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Game Bytes Issue 06
OUT OF THIS WORLD by Delphine, Distributed by Interplay
Reviewed by Alexander Hobson
Rating: 4 1/2 out of Five
Review machine is a 386/40 PC equipped with a SoundBlaster Pro. Users of
Amiga and ST machines have been enjoying this instant classic for some
time now. Since seeing an Atari ST demo for the game this Christmas, I
anxiously awaited the PC version of Out Of This World. Fortunately for
PC users, OOTW has finally arrived at our desktops. After two weeks of
experiencing this game, I have realized that this game was worth waiting
for.
You are Professor Lester Knight Chaykin. Your scientific knowledge and
hard work have brought you success while you are still in you twenties.
Tonight, you are driving to the lab in your Ferrari, trying to keep your
eyes on the road when you are thinking about today's experiment. You
arrive at the lab and pass security. Having inserted the last
calculations, you go on with the nuclear experiment. Abruptly, the rain
and thunder seem to get heavier and the seconds start clicking
away....3...2...1...BOOM! You vanish......
You land in a pool of water. When you reach the surface, you realize
that something went wrong. The nuclear test blasted you into an unknown
dimension of dry lands and cold, gusty winds. You start running, hoping
that you will find a way out. Your journey will bring you across ugly
beasts, strange beings, alien fortresses and winding caverns. Luckily,
even in this inhospitable environment, you will find a friend who will
aid you in your search for an escape. However, this won't be an easy
stroll through Central Park (who can say that nowadays?). Your skill and
logic will be tested, as these characteristics will prove necessary to
make it to the end.
Excited? Well, the storyline is not really what makes this game unique
and innovative. The cinematic dimensions of this game were the feature
that captivated me. This action/adventure looks more like a movie than a
game. The great use of polygonal graphics, rotoscoped animation mixed
with cinema-style zooms, pans, close-ups, and scaling, create a real
movie "feel". The superb graphics and excellent animation that carry us
into this fantastic dimension are based on the technology that lies
behind today's flight simulators. Moreover, the movie's, er, sorry, the
game's soundtrack is filled with good original music mixed with digitized
sound effects and voices. Many of the scenes, accompanied by the
fantastic musical background, are just breathtaking. The game can be
played on three sound modes, full, reduced, or no sound. As you can
imagine, the fewer sounds, the faster the game (at least on my 4 megs of
RAM). I found the reduced audio mode to be the best, and I am still
trying to figure out the difference between the full and reduced audio
mode; I did not notice any.
This game kept me occupied for about two weeks. I found the game quite
difficult, because in order to kill the guards or overcome the obstacles
to go on, you had to figure out the consequences of certain, probably
irrelevant, actions. For example, one scene required for you to shoot at
a bird, so that it would fly into the carnivorous hole, which would be
busy chewing up the prehistoric bird, while you were climbing by. This
game needs patience in order to figure out this sort of "cause & effect"
phenomenon. I got frustrated right from the beginning of the game,
since I did not know what exactly I was supposed to do. There was not
anything like a manual, other than a couple of leaflets, helping with
installation - which, incidentally, was easy- and mentioning a few things
about the use of your gun, as written in your character's diary,
supposedly. However, I overcame my frustration and grew more fond of
this game as I played on. After all, the game does not need any fancy
manuals to show us how good it is.
Furthermore, the code-wheel protection, which is featured on more and
more games nowadays, annoyed me as usual. You are required to pass two
rounds of symbol matching before you can start the game, not my idea of
fun.
As far as the controls are concerned, you can play with either the
joystick or the keyboard. I don't have a joystick, so I chose the
keyboard option, which is very simple. You only use the arrow keys and
either one of the Space, Ctrl, and Alt buttons; Alt-x quits. These
controls permit you to jump, kick, shoot your weapon, and move. This
game does not feature any dialogue with other characters, unless you
consider the guards' alien mumblings (sort of like Wolfenstein 3D) as
dialogue. Despite this, the game still gave me the feeling of a good
adventure movie.
In addition, Out of This World does not have a save/restore feature.
Instead, there are sixteen codes that bring you back to certain points in
the game. Each time you lose, you are given a four-letter code for the
level you were playing in. Fortunately, the levels are not that big, so
I did not get very frustrated over playing through the same scenes over
and over again, till I finally managed to move on to the next level.
Finally, after two weeks, I managed to find my way out of this mysterious
dimension I was trapped in and flew off with my friend into the unknown,
something that leaves room for a sequel. I hope that one comes out soon,
because this game left me yearning for more. Overall, Out Of This World
is an excellent game. This game belongs to every respectable hard drive.
Congratulations to the people at Delphine Software who spent over two
years developing this game. Can I ask one thing though? When are you
going to drop the annoying code-wheel protection!?!
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Alexander Hobson. All rights
reserved.
MICRO LEAGUE BASEBALL 4 by Micro League Sports
Reviewed by Shannon Adams and Michael Trick
Adams:
Micro League Baseball 4 is the latest baseball sim from Micro League
Sports. The game comes on five 360k disks. It requires 640k memory (580k
free) and takes up about 2.2 meg of hard disk space for regular install-
ation and an additional 3.1 if you want to see digitized animation. It
supports most sound cards. The game is protected and uses the doc-lookup
scheme.
I tested this on my outdated 286-16 with VGA and a Sound Blaster. It
took me about 8 minutes to install it. I was impressed with the opening
screen. It showed colorful VGA graphics and had a very impressive
animation screen. Having been a disappointed owner of MLB2 and The
Manager's Challenge, I thought this had a lot of potential. So far, so
good. The main menu gives the following options:
A - Exhibition F - Playbook Editor
B - League G - Manager Profile
C - League Utilities H - General Manger/Owner
D - Reports I - System Settings
E - Schedule Editor J - Exit to DOS
I really liked all the options. This game has more utilities than any
other baseball game I have played. You can even call the USA Sports
Center and download updated stats. I really liked the game before I even
played it.
After setting up a league, I was ready to play. Argh! That field looks
familiar. The field is only shown from one angle just as in version 2
and Man. Challenge (from above). The only thing that looks better is the
resolution. You can pick from many stadiums, but they sure don't look as
good as the stadiums in Hardball 3. As I started to play, I noticed many
more distractions. The game is VERY SLOW on my 286-16. On certain
pitches and plays a box will pop-up with animation of the play. Again,
this is very slow and reminds me of those old XXX animations. The
digitized photos look like they were shot in the 60's. All the players
are white and the uniforms look like old St. Louis Cardinal's. Yeah, I
am picky. Maybe it is better on a faster machine. Also, my hard drive
light is constantly on throughout the game, the game is constantly
reading data from the hard drive.
Well, this game has a lot of potential. All the utilities are there, but
the graphics are lacking. This would be the "perfect" simulation if the
utility features could mixed with Hardball 3 graphics. I just bought the
game this weekend, so I have not had time to thoroughly test it. I WOULD
NOT recommend this game. Get Hardball 3 and wait for Accolade to put out
the auxiliary disks. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a 5.
Trick:
I agree with Shannon that this game has a lot of missed potential.
Despite previous bad experiences with this series, I thought I would give
this a try. The main draw for me was the ability to download stats (a
major negative was the need to buy all these "add-ins" just to get a
reasonable amount of information back). I called up USA Today (with a
local Tymnet connection, there is no cost involved) and downloaded the
stats as of the All-Star game (the latest they will offer: they want you
to buy update disks after the season, I presume).
Well, after running the NL season (162 games per team, 12 teams), which
only took 20 minutes on my 25Mz 486, I was delighted to see that my
Pirates were 108 game winners. Checking the individual stats, I was
surprised to see numbers like Bonds hitting .378 with 202 RBI and 48 HR
(perhaps even more amazing with Orlando Merced's .345 in over 500 at
bats).
Down in the pitching, I see a problem. Most pitchers are fine, but
Drabek was 0-17 in 32 starts with a 72.2 ERA. Opposing hitters hit .976
against him. On every team there are one or two such pitchers. Drabek's
historical stats look o.k. (.230 or so opposing BA). I tried a manual
game using Drabek and sure enough the opposing team hit around twice with
only one out (opposing pitcher strike out) before I lost interest. So
there is definitely something wrong with the download feature.
Otherwise, this is a serviceable, but not exciting game. The game is
very fast on my machine (25Mz 486) and the popup video does provide some
pizazz. There is a reasonable selection of strategies, together with
the ability to create "playbooks" that let you combine such things as
"infield in, outfield shallow" into a single play. Some annoying bugs
have popped up, including confusion over who should select a defensive
replacement (it seemed that after the computer pinch hit, it asked me to
reset its defense). And I hate having to buy an add-in disk to answer
such simple questions as "Who was the home run leader in that simulated
season?" Overall, this games seems right only for those who buy every
baseball game out there.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Shannon Adams and Michael Trick.
All rights reserved.
HARPOON 1.3 AND THE HARPOON DESIGNERS SERIES by Three-Sixty
Reviewed by Mark Lam
Harpoon version 1.3 is the latest update to Harpoon from Three-Sixty
Pacific. It is not simply a bug fix or a version with a few minor
cosmetic changes. Rather, it is a comprehensive update, with totally
rewritten code for portions of the simulation. The changes make the
program more realistic in major areas, and will almost certainly give
players many new challenges. Simply coming up with new tactics to beat
the computer in the original scenarios will take a lot of experimenting.
The first noticeable change is the ability to load user scenarios
straight from the Scenario Selection screen. Also, the user can include
his/her own text orders that will come up in a text box, similar to the
built-in scenario orders. This makes the user interface more friendly,
and I welcomed it wholeheartedly.
Another user-friendly change is the way text titles are displayed in the
main game screen. Instead of being black letters in a white box, they're
white letters with no background box. This helps keep the eyes from
straining to much. Double-clicking with the mouse is now supported for
most menu selections.
Most of the other improvements are internal, and make up the bulk of the
update.
The next, and in my humble opinion, best, new feature is a totally new
sonar model which finally allows the player to use submarines more
realistically. You no longer can pick up subs at long range and dispatch
them with ease. They are very, very difficult to detect if they are used
properly, and are very deadly. In "Here There Be Dragons..." (a scenario
in the IOPG BattleSet), the BLUE player is given one SSN-21 Seawolf
submarine, with orders to sink a large surface group. This was difficult
in Harpoon 1.21, but in 1.3 the sub has all the advantages it would in
real life and the scenario is much easier.
On a related note, torpedo modeling has been improved, in that the
individual torps have to acquire the target on their own. Also, certain
torps will go into search patterns when launched, instead of heading
straight for the target. This means that players can also sink their own
units if they aren't careful!
Aircraft are handled differently than in 1.21 and previous versions.
Aircraft loaded up with lots of air to ground ordnance will now jettison
it if they are attacked. The player also has the ability to manually
jettison the ordnance if they choose to (note, this also includes drop
tanks, so the fuel range may be drastically affected.)
Missiles and munitions have been changed so that inappropriate attacks
are no longer possible. In other words, Harpoons can no longer be used
for attacks against bases, and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles can't be
used against ships. Radar guided missiles won't launch unless their
associated guidance radar is active (there are exceptions to this for
certain situations.) Anti-Radiation missiles now simply destroy radars,
like they do in real life. They can't damage a base or ship beyond that.
Realistic rates of fire have been incorporated for missiles and torpedos.
Also, there a few more restrictions regarding weapons fire that have been
implemented, but I don't want to spoil it all! :-)
On the technical side, Harpoon now uses EMS and XMS memory automatically.
I've heard of people having problems with this feature, but I have not
run into any such problems.
Overall, Harpoon version 1.3 is a wonderful enhancement to the original
simulation. There are bugs in the code, and Three-Sixty has acknowledged
this, but they detract little from 1.3's overall value. Version 1.3
makes Harpoon a whole new game practically, and is well worth the money.
I can't give it a 10 out of 10 due to the bugs, so I'll give it a 9 out
of ten.
HARPOON DESIGNERS SERIES
The Harpoon Designers Series is a BattleSet Enhancement package, and is
being marketed along with Harpoon version 1.3. The HDS, as it's called,
will create a new BattleSet for each BattleSet the user owns. These new
BattleSets (designated HDS1, HDS2, HDS3 and HDS4) use the same maps as
the older BattleSets, but come with 12 new scenarios apiece along with a
new and updated database. Many platforms not available previously have
been incorporated, including ones that are not yet finished, or were
proposed but not procured. This is similar to the approach taken in
designing the IOPG BattleSet, and is a good option.
The HDS scenarios were written by players, not by Three- Sixty Pacific,
and are more difficult than the scenarios in the first four BattleSets.
They are also larger in many cases, so the user is urged to use MSDOS 5.0
if they have a 286 or better system to free up enough memory. The HDS
comes with a book that includes scenario backgrounds and designers notes,
which I found both interesting to read and a great insight into what
other designers consider when making their scenarios.
I expected a lot from the HDS, and I got it all. The new platforms were
a welcome addition, and should provide users with the Scenario Editor
many new platforms to showcase in their scenarios. The scenarios are
varied, but are all interesting, sometimes looking at the same issue from
different viewpoints (the classic case in point are all the convoy escort
scenarios in HDS2, the sister to NACV.) They will definitely provide new
challenges for even the most experienced player.
The major drawback in HDS comes, ironically, in one of its major
features: the database. There are quite a few typographical errors in
the database that range from simple misspellings to whole loadouts on
platforms being wrong. Also, some overhead views of ships are wrong.
Efforts are underway to fix the errors, and users should let Three-Sixty
know of any errors that they run across.
In summary, the HDS is another worthwhile product. The best overall
strategy would be to purchase both version 1.3 and the HDS at the same
time, as they were designed to go together, but HDS will run independent
of 1.3 (or so I've been told. I haven't tried this myself.) Again, it's
not perfect, due to the database errors, but I would give it a 7 out of
10. Once the database errors are fixed, I would up that to a 9 out of
10.
HARPOON BATTLESET #4
Indian Ocean/Persian Gulf (IOPG) By Three-Sixty Pacific
Reviewed by Mark Lam
IOPG is the fourth installment for Three-Sixty Pacific's Harpoon naval
simulator. As the title mentions, this BattleSet covers the geographical
area of the Indian Ocean, and extends far enough northwest to include the
Persian Gulf. It includes many platforms and countries, and, excluding
the brand-new Harpoon Designers Series enhancement package, is the most
comprehensive of the BattleSets. It comes with some new platforms that
were necessary for the inevitable Desert Storm air-war scenario
(including the F- 117 Stealth Fighter, the B-52 Stratofortress bomber,
and the SWP Ticonderoga-class cruiser.)
Since this is an add-on to Harpoon, the graphics are basically the same.
However, if you use the CGA mode of Harpoon, then your ability to use
IOPG will be hindered due to its size and the programmers decision not to
support CGA fully. The only real way to compare IOPG to the previous
BattleSet products is to compare the scenarios that are included and the
database.
The scenarios included with IOPG are more difficult to beat than in
previous BattleSets because the programmers decided to make the victory
conditions much more vague. If you have both IOPG and the Scenario
Editor, take a look at "The Storm" (the Desert Storm scenario) and check
out the victory conditions. You'll see what I mean! Very few of the
scenarios have clear-cut objectives, but this was done intentionally,
with the rationale that a commander will not be given a set of conditions
that tells him if he's "won" or not. I like this aspect, but feel that
the programmers got carried away with it. This is, after all, a game,
and it was frustrating to me to see the entire Iraqi force destroyed in
"The Storm" and still not achieve total victory. After looking at the
victory conditions in the Scenario Editor, I found out why I hadn't won,
but the victory conditions didn't have anything to do with the scenario
IMHO.
Some scenarios highlight particular platforms. A personal favorite is
"Here there be Dragons . . . ", which showcases the Seawolf SSN.
However, this scenario also points out a flawed design concept. In an
effort to put some more realism into Harpoon, the programmers decided to
limit the amount of each type of weapon on a submarine to the number of
torpedo tubes that submarine has. The idea is to prevent the player from
firing off twenty or more torps at one time, something that was possible
in the previous BattleSets. While this is a good decision, having four
torpedos and having to make them last the entire scenario is a real
drawback. This was supposed be an interim solution until the next
version of Harpoon was released, which would support realistic rates of
fire and reloading. However, while version 1.3, the brand-new update to
the Harpoon program, supports both realistic rates of fire and reloading
on submarines, the IOPG database was not changed to reflect this.
What impresses me the most about IOPG is the database. It is very
extensive, and allows the user with the Scenario Editor to create some
large and interesting scenarios that weren't possible before. Virtually
every major power in the region is represented. Some new platforms that
don't exist yet are included. For example, the French DeGaulle-class
carrier and the Indian Cochin-class carrier are included, even though
neither are finished yet. The Soviet (okay, CIS, but it wasn't the CIS
when IOPG was released!) Admiral Kuznetsov carrier is included, as is
the Alfa-class SSN. Air power plays a major role in modern conflicts (as
Desert Storm taught us), and this is represented in IOPG by the diverse
air platforms that are included. I mentioned a few above, but there are
others, like the F-15E Strike Eagle, the YAK-141 Freestyle, the French
Rafale, the AN-74 Madcap and the MiG-31 Foxhound. Again, this gives the
scenario designer great flexibility in creating scenarios.
Overall, this is the best BattleSet in the series previous to the Harpoon
Designers Series BattleSets (I'll talk about them in another article.)
There are drawbacks, like the vague victory conditions in the built-in
scenarios, and the restrictions on the submarines, but the product as a
whole is definitely worth the money. The database alone is worth it if
you have the Scenario Editor. IOPG covers a vast geographical area,
which gave me both an insight into what modern fleets have to do to cover
and protect the Indian Ocean, and also provided me with inspiration for
many different scenarios based on regional conflicts. On a scale of 1 to
10, I would give IOPG an 8.5. Go out and get it; you won't be
disappointed!
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Mark Lam. All rights reserved.Editor Note: Obviously, this add-on was VERY popular with Game Bytes
readers. We had three reviews of Forge of Virtue submitted and we gladly
are publishing them all here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ULTIMA VII: THE FORGE OF VIRTUE by Origin Systems
Reviewed by Richard Wyckoff
Overview: If you just can't get enough Ultima 7, The Forge of Virtue is
probably exactly what you're looking for. Otherwise, its value is
questionable.
Graphics: 10
Sound: 5
Gameplay: 8
Originality: 4
Review machine: 486/33 clone with AMI Bios
8 meg RAM
Soundblaster
Mouse
Advertised as the first add-IN disk ever, Ultima 7: The Forge of Virtue
is an additional adventure for Ultima 7. The mage Erethian has raised
the Isle of Fire from the sea floor. The Isle houses the shrines to the
three principles (Love, Courage, and Truth), which years ago Lord British
constructed. The shrines are each guarded by a complicated test,
designed to truly test the Avatar's mettle before granting him or her
increased skill.
Forge is contained on one high density disk (double density is available,
for a ludicrous $9.95 "shipping and handling" fee). When installed,
Forge will add about 1 megabyte to the size of Ultima 7, although the
documentation states that up to 4 megabytes are needed for temporary
files during the process.
Besides the additional data files, the Forge disk also contains an
updated version of the Ultima 7 executable, version 3.4. Unfortunately,
this new version is not much of an improvement over the older version. I
played completely through the old version on a 386/33 and had few
problems, except for the vanishing bodies in Minoc and the non-retracting
wall at the end of the game (see GameBytes 5). But on my 486, even with
a completely stripped down version of DOS (nothing but mouse.sys), the
new version would hang at random intervals.
Version 3.4 does, contrary to some rumors on the Internet, fix the
disappearing keys 'feature'. The aforementioned bodies in Minoc also
appeared for me this time. Other than that, I couldn't find any other
improvements. The faulty lighting algorithm (where you could cast one
Glimmer spell and light a dungeon indefinitely ) remains, as do the
street lights in Britain that usually don't come on at night, and if they
do, don't go out in the morning. And besides all these nitpicking
details, there are still the major problems of U7: the poor inventory
interface; the chug-chugging of the screen when you travel; and the
Artificial Stupidity of your party members who don't know how to feed
themselves, will walk into fires and other dangerous areas, and will
shoot each other in the back during combat.
Luckily, you are able to decide whether or not to install version 3.4.
If you are in the middle of a game when you add Forge, you will probably
not want to update your executable, because (surprise!) version 3.4 is
not compatible with your old save game files. What's more, Forge may not
be able to handle some of your old save games (if your party is on a boat
in the area where the new island appears, for example). The
documentation does describe how to salvage these saves, however.
So now you've finally installed Forge, and are ready to play it. What's
different? Very little, actually. If you start the game over from the
beginning as I did, there will be a tremor right after you step out of
the red moongate, and if you ask Iolo about it, he will tell you to go
see Lord British. Lord British tells you that the Isle of Fire has risen
from the sea. If you have read the documentation, you already know this.
He gives you the deed to a boat which is docked to the south of Vesper
(hey, free boat!), and tells you to check out the island.
Unlike many games, the documentation of Forge is almost too complete.
The reference card tells you exactly what to do to get to the island,
even telling you where the boat is located and which way to sail, in case
you forgot Lord British's speech. The "Guide to the Isle of Fire" is
written in the form of the mage Erethian's journal, and gives overviews
of each of the shrine's quests. These overviews really take a lot of the
fun of discovery out of the game (especially the Love Quest), while at
the same time are not specific enough to let you avoid the major
frustrations. Worse, the game text and hints are almost exactly the same
as those found in the documentation.
The Isle of Fire is quite large. It appears just south of Vesper, and
extends out under the "BRITTANIA" text on the game's map. It does not
appear on your map, but if you have a sextant you can work out where you
are. In a large castle in the middle of the island, you will find the
mage Erethian, the three shrines, and the Dark Core of Exodus. After
talking to Erethian, you will want to go on the quests, since that is
pretty much all there is to do on the island.
If you take the quests in the order listed in the documentation, the
Truth Quest will come first. This involves quite an extensive dungeon,
but the hints scattered through the dungeon are not helpful at all, and
the solution is the kind that you'll probably either stumble upon
immediately, or else miss completely and wander for hours, as I did.
When you finish it, the shrine will maximize some of your statistics.
The next quest is Love. As I said, the documentation practically walks
you through this one, provided you can work out the mechanics. Just like
the the Truth Quest, what may be obvious to some might be completely
foreign to others. Finally, the Courage Quest involves a lot of
fighting, and yet another either-you-get-it-or-you-don't puzzle. To
complete it, though, you must perform another task, which is the only
part of the game not completely spoiled in the documentation. I won't
spoil it either, but it involves a sword that reminded me of Michael
Moorcock's Elric books.
After you finish all the shrine quests, you are given a so-called fourth
quest: another simple item manipulation puzzle, which various characters
will explain to you. When you finish this, Iolo tells you to go back to
Lord British, who gives your stats yet another boost, and that's it.
There aren't any particularly fancy ending graphics, and all you get for
congratulations are two sentences of dialogue. Then you are left as (to
quote the box) "The most powerful character in the land, wielding its
most formidable weapon." I'm sure this makes the rest of the game much
easier, but the Avatar becomes quite powerful even without the Forge
quests.
