Ubisoft Reflections

Background

Ubisoft Reflections was founded in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, with the name first used in 1989. It was owned by Infogrames, which sold it in August 2006 to Ubisoft for $24 million. The sale included rights to the Driver series.

1st Logo (1989-1992)

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Visuals: The shiny Reflections name is standing on a RAM chip floating in space. Also, the words "an amiga game by" are above.

Technique: A still digital graphic.

Audio: None.

Availability: Seen on the Shadow of the Beast trilogy for Amiga.

2nd Logo (1994)

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Visuals: The name "REFLECTIONS" and "A GAME BY" above, written in a futurisic font (specifically the same font used in the Porsche logo), is set above a shiny blue orb. Purple lightning appears between them.

Technique: A still digital graphic.

Audio: None.

Availability: Appeared on Brian the Lion for Amiga.

3rd Logo (October 20, 1995-September 20, 1996)

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Visuals: A remake of the previous logo set on a black background. The orb is bigger and purple, and the lightning is enlarged.

Technique: A still digital graphic.

Audio: None.

Availability: Seen only on Destruction Derby for all platforms.

4th Logo (November 1996-June 1997)

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Visuals: Continuing from the custom game variant of the Psygnosis logo, the screen zooms out from a close-up of a wheel. A shaft pops up from each six holes of the rim, and each gets hit with a screw. When it zooms out far enough, "A GAME BY REFLECTIONS" appears on the tire, against a steel background shone from the top-right by an orange light. The Psygnosis "owl-ball" is seen as the bearing of the wheel throughout the logo.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: The soundtrack from the intro.

Availability: Seen on Destruction Derby 2 and Thunder Truck Rally (known as Monster Trucks in the UK).

5th Logo (June 25, 1999-September 30, 2011)

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  Driver

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  Stuntman

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  Driver 2 (GBA)

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  Driv3r

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  Driver: Parallel Lines (Wii/PC)

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  Driver '76

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  Driver: San Francisco

Visuals: There is an overcrossing figure in a circle (resembling two highly distorted R's), with the company name below. The design varies depending on the games.

Variants:

• Driver (the first game with this logo) has the logo in black and orange with a US map in background. "A Game By" appears above, and "reflections" below.
• Later on, the logo became black and white with the full name below in two lines. This appears on Stuntman, Driv3r, and on early copies of Driver: Parallel Lines released before Reflections was sold to Ubisoft.
• On Driver, Stuntman, Driver 2, and Driv3r, the logo is still.
• On Driver: Parallel Lines, three cars, a red muscle car and two police cars in pursuit, jump out of the space that the Atari or Ubisoft logo before formed from. The muscle car then stops and does a burnout, with smoke rising from the cars tires. The smoke then turns the screen to black, revealing the Reflections logo with either "Reflections Interactive" on early versions or "Ubisoft Reflections" on all subsequent copies under the logo.
• On Driver: San Francisco, a grille of a muscle car with the Reflections logo on it appears. The grille gets closer and closer until the screen turns to black with "REFLECTIONS" in Alternate Gothic font appearing. The logo then violently shakes with a wiping effect that concludes at the end of the logo.
• On Driver '76, a giant banner is seen rotating at the left, part of it off-screen. On the right side, the vertical name "UBISOFT REFLECTIONS" is revealed. The whole logo is orange.

Technique: 2D or 3D animation.

Audio: Usually none or the opening theme of the game.

Audio Variants:

• On Driver: Parallel Lines, there is a 70's theme when the cars come flashing by with sirens from the police cars, the car doing the burnout, and the theme continues to the end of the logo.
• On Driver: San Francisco, the main theme of the game is heard while the car revs its engine during the logo.

Availability: The early version was seen on Driver for PlayStation. The black background version appeared on Stuntman, Driv3r and Driver: Parallel Lines. The white background version was seen on Driver 2 for GBA (other platforms didn't show it at all). The newest variant has only appeared on Driver: San Francisco.