The Borrowed Art of Phoenix Games

Some people out there may be aware that one of the Phoenix Games releases (titled Peter Pan) used unliscenced artwork from Disneys Kingdom Hearts game. But that wasnt the only "borrowed" artwork Phoenix used over the years. We explore several more boxart variants with re-used art...

Various games in the Phoenix library went through several changes in respect to the boxart. So some images here may not of made the final product, and the reasons would seem quite obvious as to why...
In part 1 we will look over some of the artwork taken from other sources...

Runners
Firstly we shall be taking a look at Extreme Sprint 3010, a 2005 game developed by Mere Mortals and released on the Sony PS2 aswel as PC formats. During the development cycle of the game it went through many name changes aswel as cover art variants. One variant shown on the "coming soon" pages of the official Phoenix website featured a hand drawn image of 2 people running over what seems to be a wasteland.

The artwork most likely never made it to the final product because if we closer inspect it we discover that it was first used as the front cover for the book Achilles' Choice, written by Larry Niven & Steven Barnes in 1993.
The artwork itself was created by fantasy artist Boris Vallejo and has since been liscenced for use on various items such as postcards to name one.

Quad Biker
Next we shall take a look at Quad Biker, developed in 2005 by Mere Mortals and released on the PS2 & PC as Extreme Quads. Early atwork for the game featured a gun toting mowhawk haired man riding on a quad.

Its unsure exactly where this image originated from. The earliest mention of it on the www is from 2008 on a now defunct website called IzCity.  Sadly there seems to be no backup of the webpage linking to the image and therefore all were left with are dead links to the image being reused for avatars and a 1999 Rave Cassette Tape listed on Discogs website.
However, the item was relisted in 2018 on a Dutch website that lists thousands of artwork and its unsure if this is a freeware stock image website, but it has lead us to several other images used by Phoenix Games for other titles.

Family Fun
Family Fun is our next inspection, and this is a game that was finally released under the name of Arcade Action 30 Games. Developed by Mere Mortals it was released in 2004 and during its pre-production stages the srtange artwork of a blue ball sipping on a cocktail in the sun was used.

This is another hard image to locate the origination of, and the first prescence on the web we can find is from 2008 where it was used as several avatars on various now defuct forums. It seems to originate from a Russian Greeting Card website named Yarsk that no longer has the image onsite or backed up in cache. Phoenix first used the artwork for its 2002 PC game titled Family Games Compendium 2.
Suprisingly, it was later discovered that the image was first used on a 1996 Slipmat rave album titled Tizer First Mix of '96, so its origination and creator is completely unknown as of this moment.

Obliterate
Moving on we take a look at Obliterate, a 2005 game developed once again by Mere Mortals. During the development cycle the artwork used was of a man standing on a tower of skulls holding a bayonet.

This is probably the oldest artwork Phoenix Games used as it dates right back to 1978 where it featured as the cover to the French book by Arthur C. Clarke titled Avante l'eden. It was then used again in 1983 as the cover for a book by Jerry Pournelle titled The Mercenary. Is unconfirmed if these books are the same story translated, but from reviews of both it doesnt seem like thats the case. In 1999 a slightly edited version (displaying the character with a skull for a head) was used for the Monsters of Rock music album released by Countdown Music. It turns out that once again, the image was created by Boris Vallejo. Its unsure if Phoenix had a liscence to use the image, but its change was necessary as the pre-production artwork had no relation to the nature of the game whatsoever.

California Surfing 2
Finally for this first part of the Borrowed Art segment we shall take a look at California Surfing, a game that was originally developed & released as several PS1 games.

The image was first used by Phoenix in a 2003 game called All Star Watersports. This game included windsurfing, Surfing and Jet Ski modes and the image was used as part of the menu selection background. The development stage artwork for the PS2 version used that same image, but the game was never to be released.
Some budget game ps1 collectors may recognise the image as it was used as the cover for the Midas Interactive PS1 game called Windsurfers Paradise. Knowing that Phoenix also re-released various Midas games on the PS1, we would assume that this is just the same game. However, this isnt exactly the case, as the Midas games version is simply just the Windsurfing mode, making the Phoenix release a far more superior version having its extra modes. The surfing mode was also released as a full price title by Midas games called Pro Body Boarding. There is also another PS1 game by phoenix called All Star Action which features segments of all the games put together as a full priced title.
The origination of the image is unsure, but it can be found on numerous stock image websites upto this day.

So that concludes Part 1. We will be back very soon with more borrowed art in Part 2.

Refrences

https://www.borisjulie.com/
http://lcart2.narod.ru/image/fantasy/boris_vallejo/op/18.htm

http://nl.inter-pix.com/art/surrealism/fantasy_pix/