I expected a little bit more out of Forge. Granted, it's an under-
twenty-dollar product, but the Wing Commander I and II add ons at least
gave you more ships and graphics, and especially more plot. Forge
doesn't advance the Ultima 7 story at all, and is basically just there to
increase your stats. IMHO, Origin should have made an add-in that took
place after the end of Ultima 7 but before the start of Ultima 7 Part II.
Forge also shows a few signs of the typical Origin rush-production: some
typos in the text, the nearly-as-buggy- as-the-original upgrade, and the
poorly thought-out dungeons.
This is not to say that I hated Forge. It just didn't excite me nearly
as much as Ultima 7 originally did. If you want a few more dungeons to
explore, and the chance to become an uber-Avatar, you might enjoy Ultima:
The Forge of Virtue.
This review copyright (c) 1992 by Richard Wyckoff. All rights reserved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ultima 7: The Forge of Virtue by Origin Systems
Reviewed by Mark Bylander
The Forge of Virtue is the first of two "add-ins" that have been announced
for Ultima 7. It adds four miniquests to your game, and provides the
ability to make the Avatar "the most powerful character in the land."
The same Ultima 7 interface is here--the title screen is changed to reflect
your addition of the module, so I won't be discussing that aspect.
Likewise the graphics are the same. The package does include a bug fix
for the key problem and the red screen problem, but these force you to
lose all of your saved games. Apparently Origin tired of complaints about
keys that had disappeared before applying a patch, and so decided to
force you to start over so you'd have all your keys. There is a patch
available from Origin that does not delete the save games, so this is
probably preferable for most players.
First off, one gripe. Forge of Virtue assumes that you have not finished
the game. I had destroyed the Black Gate under the "time constraint" that
exists at the end of the game before I bought Forge. I had to leave the
Black Gate waiting (using a Mark so I could get back) to go do this adven-
ture. If the Guardian is as big a threat as they make out, this is
clearly out of character. On the other hand, all my characters are already
eighth level, so I don't know how much benefit I am going to see here...
Basically, the plot is this. An island has arisen in the ocean south of
Vesper. It contains shrines to Truth, Love, and Courage. You are to visit
these shrines to improve yourself. The fourth adventure involves the
forging of an ultimate weapon for yourself. Forge promises to be an
interesting diversion while we wait for Serpent Isle, which is supposed
to tie up the plot after the destruction of the gate.
Four mini-quests seems fairly weak compared to the massive Ultima7, espec-
ially since Forge costs almost as much as Ultima7 itself. The game comes
on one high density disk (compressed), so it is nowhere near the magnitude
of Ultima7. I think $15-$20 would have been a more reasonable price than
the $40 I paid.
Nonetheless, Ultima afficianados will want to have this in their collec-
tions. I don't regret having bought it, although I was somewhat dis-
appointed in the size of the additional adventures. Further, the game
should have had a means to continue after the endgame instead of forcing
the Avatar to forgo saving Britannia in order to go on a self-improvement
spree.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Mark Bylander. All rights reserved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ultima 7: Forge of Virtue by Origin Systems
Reviewed by Adam Pletcher
Requirements:
o Ultima VII: The Black Gate
o IBM 100% compatible 386/25 (BARE minimum) or higher
o 2 megs of RAM (4+ recommended)
o 2-3 more megs of HD space (bringing grand total to around 24 megs)
o VGA compatible graphics adapter
o MS-DOS 3.3 or above
o SoundBlaster, Roland sound support
NOTE: While FORGE contains the latest 3.4 update for ULTIMA VII, it
apparently DOES NOT fix the now famous "vanishing key" bug. Amazing,
huh? But fortunately there's another free-floating patch available
through FTP sites (and from me, if you'd like it emailed to ya).
:: PREMISE ::
Claiming to be the gaming industry's first "add-in" game, FORGE OF
VIRTUE allows players to expand the ULTIMA VII Britannian world to reach
new lands and wonders. Being able to jump in and out from the regular
Black Gate plotline into the new plots of Forge offers new challenges
for those wanting a break from chasing Elizabeth and Abraham all over
creation.
The story is this: the ancient Isle of Fire, long since lost beneath
the waves, mysteriously reappearing after a series of earthquakes.
The ever-present Lord British informs you that the Isle of Fire was
initially the home of the three principle Shrines of Love, Courage,
and Truth, created solely for the Avatar's further enlightenment in
the ways of Virtue. He explains that the Isle sank into the sea soon
after the Shrines' completion, and was presumed lost. Until now. A
great magical force has raised the Isle of Fire from its grave...
and guess who gets to investigate?
:: GAME PLAY ::
After boarding a ship bound for the mystical Isle, you soon discover the
Castle of Fire where you banished Exodus ages ago (Ultima III for those
interested), and a slightly loony mage that apparently summoned the Isle
up from the depths. While the mage's motives remain suspicious at best,
you are soon confronted with the three Tests of Virtue. The tests range
in difficulty from very easy to very difficult, and are said to be
designed to further boost your characters' abilities before the
much awaited ULTIMA VII: PART 2, due sometime near year's end.
Midway through your quests in the three Tests, you are given the
opportunity to forge the great Shadesword (also known as the Blackrock
sword, greatly hinted at in other areas corners of the land). This
sword is beyond any other magic item in the game (yes, even that damned
Hoe!), and gives the Avatar unmatched powers. Of course, it isn't all
roses... without offering up too many spoilers, I'll just say the
end result is somewhat reminiscent of Michael Moorcock's ever-doomed
Elric and his ego-sword Stormbringer.
:: SIGHTS & SOUNDS ::
FORGE OF VIRTUE offers a few new bells and whistles for those of you
wanting something new in the land, but is mostly more of the same.
While I kept hoping the Guardian would take interest and make a few
new digitized comments, I remained disappointed with the lack of new
effects and sounds. Even at the game's climax, we are offered nothing
resembling the breathtaking cinematic sequence at the culmination of
the Black Gate plotline. Strangely enough, neither did I see any
vague appearance of the two preview scenes Origin gave us for
Game Bytes #4...hmmm.
:: SUMMARY ::
While I was slightly disappointed with FORGE OF VIRTUE's brevity and lack
of new whiz-bangs, it serves its purpose. It's $20-$25 retail price may
seem a few buckazoids high for some, but for others, it's a welcome
stepping stone on the way to what's bound to be bigger and better
things from Origin.
FORGE OF VIRTUE's overall rating: >> 3 << out of 5
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Adam Pletcher. All rights reserved.
Editor Note:
As is typical with a high-quality game release, we received more than a
single review for B-17: Flying Fortress. With great pleasure, I'm proud
to publish both reviews from Ken Fishkin and Johnny Georgi.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
B17 Flying Fortress by Microprose
Reviewed by Ken Fishkin
GAME TOPIC
"B17 Flying Fortress" is a new Microprose game of "World War II bombers
in action" [cover blurb]. Actually, you fly only a very particular type
of bomber mission: you fly B17-Fs for the USAF. Although the book has
pretty pictures of German, British, and other US bombers, they have no
part in the game.
COPY PROTECTION
Manual word/paragraph lookup. First letter of answer is supplied.
DOCUMENTATION
The usual excellent Microprose manual. Fully 50% of it is taken up with
a historical discussion.
INTRODUCTION/OVERVIEW
You are the "patron", or "godfather", or something, of a particular WWII
B17. You will take it on a series of missions over Europe.
What do I mean by "patron"? Your B17 contains 10 crew members,
performing 10 different jobs. At any time, you can be "in the shoes" of
any *one* of these members. While you are acting for that member, the
other 9 do their jobs to the best of their abilities. You can (and
should) jump from one crew member to another. You need not be in any
crew members shoes: in this case, all 10 members will just do their thing
by themselves. So you are no particular crew member, but rather their
overall "controller".
In this way, the game is different from other simulators I have seen, in
which you fly a "ghost plane", where you run from post to post. In this
game, the posts really are filled by real crewmen. You can help them (or
not), and have them perform other functions as well: repair damaged
equipment, perform first aid, take over the job of an injured crewmember
(leaving their former post vacant), and so forth.
The game has no "strategic" component: you have no control over which
mission your bomber will be assigned, let alone which missions other
bombers will be assigned. Your bombers performance does not affect the
course of the war, or anything like that: you just do your job, and try
to make it home in one piece.
SOUND
The sound effects are good, but not spectacular. The background music is
nice (a vaguely World-War II type music), but, like most game music, it
gets old very quickly.
Unfortunately, turning off the game music also turns off the sound
effects. I get around this by turning the sound card volume to zero
until the mission starts.
GRAPHICS
The static graphics and 2D animations of B17 are wonderful. Just superb.
I'll describe them in more detail in the appropriate section. The 3D
graphics seen when flying the plane are fine, but nothing ground-
breaking. No Goraud shading, no texture-mapping: simple (but fast)
flat-shaded polygons.
STARTING A NEW PLANE
The game starts after you hit "return" about a dozen times, and then pass
the copy protection check. Now you see a "roster" of 6 bombers: the
game can track 6 different bombers. To start a new plane, you enter the
name for the plane, and select a piece of "nose art". One minor nit is
that I wish they would have provided more possible pieces of nose art:
the ones they provide are pretty heavily loaded with scantily clad women.
This may be historically accurate, but something like 3 of the 6 pictures
are of this type. Important bug: the "roster" is *not* saved when the
game exits. If you fly 3 missions, leave the game, and then come back,
there will be no record of your missions. You have to remember to
explicitly save/restore your roster with a save file.
STARTING A NEW MISSION
Once you have your plane, you fly a series of missions. If you survive
25 missions, your crew retires: I believe this is historically accurate.
The mission briefing has several parts. First, there is a textual
description of the mission. Second, there is a wonderful feature called
"recon". In this segment, you are shown a beautifully drawn (and
animated) rendition of a briefing room. The lights dim, and you see a
short (5 seconds or so) black-and-white "flyby" over the target. I
strongly suggest that you look at this flyby several times, to note the
configuration of roads/rivers near the target. This part is superbly
done: they even have a "trailer" segment to the fly-by, with a hair in
the lens! Third, you can decide to decline the mission. I'm not sure
why you would ever do this, but there you are.
TAKING OFF
Once you accept the mission, you are plopped on the runway, and are ready
to take off.
The take-off is basically an exercise in maze traversal: your bomber
starts in a side passage in the twisty little maze of runways leading to
the main runway, and you can guide it there. This is harder than it
might sound, because there are no runway markings indicating which way to
go! I finally did this by letting the computer pilot the plane through
several take-offs, and memorizing the route it took (thankfully, this is
the same each mission).
The take-off itself is also very unforgiving. You have to do everything
just right, or you will run out of runway.
In sum, the take-off offers advantages, as it helps train you in flying
the plane. On the other hand, it's boring and difficult.
Minor bug: if you choose to have the computer pilot the plane through
take-off, and watch the instrument panel, you will see the pilot change
heading/speed, but you will not see the flaps go up/down.
EN ROUTE
Once you've taken off let the computer pilot take over immediately; the
computer pilot will go through the long and complicated gyrations needed
to come into formation. Once you are in formation and proceeding towards
the target, you can "skip time" until you enter enemy territory.
Alternately, you can spend some time helping out your navigator. One
nice part of the simulation is that your navigator is good, but not
great: his estimate of your position is not precise. When you are not
otherwise occupied, you can look outside the plane and fix your location.
When you pass over a certain landmark (a river, say), you can give the
navigator a precise fix on your position. This will help your navigator
get better, and also makes your bombing run easier, as the bombing run is
set up according to where your navigator thinks you are: the closer this
is to reality, the fewer gyrations you'll have to do during the bomb run.
FIGHTING FIGHTERS WITH FIRE
Eventually, you will enter enemy territory. The enemy will try to knock
you out of the skies through flak and fighters. There's not much to say
about flak, it either hits you or it doesn't.
You will be warned of the approach of fighters by messages of the form
"Tail gunner, bandits at 10 o'clock low". If you move to the view of the
tail gunner you will see tiny little dots in your field of view. Each
tiny little dot corresponds to one enemy fighter. If you jump into the
gunners shoes, you can manipulate the guns to pick a particular tiny
little dot, and try to keep him in your sights. One nice feature is that
the gunner will try, even when you are in his shoes, to keep the fighter
in the cross-hairs: the better the gunner, the better a job he does at
this.
Eventually, the tiny little dot will make a pass at the plane. Don't
waste your ammo until the dot begins to get bigger. At this time, you
have a few seconds in which the plane will *rapidly* expand in size, as
the fighter makes the pass. Try to lead the fighter appropriately, and
kill or be killed!
This part of the game generally works very well, with only one minor bug.
With the keyboard interface, you shoot by hitting the "space bar", and
move the gun with the numeric keypad cursor keys. Fine adjustments on
the gun are done by holding the "shift" key. Now, suppose you want to
fire at a fighter while making a small movement with the gun. Move it a
little to the left, say. This requires that you hold down the "space",
"4", and "shift" keys simultaneously. In this case, the "4" key will be
ignored: you cannot make small movements and fire at the same time.
DROPPING THE PAYLOAD
Assuming the enemy hasn't shot you down, you will eventually approach the
target. When this happens, you can make your bomb run, jumping into the
shoes of the Bombardier. You look into the Norden bombsight, make the
appropriate adjustments, and drop the bombs when appropriate.
This part of the game also works very well, except that the one-sentence
of documentation describing how to work the bombsight is woefully
inadequate: I spent an entire weekend just figuring out how to make it
work! It's trivial but (very) non-obvious.
One tiny bug is that if you decide to let the computer do the bomb-
dropping, and watch how it does it, you will never see the bombsight
adjust: this makes it impossible to learn by watching.
WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE
Soon or later, Lady luck will frown upon you, and Jerry will damage your
plane and/or your personnel.
You are alerted to an injury to a crewman by the crewman himself, who
kindly sends you a message of the form "Arrrrgggh.....gagghhhhh.... I'm
hit". Sorry about that, old chap!
This introduces a major part of the game: the allocation of crew members
to task. In addition to jumping in to a particular crewmans shoes, you
can look at his compartment. There are a series of compartments: each
is a very nice 2D rendering, with renderings of your crewmen in their
current positions. Your wounded crewman, for example, will be shown
slumped over. Now, you can take some other crewman (one in the same
compartment, if possible), and have them perform first aid. If the medic
is not in the same compartment, you tell them to move from compartment to
compartment until they arrive in the right place. Of course, while your
crewman is performing first aid, he's not doing whatever else it is he
used to do: if your pilot is injured, don't have your co-pilot perform
first aid, or nobody will be flying the plane! This part of the game,
the first aid in particular, and the compartment movement/task assignment
in general, is excellently done.
In addition to injuries to personnel, your plane can take damage. You
will get a message about it, but it's easy to miss this (messages fly
pretty hot and heavy when enemy fighters are around). There is a "damage
view" that shows you a graphic of the plane with damage highlighted:
again, the graphic is top-notch.
Different types of damage can be fixed in different ways: you may have to
manually open the bomb bays, feather an engine, fight a compartment fire,
and so forth. This part of the game is also very well done, no
complaints here.
LANDING
Finally, you make it back near your base. Yay! Ready to land? Too bad!
There is a major bug here which really hurts the program.
First of all, the computer pilot doesn't know how to land the plane; this
isn't so bad in and of itself, but....
Second of all, the computer pilot *loves* to fly in formation: if it is
at all possible, the computer pilot will do whatever it can to join
formation. What's so bad about this? Two things:
1) Suppose your engines are damaged. The only way to keep the other
engines from overloading is to reduce speed and leave formation. You can
do this when you pilot the plane. But if you *ever* leave the pilots
seat for any reason, the computer pilot will promptly over-rev the
healthy engines to maximum speed, trying to rejoin formation. Your
engines will seize up.
2) Suppose you are trying to land. You jump into the pilots seat. You
start to move towards the airfield, turning and losing altitude. Again,
if you *ever* leave the pilots seat (to look outside and see where the
hell the airbase is, for example), the computer pilot will promptly undo
everything you have just done, and try to take you back up to the
(endlessly circling) formation. GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
There is really only one way around this that I have found. The game
lets you set the difficulty of various parameters (enemy fighters, enemy
flak, and so forth). It lets you, thank God, set the difficulty of
"Landings". At the lowest setting, any landing, no matter how awful, is
fine. USE THIS SETTING! You can then manually land the plane by aiming
for the airfield and augering the plane right into the ground: I aim for
the control tower, myself. This extreme measure is needed (at least for
me) because it's much harder to land a B17 than the fighter planes I'm
used to from other simulations; the field of view is much more limited,
the plane responds much more slowly, and there's much more inertia to
deal with.
REWARDS/PROMOTIONS/TRANSFERS
OK, now you've landed. You step out of the smoking rubble of your plane
to the congratulations of the ground crew.
Depending on how you did on your mission, you are now awarded a certain
number of promotions/medals. It is up to you to decide how these
promotions/medals are to be distributed to the crew members. Medals
improve a crew members morale, promotions don't seem to have any effect
that I could see.
The assignment is done in a very nice way: you are taken to yet another
very well-done graphic, a black-and-white "group photo" of your crew
assembled in front of the plane. By clicking on different crew members,
you can see their current status, and award them goodies.
Your crew can change over time too; you may lose a crew member to
promotions/transfers, or to death, I guess. If this happens, you will
get a replacement crew member who, rightly enough, will not be as good as
your veteran crew at the start. It's in your own self-interest to keep
your crew healthy and happy!
I have three minor nits with this generally very well-done feature.
First of all, you are not shown which gunners shot down how many fighters
on your trip; this would be nice, to know who deserves rewarding. Second
of all, it seems that they only have 10 canned faces: different planes
have the same faces, just assigned to different crewmen. Third of all,
you are allowed to *not* award your hard-earned awards; just hit the
"exit" key before you're ready, and kiss those medals good-bye! At the
least, you should be asked to confirm this.
SUMMARY
I really like the way that you can jump from crew member to crew member.
This works very naturally, and has a very nice interface. It has the
secondary advantage that you need not perform any parts of the simulation
that you dislike. Don't like arcade shoot-em-ups? Leave the gunners
alone. Don't like navigating? Then don't. Don't like flying? Let the
pilot do it. Don't like any of these? Then why did you buy the game?
The game aims for the "middle ground" between fighter-pilot shoot-em-up
arcade games and grand-strategic bomber simulations, and, in my opinion,
succeeds admirably. I found myself gripped and engrossed by the game.
There is a *major* bug, however, that severely flaws the game (see above
under "LANDING"). This is a real surprise for me in a Microprose game;
the host of minor bugs and the one major bug are not what I've come to
expect from Microprose. It's a tribute to the basic game system that
despite this major flaw, I still find myself wanting to play the game.
Overall rating: 10 without the bug, 7 with. Customer support told me
that a fix for the bug should be out by the end of September. Sure.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Ken Fishkin. All rights reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
B17 Flying Fortress by MicroProse
Reviewed by Johnny W. Georgi
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
IBM 286,386,486 (and compatibles) 16MHZ or better
640K, DOS 5.0 or higher and hard disk required
VGA/MCGA only - Joystick and mouse (recommended)
IBM - Adlib - Roland - SoundBlaster supported
Review machine: 486 33MHZ VGA Roland/SBPro
THE GAME:
B17 is another plane simulation from MicroProse. This time they are
focusing on a World War II bomber. You fly bombing missions over Nazi
occupied Europe, you control the 10-man crew from the pilot to bombardier
to any of the many gun placements through-out the Flying Fortress. You
get to fly in formation with six other bombers, and you can Radio
instructions to the entire group.
GAME PLAY:
You can take control of any crew station (provided a crew member is in
that position, and alive) at any time during your flight. As soon as you
exit a position, such as a gunner, the computer will take over that
station. The computer control will improve as you complete missions
successfully. You could sit back and let the computer do all the work,
but you won't get many points. To get promotions you must aim and drop
the bombs yourself. You can view the action from several different
outside views, including a director mode which will automatically switch
views for you.
One of the great things about this game is all the realistic damage you
can take on. From the crew getting shot, a wing getting blown off, to
damage to the engines, bomb doors, leaking fuel, etc. A press of a key
takes you to an overhead view of the plane showing all damage that has
happened to the plane. Flak is particularly deadly, especially at the
higher levels. You can adjust the level of the enemy pilots from novice
to elite. If you have flak and the enemy pilots set to the highest
level you will find this a very difficult game indeed!
The manual is what you have come to expect from MicroProse, excellent.
All the information needed to play this game is included and well laid
out. There's a tutorial section for beginners and a brief history of the
B17 during the war as well. The game may be a bit difficult to get
started on, but it's worth the effort. The flight graphics are done with
polygons and they have added more detail to the planes. It ran smoothly
on my 486, but I wouldn't want to play it on anything less then a 386.
You can adjust the level of detail if it's a bit choppy of your machine.
I tested both the Roland and the SoundBlaster. Sound and music
definitely added to the game, from the whirl of the turrets turning to
the sound of engine. I do wish the sounds when firing the machine guns
were louder, but that's a small complaint.
A FEW BEEFS:
I have a few minor complaints about the game. Depending on where you are
in the plane, you can only control functions that would be in that area.
Meaning; you may see your engine on fire from one of the gun positions,
but you have to go back to the pilot cockpit to turn on the fire
extinguisher. This can be frustrating if you are shooting at an incoming
fighter. It's extremely difficult to land on any setting, except "no
crashes". Bullet holes appearing in the windows or other areas (like
Dynamix did in Aces of the Pacific) would have been nice. Also, a few
more resounding sound effects when you get hit or when shooting would
have enhanced game play. You can't seem to harm the other planes in
your formation with your guns. These are minor oddities in what is
overall a great game. From what I can tell so far, it's virtually bug
free, which is no minor statement considering some of the software coming
out lately.
SUMMARY:
I have to tell you, I love this game. Anyone looking for a nimble
fighter to out-turn the Nazi warplanes is looking in the wrong direction
here. Gamers searching for an engaging bomber simulation that gives you
full control of plane and crew ought to give this game a look.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Johnny Georgi. All rights reserved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use the following techniques to find your targets in B-17: Flying Fortress
1) In mission briefing, make heavy use of the "recon" to get an idea of
what the target geography is like.
2) Just after the last waypoint before the target, make sure your nav-
igator has your position correct - this will help a lot with the
accuracy of the bombing run.
3) When somewhat near, use the forward (shift-F1) and chase (shift-F9)
views to get a nice view of upcoming landmarks.
4) When fairly near, use the tactical (shift-F8) view to see the target in
all its glory. I don't use this much, because I think it's kind of a
cheat.
5) When fairly near, use the bombardier view - it's just as good as the
ball turret view, and has the additional advantage that it's the same
crewman that you'll use to drop the bombs.
I am playing with "realistic" bombs and "veteran" flak, and have never had
anything but a direct hit.
