero were based on this design, but later changed to more realistic graphics.

Since leaving Rare, Overton has been a freelance artist. He will provide art for the instruction manual of the Playtonic Games title, Yooka-Laylee . [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Donkey Kong 64</i> 1999 video game

Donkey Kong 64 is a 1999 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It is the only Donkey Kong game to feature 3D gameplay. As the gorilla Donkey Kong, the player explores themed levels to collect items and rescue his kidnapped family members from King K. Rool. The player completes minigames and puzzles as five playable Kong characters—each with their own special abilities—to receive bananas and other collectibles. In multiplayer modes, up to four players can compete in deathmatch and last man standing games.

<i>Perfect Dark</i> Nintendo 64 video game

Perfect Dark is a 2000 first-person shooter developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64. The first game of the Perfect Dark series, it follows Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute research centre, as she attempts to stop an extraterrestrial conspiracy by rival corporation dataDyne. The game features a campaign mode where the player must complete a series of levels to progress through the story, as well as a range of multiplayer options, including a co-operative mode and traditional deathmatch settings with computer-controlled bots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rare (company)</span> British video game developer

Rare Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Twycross, Leicestershire. Rare's games span the platform, first-person shooter, action-adventure, fighting, and racing genres. Its most popular games include the Battletoads, Donkey Kong, and Banjo-Kazooie series, as well as games like GoldenEye 007 (1997), Perfect Dark (2000), Conker's Bad Fur Day (2001), Viva Piñata (2006), and Sea of Thieves (2018).

<i>Banjo-Kazooie</i> (video game) 1998 video game

Banjo-Kazooie is a 1998 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. Controlling the player characters, the bear Banjo and the bird Kazooie, the player attempts to save Banjo's kidnapped sister Tooty from the witch Gruntilda. The player explores nine nonlinear worlds to gather items and progress. Using Banjo and Kazooie's traversal and combat abilities, they complete challenges such as solving puzzles, jumping over obstacles, and defeating bosses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna Dark</span> Fictional character

Joanna Dark is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Perfect Dark video game series. She debuted in the Nintendo 64 first-person shooter Perfect Dark and is a player character in all the games of the series. Outside of video games, Joanna appears as the lead character in all the Perfect Dark novels and comic books. Joanna is an operative for the fictional Carrington Institute, where she was given the code name "Perfect Dark" in honor of her flawless performance in training tests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graeme Norgate</span> British video game music composer

Graeme Norgate is a British video game music composer who has composed music for a variety of video games developed by Rare. His first project at Rare was writing music for the Game Boy game, Donkey Kong Land. He also contributed to the soundtracks of Blast Corps and GoldenEye 007. Norgate was later an employee of Free Radical Design, the company was eventually bought out by Crytek and renamed to Crytek UK; Norgate retained the position of audio director after the company's buyout. Norgate later moved to Deep Silver Dambuster Studios after Crytek closed down Crytek UK.

David Wise is a British video game music composer and musician. He was a composer at Rare from 1985 to 2009, and was the company's sole musician up until 1994. He has gained a following for his work on various games, particularly Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country series. Wise is known for his atmospheric style of music, mixing natural environmental sounds with prominent melodic and percussive accompaniment.

<i>Super Play</i> British video game magazine

Super Play was a British Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) magazine which ran from 1 October 1992 to September 1996.

<i>NGC Magazine</i> Former British magazine

NGC Magazine was a British magazine specialising in Nintendo video game consoles and software. It was first printed in 1997 and ran until 2006. It was the successor to Super Play, a magazine that ended in September 1996. Many of the staff and the style of that publication persisted at N64 Magazine. In November 2000, N64 Magazine merged with Nintendo World, a magazine that was published by the same company, Future plc. NGC Magazine ceased publication in 2006. Its successor, NGamer, was renamed Nintendo Gamer in January 2012, until publishing its final issue the following September.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Hollis (video game designer)</span> British video game designer

Martin Hollis is a former British video game designer, best known for directing and producing the critically acclaimed Nintendo 64 first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, released in 1997. In 2000, he founded Zoonami, a defunct video game development company that was based in Cambridge and closed in 2010. His final release was Bonsai Barber in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grant Kirkhope</span> British composer

Grant Kirkhope is a Scottish composer and voice actor for video games and film. Some of his notable works include GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, and Perfect Dark, among many others. He has been nominated for various BAFTA, ASCAP, and IFMCA awards.

