Barry Leitch
Encyclopedia
Barry Leitch is a video game music composer, responsible for the music in a large number of games spanning multiple consoles and personal computers. Most notable is his work from the Lotus Turbo Challenge
, Top Gear
, and Rush
video game series.
After the independently produced Marauder for the C64, Barry Joined Catalyst Coders in Portsmouth, and moved onto Imagitec Design and then Ocean software, during those years he wrote the music for many iconic 8-bit games. While at Imagitec he often worked on many Gremlin Graphics products. His works from these periods include Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, Space Crusade, Xenophobe, Emlyn Hughes International Soccer, Silkworm and the Super Cars II in game music.
Later he scored such games as Privateer - Righteous Fire, TFX & Inferno* on the PC, Top Gear , Savage Empire and even Wheel of Fortune on the SNES.
After moving to the USA in 1993 to join Origin Systems, Barry moved to Boss Game Studios in Seattle, composing the soundtrack for Spider The Video Game for the Sony PlayStation, and Top Gear Rally for the Nintendo 64. The title track from Kill Team "Hatred" (a canceled Boss game) was played on local radio.
In 1998 Barry Joined Atari Games in Milpitas, working with video game legends such as Ed Logg & Mark Pierce composing the soundtrack for Nintendo 64 classics Rush2, Rush 2049, as well as Gauntlet Legends, and contributing to Gauntlet Dark Legacy** and Rush 2049 Tournament Edition for arcade machines.
In 2000 he joined Fisher Price Toys in East Aurora NY. Pushing toy designers to implement technologies that were new to the toy industry but old to the video game industry. Scoring the soundtracks for product lines such as Ocean Wonders, Pixter, Sparkling Symphony & Kasey The Kinderbot.
Pixter Pro was awarded a G.A.N.G. Award for its soundtrack.
Since 2004 Barry has been freelancing, and has racked up credits on several video game titles as well as many toy projects, Video game credits include Batman - Rise of Sin Tzu, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
, Lemonade Tycoon 2, Bonnie's Bookstore, Velvet Assassin Drakensang.
Lotus (computer games)
The Lotus series consists of three racing computer games based around the Lotus brand, released between 1990 and 1992 on various formats.. Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, and Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge were developed by Magnetic Fields and published by Gremlin...
, Top Gear
Top Gear (video game)
Top Gear , is a 1992 racing video game for the Super NES, published by Kemco and developed by Gremlin Graphics. Not only does it mark first game in the Top Gear racing game franchise, but it is also one of the first racing games to be released on the Super NES...
, and Rush
Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA
Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA is a racing video game developed by Atari Games and published by Midway Games for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It was released on November 10, 1998 in North America, and February 10, 1999 in Europe....
video game series.
History
Starting in 1986 with I.C.U.P.S. on C64 when he was 16 years old, Barry has since composed soundtracks for hundreds of video games and toys.After the independently produced Marauder for the C64, Barry Joined Catalyst Coders in Portsmouth, and moved onto Imagitec Design and then Ocean software, during those years he wrote the music for many iconic 8-bit games. While at Imagitec he often worked on many Gremlin Graphics products. His works from these periods include Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, Space Crusade, Xenophobe, Emlyn Hughes International Soccer, Silkworm and the Super Cars II in game music.
Later he scored such games as Privateer - Righteous Fire, TFX & Inferno* on the PC, Top Gear , Savage Empire and even Wheel of Fortune on the SNES.
After moving to the USA in 1993 to join Origin Systems, Barry moved to Boss Game Studios in Seattle, composing the soundtrack for Spider The Video Game for the Sony PlayStation, and Top Gear Rally for the Nintendo 64. The title track from Kill Team "Hatred" (a canceled Boss game) was played on local radio.
In 1998 Barry Joined Atari Games in Milpitas, working with video game legends such as Ed Logg & Mark Pierce composing the soundtrack for Nintendo 64 classics Rush2, Rush 2049, as well as Gauntlet Legends, and contributing to Gauntlet Dark Legacy** and Rush 2049 Tournament Edition for arcade machines.
In 2000 he joined Fisher Price Toys in East Aurora NY. Pushing toy designers to implement technologies that were new to the toy industry but old to the video game industry. Scoring the soundtracks for product lines such as Ocean Wonders, Pixter, Sparkling Symphony & Kasey The Kinderbot.
Pixter Pro was awarded a G.A.N.G. Award for its soundtrack.
Since 2004 Barry has been freelancing, and has racked up credits on several video game titles as well as many toy projects, Video game credits include Batman - Rise of Sin Tzu, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie is a first person shooter action adventure game based on the 2005 film King Kong...
, Lemonade Tycoon 2, Bonnie's Bookstore, Velvet Assassin Drakensang.
- Inferno was co-composed with the renowned goth rock legends Alien Sex Fiend,
- Gauntlet Dark Legacy was co composed with John Paul, Michael Henry, Don Diekneite & Joe Lyford.
External links
- Official site
- Composer profile at OverClocked ReMixOverClocked ReMixOverClocked ReMix, also known as OC ReMix and OCR, is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and paying tribute to video game music through arranging and re-interpreting the songs with new technology and software, as well as by various traditional means...
- Amiga Music Preservation Archive
- Modland Nintendo SPC archive
- Stone Oakvalley's Authentic Sid Collection
- Pixter Gang Award coverage on Gamasutra