B17 war stories: last night, I flew a mission where my pilot and co-pilot
were _both_ wounded at the same time! Gak! I found out that other crew
members are not allowed to pilot the plane - why they are listed with a
"piloting" skill is beyond me. Until one of your pilots is healed, the
plane will continue on whatever it's last course was.
Phew! I wound up barely making it back, landing on 2 engines with a fuel
leak - got a Congressional Medal of Honor (my 2nd) out of it, though!
--
Ken Fishkin
Siege By Mindcraft
Reviewed by Mark Edward Kern
The crack of a catapult cuts a path through the din of battle around you.
Ahead, a siege tower thunders to the ground in a flaming wreck, another
plan failed. Now you command your purple wizards to rally your magical
troops. Skeletons and worse rise from the ground, obedient to your every
word. Bolstered by the hope of reinforcements, your engineers once again
take up the battering ram against the massive gates of Castle Elissa.
With only minor embellishment, the game, Siege, is quite capable of
putting you in a battle such as described above. Billed as a real time
strategy game, Siege puts you in the role of supreme commander of either
an attacking or defending force. "The object of the game," you ask? To
seize or to defend the castle as it may be. Siege comes from Mindcraft,
who produce the popular Magic Candle series of role playing games.
Siege shares the same rich fantasy setting and history of that series,
which lends a sense of purpose to the battle scenarios in the game.
The player can choose to command either the forces of Light or the forces
of Darkness, with whom he can defend or attack one of four castles in the
game. There are 32 pre-generated scenarios to play, each one fits into
a bit of Magic Candle history as described in the game's manual. You can
also build your own scenarios, designating the types and number of both
forces. However, you cannot edit any of the Castles, and must go with
the four already included. Gameplay proceeds via an overhead view of the
castle and surrounding terrain. A "magnify mode" allows you to view the
entire battlefield at once, or to zoom in on any particular section for a
blow by blow view of the action.
Troop movements and battles are animated complete with bodies, blood and
the occasional burning skeleton. Although this may seem graphic, the
cartoonish figures are enough to keep one from taking it too seriously.
Overall, graphics are good if not excellent, but the main attractions of
this game lie in the sounds of battle. Owners of SoundBlaster cards will
be treated to the swish of digitized arrows, the piercing screams of orcs
dying, and the roar of catapults and other siege engines as they destroy
walls and guard towers.
All action proceeds in real time, or almost real time as the case may be,
since the computer is prone to pause the action while it thinks of its
strategy from time to time. This can be annoying, especially if you are
in the middle of a particularly busy battle when the computer tends to
think often. Unlike traditional war games, this one isn't divided into
phases of action. Thus it is possible for the computer interrupt at any
time to start its thinking.
Troops are arranged in groups that you compose in the barracks and deploy
to the field. There are several different types of troops to select.
The most common are the warriors, archers and engineers. Warriors are
your basic canon fodder, archers are good for cover and defense, and the
engineers are responsible for building bridges, manning catapults and
building battering rams or siege towers. One can never have enough
engineers, and the wise player will guard their lives since these troops
are few in number. If you lose all your engineers, you will be incapable
of operating your most devastating weapons. Aside from these common
troop types, there are also heroes, wizards, magical troops and non-
humanoid troops. Wizards have great power, but little defensive
strength, while magical troops like skeletons and elementals tend to be
very fierce and not likely to run. Non-humanoid troops include such
creatures as arachnids, great spiders who scale castle walls with ease.
You can play with all these troop types in the scenario editor, including
two curious entries: the battle cattle and the war chicken. These two
humorous additions don't seem to do much but act as comedy relief. Most
of the common troop types also come in a variety of races such as orcs,
humans, elves, dwarves, domugs and more. All these combinations lead to
over 60 types, each with its own morale level, attack/defense abilities
and damage modifiers. In common practice though, you will probably only
work with a subset of these, since most of the variation comes from
having multiple races for the same troop type. Still though, the scope
of selections is impressive.
Now that we have our troops, we can pit them against each other on the
battlefield. Terrain and castle layout play a real role here, since
there are rivers and chasms that must be crossed and castle walls and
stairs that must be scaled. You command your troops with the mouse,
clicking on the group and then selecting an action from one of the
command icons lining the left-hand side of the screen. Most commands
also require you to select an area such as the point of attack or the
area of defense. The interface works quite well, although the slow downs
caused by the computer thinking can get in the way of ordering your
troops. Luckily though, once you start a command, the computer will wait
for you to finish it before continuing.
Enemy intelligence is decent, although it doesn't take much to defeat the
computer at any but the hardest settings. Experienced war-gamers might
find Siege a little on the easy side. As the battle proceeds and the
troops scurry about, you'll find yourself with your hands full. The game
continues with or without you, and gamers used to phase based games will
find themselves reaching for the pause button often. The game allows you
to slow down the pace if you feel too rushed, but this would miss the
point of Siege.
Everything happens in real time, and you will find that
your heart beats faster as orc warriors crest your walls and you scramble
to assemble a defense.
There are a few things that detract from this game. The limited enemy
intelligence, slow-downs caused by the computer thinking and lack of a
castle editor are more minor inconveniences than true flaws, however.
This reviewer was only able to find one bug in the game, in that the game
would freeze when evening fell on the battlefield if you are running with
both the Soundblaster and Roland MT-32 options on. Calling Mindcraft
revealed that they had not received any other complaints on this dual
sound setup, but that they have had difficulties running Siege under Qemm
6.0. If you are running this game under OS/2, set
Video_Retrace_Emulation to off and the game will run fine.
Siege is a refreshing change from traditional war games. The real-time
play lends a sense of urgency and tests your thinking under stress. If
they had thrown in a castle editor, this game would be the ideal medieval
strategy game. As it stands now, the game is quite good, and is
certainly worth the attention of any gamer who feels he should have been
born with a sword in his hand.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Mark Edward Kern. All rights
reserved.
Crisis in the Kremlin by Spectrum Holobyte
Reviewed by Richard Schaaf
In "Crisis in the Kremlin" you take on the role of the President of the
Soviet Union. Many people say that Gorbachov made a lot of mistakes,
well, why don't you try to do a better job? I found out that it wasn't
easy and the game reaffirmed it is easy to criticize someone but doing it
yourself is very hard.
At the beginning of the game you are offered a choice of the kind of
president you want to be. You have three options: you can be a hard line
president (Ligachov), a reformer (Yeltsin) or a moderate (Gorbachov).
This affects your initial posture, both in domestic and foreign policy.
During the game you can adjust your posture at any time. You can change
your economy to a very closed one or a very open one, you can increase or
restrict civil rights, take an offensive military posture or a defensive
one. Every year you have to determine how much money to spend on what.
Is it better to increase the level of military research, or perhaps to
improve the infrastructure?
During your reign as president a lot of crisises will occur, like the
accident at Chernobyl. At each time you will be given a choice how to
react to the crisis. Your decision will affect the opinion other people
have of you. A hard line reaction will increase your popularity with the
military but will decrease the opinion that the reformers and "ordinary
people" have of you.
The first time I played I naturally chose Gorbachov, I was determined to
show that I could do a better job than he did. With the benefit of
hindsight that should not be so hard... Well, that's what I thought. I
was thrown out of office by the conservatives in less that two years.
The same happened when I chose Yeltsin. My first success came when I
chose Ligachov, I succeeded in staying in power for 15 years. By the end
of my rule I lost the Baltic republics, eastern Europe and a large part
of the Soviet Union. Then I was thrown out by nationalists.
The game is all about trying to balance the objectives of different
groups in the society. The conservatives want a very closed and
controlled state, while the reformists want the country to become a
western-style democracy.
The game is very nice the first few times you play it. Everything is new
and it is fun to see how different decisions work out. After a few games
it gets kind of boring. You know that in 1986 Chernobyl will blow up and
so on. It seems that the only successful route is to follow Gorbachov's
decisions almost to the letter. Everything else seems to go wrong at
some time.
The sound is reasonable at best. The most annoying thing about the sound
is that even if you install the game to use a SoundBlaster card, the
sound of the teleprinter still comes from the internal speaker. I think
it shouldn't be hard to generate the teleprinter sound through the
SoundBlaster so I don't understand why the internal speaker is used.
The graphics are adequate for this sort of game. Don't expect the
graphics to be as good as in the recent 256 color games. The graphics
are only 16 colors but that is more than enough for a strategy game. A
nice feature about the graphics is the inclusion of real television
pictures during some of the news-flashes. The pictures were provided by
CNN (present in the game as GNN) The pictures are shown in greyscale and
are quite realistic. The only problem is that due to the low number of
colors on the screen the animations are not very convincing; the same
object may have a different color in different parts of the animations.
CONCLUSION
All in all, this game is very nice. I think 256 colors would improve the
game even further. If 256 colors would have been used, the television
pictures would have been much more convincing. Other than that the 16
colors are sufficient. Regarding sound: well, there isn't very much.
The music that is there is pretty well done, but the game could use some
more sound. The game gets kind of boring after a while. Maybe there
should have been a bit more variation.
For those that insist on some kind of numeric score:
Graphics: 7
Sound: 6
Playability: 8
Durability: 5
Overall: 6
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Richard Schaff. All rights reserved.
Carrier Strike v 1.0 by SSI
Reviewed by Chuck Meo
OVERVIEW
This game follows in the footsteps of SSI's Second Front (Russian Front
WW2) and continues their series of grand tactical/strategic simulations
set in World War 2. It is aimed at people (like myself!) who are not so
much interested in simulators like Aces of the Pacific, but rather in the
machinery which gets opposing forces into battle in the first place.
There are two players (Allied, Japanese) and either, both, or neither can
be played by humans. The game runs 26 months of game time and allows for
one battle of up to four game days duration each month, so the Campaign
Game is LOOONNGGG...Turns are 20 minutes each. Game units are Task Forces
(Surface Action, Air Combat--your carriers, Transport, Bombardment),
Strikes (air units), Airbases (land installations mainly run by the com-
puter for both sides) and submarines, which are also managed by the
computer.
You can also play single battles (Coral Sea, Midway, Marianas etc.) of
which there are six.
The game map covers an enormous area stretching from Truk in the North,
to Townsville, to Espiritu Santo, and North again. The Midway and
Marianas battles use different maps around those areas. The areas are
divided into hexes (not visible) 17 miles across.
The objectives overall are to sink enemy fleet and, within each monthly
battle, to gain extra victory points by achieving your Transport or
Bombardment (of coastal airfields) Missions. Your specialised Task
Forces for these missions need air support, and this is where your Air
Combat TFs come in--to engage the opposing carriers, or, by maintaining
air superiority over your objectives, to drive away enemy missions and
fulfil your own.
COURSE OF PLAY
The heart of the game, and what makes it such fun, is the hidden movement
system. That is, at the start of each battle, the players have no idea
where the opposing forces are, other than in the very general terms out-
lined in the Battle Plan given to each player by Strategic HQ (i.e. the
computer) every month. The computer then places the forces on the game
map.
Given the huge size of the play area, the essence of success is locating the
enemy and bringing your forces to bear at greatest advantage in range and
numbers. This captures the flavour of the warfare--beware nasty surprises!
Spotting your enemy relies on TF Search with float planes (Japanese) or
Scout planes (Allied). In addition, both sides have land based patrols on
fixed courses--which may or may not reveal the enemy! Ultimately, the
number and direction of search planes put up by your combat TFs determines
the success of the search.
To further confuse the issue, search planes can give contradictory or
wrong reports, giving rise to lots of bogus sightings and it is a matter
of judgement --and luck!--whether you believe the right ones.
Once the enemy is found, you may be able to launch airstrikes and inflict
some damage. On the other hand, if the enemy is out of range, you have to
move to within strike range (risky) to do this, all the while being mind-
ful of the possibility of enemy strikes on your precious carriers. If your
casualties are too high, Strategic Command (the computer) will intervene
and order General Withdrawal, forcing you to quit the battle area. This
is to prevent overly aggressive players making unrealistic decisions, for
example using crippled carrier forces as Surface Combat units.
The game system gives a very realistic idea of the problems of commanding
naval forces in WW2. It enables skilfully handled small forces to defeat
much larger ones, and really makes the game worthwhile.
After joining battle, the players make their dispositions during the
mutual Orders Phase in each turn. That is, one at a time, and hidden from
the other player, you bring planes up from the hangar deck, fuel and arm
them, move them onto the flight deck, and fly them off. Each step takes
one, 20-minute turn.
This is crucial, since enemy strikes can arrive while planes are being
prepared and at this point, one lucky bomb hit will see your carrier a
blazing wreck.
Both sides have primitive radar, but it does not indicate whether a strike
is arriving or leaving. Hence, multiple strikes can inflict huge damage if
the enemy commander decides to risk fueling planes after one enemy strike
departs.
This combines the possibility of strategic surprise (via hidden forces)
with tactical surprise (strikes attacking at staggered intervals). The
style of play is up to you--you can be conservative and not fuel up while
ANY enemy strikes are around, but will you miss an opportunity by doing
so?
COMBAT
Having spotted your opponent`s forces and launched strikes, and assuming
they actually locate the target (not a foregone conclusion either!), your
strikes will attack and the enemy forces will defend themselves.
Since each carrier has limited planes aboard, you have to decide how to
allocate your resources, particularly fighters, to air missions. Fighters
can fly Combat Air Patrol (CAP) over your forces, or escort offensive
strikes. The more CAP, the better your chances of breaking up enemy
attacks. The more escorts, the more chance of breaking through enemy CAP
and hitting the targets. Your bombers are your sword, but it is easily
blunted by CAP and unescorted strikes will suffer high losses and maybe
get so disrupted that they miss altogether.
Air Combat consists of enemy CAP (if any) engaging escort fighters, then
the surving CAP engages your bombers. The bombers then get attacked by
flak from the surface targets, and finally attack with bombs and torp-
edoes. Chance plays a large part.
Surviving strike planes return to your carriers to be turned around and
do it again. Meantime, your enemy is doing the same thing to you...
You may have land-based air units available as well. Once these strikes are
airborne, you can redirect them to your choice of targets. This can lead to
strikes arriving from unexpected directions at very inconvenient times..
Surface Naval Combat occurs when opposing surface forces occupy the same
hex. This is fairly abstract, with the ships getting paired off by the
computer and simply exchanging gunfire. Nevertheless, if used judiciously,
surface attack can tip the balance if, for example, you manage to get
cruisers or even battleships in amongst lightly-defended merchant ships
and thus drive off a transport mission worth perhaps 1000 victory points
to your opponent.
PLAYER STRATEGY AND TACTICS.
Both sides have advantages and disadvantages. The Japanese start in May
1942 with excellent-quality pilots and six high-quality carriers. They can
launch float planes without having to use precious bombers for scouting,
and have heavy surface forces available which are particularly deadly in
night actions. Their planes have a 30-50 mile range advantage over the
Allies which is maintained right through the war, and this is of key
importance if they can fly to their extreme range, but outside that of the
Allies.
However, they have no radar until August 1942 and so can be utterly
surprised by Allied strikes, as at Midway historically. Also, the planes
are much less durable than those of the Allies, and their flak is fairly
useless. So, in a straight slugging match at short range, they are not
likely to win out.
The Allies have carriers of higher capacity than the Japanese (90 vs 70)
but generally have to use some of these for scouting, thus reducing the
advantage. Their planes are very tough and have a reasonable chance of
winning through Japanese CAP and flak, but pilot quality is so terrible
in the early part of the war that they are unlikely to hit anything.
Allied flak rapidly becomes deadly as he war progresses, with Japanese
planes having less than a 50% chance of surviving it by the end.
The big advantage, though, is reinforcements. The Japanese receive but
two new carriers--converted luxury liners--with poor air groups in
addition to their starting forces. The Allies will be reinforced with
9 fleet carriers and 7 light carriers. Thus, the objective is to
survive the early Japanese onslaught until overwhelming forces can be
assembled. This is easier said than done--every battle declined because
of being outnumbered gives the Japanese 1-2000 victory points and they
can rapidly accumulate an unassailable total. So, you may have to give
battle under very unfavourable conditions.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
I have no sound board, though several are supported. Game sound consists
of fairly simple engine noise as planes take off the carriers, and again
when opposing air groups clash. Bombs sound off differently as they miss
(or hit) the target. The sound may be more interesting with a board.
As for the graphics, there are three main types--game map, showing your
forces and those of the enemy you have spotted, close up, showing the
different forces and features in a hex (which may be TFs, Strikes, land
or weather), and various tactical displays, of which the most important
is the Carrier Operations display. This shows in full-screen the funct-
ional areas of each of your carriers--the hangar, fuelling area, flight
deck, and elevators. How you move planes between the areas and fly them
off is the key interaction with the game.
The graphics are of reasonable standard, though of EGA complexity only.
Still, graphics are not the most important element of a game like this,
and the graphics used are functional for playing it.
CONCLUSION
I have played few historical simulations which so accurately capture the
feel of combat for a period. This is a simple game to play, though quite
long, and despite the small number of playing pieces (2-12 per side) there
is plenty for the player to think about as the game progresses. As the
fleet commander for the South Pacific area, you can do no more than make
your best dispositions with the forces available and trust to your luck.
This is quite reasonable for a period when the soldiers, not the muni-
tions, had the smarts!
I have a few gripes, but they are detail only. This game would benefit
hugely from being played over a comms port since having to have two chairs
and look away when it's not your turn is fairly annoying when two people
are playing.
Also, there appear to bugs in the hiding of forces during the night time
turns. I have observed (as the Allies) all of the Japanese forces during
the night turns since they seem to be displayed during the execution
phases between 2000 and 0600--sometimes! This means the Allies have to use
the honour system, as the execution phase is always after Allied Orders
and the Allied player is usually watching the screen at this point.
Finally, it would be helpful to have more information displayed with
spotted enemy TFs, for example, when and how spotted, and how fresh the
sighting is.
As ever, do not expect an exciting game against the player as the AI is
not equal to the task of fighting a player and can always be beaten. This
problem seems fairly inherent in strategic wargames because of the un-
managable number of decisions that need to be made.
I would strongly recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a game
that tests reasoning and decision-making rather than reflexes.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Chuck Meo. All rights reserved.
Editor Note: The accompanying screen shot of Theater of War is in Super
VGA mode 640x480x256 color. On Super VGA systems, this image should
display properly. We have a known bug with certain older models of
Paradise cards. Also, there is no lock-out in place yet preventing any-
one with a standard VGA system from trying to display this image, though
only garbage will be displayed. In a future edition of Game Bytes, a
warning will pop up instead, preventing the image from being displayed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Theater of War by Three-Sixty
Reviewed by Thom Vaught
Requirements:
Hard Drive required
286 or higher
VGA; 640K RAM & VGA/MCGA Card
DOS 3.3 or later
Recommendations:
DOS 5.0
Mouse
Super VGA; 2 MB RAM & 256K SVGA Card
Sound Support:
Adlib, SoundBlaster, & SoundBlaster Pro
Most of the current crop of computer games need not be compared to
anything but other games of the same type. However, I found myself
trying to compare THEATRE OF WAR (TW) with several games of different
types. Perhaps this is what the designers had in mind. They have
succeeded in bringing to the computer game arena a very unique game.
In essence, TW is a two-player real-time wargame. It borrows heavily
from elements of Chess, board wargames, and simulations. Common elements
between TW and Chess include the objective of defeating/capturing an
opponents piece. Similar to both Chess and wargames, different pieces
have unique abilities and handicaps. There are different sets of pieces
which represent different eras of war. Like many wargames TW has the
concept of supply. As in many board wargames, units must be located in a
supply line in order to remain effective. Borrowed from simulations and
perhaps Populous, is the real-time nature of TW. Players must make and
execute their plans at the same time as their opponent.
As mentioned above, there are different sets of pieces in TW. Included
with TW are three different sets; future expansion sets are planned.
Each set represents a different era in warfare. The sets included with
TW are Medieval, Great War, and Contemporary. Within each set, pieces
range in importance and function. For example, in the Medieval set, the
Pawns are fairly expendable but the Emperor must be protected at all
costs. Also, supply rules differ for each set.
In order to explain how the sets work, a detailed discussion of the
Medieval set follows. In the Medieval set the pieces, known as warriors,
include Emperor, Pawn, Swordsman, Archer, Chariot, and Catapult. Each
warrior has different strengths and weaknesses. All warriors except the
Pawn must be adjacent to the Emperor in order to resupply. Some warriors
are better attackers or defenders than others. Also, warriors move at
different speeds. There is a single Emperor, which is the most important
warrior. Whoever destroys the opponent's emperor wins the game.
Emperors may move, inspire (give strength to warriors), defend, recover,
and resign. A pawn may move, retreat, defend, recover, build (improve a
square for faster movement), or destroy (change a square to impede
movement). Swordsmen have the ability to move, hold (stop an enemy),
defend, and recover. Archers can move, shoot, defend, recover, and hold
(shoot any enemy within range). The chariot, which is the fastest
warrior, may move, seek enemy (attack the nearest enemy), patrol (attack
any opposing warriors in a patrol area), recover, or assassinate (attack
the opposing emperor). Finally, the catapult, which is the slowest
warrior, can shoot, hibernate (become inactive but resistant to attack),
recover, or prepare (exit hibernation).
The other sets have unique warriors associated with their eras. In the
Great War set there are the General, Soldier, Supply Tent, Gatling Gun,
Tank, and Cannon. The Contemporary set is made up of a Base, Tank,
Radar, Missile Launcher, Fighter, and Bomber. I found both the Medieval
and Great War sets to be well designed. Both provide many strategic
options. Also, the warriors in both sets have comprehensive sets of
actions they can perform. I did not enjoy the Contemporary set as much.
It seemed to be a little more fast paced and the actions warriors of this
set can perform are sometimes limiting. For example: an archer in the
Medieval set has the hold option and the tank of the Great War set has
the defend option. With those options the warriors will fire at any
enemy warrior which is within its range. However, the tank in the
Contemporary set does not have an option similar to this. I consider
this to be an oversight and detracts from the set.
Each warrior has two very important characteristics, strength and
health. Both values are represented by power bars. If a warrior has no
strength, it cannot move, attack, or defend. If its health is lost, then
the warrior is destroyed. Strength and health may be regained through
resupply. All but the most basic warriors require a supply source in
order to renew their strength and health. This often requires that the
warrior be either near or in line with another warrior of the set. As
mentioned before the supply rules differ for each set. For example, in
the Medieval set most warriors must be adjacent to the Emperor in order
to resupply. With the Great War set, a warrior may be in a supply line
with a Supply Tent or the General to resupply; Supply Tents must be in a
supply line with the General in order to resupply. The supply rules are
an important part of the game balance. One cannot lead a bold attack
without making sure the unit has a supply source. I found that supply
rules to be a very good idea, but too simplistic. A supply line is
defined as a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line from a supply source.
With this system, a warrior which is very near a supply source may be
considered to be out of supply while a much more distant warrior may be
in supply. A method of supply range, perhaps taking into account terrain
types, would be more acceptable.
There are three basic play screens. These include a 2d board, 3d
board, and status screen. Play takes place on either the 2d or 3d board.