A spiritual successor is a product or fictional work that is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous work, but does not explicitly continue the product line or media franchise of its predecessor, and is thus only a successor "in spirit". Spiritual successors often have similar themes and styles to their source material, but are generally a distinct intellectual property.

The "DK Rap" is the introduction theme to the 1999 Nintendo 64 video game Donkey Kong 64. Originally conceived by Rare designer George Andreas and composed by Grant Kirkhope, Andreas co-wrote and performed the lyrics, with Rare staffers joining in the chorus. Its lyrics describe the five playable characters in the video game, with Kirkhope's goal to juxtapose the previous iteration of Donkey Kong against the new one from Donkey Kong Country.

<i>Banjo-Kazooie</i> Video game franchise

Banjo-Kazooie is a series of video games developed by Rare. The games feature a male bear named Banjo and his friend, a large female red bird named Kazooie, who are both controlled by the player. Banjo originally made his debut as a playable character in 1997 as part of the cast of Diddy Kong Racing. Throughout the various games, they are tasked with thwarting the various evil schemes of a witch named Gruntilda. The first game, Banjo-Kazooie, was released in 1998 to critical acclaim and was followed by three sequels and a spin-off racing game.

<i>Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts</i> 2008 video game

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a 2008 platform game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. Set eight years after Banjo-Tooie (2000), Nuts & Bolts follows the bear-and-bird duo Banjo and Kazooie as they compete with the witch Gruntilda for ownership of their home. Although Nuts & Bolts retains the structure of previous Banjo-Kazooie games—collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces to progress—it shifts the focus from exploration to vehicle construction. The player designs vehicles, including automobiles, boats, and aeroplanes, and uses them to complete challenges across various worlds. In multiplayer modes, players can compete or share their vehicles over Xbox Live.

Perfect Dark is a science-fiction video game series created by Rare and owned by Xbox Game Studios. It debuted in 2000 with the release of the Nintendo 64 first-person shooter Perfect Dark. The series follows Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute agency, as she uncovers conspiracies by rival corporation dataDyne. In addition to video games, the series has expanded into novels and comics. These supplements to the video games have resulted in a significant development of the series' fictional universe.

<i>Yooka-Laylee</i> 2017 video game

Yooka-Laylee is a platform game published by Team17 in 2017 for Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, followed by a version for Amazon Luna in October 2020. Developed by Playtonic Games, a group of former key personnel from Rare, Yooka-Laylee is a spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie series released for the Nintendo 64 nearly 20 years prior. After years of planning to develop a new game, Playtonic Games initiated a Kickstarter campaign that attracted significant media coverage and raised a record-breaking sum of over £2 million. The game follows chameleon Yooka and bat Laylee on their quest to retrieve a magical book from an evil corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Playtonic Games</span> British independent video game developer

Playtonic Games is a British independent video game developer. It was founded in 2014 and it consists in large part of former members of Rare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">JonTron</span> American YouTube personality (born 1990)

Jonathan Aryan Jafari, better known online as JonTron, is an American YouTuber, comedian, and media reviewer. He is best known for his eponymous YouTube web series JonTron, where he reviews and parodies video games, films and other media.

<i>Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair</i> 2019 video game

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a platform video game developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17. As a sequel to Yooka-Laylee (2017), the game was released digitally for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on October 8, 2019, followed by a version for Amazon Luna on October 20, 2020.

References

  1. Lent, John A. (2001). Animation in Asia and the Pacific . Indiana University Press. p.  76. ISBN   0-253-34035-7 . Retrieved 13 May 2011. Wil Overton.
  2. Simon Armstrong (5 September 2019). "Sonic, Street Fighter and the 'golden age' of gaming magazines". BBC News Online .
  3. Seedhouse, Alex (10 June 2015). "Will Overton to Illustrate Yooka-Laylee's "retro themed game Manuel"". Nintendo Insider. Archived from the original on 22 June 2015.