Westwood Studios
| Westwood Studios | |
 |
|
| Founded | 1985 |
| Closed | 2003 |
| Headquarters | Las Vegas, Nevada, USA |
| Other Names | Westwood Associates |
Westwood Studios was an American game developer that began under the name Westwood Associates. Some of their more popular series included Eye of the Beholder, Command and Conquer, and Dune. The company was later bought out by Electronic Arts, but a few staff members formed Petroglyph Games and the company still continues to produce games to this day.
Contents
Games
Music Development
AMI
Westwood's founders created an Amiga sound driver, and music was to be entered in assembly.
DOS
Music was composed in AdLib Visual Composer and converted to the ADL (Westwood) format. Sound effects were created in ALFX and converted to the SND (Westwood) format. Instruments were supplied by Paul Mudra.
NES
Frank Klepacki composed his NES Amiga using Dr. T's KCS for the Commodore Amiga, and Paul Mudra composed his NES music using Deluxe Music Construction Set for the Commodore. Their music files were then converted to Westwood's NES sound driver.
SNES
Young Merlin uses Chip Level Designs variant of the Kankichi-kun driver. The Lion King uses SLICK/Audio from Bitmasters.
GEN
The games Westwood developed for the Genesis were Dune: The Battle for Arrakis and Warriors of the Eternal Sun, composed by Frank Klepacki. According to him, he wrote the music in Visual Composer, and his compositions were converted to the GEMS sound driver.
TG16
Westwood was one of the few western game developers to develop for the TurboGrafx-16, their only title being Order of the Griffon. The soundtrack was composed by Frank Klepacki. According to Frank, he wrote the music in Visual Composer and his music was converted to a sound driver, which he says may have been from the development kit supplied by NEC/Hudson. Frank noted that it was frustrating to work on the game's soundtrack, as there were may sound bugs such as tempos not changing when they were supposed to, among other things.
W32 / PS
On their last games, Frank Klepacki composed music using Cubase.
File Formats
Audio Personnel
The following composers worked at Westwood Studios:
- Chris Grigg - Composer for California Games (AMI)
- Dwight Okahara
- Frank Klepacki
- Paul Mudra
- Patrick Collins
Links
- mobygames.com/company/westwood-studios-inc - MobyGames.
- gamefaqs.gamespot.com/games/company/6210-westwood-studios - GameFAQs.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westwood_Studios - Wikipedia.