Each board is divided into squares. Often, only portion of the playing
field will be visible in both the 2d and 3d boards. There are controls
present change the view to areas not presently visible. The view may be
zoomed in or out with the 2d board. The 3d board is the most
aesthetically pleasing. It is also the most functional, providing an
enlarged view of the currently selected warrior with its strength and
health bars. Also, with the 3d board a view in the bottom right shows
the relative positions of the pieces in the entire playing field.
Because the 3d board and units are drawn in perspective, it can be
difficult to manage units which are distant from the position at which
the board is being viewed. A button is provided to move the field of
view to the currently selected unit, but it will not work if the unit is
near the far end of the board. At the bottom of both the 2d and 3d board
are icons for each warrior in the current set. A warrior may be selected
using its icon at the bottom of the screen or by selecting the warrior
from the board display. The status screen allows the user to view the
strength and health bars for friendly and enemy warriors involved in the
conflict.
TW can be played solo against a computer opponent, two-player at the
same computer, and two-player using using two computers and a modem or
serial cable. For solo games, there are scenarios designed for each of
the warrior sets. Each scenario consists of a set of warriors, a board
layout, and a computer opponent. The scenario may or may not contain the
complete set of warrior pieces for the chosen era. In each scenario, the
board layout determines the size and shape of the board as well as the
type of terrain for each square. Also, each scenario has a computer
opponent. The ability and strategy of the computer opponent varies with
each scenario. With the exception of some Contemporary scenarios, I
found the computer opponent to not be very challenging. A good defense
will almost always ensure a win on the part of the human player. Also,
the computer opponent is fairly predictable for each replay of a given
scenario. Two player games have a set of pieces and a board layout.
Because of the real-time nature of the game, it is best played with two
computers linked. If one computer is used, then each player has a move
and time limit. When either the number of moves or the time limit
expires, the other player is given a turn. As a linked two player game,
TW has a lot of potential.
Production values in this game set it apart from most strategy games.
The graphics in TW are quite good. As the box touts, this game does
indeed present computer owners with the chance to show off their super
VGA cards. It provides drivers for many cards which meet VESA standards.
The install program performs a test to determine the type of driver which
needs to be installed. The installation process will also modify your
AUTOEXEC.BAT to automatically load the driver. That however is not
always the best thing. It does not recognize memory software such as
386MAX and uses standard DOS 5 device driver loading utilities. Of
course, most people with memory management software should have no
problem loading the driver into high memory. Each of the pieces have
their own animations which are used when battling other pieces. Also,
each piece appears to have been modeled and raytraced with appropriate
light sources to create a very nice shaded three-dimensional illusion.
Also, a storm begins to brew in the background as the battle heightens.
All in all, the graphics are well above standard for a strategy game and
can actually be distracting at times.
Music is also above average for a strategy game. The underlying
background music is nicely scored. As the battle begins to intensify so
does the musical score. Because of the varied intensity of the
background music, it rarely gets annoying. There are also digitized
sound effects. The digitized sounds are adequate. However they quality
of the samples could be improved.
Both the graphics and sound do seem to give the production an almost
theatric feel. It often begins to feel as if you are watching the battle
unfold on stage from a view in the balcony. The emphasis on these
elements of production give the game a very different look and feel from
the average computer strategy game.
The user-interface is well designed but incomplete. For example the
Pause function is only available as a keyboard command and cannot be
selected with the mouse. On the plus side, the interface is intuitive
and most users will have not problem learning it. TW can be played with
a keyboard, but a mouse is recommended because it is generally faster.
Overall the interface is good when compared with most computer games.
Documentation is less than adequate. The quick reference card and
installation guide are welcome additions. However the quick reference
card is missing some important commands such as Pause. The Instruction
Manual only covers the basics of the game. It covers the general
information as well as information specific to each warrior set. Though
space is saved by separating the general information, it should probably
be included briefly for each warrior set. Especially the supply line
rules since they differ for each warrior set. What should be included is
a strategy section. With a game this unique, many users will want at
least a brief discussion of possible strategies for each set.
I basically feel that TW is a unique game with a lot of merit. I would
recommend it for most strategists who don't mind the real-time pressures
of the game and who have a friend with whom they can battle. As a solo
venture, I would not recommend TW because I found the computer opponents
to be mostly inadequate and predictable. The computer plays best with
the Contemporary set. This is because of the fast-paced nature of that
set and the lack of comprehensive actions for some warriors in that set.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Thom Vaught. All rights reserved.
The Lost Admiral by Quantum Quality Products
Reviewed By Ed Goldman
-- Hardware Requirements and Support --
Contains both 5.25" (2) and 3.5" (1) Diskette.
IBM PC/XT/AT & 100% Compatibles
640K RAM
Blank Floppy Disks or Hard Disk
DOS 3.0 or Above
Sound: Adlib or Soundblaster
Video: EGA, VGA
Mouse and/or Keyboard
Copy Protection: Manual based (not too intrusive as far as it goes...)
1 Player vs. Computer Only.
-- Overview --
THE LOST ADMIRAL is a game of strategy and tactics on the high seas.
Those of you familiar with QQP's other war game, land-based strategy
and tactics game THE PERFECT GENERAL, will find some similarities
between the two (and some big differences). Designer, Bruce Zac-
cagnio, was involved with both games.
Your first order of the day is to create a new Officer as your player
alter-ego. You start out as a lowly Seaman and using preserverace,
cunning and brilliant planning earn your "notches" to achieve your
place amoung the Admiralty. You earn "notches" by battling your way
through either Single Scenarios or Campaigns. The higher you set the
difficulty level (1-11), the faster you will see your "notches"
increase.
The game comes with 9 maps. Each map roughly corresponds to the 10
preset scenarios. The campaigns consist of several of the scenarios
in sequence with the added twist that most campaigns will have a
specific mission to accomplish as well as introduce a special super-
ship, the Flagship. You may play either as the "red" or "white"
player in scenarios and campaigns. Victory conditions, strategy
and missions are different depending upon what side you play.
Like the PERFECT GENERAL, your objective is not total wanton destruction
of enemy, but the taking and holding of territories. Cities are given
point values, some higher than others (range is 000-500). You must
hold a city for 1 turn to be credited with points. However, it's in
only the lower, 200-point cities that you may build new ships as the
game progresses. Other than these cities, you are allocated a fixed
number of "build points" at game start -- you place the ships you want
in your starting home cities until your build points are used up.
A "win" consists of a point comparison between the 2 players at the
end of the game, but in some cases you may not need more points,
just be within a certain percentage.
-- The Pieces --
As fleet commander, you have the following pieces at your disposal
(each with thier own strengths, weaknesses, special attributes and
build costs):
o Transport -- Moves slowly; virtually defenseless; one of the
two ships that can hold cities for points.
o Attack Transport (AT) -- The only other ship that can hold a
city. Faster, slightly stronger, and more expensive than a
Transport.
o Carriers -- Moves slowly. To simulate planes, these ships can
"see" and reveal enemies up to 2 squares away.
o Battleships -- Moves slowly. Powerfull on offense and defense,
but vulnerable to subs.
o Cruiser -- A somewhat lesser Battleship, but more effective
against subs.
o Destoyer -- Fairly fast. Light on offense and defense but most
effective against submerged subs.
o PT Boats -- The fastest. Very lightweight against bigger ships
but holds its own against subs.
o Subs -- Can submerge or surface(faster). Powerfull but very
vulnerable to Destroyers and PT Boats.
o Gun Emplacements -- Don't move and you can only set them up
before a game starts. Good defense piece for the cost.
-- The Terrain --
As you may have guessed from the title, movement takes place over
water. Maps consist of various land masses and islands. Costal
cities are found on the masses. While no movement occurs over
land, you must certainly take it into consideration when planning
routes and offensive/defensive strategies.
Sea areas are divided into rectangular blocks for movement. These
are layed out in a staggered brick pattern. At the end of a turn,
at most 2 pieces from each side (4 total) may occupy a block. On
some maps there are narrow canals. Only 1 piece per side may occupy
these at the same time.
-- Strategy --
You set your initial strategy during the build and placement phase
at the beginning of the game. You have a limited number of build
points to start and cannot possibly cover the whole map effectively.
You must decide which cities you want to take and hold, which to
defend lightly, which to grab quickly for some quick points and
possibly abandon, and which cities will allow you to build new
ships during the game. At the same time you must anticipate where
the enemy will be focusing its effort and counter.
The type and number of each ship you choose is important in carrying
out your strategy. Do you want slow, lumbering ships that take a
long time to get anywhere but can easily punch through an enemy force?
Do you want quick, vulnerable ships that can outflank the enemy and
drive them out of their rearward cities thus denying the points?
Before the game even starts there's a number of tradeoffs and balances
that you must decide upon. It's a big part of the game.
-- Tactics --
With the exception of your Carriers which can "see" 2 spaces away in
any direction, you do not know where the enemy is. A move consists
of white moving pieces, followed by battle resolution, then red
moving pieces, followed by another battle resolution. A piece may
move up to its maximum _until_ it lands on a space occupied by
an enemy piece. At this point it will go into combat during the
combat resolution phase. An exception to this is subs. They may
travel through any enemy occupied space when submerged except for
a PT Boat or destroyer.
Combat outcome is fixed. Each ship will do a given amount of damage
to any other ship. A handy damage matrix comes with the game. A
Carrier adds 1 point of damage when adjacent to a battle square
(presumably to simulate air support). When a ship has lost all
it's hit points it's sunk. A partially damaged ship may retreat to
a friendly-occupied city to repair damage (may be 1 or more turns).
Tactics becomes a game of cat and mouse. You must try to match your
ships against the enemys' which are least able to defend them, and
conversely keep your vulnerable ships protected against your enemy's
strengths. You need to do this while trying to anticipate what the
enemy may have lurking in a square just adjacent, but out of
sight. Of course you could move your Carrier up to find out, but
if that next square holds a couple of Battleships ....
-- Gameplay and Impressions --
"Easy to learn, difficult to master." I'd say that's a pretty good
1-line summation of this game. I like strategy games, but I'm not
into the overly complex Avalon Hill-type war game where each piece
has a bazillion variables that you need to account for. It's too
abstract for me and I don't have the time or inclination to get into
them. This game is easily learned, has a fairly nice user interface
and a very suprising amount of depth. I like it a _lot_.
This game probably begs for a comparison with THE PERFECT GENERAL.
I have both. I like THE LOST ADMIRAL more. One of the things
that kept me going longer with this game is that your created alter-
ego grows in rank across scenarios giving you a greater sense of
accomplishment. Also (a _big_ also for me), the computer AI is
very good. If you prefer head-to-head modem combat, then THE
PERFECT GENERAL may be more your cup of tea.
According to the manual: "Handicapping as well as AI
changes occur at the higher difficulty levels." To me this is a
good sign -- I much prefer the AI to get better than handicapping,
but realize the difficulty in AI prgramming in this type of
game. All I can say is that at around level 5 - 6, the computer
gets pretty challenging and if there's any handicapping going on
at those levels I haven't noticed it. CIVILIZATION by MicroProse
was a game I really was hooked on for a while, but once I realized
that the higher levels merely gave the computer a bigger handicap,
I quickly lost interest in it. This was not the case for me with
THE LOST ADMIRAL.
If you're looking for great graphics, look elsewhere. This game is
just EGA. You will find better graphics in THE PERFECT GENERAL.
But, if you're looking for a solid strategy game that's easy to
learn, has great depth and balance, a nice intuitive interface,
and a great computer opponent, then I can highly recommend this
game. There are many options that I haven't touched on in this
review (weather conditions, random city start, campaign objectives
to name a few), but suffice to say that such options exist which
enhance the replay value of this game. This is one of the few
games which _stays_ on my hard disk.
This review copyright (c) 1992 by Ed Goldman. All rights reserved.
Carriers at War by Strategic Studies Group
Reviewed by Hwei Yin
This is a detailed review of the SSG game, Carriers at War (Keating and
Trout). A summary is provided for those who are not fanatical enough to
read the entire review. This is a preliminary review -- I've played only
two games in the week I've had the game (both decisive victories: Japan at
Coral Sea and US at Pearl Harbor). I've played the old Apple ][e version
extensively.
Summary:
Excellent wargame simulating carrier warfare in the Pacific. Decent
graphics enhance feel and excitement, but combat graphics can get
obtrusive. Very realistic, with as much detail as most people will ever
need. Enemy AI can challenge experienced players and can totally trash
inexperienced players. Interface, considering complexity, excellent,
although there are a few annoyances. Minor, ignorable gripes for extreme
fanatics. Considering the complexity taken into account, very easy to
learn if someone shows you, although the first person learning may require
a some work. Carrier warfare has a spy-novel sort of feel, with the
majority of the time spent in a hide and seek game of calculation and
risk-taking that climaxes in brief but extremely devastating combat. From
what I've heard, this game is far better than any competing effort.
Similar, but much slicker than the earlier version.
Overall Configuration of Game:
The current version only allows the players to play historical battles or
minor variations on them. These variants are selected from the "War Room"
facility, and can be randomized. Only Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway,
Santa Cruz, Eastern Solomons, and the Marianas Turkey Shoot are
represented. Surface actions, such as Leyte Gulf, are not represented.
Players take the role of specific admirals or land based commanders. The
computer can control any excess commands.
The CAW interface is based on a game clock. The clock is frozen when
players give orders. When everyone is done, the clock is restarted,
ticking off 5 minute intervals. The clock continues until a player calls
for a break, stops the clock, and gives new orders. Thus, rather than
giving orders in set time intervals, orders are given upon the occurance
of specific events. There is no modem option, so players must trade off
using the computer one at a time.
Orders and info are given through a hierarchical menu system, although
there are a few important displays that can only be accessed through the
MAC-like pull-down menus.
Ships are organized into task groups, several of which can be assigned to
one commander.
While the clock runs, players watch events unfold, breaking whenever they
feel that orders need to be changed. Events include enemy sightings and
combat reports. Gasps, cheers, and groans occur during combat, as players
watch specific ships attempt to dodge attacks.
Search:
The most important aspect of carrier warfare is that you have access to
very little information about the enemy.
Search craft and subs are not explicitly controlled, although their
progress can be monitored. This makes handling search much less of a
headache; however, there is loss of control in search density and exact
search paths. You can at least know what has been scanned by careful
monitoring of search craft and weather fronts, and with experience it
becomes much less of a problem.
The sightings can contain a good deal of inaccuracy. It is now possible
to mistake friendly task groups for enemy and to get the location of the
enemy wrong. Reports on the composition of enemy groups are highly
unreliable, but this is made moot by the excessive information available
through other means.
Availability of Information:
One problem introduced in this version is that there is excess information
about the enemy available. Combat displays, while exciting, show exactly
which ships are being attacked and how many hits they suffer, although the
extent of the damage is usually difficult to tell. You can also pull up a
roster listing ALL enemy ships, thus eliminating the "how many carriers?"
uncertainty present in the war. The tech service people say there is no
way to turn these features off.
Strangely enough, it's very hard to get information about friendly task
groups not under your control. You see a bunch of plots out there, and
you know what ship is the flag of each, but you can't get a listing of the
ships belonging to it. The solution is to save and restart the game
controlling everything, then to return with the knowlege gained. Most
people (not in a hurry) would much rather control everything on their side
all the time.
Weather can only be accessed while you are giving orders -- you cannot see
it develop while the game clock is running. This is annoying since you
have to continually stop it just to see if the squall you're hiding under
has moved away.
Managing Ships:
The system for moving ships is extremely intuitive. Although the map
appears to be analog, it seems to be divided into hexagonal units, with
each unit being equivalent to 20 naut miles. The clear, simple interface
lets you steer toward any particular target or toward a random location in
the middle of the sea, and allows you to link up with other task groups
without hassle. True fanatics, however, will be bothered by the fact that
there is no coordinate system, so finding a precise spot in open sea is
difficult -- this is important when you wish to position ships in-between
small gaps in enemy air coverage. It is important to note that carriers
freeze their location when strikes are launched so that planes know where
to return to.
Surface combat is a lot of fun, although realism may be suspect. The
screen is divided into horizontal distance zones: the configuration and
heading of ships within a zone is not accounted for. Thus, formations can
only close or open the range: "crossing the T" is not possible. There is
none of the confusion (especially at night) that dominated many of the
famous surface engagements -- instead, we are faced with a straight-out
slugfest. Once again, too much information about the enemy is available
as you know the number, type, and range of enemy ships approaching. None
of this is supposed to matter in a battle dominated by carriers, although
a surface engagement has happened in both battles I fought.
Managing Planes:
The interface for managing aircraft is, in a word, wonderful. Squadrons
are chosen directly from the display showing their status on the airfield,
thus eliminating the need for seperate status and orders displays. A very
slick combat air patrol system allows the player to precisely control
patrol intensity and timing with no clumsy shuffling of squadrons and
orders. Massive strike orders can be sent on a squadron-by-squadron basis
in only a few seconds of mouse clicking. You cannot explicitly control
the type of weapons placed on aircraft, but this has yet to become a
problem. Skill level is assigned to individual pilots (they even
considered naming the pilots).
Running the Clock:
As noted before, the clocks ticks off five minute intervals. You can stop
it manually or use specific predetermined events as breakpoints. Air
attacks on ships appear on the screen and show attacks on individual ships
from small groups of aircraft. Surface combat also appears, showing the
results of each ship's salvo. Although exciting, this can get real
tedious -- imagine an air attack in the Phillipine Sea handled five planes
at a time or Pearl Harbor's Battleship Row attacking Nagumo one salvo at a
time. Fortunately, most engagements are not on this colossal scale,
preventing five minutes of game time from exceeding five minutes of real
time.
Realism:
In addition to the comments above, there are many other subtle factors
that probably won't matter to the average player. Damage control and
management is much improved over the old CAW, with fire damage
differentiated from structural damage, in addition to the scuttling
option. Morale and fatigue are no longer visible as factors -- it is not
clear if they are still taken into account. Fatigue is an important
deterrant to keeping planes in alert status all day long or launching
multiple strikes with the same men. Operational hazards exist, but seem to
be minimal. You can maintain large CAP's in miserable weather without
much problem, and you can go charging about at 35 knots in the middle of
the night without risk of collision. It is possible that in the few games
I've played I've simply been very lucky.
There are many wonderful factors taken into account by this game -- if I
had played weaker games I would probably notice them more, but as it is,
it is all too easy to take them for granted. Kamikazes, tanker refueling,
bombardment, aircraft base transfers, submarine attacks, strafing, weather
patterns, and a host of other factors are taken into account without any
effect on the easy interface.
The "War Room" is a facility designed to introduce variability into the
historical scenarios. It seems to screw around with the number of ships
involved and their timing, although much of this uncertainty is lost (as
described earlier). I haven't seen any changes radical enough to offset
prior knowledge about the battle; however, I've only played the game
twice. It would be nice if they also included scenarios where carriers
COULD have played a major role (such as Wake Island, many situations
around Guadalcanal, or Leyte Gulf).
The second half of the manual includes a rather nice summary of the naval
war in the Pacific (old news to fanatics).
Tactics:
The computer player, in the two games I've run, has been very
conservative and unwilling to take risks great enough to surprise or be
unpredictable. This evaluation, of course, is in danger of being quite
premature since I've only run two games. The computer is more than good
enough to completely hammer the unwary; however, the computer is efficient
and even experienced players must keep on their toes. I complete this
review with some brief advice for newcomers.
Despite the vastness of the ocean, you do not have the freedom to go
anywhere you want. Learning the ranges of various aircraft is important -
-- these combined with the location of airfields create the "terrain" for
a particular scenario. This terrain manifests itself as zones that have
varying degrees of risk for detection or attack. Three important factors
can nullify this terrain: weather, nightfall, and, of course, enemy
carriers.
Your most important objective is to destroy the carriers without getting
yourself annihilated in the process. To do this, you must surprise them
by guessing where they're going to be and being in an unpredictable place
yourself. The games I've played have thus been characterized by wild
running around during the night (as people try to fool each other)
followed by storm chasing and prayer during the day (as they try to find
each other). If you're lucky enough to get any information at all about
the enemy, you must guess where he's going to go and position yourself
accordingly. If you're Japanese, you're usually blessed with extra range
on your planes, allowing you to attack without being attacked yourself. I
also am fond of diversionary action to try and fool the other player about
my intentions, but not everyone needs to do this.
Carriers at War is well worth the money. I do not know how well it will
go over with people who have no previous interest in the period, but I do
know that it is a prayer answered for fans of the genre. Good luck -- God
knows you need it in this game.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Hwei Yin. All rights reserved.
Editor Note: Again, with a very popular arcade game like Gods from Konami,
we are pleased to present more than one opinion on the game. Enjoy both
view-points.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gods by Konami Reviewed by Ian Mercado
Capsule Review:
Gods is a pure-adrenalin game where the object is to find your way out of
several different levels while killing every enemy in sight. Many
treasures can be found which give the player extra weapons and powers to
aid in the quest. Also, many brain-teasing puzzles exist which may or may
not need to be solved in order to complete the quest. An absolute must-
have game for any arcade/action gaming enthusiast.
Overall Rating
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³***************************************************************³
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
(Yes, that's a ten!)
Full Review:
Let's face it. Pure arcade/action games made for the PC are tough to
find. Game manufacturers seem to think that since we PC owners have spent
so much money on our computers, that we won't be satisfied with mere shoot
'em ups. This mentality is apparent when one notices the sheer dominance
of adventures, flight simulations and sports simulations in the PC gaming
arena. Fortunately for those of us who thrive on the kill-or-be-killed
mentality, Konami has bucked the trend with their latest offering, Gods.
Gods is a creation of the Bitmap Brothers, well known in the PC
arcade/action community for producing such worthy offerings as Xenon II
and Speedball (neither of which any self-respecting action gaming
enthusiast should be without). The "brothers" continue to pave their path
of high quality action games with their release of Gods.
In a nutshell, Gods falls into an age-old arcade genre: explore levels,
climb ladders, kill monsters without being killed, find treasures, and,
oh, please don't forget to kill that big bad guy at the end of the level.
If this isn't your kind of game, then skip to the next review. What makes
Gods so special is how it goes above and beyond all that. Stunning
graphics and animation (see included screen shot) help set it apart from
your average PC game. Add to that good sound effects and a musical intro
that I STILL enjoy hearing even after playing the game all the way through
to its end. Now you've got a game which is truly unique in the PC world.
But wait, there's more...much more...
The (thin) storyline behind Gods is that a citadel has been stolen from
the gods by the four Guardians of the ancient city. Any man who can
defeat the four guardians will be granted any wish from the gods. Our
hero, sensing opportunity, requests that he be made immortal if he
succeeds in the gods' quest. You play the part of the adventurer, guiding
him through the ancient city filled with evil enemies hoping to thwart you
as you attempt to complete your impossible quest.
The universe of Gods contains four levels, each consisting of several
"worlds" you must complete, with a big bad meanie that you'll have to
defeat at the end of the last "world" of each level. You start out the
game with a certain amount of health that is decreased whenever you get
shot, collide with an enemy, fall too far, or do any other action which
may be hazardous to your well-being. When your health runs out, you lose
one of your limited number of lives; but don't fret, there are plenty of
opportunities to replenish your health and increase your number of extra
lives. You also have the opportunity to purchase extra health and weapons
from a merchant at the end of certain worlds using gems you find scattered
throughout as currency.
Weapons abound in the worlds of Gods. First you'll be introduced to the
knives. Don't worry, there's no hand-to-hand combat here. All your
weapons are of the type which are fired from your person across the screen
at your enemies. As you progress through the level, you'll find other
weapons laying around such as throwing stars, fireballs, a lightning bolt,
axes and spears to name but a few. Each weapon has different throwing
characteristics and a different amount of power. For example, the
throwing stars will following an arc trajectory as if they were being
affected by the pull of gravity while the knives and spears will travel in
a straight line without being affected by the pull of gravity. Spears are
very powerful and can kill most opponents with one strike, but it takes
several strikes from a knife to kill most all of the enemies. You can
throw up to three of each weapon at a time, mixing weapons as you please,
although use of some weapons precludes use of some others. When you fire,
every available weapon on your person is used, making for an impressive
looking array of firepower on some of the later levels.
There are plenty of beasts to kill in the ancient city. Gargoyles,
trolls, bee-hives, and plenty of others which are beyond description live
within. Some of them fire at you, some will jump all over the level in
order to attack you, some fly, some run, etc., etc., etc. The main point
to grasp here is that there is a wide variety of enemies to kill, so you
will never get bored with shooting at the same enemy type over and over
again. As you progress through the ancient city, you will find that the
enemies become harder and harder to kill, requiring you to find or
purchase better and stronger weapons.
Also scattered throughout the city, you will find gems, keys, treasure
chests, extra lives, and many other assorted items to aid you in your
quest. Some items increase your health, some add to your score, some
increase your mount of currency. Keys can be used to open doors and
treasure chests; different colored keys only work on certain doors and
certain chests. There are also other special items you may find, such as
gems which will teleport you to other parts of the level or items which
will control the spread of your weapon firing (from concentrated to wide-
angle). You can also receive special bonuses for completing parts of
levels in a certain amount of time or get extra health out of the blue
when your character is about to perish.
And if you're still not impressed, there exist many secret puzzles which
can be solved in order to gain extra treasures and bonuses. Sometimes
these puzzles involve picking up items and taking them to other places in
the world, sometimes they involve switching levers in a certain order.
While the completion of some puzzles are required in order to complete a
world, many are entirely optional, and there are many places left in the
game where I have seen treasures but not figured out how to get to them
(even though I've won the game).
With all these different things going on, Gods will be sure to hold your
interest throughout the entire game. Even after you win, you will want to
play again and again to see if you can uncover some secret trick or find
some hidden room that you didn't find before. There are many treasures
and tricks in the game which I haven't even mentioned in the review; half
the fun is finding them for yourself. Finishing the game is no simple
task, either, and you can be sure it will take many days worth of intense
enemy destruction before you finally destroy the fourth guardian (and let
me warn you ahead of time, HE IS TOUGH!!). Passwords are given out after
you complete each level allowing you to start the game from the beginning
of the next level whenever you re-enter the program. Also, when you die
on a world, your character is reborn at the last "position of rebirth" you
crossed over. This avoids giving you that familiar headache when you
realize you must restart an entire world which took you 45 minutes to get
through the first time.
Requiring less than 1.2 megabytes of your hard disk space, Gods is a
welcome relief from most of today's disk hogging games (Wing Commander II
and Falcon 3.0 both immediately come to mind, requiring well over 10 meg
apiece). For as much enjoyment the game provides and as little space it
takes, Gods is a must-have for any arcade/action gaming enthusiast.
Individual ratings: (1-Worthless 5-Average 10-Outstanding)
Overall : 10
Playability : 9
Graphics Quality : 10
Sound Quality : 8
This review copyright (c) 1992 by Ian Mercado. All rights reserved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
GODS by Konami
Reviewed by Steve Mayo
GODS is the latest game by the Bitmap Brothers, and like all of the other
games by the development group, GODS is sure to be a winner. There is a
little of everything in GODS, achieving a perfect balance of puzzle
solving and killing evil monsters.
The premise is fairly simple; The gods have a problem with an ancient
city and offer any reward that the hero wants to eliminate all of the
evil monsters that have taken up residence in the city. Hercules steps
forward and announces that he wants to become a god himself if he does the
deed for them. The gods are sorry they made the promise, but decide to
honor their word. This is where the game begins. At the beginning of
the game, Hercules enters the city bare-handed and this is where the
journey begins.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
On the IBM PC, the graphics are drawn on the MCGA (320x200x256c) screen.
This allows the game to run very fast, while not sacrificing speed when
there are lots of objects on the screen. The animation is very fluid, but
not quite as good as the Prince of Persia's. Sound support is limited to
the Soundblaster, Adlib and PC speaker. The introduction has a fairly
long digitized song, but the game sounds are somewhat limited in that
there are only sound effects and no background music.
CONTROLS
The game can either be controlled with the keyboard or the joystick. I
found both to work equally well, however, there is not a utility that
allows for joystick calibration or the remapping of the control keys.
GAME PLAY
The game is divided into four major areas which are called worlds. Each
world is further sub-divided into three levels. There is a password
utility that allows you to continue from the beginning of any world that
you reach. At the end of each world there is a "boss" which must be
defeated before advancement to the next world is permitted. There are two
ways to defeat each boss, and easy way and a hard way. The hard way
involves using brute force and shooting at the creatre. The easy way
requires that the player solve certain puzzles and figure out the "trick"
to winning quickly and easily.
Puzzles are divided into two major groups: advancement and reward. The
advancement puzzles are typically the "find-the-key" type, however there
are several advancement puzzles that require the hero to take certain
objects to specific locations. Reward puzzles are mainly dependant on
finding a secret door or pulling a set of levers in a given order.
When enemies are destroyed they explode to reveal treasure and points.
Collecting treasure allows Hercules to buy more effective weapons and
armor at several points in the game. Weapons vary in effects, and all
have a power level associated with them. For example, a dagger will
injure one enemy, while a spear will pass through the enemy and damage
others that might be on the other side of him. Hercules has the ability
to wield several weapons at once; He can hurl axes and throw fireballs
simultaneously. Part of the fun of the game is discovering which weapons
are effective against each enemy.
There are three major enemy types: grunts, flying and robbers. Grunts
attack the player wherever he is, and will follow him forever if not
destroyed. The flying creatures are similar to the grunts, except they
tend to be much more difficult to destroy as the actively evade your
shots. The most interesting enemies are the robbers. These monsters have
the ability to pick up and move items found in the game. There are
several puzzles in the game that involve trihelping you, by leaving them
alone. The robber will eventually find his way to an area that the
player cannot get to and pick up a needed item. The robber can then be
destroyed and the otherwise unobtainable item can thus be taken.
The game has an artificial intelligence routine that sense how good the
player is and adjust the level of difficulty accordingly. For example, if
a player is doing poorly and near death, the game will usually give you
an extra life or a health bonus.
For better players, the game rewards the
player with speed, health and score bonuses.
INSTALLATION, COPY PROTECTION AND DOCUMENTATION
The installation program is very easy to use, and will copy all of the
game files to your hard disk. The game can also be played from floppies,
however, you lose sound support. The game requires about 3 megabytes of
space when fully de-compressed.
Copy protection takes the form of a single sheet of black in on maroon
paper. This is fairly innocuous as the game only asks for you to look up
a four digit once. I have been told that the UK version requires you to
keep a key-disk in the floppy drive at the start of the game.
The documentation is fairly detailed and gives the beginner several very
useful hints and strategy for gameplay. The manual briefly touches on the
different types of weapons, but there are a lot that are left out, forcing
the player to discover what works best.
RECOMMENDATIONS
I would highly recommend this game to anyone that likes action puzzle
solving games. I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and played it non-stop for
about a month. There is a lot of game here for your money. There are
lots of puzzles that are missed on the first time through the game. The
automatic difficulty selection routine makes the game very playable and
challenging for a long time.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Steve Mayo. All rights reserved.
CONFLICT: KOREA by SSI
Author - Norm Kroger
Reviewed by Sir Launcelot Du Lake
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Processor - 286, 386, 486
RAM - 640 KB
Graphics - CGA, EGA, VGA
Sound - No soundcard support, only beeps from PC speaker
HDD space - 2 MB should be sufficient, including save games
Norm Kroger continues with the engine he first developed in Red Lightning,
and subsequently improved for Conflict: Middle East, in this, an
operational level simulation of the Korean War. In addition to covering
the first year of that conflict between 25 June 1950 to 22 May 1951, there
is a hypothetical scenario which sees hostilities resuming between the two
Koreas in 1995.
INTERFACE
The game is played on a superb VGA map of the Korean peninsula. Gone is
the ugly hex grid that overlaid the map in Conflict: Middle East (although
you can put it on if you so wish). Commands are completely menu and mouse
driven. Detailed information on units are brought up by simply clicking
on the unit icons.
DOCUMENTATION
The manual is fairly comprehensive on the game mechanics and options. A
complete orders of battle of land and air units for each scenario is given
at the end. For those grognads who are mathematically inclined,
appendixes of the algorithms used are also given. Kroger also gives notes
on various design decisions that he took. The history of the war was,
however, glossed over. A commentary on the conflict would, I am sure, be
appreciated by wargamers and added to the otherwise more than adequate
documentation.
GAMEPLAY
Four scenarios can be played, taking either side. The first three are
based on the historical conflict - The Dragon Wakes (Jun 1950 - Jun 1951),
starting with the invasion of South Korea by the North Korean People's
Army; Operation Chromite (Sep 1960 - Jun 1951), re-enacting MacArthur's
inspired Inchon landings and the Pusan perimeter break-out; and Cold Steel
(Nov 1950 - Jun 1951), showcasing the massive intervention by the Chinese
People's Liberation Army. The final scenario, Tomorrow's War, has the
NKPA pushing south in 1995 when the US is heavily involved elsewhere and
plays a limited role (although the presence of USAF, USN, and USMC air
units more than make up for the absence of land forces).
Players control regimental, brigade, and division-size units, and these
can be combined into corps and army level units. New names can be given
to the combined units, or even existing units. The air war can be turned
over to the computer, though I feel few wargamers would do this (grin).
Players define missions like air superiority, ground attack, and
interdiction to individual air groups and wings. There are five levels of
difficulty which can be set or made random, with Challenging being the
default whereby both sides recovery rates are even. Even at this level,
the computer AI is no pushover. One no longer sees things like over-
-aggression to the point of destroying whole units, the AI is more likely
to go around units to cut-off supply than simply head-butting them. CPLA
intervention can be set to fixed or historical, with the latter having a
measure of uncertainty as to whether or not the Chinese will intervene
once UN forces have crossed the 38th parallel.
Aside from the usual terrain, exhaustion, logistics, etc. factors which
players have to consider, the effects of refugees clogging the roads,
communist guerrillas, and mine warfare have been added to make the
simulation that much more realistic.
STRATEGY
1950s - The UN player must give ground to the advancing NKPA hordes
initially as he is in no position to make a respectable defence line.
Republic of Korea troops should be used to screen the NKPA advance, with
reinforcements digging in to set a stand around Taejon and Taegu. Do not
commit US units immediately after they arrive or they'll be destroyed
piecemeal. Wait for reinforcements and let the NKPA run themselves
ragged. Judicious use of air interdiction missions will expediate this.
It may be nice to see your air units blast NKPA corps, but interdiction
will do far worse to the enemy. Once the US 1st Marine Division arrives,
set an amphibious invasion at Inchon (as was done historically) and
proceed to cut off the NKPA supply lines. The entire NKPA army may then
be trapped in South Korea, allowing the reinforced UN units to mop them
up. When advancing into North Korea, the UN player must be prepared to
form a solid defence line quickly if it encounters the CPLA.
The Communist player must push south in all haste quickly before
the UN digs in. If he can break the line at Pusan, victory will be
assured. If not, as much as half the troops should withdraw to the 38th
parallel to draw the UN forces to invade North Korea. Then pray for
Chinese intervention.
1995 - For the UN, Seoul should be contested as fiercely as possible until
US reinforcements arrive. UN airpower is supreme in this scenario and
can do much damage. One should neutralize the North Korean air force as
quickly as possible, then destroy his supply with interdictions.
Airstrikes on units can be given when necessary. Do not think for a
moment that the modern ROK forces can easily contain the NKPA. In many
ways, this scenario is tougher than the 1950s scenarios.
The Communist player should attack ROK units massively to ensure
advance. A prime objective is Seoul and the cities around it. If they
can be captured and held, victory will be achieved. The east coast should
not be forgotten, or arriving US units will smash through. This scenario
basically pits NKPA numbers versus UN firepower.
CONCLUSION
This is a highly enjoyable game with an easy interface and many factors to
consider when planning strategy. A minor infraction was the absence of
any sound effects except for beeps. Digitized sounds of artillery fire,
the scream of jets, bomb blasts etc. could have added some icing to the
cake. Nevertheless, a worthy third effort from Norm Kroger. Perhaps he
might do a simulation of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam next? or the
1982 Falklands War?
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Sir Launcelot Du Lake. All rights
reserved.
Operation Fighting Tiger
(Expansion disk, requires Falcon 3.0)
Spectrum Holobyte
List $49.95 (discount ~$25)
Reviewed by David Masten
on a 386/33 + SB + WCS + CH Flightstick.
Okay, I wasn't going to get OFT. After a kazillion hours of play, I had my
fill of Falcon 3.0 (F3). Patch D was just too much with its super
opponents, less effective missiles and radar, and the world's production
of Soviet aircraft greeting you each flight. Don't get me wrong, F3 is
the best combat flight sim. Correction, the best is F3.01/OFT. Bottom
line: it addresses enough of my gripes that my obsession with F3 is
renewed. I'm glad I got it.
For the few unfamiliar with F3, it is the hottest flight sim around. You
control the F16A multi-role fighter in a dynamic campaign environment, (or
in an arcade mode shootout, or a most comprehensive mission designer).
Spectrum Holobyte aimed to provide the player with the most realistic and
complex simulation of flight, weapons, radars and combat. For the most
part they succeed. But even after 3 patches, some bugs and modeling
errors remained. OFT expands the game with new theaters, new features,
and yet more fixes. For those on a budget, SH plans to release the fixes
as 'patch E'. I don't know which, if any, of the new features will also
be included. For the rest of the review I'll assume you are familiar with
F3 patch D.
What's new ========== Most will be attracted to OFT by the three new
theaters: Japan/Kurile Islands (vs Russia), Pakistan/India, and Korea. I
was most drawn by the mod which allows campaign difficulty to be set. Now
I get to enjoy all the theaters! Campaigns become quite winnable on the
'easy' setting as you not only face less opposition, but you get more
frequent resupply.
Second on my list of reasons to buy is the 130+ page manual. Wonder why
you 'failed' missions when you downed 12 planes? Wonder what formation,
weapons, or tactics to use? It's all here, plus greater background on the
new theaters, planes, radars, and many tables on various performance
parameters. It's all the F3 Air Combat guide should have been.
Practically worth the $$ on its own.
About the new planes and weapons. Many are only seen in the Japan
campaign which also adds 'Rules Of Engagement'. The ROE is a cute
addition as you may, for a short time, have various levels of hostility.
Anyway, new planes include the Mig31, Mirage2000, F5, Jaguar, an unmanned
fighter, and a few variants of other planes. The Mig31 comes with the
especially potent AA9. To counter, you have the FSX, the proposed
Japan/US version of the F16 flown in the Japan theater only. It has
greater power, larger fuel and ordnance loads, carries new weapons, and is
reportedly more rugged. Performance isn't much different and it looks the
same. So other than range and ordnance, I doubt you'll notice much
difference. The main new weapon is the Harpoon ship attack missile, and
its associated SEA mode radar, available only on the FSX.
To go with the new theaters, there are new targets (different ships,
trains, hovercraft), new enemy SAMs, AA missiles, and radar types.
Also added are many new mission types, and three action commands. You can
now designate antiship (Japan), Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD, or
'Wild Weasel') missions, and SEAD Ship. Alas, they aren't available in
Red Flag. New mission types include naval attack, beach assault, SEAD,
protect/attack AWACS, train assault, and a bevy of others.
Graphically, the color palette is now much more lush. The F16 look has
changed slightly. Night now looks like night (even your padlock will not
ID planes till they are closer). And, oh yes, the SH logo and title
screen are much prettier :-).
Three new flight commands were added, 'return to base', and 'close/spread
formation'.
Quite a few new digitized voice comments were added. I love 'em.
What was fixed ==============
Copter flight models. They now fly reasonably, if a tad slow.
Pilot rating 'overflow'.
AGM and GBU range to target.
AAA is now operable in Red Flag.
You no longer get kills credited for non-fatal hits.
F16 performance with autopilot is now the same as in manual flight
(complex mode). I think this also impacts wingmen and enemies. If so,
they will no longer easily outclimb or leave you sucking exhaust.
What is improved ================
Your missile's performance. I'm hitting on about 50% with 'low' missile
effectiveness, even with AMRAAMs. It makes a big difference.
ECM and countermeasure effectiveness have also been improved. I survive
SAM attacks more often.
Mission recap is enhanced (reason for failure, and # of friendly planes
downed). It would be nice if they also mentioned how many enemies were
downed by CAP flights.
Computer selected CAP aircraft now make sense (F14s, and F15s rather than
A4s).
Less random plane crashes in RF. I now see the escorts in Review 2.
ILS function. They've added a 'directional' option to go with the
existing 'beacon' mode.
Enemy radars are now visible on the TWI while in search mode, not just
when they lock you up. Now you can fire that HARM before they fire a SAM.
Medal awarding is now reasonable.
What wasn't fixed =================
The F16 flight model (except the aforementioned autopilot-manual flight
discrepancy). The complex mode still lets you steep climb to supersonic,
and max G's are altitude invariant. And now it lets you pull from +9.9
to -9.9 G's. The last has little impact as you still black out at the
same G's.
Non-F16 flight models (except copters). Not too sure of this as some
enemy planes still seem to fly too well, like the Mig19 (and Mig25?). But
others respond more reasonably.
The overly sensitive control in hifi flight. I'd love to use it, but it's
too much of a hassle with my CH Flightstick. And if you do use it, the
enemy planes have the advantage of the better performance allowed in their
'complex' flight model.
Radar locking problems in HFR. It is still much harder to get a lock than
with SAM mode. You may not think it's a bug, but I figure I would be able
to maintain a lock on a plane 0.3 mi directly in front of me. Also,
forget trying to get an HFR lock on copters.
Fuel management. You still incorrectly have greater range if you fly low
and/or fast. Tables included in the manual verify this, yet the text
twice mentions fly high and slow to conserve fuel.
New problems ============
I get more hangs (post mission, ACMI) and glitches (pre-mission screen
graphics, scroll-lock HUD screwup) than before. But nothing cata-
strophic, yet. Expect to still get occasional strange happenings, like
ACMI replays that don't concur with the flight.
Unfortunately the new action commands, and some of the new planes, are
unavailable in RF.
A minor point, the nukes and refineries now seem invincible in RF. Are
they so in campaigns?
They added cruise missiles, but they seem to be unpowered and are useless.
Others ======
GBUs only lock within 5.5 mi independent of altitude. SEA radar targets
to 80 mi, independent of altitude. Most of the new planes' radars differ
with the text. I haven't been able to get the standoff attacks, described
in great detail in the manual, to work in RF. Admittedly, these are small
points. But I often find that the manual and game do not jibe. Makes
me wonder how much else that they claim to model is, in fact, not.
Overall? Well, my list of changes is by no means complete. The game not
only gives new scenarios, but adds depth while making the whole package
much more playable. Yet, it still leaves this F3 addict wanting more. My
remaining beefs are the enemy flight models, HFR lockup difficulty, and
hifi stick sensitivity. I would like to see even less opponent flights
than generated in easy campaign mode (my flights averaged about 5
kills/mission). And how about a scenario where, for once, you have an
overwhelming advantage? But as it stands, OFT is still way ahead of the
pack in depth, sophistication, and realism. This product is much more
enhanced than I expected, and offers great value. If you are an F3
fanatic, what are you waiting for?
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Dave Masten. All rights reserved.
Mike Ditka's Ultimate Football by Accolade
Reviewed by Chris Alevras
Game Type: Sporting Simulation
Controls: Keyboard, Mouse & Joystick(s).
Graphics: VGA 256 Colors.
Sound: PC speaker, Adlib, Soundblaster, Roland MT32/LAPC1,
Thunderboard, Tandy 3 Voice.
Options review was played with: Keyboard, PC speaker and VGA 256.
Recommendation: Play with joystick and a sound card.
"..... and its the 4th down with the defense having possession on their
own 2nd yard line. The atmosphere is electric, and in the 4th quarter
the scores are locked at 14-10 in favor of the offense. With just over a
minute to go, the teams have selected their plays and... it seems that
the defense is going to punt the ball. Well dear viewers, let me tell
you that the defense is going to lose the match unless sweet Jesus
himself comes down to assist the defending team. But the whistle has
gone: the Quarterback gets the ball while the offending team (excuse the
pun) rushes forward and... HOLD ON A MINUTE - ITS A FAKE PUNT!! The
Q'back gives a wild pass to No. 45 and... HE TAKES IT!!! LOOK at him
run - he's already on the 25-yard line and blazing down the field......"
No, this isn't a broadcast of the XIV Super Bowl, but one of the matches
you will get engrossed in while playing MIKE DITKA ULTIMATE FOOTBALL.
And if you think the above is an only highlight of the game, there is a
surprise installed for you.
Once starting the game, I was very impressed. The speech was very clear,
the introductory screens show nice color-digitized pictures of various
highlights and players from the sport - even Mr. Ditka himself. The in-
game graphics range from good to excellent: very detailed, clear, crisp,
pleasing to the eye, and I am happy to say, there is no color-clashing
whatsoever occurring during any stage of the game.
As for the options of the game, sit tight: they ARE BEWILDERING!!!
Briefly mentioned, there are options for:
* Single or Demonstration game, Season league or Playoffs ;
* Practice skills, Resume Game, League construction set ;
* 1 or 2 players; Play, Coach a side or both ;
* Select game time - anywhere from 3 to 15 mins. ;
* In-game parameters: from fatigue to fumbles;
* Passing difficulty: from Beginner to Pro ;
* Change team statistics and colors (home AND away - you can make some
WEIRD combinations there) ;
* Playbook and line-up formation editor ;
* Replays of individual plays ;
* Various Camera Angles ;
* Detail level and Game speed for slower computers ;
and many more..!
But to the heart of the game. Constructed intelligently, and it is
fairly difficult to cheat without using some kind of editor. One example
is obvious: altering the players' statistics - adding to one skill will
subtract from the others - hence no SUPER TEAMS!!
Passing is also well done: A player is given a target area to run to JUST
before the ball is thrown, thus giving total control to the player and
leaving HIM to decide the best course of action. This is insofar the
best technique devised on passing the ball. There is enough skill
involved to satisfy the purists out there, while keeping the whole affair
simple enough for the most incompetent player to master.
As to the attack and defense formations, choosing them is as easy as
counting one's fingers. There is plenty of time to do this in, but
costly 5-yard penalties as a result of taking TOO much time will be given
(ironically, there's even an option for that as well!). Also, the play
displays are self- explanatory, which is good for anyone trying to fathom
or decipher the rules to this sport.
Unfortunately, there are also some not-so-good points to this game. Be
that because of carelessness from the programmer(s) or just bugs, I will
leave it to public opinion. Firstly, the interceptions. They are rare
to begin with, but as soon as someone can spot the pattern, they can
almost become as easy to accomplish as "netting" a pass. As to this next
point, it may cause some debate. Now I cannot claim to be the world's
only expert in gridiron (as American football is more commonly known down
here), but I have NEVER seen an offending player run through a 3-
defending-player pack while holding the ball and come out through it
trundling down the pitch toward the touchdown line! (unless of course he
was an M1A1 tank transformed). Truth be told though, it doesn't happen
very often... but enough to drive Pee-Wee Herman through the wall if
that's all he had between the touchdown line and the ball!
As for improvements, there could have been some before the game was
shipped out (who knows, Accolade might even bring a patch out!). The
key-layout for the keypad and keyboard control options is definitely a
contender - the keys are too far apart or placed awkwardly for the hand.
Having to look down for the "pass" key while half of the opposing team is
about to pounce on you during the middle of a play is quite infuriating
(to put it mildly!). Also, passing to the wings during a "fake
kick/punt" play can make anyone pull their hair out. Although the
pointer is close to the player (thus running into it and completing the
pass would seem like a snap), when the ball is ACTUALLY thrown, the
pointer suddenly takes life and literally runs wild in front of the
receiving player (even Carl Lewis may have trouble catching up to it)! I
cannot fault Accolade for doing this to discourage continual use of this
play. Why? Because on the off chance of the receiver actually
completing the pass, there is a VERY high probability that he will score
a touchdown, no matter where he starts off from - the stuff that actual
legends are made off! But it would have been infinitesimally better if
the pointer actually stayed on one place as it usually would with other
plays - even if it was "miles" away from the receiving wingman. At least
then, the player could make his OWN mind up whether to risk the throw or
not, and not let the program trick you into a false sense of security.
Finally, the option to turn the sound and/or music off at the
introduction or the installation process of the game would have been very
welcome.
Overall, I found the game to be excellent simulation of the sport. I
enjoyed playing it very much, even though I find watching the real thing
a little boring (too many stops and starts for my liking). Playing
against another player is definitely recommended though. Things like 90-
yard gains or 30-yard passes will occur often if one is desperate or
risky enough. Besides, you sometimes even wonder where all the time has
gone to! And another welcome change: compared to other footy games, this
actually allows the player to use their grey matter on deciding
strategies and be definitely sneaky!! To sum up then, I can recommend
this wholeheartedly to anyone who may be after a decent gridiron game, or
even sport games in general for that matter. Happy scoring!
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Chris Alveras. All rights reserved.
Galactix by Cygnus Software
VGA Only
Adlib, Sound Blaster Support
286 (10MHz+) or better Recommended
Galactix, the first release from Cygnus software, is an example of a
arcade game which looks and sounds beautiful, but has serious problems
with gameplay. A great programming job is wasted on a game which is
mostly tedious.
The game starts as a (humorous) nightly news broadcast is interrupted by
a broadcast from an alien fleet which is about to attack Earth. You are
the only hope for the planet, and must pilot your heavily beweaponed
spaceship against wave after wave of attackers. There are several types
of enemy ships, which can absorb varying amounts of damage before
exploding. Occasionally a destroyed ship will leave behind weapons which
can be picked up in a claw that can be extended from your craft.
The documentation, a readme file, is short but adequate. It contains a
brief background of the game and a command summary which is all that is
needed to play the game. An installation program allows you to select a
sound card and an input device (keyboard, mouse, and joystick are
supported - a joystick is probably best), and saves your settings. Also,
note that the uncompressed program takes almost two megabytes, so
installation on a hard drive is probably necessary.
The graphics in this game are extremely well done. A VGA card is
necessary, and it is certainly well-used. Although the game does not
have terribly fast action, the scrolling is extremely smooth at all
times. The introduction contains some nice animation, and there is a
well-done graphic of a door which slams together between levels.
However, the best graphics are in the game itself. I never detected any
slowdown or jerkiness in the action no matter how many ships are on the
screen at once. At times, nearly a dozen attackers will be moving around
and firing, while the background of stars slides down the screen. The
graphics are as good as or better than any commercial IBM game.
The sound is also a treat. The introduction provides digitized sound for
those with a Sound Blaster (or SB Pro). The speech is not as clear as it
could be, but is certainly understandable. The soundtrack is beautiful.
A half-dozen original songs play at different points in the game,
including special music which plays in battles with special enemy ships.
Sound effects are also very nice, with neat sounds for all the weapons
and explosions.
However, and this is a very big however, the game just is not very
interesting. There are only three basic types of enemies, none of which
are terribly difficult to defeat. The enemies make no attempt to come
after your ship, they just fly aimlessly and fire randomly (although some
of them do have homing weapons). After a couple of games, it becomes
simple to evade their shots, and then it's just a matter of beating on
the opponents until they explode. Worse, once your ship collects more
powerful weapons, the game becomes obscenely easy. After you have all
the weapons you can (at level 15, unless you are damaged or make a
mistake), it will take as little as two seconds to complete a level.
Believe you me, watching the door open and close between levels becomes
dull very quickly when you have to watch it every couple of seconds.
Bombs are also far too deadly weapons - a couple seconds after a bomb is
launched, it explodes and all the bad guys, with the exception of some of
the special big enemies, are destroyed. By collecting bombs, it is
possible to just skip through the last thirty levels or so to get to the
final battle - practically all you have to do is press the 'b' key and
watch the door open and close for a few minutes. The only difficult
fight in the game is the last one, against the enemy home flagship. This
battle is extremely difficult, and if you lose, you have to play the
whole game over again.
Overall, Galactix is a disappointing game. It is obvious that the
programmers spent a lot of time on the graphics and sound, so it seems a
shame that the gameplay is so poor. Galactix is still probably worth
looking at, especially for owners of Adlib or Sound Blaster cards, and
since Galactix is Shareware, if you don't like it, simply delete it.
Hopefully Cygnus Software is developing new games which look and sound as
great and also are fun to play.
Remember - Shareware is NOT free. If you decide you like Galactix and
want to keep it, you must register it. The registration fee for Galactix
is $15, and registered users will receive a copy of the latest version of
Galactix. In addition, Cygnus Software pledges to donate one dollar from
each registration to help save the rain forests.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Game Bytes. All rights reserved.
First Looks! Pinball for Windows by Dynamix
"Ever since I was a young boy..." Those words still ring true today for
many of us computer gamers and yet there has been a kind of dearth for
good pinball games on the PC. All the way back into the mid 80's, EA
produced the Pinball Construction Set which, while successful, never
really addressed the needs of just pure players. I don't really want to
design tables, I just want to play the silver ball. Recently Amtex has
released a pinball game called Tristan Pinball, but we have yet to take
a look at it. From some preliminary observations though, Dynamix has
really got it on the right track with their soon-to-be-released, "Take-
A-Break: Pinball" game.
Pinball from Dynamix offers some very interesting features while main-
taining the real enjoyment of playing the game. Graphically, it's quite
stunning with full animated backglasses, very sophisticated digital sound
effects, and a choice of 5 different tabletops. You can choose which
thematic game you want to play from Leisure Suit Larry, Willie Beamish,
King's Quest, Nova 9, or Space Quest. Each different game has different
and unique playing fields, strategies and obstacles that you encounter,
so the replay value is quite high. It utilizes the Microsoft Windows
interface (it's a Windows app) so you can load up a game in the back-
ground and play when you're tired of your Excel spreadsheet. Windows
can be sized and moved according to your desires as well. For those with
Soundblaster cards, be prepared for a real treat for your audio palette.
There's plenty of very nifty sound effects and you'll never wonder again
why you bought a board with a DAC on it.
Pinball for Windows should begin shipping within a month.
This preview is Copyright (C) 1992 by Game Bytes. All rights reserved.
First Looks! King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow by Sierra On-Line
Wow! King's Quest 6 (KQ6) has finally arrived just now, and from the
initial look at it, this will probably be the biggest and grandest of all
of the King's Quest series (natch). Boasting an install size of over 16MB
this game should be on the hard disks of every serious adventurer.
Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen have really outdone themselves.
The storyline continues the saga of Daventry and King Graham and his
family, however, in this installment King Graham is not front and center.
We have a new protagonist, Prince Alexander who must follow his heart and
try to find and rescue his true love, Cassima. He sees her in a brief
vision in the family magic mirror (doesn't everybody have one?) and
decides immediately he must follow the vision and try to rescue her.
Using the stars he saw in the vision as his navigation, he sets off to
find the Land of the Green Isles where Cassima has been imprisoned.
There are plenty of surprises along the way and several ways to solve the
adventure. If you choose, a full 50% of the game is optional and need
not be solved to finish the game. This, of course, is not recommended
as you would miss much of the richness of the story, the well-crafted
puzzles and the incredible detail and beauty of the graphics. No more of
the story will be presented here - you'll have to get it and find out for
yourself, but suffice it to say that KQ6 represents a new landmark in
adventure games. And yes, Roberta has already said there would be a
King's Quest VII, but don't look for it until '94 at the earliest.
One final word of advice, - ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, AND WITHOUT _ANY_
HESITATION, DO _*NOT*_ MISS THE INTRODUCTORY CARTOON! It's truly
spectacular. One final note that should be made also, work is underway
casting voices right now for the CD-ROM version of King's Quest VI
which will fully utilize speech throughout the game. No text 'balloon'
boxes at all. Enjoy King's Quest VI, available now. A full review
will follow in a month or so.
This preview is Copyright (C) 1992 by Game Bytes. All rights reserved.
First Looks! Dark Sun: Shattered Lands by SSI
SSI, along with their partner TSR, has long been known for the line of
AD&D games that have set standards in this genre. For quite sometime
the "engine" that drove these computer-based versions of these games has
been left alone and only the storyline has changed. Well, now it's time
for the whole engine to be revamped. Dark Sun is the result of this
overhaul. This new 16-bit engine shows many playing advances such as the
ability to move in 8 directions, a much larger and more detailed world,
a very simple point-and-click interface and menus that are pull-down in
nature. The sound effects and music have also been completely redone and
are very specific according to the mood needed. The animation has also
been highly improved with over 25 frames per second which shows character
movement in a very realistic manner.
What isn't known yet is the relative value and complexity of the story-
line. The setting is a harsh desert universe ruled by tempermental
sorceror-kings. The 'world' is purportedly very large with hundreds of
square 'miles' of world to explore. The world is divided into several
different areas, each with its own king. Each area also has an arena
where those who rebel against the king will battle against various and
sundry monsters or other gladiators. Sounds like a party town!! In the
story, you will be sentenced to fight your life in the arena, only to
survive and find a way to escape to join with other escaped slaves and
create a rebel force to destroy the evil king's army.
The game also features over 200 different spells including psionics. The
game journal appears on the screen now and is updated as the story
progresses. The story is quite non-linear and is expected to last about
50-100 hours.
Dark Sun should begin shipping in early-to-mid November.
This preview is Copyright (C) 1992 by Game Bytes. All rights reserved.
First Looks! Commanche: Maximum Overkill
We can't offer a great deal of 'prose' yet regarding Maximum Overkill (MO)
because the project has just now gotten near completion and we haven't
received much more than a demo and some fantastic screen shots. However,
we can give you some impressions from the demo and from what we saw at
CES last spring early. FANTASTIC! The approach that Novalogic has taken
with this simulator is truly novel. The terrain and graphics are bit-
mapped in nature, yet they are not of the same nature of bitmap that
Origin has used with a game like Wing Commander. Using satellite-
derived LANSAT data, Novalogic creates a world where the world appears so
real, it's frightening. You will be able to fly down canyons, over
rivers, and over mountains that appear so real, there's a real suspension
of disbelief. The new Commanche attack chopper is the centerpiece of
this simulation and you have a full array of weaponry available to you as
you take on your opponents. What isn't known yet is the realism involved
with the enemy logic, the enemy forces or the campaign mode of any kind.
One would hope that this just isn't a showcase for marvelous graphics.
I happen to have faith in the people at Novalogic that it is much more
than that, afterall, they produced the very successful Wolfpack submarine
simulation several years ago. On my 386/20, the demo ran a tad jerky, so
it's easy to tell that this game will suck up as much performance as you
possibly have available. More and more motivation to take advantage of
this price war to enjoy this very rich simulators.
Commanche: Maximum Overkill will be availabe in early November.
This preview is Copyright (C) 1992 by Game Bytes. All rights reserved.
First Looks! Amazon by Access Software
For those of you who have been 'around' long enough, remember those
drive-in movies or Saturday afternoon flicks where the hero or heroine
was just about to meet his/her doom right before that commerical break or
before the next episode next week? The "B" movie, made famous in the '50s
is making an appearance on a monitor near you. Amazon, from Access,
captures the feel of these campy movies in a very playable computer
'adventure'. I use the word adventure loosely because the game is really
14 mini-adventures or 'chapters' as Access likes to call them, each ending
in a moment of great suspense. The cliffhanger hasn't really been util-
ized on the computer screen before yet Access has done a VERY admirable
job of recreating this forgotten film art.
The story goes something like this: You are Jason Roberts, peacefully
living your own life, when word comes to you that your brother, working
on a scientific research expedition deep in the Amazon jungle, ends up
missing along with the entire expedition team. Your brother's boss
calls you, you receive a mysterious package in the mail and your adventure
takes you to unexplored regions of the Amazon jungle. A word of warning
for the weak of will - there is a hint feature in Amazon that can really
spoil the fun if you use it too much, PLUS, if hints are used too much,
the ending of the game will change.
Amazon looks like great fun and has just started shipping.
This preview is Copyright (C) 1992 by Game Bytes. All rights reserved.
First Looks! Tegel's Mercenaries by Mindcraft
Tegel's Mercenaries is another one of those 'genre-busting' type of titles
that is hard to categorize. It's probably best described as a 'tactical
action wargame'. It bears very similar roots to Breach II which was
published by Omnitrend and Mindcraft some years back. In this game, after
you graduate from the military, you are approached by a suspicious, yet
very influential ex-general who makes an offer you can't refuse - command
your own group of mercenaries on special missions that even the military
doesn't know about. You'll receive a lavish budget to buy the best
soldiers that work for hire. You'll work down from the Mothership to
planet's below with an assortment of weaponry and an armored all-terrain
vehicle to take on very unusual missions.
In Tegel's Mercenaries, you never know who to trust completely. Every
Mercenarie, enemy, and civilian all have their own personality. You can
create your own squad members and watch them grow in capability from
mission to mission, so in this respect there is a role-playing element
as well. There is also a 'scenario builder' available so players can even
create their own missions.
Tegel's Mercenaries should be available by the end of October.
This preview is Copyright (C) 1992 by Game Bytes. All rights reserved.
First Looks! Star Legions by Mindcraft
Star Legions has a hard time fitting a mold (which is a good thing,
actually!). In some respects, it has strong heritage to the older
Star Fleet series of games, yet in other ways it resembles Empire, Rules
of Engagement, Fireteam 2200, and Breach II all at the same time.
As the player, you're in complete control of the Krellan forces assigned
to conquer planets of your adversary, the United Galactic Alliance. Your
job is to conquer or destroy any planet that stands in the way of the
Emperor, Henri Zam IV. The Emperor, it seems, is on a crusade of sorts,
to liberate the galaxy from the weakness of democracy. You will command
over 100 legions of battle-hardened Krellan warriors who will stop at
nothing to accomplish their objective. You certainly won't find your
'conquer and conquest' missions to be a cakewalk, however. The planets
are prepared for you and you must develop a strategy to overcome their
defenses to breach through and conquer. The computer always plays defense
in this game and you are always attacker. There is no modem option or
two player option available at this time, so you should get lots of
practice in the art of conquest. Air units as well as ground combat
units are available. Strategic "satellite" maps are used extensively, but
combat is primarily tactical. There are various levels of enemy comp-
etenance ranging from the really stupid, "I keep coming at you until you
kill me", to the more advanced where surrender truly is the better part of
valor. There are an infinite number of planets available, so Star
Legions should never grow old on the shelf for lack of new opponent.
Star Legions (previously, Legions of Krella) should be available before
the end of October, '92.
This preview is Copyright (C) 1992 by Game Bytes. All rights reserved.
First Looks! Front Page Sports: Football by Dynamix
When you normally thinks of sports simulations, your mind tends to jump to
companies like Electronic Arts, Access Software, Accolade, or MicroLeague.
One of the last places you would think to look would be Sierra/Dynamix.
For a heckuva flight simulator or adventure, you'd be right on the mark.
Well, make some room on the bench because Dynamix is soon to unveil their
new sports lineup entitled Front Page Sports. Football is their first
entry into this crowded field. And what an entry it is! We've had a
few weeks to work with the beta of FPS:F now and I can say honestly that
this is about the deepest simulation of a sport, particularly a team
sport, that you could imagine. Let me run down a few of the features
that FPS:F offers:
o Stats - everybody wants stats. Lot's of them. There are over 350
categories of statistics that can be maintained and sorted by personal
careers or the most recent game.
o League options - You can play a league with 8 teams, or 10, 12, 18, or
28 teams. Leagues can also continue from season to season so you can
follow a teams progress as it struggles at first, gets number one
draft choices, and works its way to the "Show". Individual careers can
also be monitored this way.
o Graphics and animation - I'd have to say honestly that these are the
best looking players I've ever seen in a football game. For example,
when running a few sample plays, I got sacked on one occasion and there
must have been 30 or more frames just detailing the hit from the time
of impact until my shoulder blades smashed on the ground with the line-
man on top of me. Excellent! The colors of the jerseys are also very
finely created and the fields and stadiums are different depending on
where and what time of the year you play.
o Real physics - The play of the game is affected by the real laws of
nature. A pass thrown on a very hot, humid day in Miami will travel
much differently than a pass thrown in December in Mile High stadium
in Denver. Injuries will occur more often in cold weather, and energy
ratings will go down when temperatures and humidity are high. You can
also choose to play in the snow or mud, and also pick between arificial
and natural turf.
There is so much more to this game! A full review of FPS:F is going to be
a very long, thorough affair, so stay tuned for that once the product has
officially shipped. Front Page Sports: Football should be available by
early November.
This preview is Copyright (C) 1992 by Game Bytes. All rights reserved.
A View From the Edge
Editorial By Ross Erickson
Welcome to the 6th issue of Game Bytes! Earlier in the month, it seemed
that this issue was destined to never come out. Problem after problem
arose, hardware failed, and screen captures failed to materialize. But,
with some perserverance and patience, it finally made it. We apologize
for the long delay. Some obstacles have been overcome now and issue #7
should be right on its tails. Thanks to all the patient reviewers who are
waiting for their review to appear 'in the lights'.
I'd also like to pay a special tribute to Mike McCole who has jumped in to
act as the closest thing to an editor I can get. Mike has helped me a
great deal with proof-reading, spell-checking, and formatting. This
takes a LOT of time.
I would also like to say thanks to the four individuals who have donated
a little something to help keep Game Bytes afloat. However, we have a
little problem. Two of those four individuals, Eric Stewart and Mr. G.M.
Dovolis are just fine. However, in my haste to deposit the other two
checks, I failed to jot down the names and addresses of the other two
contributors before they were deposited. I'm checking with the bank now,
but I can only hope that if you read this, you'll contact me somehow and
I'll be sure to get your issues out directly to you. Sorry for this
mixup.
Now, back to business. It was noted with great interest this past month
the court decision of SEGA vs. Accolade. The two companies had been more
involved in litigation lately than they had in producing better gaming
entertainment software for our homes. The suit was filed by SEGA to
prevent Accolade from selling cartridges that they produced without paying
SEGA a license fee. Accolade was able to produce these cartridge games
by using a practice known as reverse engineering. Without breaking any
copyright laws, Accolade contends they were able to discover the proper
methods for programming a cartridge intended for the SEGA Genesis home
entertainment console without the help and guidance (and $$$ paid to
SEGA) of a Software Developers Kit (SDK). Everyone else pays high license
fees to SEGA (and Nintendo) to produce cartridges so this sets an
interesting precedent. An appellate judge threw out a previous ruling
barring Accolade from selling any cartridges in the open market.
The reason this ruling is so significant is that it reinforces a practice
that it widespread through the computer industry as a whole. The entire
IBM PC industry was based on reverse engineering to some degree. Compaq
Computer developed its first portable 'compatibles' with the PC by using
this process. They went so far as to call it 'black-boxing'. Basically,
they would pass a signal into a circuit and then watch the results coming
out the other side. Doing this repeatedly with thousands of different
logic gates produced the results needed to create compatible hardware.
If Accolade had lost this suit against SEGA, the repercussions could have
been dramatic for all of us. Forcing license fees on developers is akin
to monopolistic practices that lock up markets. No one is saying SEGA
shouldn't make a fair profit on their business, but as a competing
developer, SEGA should have to compete on the same level playing field as
everyone else. A software developer who writes a great game or a great
spreadsheet shouldn't have to and doesn't have to pay a royalty to
Microsoft or IBM or anyone else just to have their product sold. We
applaud this court decision and we certainly applaud Accolade for taking
on and winning against such a big enterprise as SEGA.
Enjoy issue #6.
Rumors and News!
This fall/winter game season is now officially in high gear and while
everyone is excited to see the Wizardry 7s, the Clouds of Xeen, and the
ship or prepare to, there's some VERY interesting stuff coming over the
horizon that will keep you glued to your keyboards for quite a while.
In the sports field, Access plans to greatly enhance the value of their
wildly successful Links 386 Pro by adding a number of new courses to their
line-up in addition to the SVGA remakes that are in the works too. Though
not confirmed for certain, there are strong indications that the Belfrey
in the U.K. may be one of the first new courses available perhaps before
the end of the year. Banff Springs in Alberta, Canada (my birthplace) and
Mauna Kea are in the wings too, but some snafu with getting topographical
maps has held these up for a time. Other courses being considered
strong candidates for the course lineup next year include Merion in
Illinois, Royal Melbourne in Australia, Balybunion in Ireland, and perhaps
Colonial in Ft. Worth, Texas. I think most of us are anxiously awaiting
the day when we can play either Augusta or Pebble Beach, but don't hold
your breath.
By the time you read this, hockey fans everywhere should be able to play
Wayne Gretzky Hockey III. This, plus the League Simulator II, make this
one of the most complete sporting simulations available on the market
today. Bethesda, however, isn't stopping there. Work is well underway
to correct the dismal failure than NCAA Basketball was. NCAA II bears
no resemblance to the original at all and should be a welcome sight to
basketball fans. Gridiron II should also follow next spring with a much
improved football simulation.
Accolade has started shipping their latest MLBPA add-on disk for Hardball
III, and a Major League Ballparks disk is also in the works to complement
the 8 or so that come with the original game. Summer Challenge has also
just recently started to ship.
Dynamix is gearing up for an early November release of Front Page Sports:
Football and from the First Looks! here, it's easy to see why this will
be a major step in the positive direction for this Sierra subsidiary.
The next sport to be simulated by these wizards will be baseball, hope-
fully in time for opening day next season.
The folks at the EASN (Electronic Arts Sports Network) are busy as usual
creating new sports sims. Unfortunately, we won't see Michael Jordan In-
Flight this year. It's been postponed until late first quarter '93. John
Madden Football '93 for the Sega Genesis is gearing up for a launch, and
I think I speak for PC players everywhere that this is what John Madden
Football II on the PC should have been. EA is also still working on
finalizing a license with the ATP to produce ATP Tour Tennis. We believe
it will be using the same general 'engine' as 4-D Tennis that has been
seen in Europe so far. Finally, Team USA Basketball for the Sega Genesis
has been released, and the PC version should follow in about 3 months.
For those equipped with CD-ROM drives (everybody should now!), you're
gonna love GGA Golf from ICOM Simulations. This CD product takes golf
to new heights...literally. It's an off-the-wall look at golf at
amazing geography. Imagine hitting a golf ball off the top of Mt.
Everest! That's just one of the featured holes in GGA Golf.
Chess could be considered a sports, though of a different kind. Chess
meets celluloid later this year or early next with the introduction of
Terminator Chess from Intracorp. Ray traced pieces animate smoothly
and perform 'Awnold' like destruction of their opponent when they take
an opposing piece on a square. "Bishop to King's Knight Four....Hasta
La Vista,...Baby!! BOOM!" Can't wait! Chess will also take on a much
more humorous and bawdy tone later this winter when Spectrum Holobyte
begins to ship (I'm not making this up), "National Lampoon presents
Chessmeister Five Billion.....and one". This highly animated game trys
to finally shut the door on what can possibly be done to perhaps the
oldest of computer game types. Both Terminator Chess and Chessmeister
5,000,000,001 are going to be competing head-to-head with each other
and of course with Battlechess and Chessmaster 3000. I resign my king!
Finally, for this issue, football fans can rejoice. There are certainly
enough to choose from for the next several months. Between now and the
next quarter or two, we'll see the arrival of Front Page Sports: Football,
Gridiron II, NFL Video Pro from Konami, XOR's new NFL Challenge, Micro-
League Football II, and the '92 edition of NFL Pro League Football. Plus
we recently saw the arrival of Tom Landry Strategy Football. If this
doesn't have you covered, I don't think you like football!
Stay tuned for more rumors/news in the 7th issue of Game Bytes.
An Interview with Bob Bates - Legend Entertainment
The following is the first of a two-part interview with Bob Bates,
President of Legend Entertainment. Bob is a very busy man, having just
recently released the next sequel in the Ernie Eaglebeak saga, Spell-
Casting 301: Spring Break. His next project, well underway now, is Eric
the Unready. Working with the fertile storytelling mind, yet mildly
(well, maybe more than mildly) deranged Steve Meretzky, Bob has grown
Legend Entertainment into a strong contender in the adventure game
category. Focused more on a content and puzzle-solving than flashy
animated graphics, Bob has released several very successful adventures in
the aftermath of Infocom. We hope you enjoy this two-part interview.
GB: Bob, tell us a little about yourself and how you got into computer
games.
BB: My background is in writing. I got started in this business while
working on a (never-published) novel. I had an old TRS-80 for
word-processing, and my father gave me a game called Zork. I
was fascinated by the idea of creating stories and puzzles that
people could interact with, and shortly thereafter I abandoned
the novel and started writing games for Infocom.
GB: So what really happened to Infocom?
BB: There are as many theories about the demise of Infocom as there
are people who worked there. I think that the consensus is that
they lost too much money on trying to bring out a database program
(Cornerstone), and that they resisted graphics for too long.
(Remember the famous "We put our graphics where the sun don't
shine" ads?)
It was, however, a special place, with very smart and very nice
people working there. If Legend can ever become half of what
Infocom was, I will be very grateful (and very happy).
GB: So how did Legend Entertainment come to be?
BB: In May of 1989, Infocom's parent, Mediagenic, cancelled all of
their outside development projects and terminated all of the
writers, developers, and programmers who were responsible for
the classic Infocom games. They closed down the Boston office,
and moved a few admistrative people to California. Even those
people eventually left, and all that survived of the original
Infocom was a brand name. [Recently, Activision started releasing
games under the Infocom label again, including Leather Goddesses
of Phobos II by Steve Meretzky, one of the original Infocom
designers.]
Even though Infocom went away, I still believed there was a
market for well-written, puzzle based adventure games. I felt
that Infocom resisted the move to graphics for too long, and that
there was room in the market for a company that would marry the
great story-telling ability of Infocom to a committment to
leading-edge technology. I got together with Mike Verdu and
we started Legend Entertainment. The first thing we did was
to call Steve Meretzky, and he proved that he really IS as
crazy as his games by agreeing to write our first product,
(SPELLCASTING 101: SORCERERS GET ALL THE GIRLS). I followed
up with TIMEQUEST, and so far we seem to be doing alright.
GB: Bob, what is Legend's philosophy towards computer games and what
would you say your company 'positioning' is in the market today?
BB: Our philosophy is to produce well-written, puzzle-based adventure
games that have state-of-the-art graphics, sound effects, and music.
We believe that if we make quality games that are fun to play, people
will buy them. It's a tough market with some big-name competitors,
but we believe that we have the competitive edge on them in a couple
of areas - primarily storytelling and good, fair, puzzle design.
We'll also stack our musical scores up against anyone.
GB: I'll agree with you there. I was certainly struck by the great
soundtrack that accompanied the opening of Gateway. Regarding future
directions, will Legend branch out into other game genres?
BB: Yes.
GB: Gee Bob, you think I could get a word in here?? <g> We'll revisit
this again later. :-) I get the feeling this subject is taboo for the
time being. You've started to support SVGA graphics (800x600x16) in some
of your more recent titles. Will this continue and will you be utilizing
the full 256 color capabilities of SVGA at high resolution?
BB: All the technology is in place for us to produce such games right now.
The only thing holding us back is the sheer number of disks such games
would have to ship on. When enough CD-ROM units are in enough homes,
Legend will definitely start shipping high-resolution, full-color games.
GB: What about CD-ROM. Many gamers have started to make the committment
to CD-ROM and are waiting for a real blockbuster to justify their
purchase. Are we in a chicken and the egg situation with publishers?
What's Legend's position on this?
BB: We, like all publishers, are eagerly awaiting sufficient market
penetration of CD-ROMs to justify producing products for them. Not
only will we be able to do the high-resolution games I just referred
to above, but the addition of speech will be exciting as well.
Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough systems out there right
now. Other companies have plowed millions of dollars into producing
CD products, some for systems that are dead or clearly dying. Legend
doesn't have that kind of money to spend on a such a high-risk
proposition.
GB: Do you have a favorite computer game of all time?
BB: Zork has a special place in my heart as the first computer game
I ever played. It has a magic that has endured, and I think that
all gamers should play it. (There is a tribute to it in my
next game, Eric The Unready.)
Other than that, I think that Ron Gilbert's Monkey Island games
are wonderful. And I think that Steve Meretzky deserves special
mention for creating the best character I've ever met in a game,
Floyd - the robot in Planetfall. (I liked Floyd so much that
I "borrowed" his character for the cab driver in Sherlock, and
for the village idiot in Arthur.)
GB: Tell us a little more about 'Eric The Unready'.
BB: Eric is kind of a cross between Sir Lancelot and Inspector Clouseau.
I can't say, exactly, where I got the idea for him. I had written
three fairly straightforward adventures in a row, pretty much
repressing any comic urges that came along. Finally I couldn't
resist these urges any longer. (Perhaps prolonged exposure to
Steve Meretzky has that effect on people.) So I decided to write
a comic fantasy that spoofed the "Rescue the Kidnapped Princess" games,
and voila! - Eric the Unready popped into my head.
In the story, Eric is the kind of knight who always gets the dregs
when they're handing out the daily quests down at the knight's union hall.
Then one day, the lovely and talented Princess Lorealle the Worthy
disappears. This causes great consternation because an ancient
prophecy has foretold that her father, King Fudd the Bewildered, will
die upon his seventieth birthday, which will occur at the end of the
week. The prophecy further states that the unmarried princess who
is at Fudd's side when he expires will inherit the kingdom. With
Lorealle out of the picture, this means that the crown will pass
to Grizelda the Hefty, Fudd's stepdaughter whom he acquired in his
second marriage, to Morgana the Black. (You'd think that a name like
that would have tipped him off, wouldn't you?)
Naturally, all the knights gather down at the union hall eager to
discover who will be assigned this plum of a quest. After all, the
traditional reward for rescuing a kidnapped princess is half the
kingdom and the girl's hand in marriage. Everyone is surprised, then,
when the quest is assigned to none other than Sir Eric the Unready.
It turns out that Morgana the Black has not only engineered the
kidnapping of Lorealle, but she has arranged for the quest to
be assigned to Eric, thereby (she believes) ensuring its failure.
Eric sets off across the donut-shaped world of Torus to recover
the princess. On the way, he encounters dragons, dwarves, unicorns,
and other creatures of fantasy, not to mention a two-headed oaf,
a three-handed elf, and a four-headed monkey. He travels through
the Not So Great Underground Empire, visits the Temple of the
Virgins, climbs the Mountain of the Gods, and goes on an extended
Swamp Trek.
I'd tell you more, but I've already run on too long for this
question.
GB: Grizelda the Hefty?? King Fudd??? This definitely sounds like one
to wait for! Why do I keep picturing John Cleese somewhere in this game?
Hmm. (Run away, run away!!)....Sounds great! An obvious question now is
whether we'll see a Spellcasting 401 next year sometime.
BB: Obviously, Ernie needs to finish his senior year at Sorcerer Univer-
sity. However, we will not be releasing S401 next year. Steve Meretzky
wants to take a break, and he is working on another project for
release next year. I wouldn't be at all surprised, however, to see
Ernie come back to complete his studies sometime in 1994.
GB: Technology such as graphics and the ever-increasing speed of todays
machines keeps advancing at rapid rates. What's your take on all these
changes and how does Legend plan to take advantage of any of them?
BB: Our committment is to stay on top of the technological changes in
our industry. Our incentive to do so is strong - not only does our
competition take advantage of this technology, and we feel that
ignoring new technology was part of what did in Infocom.
The big winner in all of this is the gamer. He gets more beautiful,
more detailed, and faster-running games than ever before. Because
everyone at Legend is a gamer as well, we all win.
GB: There has been a lot of talk and several successful products that
have incorporated two player interaction either through a modem or a
network connection. Are there any plans at Legend to do anything with
multi-player games?
BB: We don't have any plans to do a multi-player, or network, or modem
game. It's not that we don't like them, it's just that they don't
seem to be a logical "next step" for us as we look to produce
games in other genres.
GB: You recently switched your distribution from Microprose to Accolade.
Is there any significance to this change?
BB: MicroProse and Accolade are both very fine companies who have done
a good job of distributing our products. When it came time to
choose a new distribution partner, we chose Accolade. The evaluation
critea were many and varied, and naturally we'd prefer to keep
them private.
This is the first half of the interview. The remaining questions with
Bob will be completed in Issue #7 of Game Bytes. Stay tuned....
WALK THROUGH FOR SIERRA'S KING'S QUEST IV: THE PERILS OF ROSELLA
**--CAUTION--**
THIS IS NOT A HINT FILE, BUT A DETAILED LIST OF INSTRUCTIONS! READING
THIS FILE WILL REVEAL ALL SOLUTIONS AND MAY SPOIL YOUR FUN WITH KQIV!!
IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU LET SOMEONE WHO IS NOT PLAYING THE GAME (i.e.
Mother, Brother, Wife etc.) READ THIS FILE SO THAT THEY MAY SUPPLY YOU
WITH CLUES AS NEEDED!!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
N MAP OF TAMIR
W-|-E
S
O |
C | BEACH MEADOW POOL OGRE'S BACK OF WITCHES
E | HOUSE HOUSE CAVE
A | DEADLY
N | TREES
|
| FISHERMAN'S BACK OF WOODS CLEARING DEADLY DEADLY
| HOUSE
HOUSE BIG ROCK TREES TREES
|
|
| BEACH MEADOW FROG POND WEST HAUNTED E.GRAVES
| W/ STUMP GRAVES HOUSE CRYPT
|
|
| BEACH MEADOW BRIDGE DWARVES RIVER WATERFALL
| CLIFFS RIVER HOUSE CAVE
|
|
| BEACH RIVER WOODS DIAMOND PINES PATH TO
| RIVER TREES MINE DIRT LOLOTTE
|(start)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
After your speedy arrival in Tamir and Genesta's hasty departure, you walk
EAST. Keep your eyes peeled for a robin pulling a worm from the ground,
you could see it anytime when you do scare of the bird and "GET THE
WORM". If you miss your chance, restore the game and be faster!
Continue EAST for two screens, past the river and thin trees to the more
heavily wooded area. From here go SOUTH until you get to a lovely pool.
Wait here a while, and who should happen by? It's Cupid! You run to greet
the little creature, but he is frightened and flies off, forgetting to
take his bow. So you go and "GET THE BOW".
From here walk SOUTH into a wooded area with a big rock. Continue South
and you are by a lily covered pond with a little frog. You would like to
get your hands on the little guy, but no luck. Go SOUTH another screen
and you are again at the river, this time by a small bridge. But what's
that? There's something shiny under this bridge! So you "LOOK UNDER
BRIDGE" and lo and behold! It's a golden ball!
You haven't the foggiest idea what this ball is good for, so you decide to
go NORTH to the pond and ask froggie. He doesn't speak good English
though. So you take a really wild guess (I did) and "THROW BALL IN POND".
Well what do you know! This frog is a retriever! He deposits the gold
ball at the other side of the pond. You walk over to him and instead of
retrieving the ball just yet, first you "PICK UP FROG". Remember that old
fairy tale? You guessed it! "KISS THE FROG", and poof, it's a snobby
prince. Well at least he gave you his crown! Don't forget to "GET THE
BALL" before you move on.
You walk EAST into a graveyard, you might want to read a few tombstones
but it can wait until later, when it gets dark (hehe). It's a bit creepy
here so you go SOUTH and find a funny looking house on the river. The
door is open so you go in and have a look around this messy place. Who
could stand to be in such a pig sty? Certainly not a princess! So you
"CLEAN UP", and make things nice and tidy.
Well, no sooner than things are nice and neat, the occupants return. You
sit down for a hearty repast and engage in a little idle chit-chat until
the Dwarves return to work. They all file out, and you "CLEAN UP" again
but what's this? You "LOOK AT TABLE" and see a blue pouch. You "GET
POUCH" and "LOOK IN POUCH" discovering a small fortune in diamonds.
After a moment of reflection you decide that honesty is the best policy.
You walk "SOUTH" and find a cave. Go inside and find the head dwarf at
the back of the cave. "GIVE THE POUCH" to the dwarf or at least try. He's
so impressed with your honesty that he lets you keep the bag and throws
in a lantern to boot!
If you haven't found the worm yet, go EAST one screen to the dirt patch
that has a couple of pine trees. The bird is found often around here. In
any case, from here go NORTH two screens until you get to the old house.
"OPEN THE DOOR", you might want to take a look around, but the important
room for now is on your left as you enter. "LOOK AT THE BOOKS". Do you
like Shakespeare? Well it's all you can get. "TAKE THE BOOK".
"LOOK AT THE PICTURE" of the man which hangs on the wall. Hmmm.... better
"LOOK AT THE WALL". Aha! You found a latch. "PULL THE LATCH" and walk
through the secret door. "GET THE SHOVEL" next to the doorway, and forget
about the stairs for now, unless you're very curious. Save your game if
you are; those stairs are treacherous!
Well now that you have this stuff, what are you gonna do? Leave the house
and go EAST and you're in another graveyard; this one has a crypt, but the
door is locked.
Go SOUTH one screen and there's a lovely waterfall. You try to get to it
but the water pushes you back. You get out of the water and think "Now
what was that frog wearing?" The crown! "WEAR CROWN" and poof! You're a
frog! Now you can swim under the fall, and there's a cave on the other
side. You take a look around and find a board at the entrance "GET BOARD"
and go in. You take a fast look around because someone is coming, you see
a pile of bones and "GET BONE" and get out of there fast! Through the
falls you go.
Well, what now? Go SOUTH one screen and there's a path leading EAST. You
follow it one screen EAST and there's Lolotte's castle in the distance,
but two of her goons have spotted you! Well what the heck, instead of
running away you let them catch you and together you fly to the castle.
This Lolotte is one tough broad! She tosses you in the slammer to cool
your heels. After a while her guards come to get you and return you to
the throne. It seems Lolotte has a job for you, huh?
Once you are returned to Tamir you proceed with the problem of the
Unicorn. You may have seen him in the meadows, but could not get close.
Go back to the meadows and explore for the unicorn, but when you find him
keep your distance. What's that thing you got from Cupid? Of course,
these arrows are special; they shoot love bolts! "SHOOT AN ARROW AT THE
UNICORN" and it seems you've made a friend. You try to mount the beast,
but whoa, you have no bridle.
Make your way to the beach, perhaps you will encounter a minstrel around
here? If you do strike up a conversation with him and he'll play you a
tune. But hey! This is no Andres Segovia (that's spelled Eddie Van Halen
to you youngsters) you've got here! Maybe this guy should look for
another line of work? Why not drop a hint? "GIVE BOOK TO MAN". Well of
course, if you've got no special talents.....be an actor! And you get
that lovely lute in return!
Perhaps during your travels you encountered a little pixie named Pan, but
just couldn't get him to stand still? Next time you see him "PLAY THE
LUTE" and he'll watch you perform. Your musical tastes run more towards
woodwinds than strings, so why not "GIVE LUTE TO PAN". In return Pan
gives you his flute. Now proceed to the fisherman's house.
When you get to his house check the pier to the WEST. If he's there you
can try talking to him but watch out when he gets up or you'll have to
swim back to shore. Follow him into the house and look around. Bet you
could find some use for that pole, especially with that juicy worm you
caught. But what do you have that he might want? A gift certificate
from Van Cleefs?
Oh no! Not those! Diamonds are a girl's best friend, but after all these
people are very needy; and what good are these stones around here anyway?
So you bite the bullet and "GIVE POUCH TO MAN", he oughta give you the
title and deed to his house, maybe even some stock in Sierra-On-Line, but
all you get is that lousy pole.
WEST to the pier you go, careful not to fall off the edge. "BAIT POLE
WITH WORM" then "FISH". There's a tug on the line....smoked salmon
perhaps? Nope, just a stinky fish. Keep it, you may get hungry.
You decide to take a "LOOK AT THE OCEAN" but can see nothing at all. Time
for some exploring. Save your game and jump in.
Swim WEST until you reach the island...Genesta's island. Have a look
around, go inside if you like but you can't get any help from Genesta,
she's out of it.
You explore the island a little more and come upon a beautiful peacock,
which sheds a feather. "GET THE FEATHER", you're gonna need it! And walk
back into the surf. BUT SAVE YOUR GAME HERE NOW!!!
You are looking for a whale here, but sometimes you get a shark instead.
It would be a real pity to end up in JAWS 3-D without a saved game here.
Sometimes you get the shark, sometimes you can make it back to shore. If
you return to shore, take a breather and go back in the water, or restore
to your last saved game and try some more. Eventually the whale appears,
stay where you are or swim to him. He'll swallow you!
First thing you should do in the whale is SAVE GAME!!! Look around, "GET
THE BOTTLE", "OPEN BOTTLE" and "READ NOTE". It's just some advertising.
Go to the right side of the whale's tongue, about a half inch from the
wall of it's mouth. From here you must climb diagonally up and to the
left to a point on the whale's tongue, about an inch from the top of the
tongue and a half-inch from the center, where there a two taste buds that
look like a point and a hyphen. (EXAMPLE> ._
When you get there Rosella will stand up, (Good place to save game) and
you must continue moving diagonally to the top left, just to the top of
the tongue and to the immediate right of it's centerline. "TICKLE WHALE
WITH FEATHER", if you're told "not here", maneuver a bit until you're in
the middle.
Once you're successful, the whale will regurgi...Ahem..barf you up. There
is a small island to your NORTH. Go there and get a little closer to the
pelican, but don't scare him off. He comes back, so don't worry. "THROW
FISH TO PELICAN" and he leaves you a whistle. But don't blow it just
yet. First you have to find the bridle.
Yes it is here! Though there's nary a clue in the game about it's
location! I know you've dug everywhere for it and couldn't find it, used
every verb in the manual trying to move the boats. Looked in the wrecks,
dug in the wrecks, shook the tree(s), and pulled the hair out of your
head. No doubt many will read this file just for the bridle's location. .
..well....CALL SIERRA 209-683............hehehe
Just kidding, save the $$$ on the long distance call or the HINT B$$K. Go
to the boat wreck on the right, stand in the middle of it (done it a
thousand times..eh) and "LOOK AT GROUND". Miraculously, Rosella stoops
down and picks up the bridle. "BLOW WHISTLE"......How's that for service.
Hop into the water and go visit your new pal. "RIDE DOLPHIN" and you're
off and back to shore.
Go back to where you shot the unicorn, he's still there. "PUT BRIDLE ON
UNICORN", go to his left and "RIDE UNICORN". Enjoy the ride as he
carries you back to 'Lolotte's House of Leather'........ "Pain anyone?".
And congratulate yourself on completing your first quest!
"Well some people are never satisfied!" You mutter to yourself as the
goons carry you back to the forest. You begin your quest for the hen by
heading for the ogre's house. It's the one with the yellow roof. Make
sure the ogre or his wife don't see you, though you may observe the wife
bringing home dinner. The best way to get there is to go WEST two
screens to the diamond mine and then go one screen SOUTH.
Have you got that bone from the waterfall cave? You're going to need it!
Go into the house if nobody's outside, the door isn't locked now. But
horrors, there's an angry bulldog charging you. Quickly, "THROW BONE TO
DOG" and go upstairs. "LOOK AROUND" and "GET THE AXE" you just saw,
don't worry about this closet, it has nothing you need.
Go back downstairs, the ogre's wife is cooking dinner in the room to the
right, save your game now if you intend to take a look at her. But she's
not important, so you go to the closet across from the table and "OPEN
THE DOOR". Once inside "LOOK AROUND". Yes that keyhole will come in
handy. Eventually the ogre will come home, when he does "LOOK THROUGH
KEYHOLE" watch him until he falls asleep. SAVE YOUR GAME HERE and "OPEN
DOOR" go to the table and "GET HEN" being careful not to get too close to
the un-jolly giant.
Once you have the hen and are halfway to the door SAVE YOUR GAME, getting
out is tough since the hen always wakes up the ogre and there's nothing
you can do about it.
***ALSO NOTE WELL that this sequence is very hard to complete if your
machine runs slower than 8 Mhz, and you have the version of KQIV designed
for "Turbo" machines. There are 2 versions of this game. One for fast
machines and one for slower ones. Many people with slow machines and the
"fast" version of KQIV have tremendous difficulty out-running the ogre in
this sequence, but it can be done. See your documentation for
information on exchanging disks.
Once you are by the door speed up the game by hitting the + key many
times, it helps! "OPEN THE DOOR", the hen clucks and wakes the ogre. Run
out of the house and down and around the woodpile one screen EAST, be
careful not to get close to the trees. The ogre won't chase you around
the house, but you've got to get past the trees. And you have just the
thing trees hate! "SWING THE AXE" and all the "dead" trees will fear you
from now on.
REMINDER!! SAVE GAME HERE. From the back of the ogre's house go NORTH one
screen to the pine trees and dirt and then EAST two screens to Lolotte's.
Her "biker" pals come down to give you a ride. Hooray! You finished
quest number two!
We'll she tells you to get Pandora's Box, but doesn't offer any clues! Gee
thanks! So you're back at the path to her castle. Why not explore some
uncharted areas? Now that you are safe from the "Venus Fly" trees, you
can check out the area to the NORTH. Go NORTH to the waterfall, you stop
to ponder the hidden grotto but decide to wait a bit and proceed NORTH
one screen to the graveyard and NORTH again another screen.
Well now you can get through here, those trees don't scare you anymore! Go
NORTH again and you are in front of a skull like cave. Go in but don't
get too close to the witches. SAVE GAME NOW! One of them will come
towards you, let her. Pay close attention to the two in the back. Watch
how they pass the eye back and forth. That's the key, you can grab the
eye at the moment they are exchanging it. If you can avoid the one
chasing you. Try to "GET THE EYE" at the proper moment and if you do they
are helpless!
Leave the witches for now. They eye is a powerful bargaining chip even
though it's of no use to you. Let them sit in the "dark" for a while and
think it over. Maybe they have something you could use? Go back into
their cave and they plead for their eye. They throw you a scarab. "LOOK
AT SCARAB", "GET SCARAB". They plead again for the eye. "THROW EYE TO
WITCHES" and you get some points, but don't go any closer! You've gotten
all you need from them.
Go back to the waterfall, and turn yourself into a frog. When you reach
the entrance to the cave, "LIGHT LANTERN" and SAVE GAME! If you don't
have Pan's flute, don't bother with this now, go and make those trades,
then come back. If you have the flute, proceed EAST into the cave.
Beware of the troll it is possible to lose him in the cavern but
difficult. Usually he gets you and you need to restore until you get a a
chance where he doesn't come out. It's sort of like trying to get
swallowed by the whale and avoiding the shark.
From the entrance go SOUTH as many screens as possible until you get to
the SOUTHERNMOST part of the cave. From here go EAST until you get to a
screen where you see a light in the distance. SAVE YOUR GAME!! There is
a chasm ahead, chances are you will fall in a few times and it was tough
getting here in the first place, right? Move EAST very slowly, you will
see the chasm in the glow of your lantern. "PUT BOARD ACROSS CHASM", if
told to "move closer" do so carefully until you can put the board down.
Once the board is down, get close to the SOUTHERN walls and move slowly to
the EAST across it. Once you make it SAVE GAME! Just in case you fall
in. Go NORTH another screen and proceed EAST out of the cave.
Move EAST to the edge of the water. SAVE GAME AGAIN! There is a small
point of land, with a longer jetty just under it, directly across from the
nearest tuft of grass in the swamp. Move to this point on the shoreline
and "JUMP". If you are told to "just move", you are not on the right
spot. Keep trying to find the right spot. When you are on it, Rosella
will jump onto the tuft. Repeat the "JUMP" command until you reach the
last tuft of grass and are right in front of the island with the magic
tree.
"PUT DOWN BOARD" and a cobra springs awake. "PLAY THE FLUTE" and the snake
is charmed. But not for long, so be quick and cross the board, "GET
FRUIT", stay clear of the snake and cross back. "GET BOARD" and repeat
the jump process until you are back on shore.
Night has fallen and there's lot's to do if you're going to get this apple
to your father in time, so go back through the cave. SAVE GAME!! And find
the right spot to "PUT BOARD OVER CHASM" and cross over. Go WEST all the
way and then NORTH all the way until you are out of the cave. Back through
the waterfall and into the night air.
Move NORTH one screen and you are in the graveyard with the crypt. All
sorts of things are popping up around here, but with that scarab they
can't touch you! Go WEST to the haunted old house and "OPEN DOOR".
Once inside you hear a baby crying upstairs, so up you go to the bedroom
on the left and move WEST into the babies room. The crib rocks but
there's nothing in the room this kid wants. So down the stairs you go
and out of the house. Walk WEST to the graveyard. Good thing you have
that shovel! You "READ THE TOMBSTONE"s while the zombies harass you,
until you find one on the right side all the way in the back, where a six
month old baby is buried. "DIG" and you find a rattle. Go back to the
house, put the rattle in the crib and the crying stops. But chains start
rattling downstairs.
Down the stairs you go and search until you see a ghost. "LOOK AT THE
GHOST", why it's an old 'miser'. Back to the WEST graveyard you go.
Reading the tombstones until you find one that mentions a 'miser', on the
right towards the front. You "DIG" and find a bag of gold coins. You
then return to the house find the ghost and "GIVE COINS TO GHOST" and it
vanishes.
Next you hear crying from upstairs. Go to the bedroom on the left and a
woman appears in a rocking chair. You "LOOK AT GHOST" and find that she
is a lonely ghost. Heartbroken, perhaps?
Off to the WEST graveyard you go. Read the tombstones at the front to the
right of the big tree. You find one that belongs to a woman who lost her
love at sea. "DIG" here and you recover a locket which you return to the
lady ghost.
You hear more wailing downstairs and find another ghost wandering about
below. You "LOOK AT THE GHOST" and see he is the distinguished "Lord" of
the house. The tombstone next to the lady ghost's belongs to a "Lord" a
war hero as a matter of fact. Back to the WEST graveyard you go, and
locate the tombstone that belongs to the man who "served his country
well". "DIG" and you find a Medal of Honor, which you gladly return to
the "Lord of the house".
A boy ghost appears and you follow him upstairs, to the bedroom on the
right. "CLIMB" the ladder to the attic and observe him. "CLIMB" back
down the ladder and go to the graveyard on the EAST side of the house. His
grave is the one on the left in the back. The only one that belongs to a
boy, his name is Willy. You "DIG" and recover a toy horse, which you
return by climbing back up the ladder.
Once he has the toy, the boy ghost vanishes and you can "OPEN CHEST" and
"LOOK IN CHEST". You find a piece of sheet music and take it with you.
"CLIMB" down the ladder and go downstairs to the secret room in the
library. Walk up the stairs (SAVE GAME! YOU MAY FALL!) and go to the
organ get in front of the bench and "SIT", "PLAY THE SHEET MUSIC". When
you are done a secret drawer opens up, "LOOK IN DRAWER" and "GET THE KEY".
SAVE YOUR GAME and go back downstairs.
Leave the house and go EAST to the crypt. "UNLOCK THE DOOR" and enter the
crypt. "LOOK AROUND", kind of Egyptian isn't it. "GET THE ROPE" and you
discover it's a ladder. "CLIMB DOWN" and don't worry about the mummy.
SAVE YOUR GAME before you go "GET PANDORA'S BOX", which sits on the floor.
This way you can open it and see the ghosts, they'll kill you but it's
worth a look if you enjoyed RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. "CLIMB ROPE" and
head back to Lolotte's. The goons will pick you up when you get to the
mountain. Congratulations! You've finished your third quest!
But Lolotte has a surprise! You're gettin' married in the mornin'! To a
lovely lad with a green complexion. The goons escort you up to Edgar's
room and leave you there. After a while, Edgar comes up and leaves a rose
in your room. "LOOK AT ROSE", there's a gold key attached! "GET KEY"
and "UNLOCK THE DOOR", "OPEN THE DOOR". That Edgar...what a guy!
SAVE YOUR GAME before heading down the stairs. Be careful not to wake the
sleeping guard at the bottom of the stairs. Go EAST into the dining room
where there is another sleeping goon and two doorways. Go to the
uppermost doorway, don't wake the guard and walk EAST into the kitchen.
"OPEN CABINET" on the right and you've found all your possessions! "TAKE
ALL", SAVE YOUR GAME and walk back out to the WEST.
Without waking the goon go to the lower doorway and EAST into the throne
room. There's another goon here so be stealthy and go to the stairs to
EAST. SAVE YOUR GAME on these stairs, they're a bit tough. Walk all the
way up until you get to the door. This is the door to Lolotte's bedroom.
SAVE YOUR GAME NOW! "UNLOCK DOOR WITH GOLD KEY", "OPEN DOOR" and quietly
enter.
You "LOOK AT LOLOTTE" and see she is sleeping, she's also wearing
Genesta's talisman. If you try to take it she might wake up. But wait,
what about your bow and arrows. So you "SHOOT ARROW AT LOLOTTE" and bang,
the witch is dead. Edgar comes up and sees his mother dead but he doesn't
look too unhappy. He gives you run of the castle! But first, go to
Lolotte and "GET TALISMAN".
You go down the stairs one flight and enter the room to the WEST. Three
goons bow to you as you pass. On your right there is a room, you get
curious and "OPEN DOOR". You've found a closet, in fact both the hen and
Pandora's box are kept here. Pick up these items and go downstairs and
leave the castle.
There's a stable at the entrance to the castle, so you go in and find the
unicorn. Move to the middle of the gate and "OPEN GATE" and the unicorn
runs free, like it should. Exit the stable and SAVE GAME before heading
down the mountain.
But you still have Pandora's box and it's evil, so before you go to
Genesta's go back to the crypt. "CLIMB DOWN THE ROPE" go to the corner
where you found the box and "PUT DOWN BOX". "CLIMB UP ROPE" and exit the
crypt. "LOCK THE DOOR" and you slide the key under it.
Make your way back to the pier and SAVE YOUR GAME. Jump in the water and
swim WEST to Genesta's island. Find her castle, climb the stairs to her
bedroom and "GIVE GENESTA THE TALISMAN".
CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE FOURTH QUEST!!
ULTIMA VII: The Black Gate - Supplementary Information
by Mitch Aigner
Walkthrough SUPPLEMENT - This is not a walkthrough. A great walkthrough
has already been done by someone else. This is simply an informational
supplement.
No claim is made to the accuracy of this document. Feel free to modify or
add to it. I'm done with the game, and this is simply a copy of various
random and disorganized notes. The key words here are "random" and
"disorganized". "Incomplete" and "unfinished" are also applicable.
Anyone wishing to fill in some of the blanks is more than welcome.
POTIONS
-------
Black - Invisibility
Blue - Magic sleep
Orange - Magic Awaken
Purple - Sheild
White - Light
Yellow - Heal
Green - Poison
Red - Cure poison
WEAPONS
-------
Axe, two-handed 10
Blowgun 1 can be poison or sleep
Bow 8
Cannon 90
Club 2
Crossbow 10
Dagger 1
Fellowship Staff 6
Fire Sword 8
Halberd 10
Hammer 4
Hammer, two-handed 9
Knife 2
Mace 5
Main Gauche 2
Morning star 5
Musket 9
Sling 3
Sword 6
Sword, two-handed 11
Throwing axe 4
Torch 3
Triple Crossbow 28
Whip 4
ARMOR
-----
Buckler 1
Chain Armor 2
Chain Coif 2
Chain leggings 2
Crested Helm 3
Curved heater 3
Gauntlets 2
Gorget 3
Great Helm 4
Greaves 2
Kidney Belt 1
Leather Armor 1
Leather Boots 1
Leather Collar 1
Leather Gloves 1
Leather Helm 1
Leather Leggings 1
Plate Armor 4
Plate Leggings 3
Scale Armor 2
Spiked Shield 2
Wooden Shield 2
MAGIC WEAPONS
-------------
Magic Armor 5
Magic Arrow +4
Magic Axe 8
Magic Bow 12
Magic Gauntlets 3
Magic Gorget 4
Magic Helm 5
Magic Leggings 4
Magic Shield 4
Magic Sword 7
Glass Sword 127
STUFF TO DO (Quests, errands, and assorted good deeds)
-----------------------------------------------------
Trinsic - Identify a suspect for the murder (Hook)
Paws - deliver grain to Thurston for Polly (earn 10 coins)
- Get the two lovebirds together (Thurston/Polly)
- Volunteer to find thief for Morfin
Britain - Take bill to Lord Heather in Cove for Miranda (castle)
- Rescue baby for Lady Tory (Serpent's Hold)
- Have Lord British free the prisoner Weston
- Trail Patterson after the Fellowship meeting
- Steal the Runestones from the Museum (Iolo not only does
not object to this theft,.. he suggests it !!)
Terfin - Talk to Draxinuson (gargoyle leader) about Inamo
- expose plot to destroy the Altars
Minoc - Get plans from Karl (ranger) and take to Julia, follow
the instructions from there.
Empath Abbey - find the thief Kellin (aka Kleg)
New Magincia - Find the Locket for Henry
Serpent's Hold - Find out who vandalized the statue of Lord British
- note the uncanny resemblance of some of the inhabitants
to members of the crew of Startrek: The Next Generation.
- Rescue baby for Lady Tory.
Jhelom - Save Sprellic from the duel
Skara Brae - defeat the Liche
NOTE: You get experience points for finishing quests.
INTERESTING STUFF
-----------------
To make cloth - Use Wool on Spinning Wheel to make thread
- Use thread on Loom to make cloth
To make bread - Mix flour with water, then bake on hearth
MAKING MONEY
------------
Hard work - The cook in Lord British's castle (Boots) will pay you
to fetch mutton from Morfin in Paws. She'll pay 5 coins,
while Morfin charges only 3.
Gems - May be sold to the jeweler (Sean) in Britain for 30 coins
each.
Venom - The apothecary in Britain (Kessler) will pay 50 coins/vial
Gold - Gold nuggets/bars may be exchanged for coins at the Mint
in Britain ($10 per nugget, $100 per bar).
Gambling - At Bucaneers' Den, some good games are:
Rat Race - Pays 6 to 1, yet there are only 4 rats. The
odds are in your favor. Bet an equal amount on
each rat, and you can't lose.
Triples - Pays 3-to-1. Save your game, bet everything you
have. If you lose, restart old game. If you win
repeat the above process. Since your profits
grow exponentially, it shouldn't take long to
fill your pockets.
YOUR TEAM (choose up to 7 + you makes 8)
---------
Gotta have:
Iolo - (Trinsic) Your old buddy (lives in Yew)
Shamino - (Britain) Your old buddy
Dupre - (Jhelom) Your old buddy
Your choice:
Spark - (Trinsic) young, but VERY trainable
Sentri - (Britain) trainer in Dexterity (free training !)
Jaana - (Cove) mage (another old friend) (free healing)
Tseramed - (Yew) woodsman
Julia - (Minoc) tinker (another old friend) (free repairs)
I would recommend limiting your party to Iolo, Shamino, Dupre, and
Spark (Spark starts out weak, but trains quickly to become a seriously
BAD dude). Less people to feed, and keep alive. DISCLAIMER: This is
MY opinion,.... get your own.
Location of mages:
-----------------
Nystul - Britain (in the castle)
Rudyom - Cove
Mariah - Moonglow (in the Lycaeum) (has the best prices, in general)
Nicodemus - Empath Abbey (just south)
Wis-Sur - Vesper (has the worst prices)
GETTING STARTED
---------------
First, get out of Trinsic (hint: take the latitudes on the map and
multiply them by 10)
Head for Britain and visit the castle
Talk to Chuckles the Jester (the "Game" involves only exchanging
sentences containing words of 1 syllable).
Take the west road out of Britain. Once past the mountains, head north.
Hug the west side of the mountain range and keep going north.
Eventually you will find a river (Lost River). Follow that
river east into the mountains. You will run across a Flying
Carpet at the entrance to Dungeon Despise. "Use" the
Carpet (handiest item in the game).
Head north to Empath Abbey, and talk to Taylor about Wisps and Emps.
Go to Minoc and have your fortune told by Margareta.
Head for Moonglow and talk to the astronomer Brion at the Observatory.
WIERD CRITTERS TO TALK TO:
-------------------------
Smith the Horse - Yew
Frank the Fox - Moonglow
Sherry the Mouse - Lord British's castle
DIRECT SPOILERS
---------------
WISPS and EMPS - Go to the Empath Abbey and ask Taylor about Wisps
and Emps (you must do this first). He will tell you that you
need to get Honey to talk to the Emps. Go to the Bee Cave and
pick up some honey (you may also happen across Honey in your
travels, as it is a common food item). Go to visit the Emps.
The head Emp (Salomon) will ask you to get a contract
signed by the woodcutter. Go visit the woodcutter (Ben, who
actually claims to be a logger, on the west coast by Yew).
Return with the signed contract to the Emps. Trelleck's wife
will back down on her promise to let Trelleck join your party.
Tell her that you really weren't interested, you just need to
talk to the Wisps. Trelleck will then make you a whistle. Find
the nearest Wisp and use the whistle. The Wisp will ask you to
fetch Alagner's notebook. Go to New Magincia and find Alagner
(far north end of the island). Alagner will ask you to find
the answers to the questions of Life and Death. Go to Skarae
Brae and solve their Liche problem (outlined below). After
this, you can go to Caine, and he will tell you that there are
no answers. Go back to Alagner and inform him of this. He will
then give you a key to his storage building (large building
just south of his house). Go in and find your way to the area
with the notebook (tricky, but have patience,.. lots of
invisible walls, fake walls, and teleporters). The trick to
getting up to where the notebook is, is to stack some crates
on, and around, the table,.. then just walk up like they were
regular stairs. Take the notebook back to the Wisps and they
will tell you how to get in touch with the Time Lord.
SKARA BRAE - If you need to take the ferry, cast "Seance" spell to
talk to the Ferryman. Once there, talk to Mordra, Trent and
Caine. Get some Iron Bars from the cemetery (or bring your own
from the Blacksmith shop in Trinsic).
Take the music box from Trent's house and take it up to the
Tower. Play the music box for his wife. She will give you her
wedding ring. Take the ring back to Trent. He will then ask
you for the iron bars and finish building the cage.
Go to Mordra's house and grab a Black potion, Red potion,
and Mandrake essence potion (multi-colored). Go to Caine's
shop and place one potion under each of the three intakes of
the Alchemist's device. Grab the empty vial off the shelf (or
use the one from Mordra's) and place it under the outlet of
the device. Turn on the burner underneath the apparatus and
wait. A light-blue potion should fill the empty vial. Note: this
takes some time to work,... be patient.
Take the Cage up to the Tower and "use" it on the Well of
Souls (accessed through fake wall on left side of chamber).
The cage should turn blue.
Wait until after midnight and then "use" the prepared
cage on Horance. Then "use" the light-blue potion on the cage.
After a few moments, Horance will be cured. NOTE: Horance must
be asleep on the center altar for this to work.
Talk to Horance about destroying the Well. He will tell
you to find a volunteer. Ask the Mayor first. Then go
ask everyone in town (even the Ferryman) to volunteer. Only
then will the Mayor finally give in. Lead the Mayor to the
Well, and the rest will happen automatically.
Bee Cave - As you enter the cave, keep to the right. This will take
you to the area where the hermits live (Mama and Papa). They
will tell you the secret to getting through the Bee Cave (go
in at night, and the bees will be much more tame. You will
still have to waste a few, but it won't be as bad as taking on
all of them). Also you should get a smokebomb from Taylor at
Empath Abbey. Use it if the bees get to be too much to handle.
PENUMBRA'S HOUSE (Moonglow) - There is a plaque on the ground outside
the front door. Put the following items on the ground beside it
in the following order: Hammer
Lockpick
Gold Ring
Spindle of thread
Gold bar or nugget
Each time you place an item, the plaque will change to indicate
which item is required next.
You may wish to bring 4 chunks of Blackrock with you beforehand.
STRATEGY
--------
Weapons - Give your team all swords, or other hand-to-hand weapons. If
they use any type of projectile weapon (bows, wands, etc.)
they will shoot YOU (or other party members) at least as
often as they hit an enemy.
Training - Since you are the only one with magic ability, use all of
YOUR training points to improve it. Your party members
should concentrate on Strength and Combat (Strength will
increase their carrying capacity, as well as Hit points).
GOOD STUFF
----------
In Lord British's castle, there is another storeroom with good stuff.
in the area underneath this room is a lever hidden under some things
which will open this door.
There is a cave on a tiny island just at the southern tip of
Britain. There is lots of gold and other goodies inside if you can
get them. The island is just west of Serpents hold.
On the West side of Avatar Isle, there is a pirate fortress. Lots
of gold.
Directly west of Trinsic, on the other side of Britain is a small
island. There is only a small shack on it. In the shack is a key
which will open many things.
"use" mallet on parrot
West of Paws, on the other side of Britain, is a small mountain range on
the coast. On the east side of the range, just south of the entrance to
the Spirit Cave, you will be attacked by Palladins. Defeat the Paladins,
take their armor/weapons, save your game, walk south along the mountain
range for a few dozen steps, and then come back to the spot where you
were attacked. There will be more Palladins to attack you. This goes on
forever, and is a great way to get free armor/weapons for all of your party
members (as well as some quick experience points).
In the Fellowship Hall on Buccaneers Den, there is a lever in the cave behind
the rear wall. It opens a secret door to allow access to the cave. If you are
standing in the right spot,.. you can flip the lever with a Telekinesis spell.
This will get you into Hooks hideout, and the Black Gate Key. This key opens
a lot of doors throughout Brittania. Otherwise, you have to wait until you
have defeated all 3 generators before entering Hook's area.
THINGS TO PICK UP ALONG THE WAY
-------------------------------
Keep an eye out for the following items (grab one if you find it):
Honey (a couple of them)
Hourglass
Golden Ring (not magic)
Hammer
Sextant (allows you to tell where you are on the map)
Spindle of Thread
Blackrock (4 pieces)
Don't ask why you need these (all will become clear later).
WHERE THINGS ARE:
----------------
Dungeon Destard - NW of Trinsic, entrance on the west side of mtns.
Dungeon Despise - Mountains NW of Britain, entrance from Lost River.
Dungeon Deceit - West side of Dagger Isle (two entrances)
Ambrosia Isle - underneath the compass points at the top right corner
of map (No wonder you couldn't see it !)
Shrines:
Compassion - SE of Cove
Humility - Avatar Isle, North Central area, approach from the North
Justice - far North of Deep Woods, on the coast
Sacrifice - NE of Vesper, in the center of the desert
Honesty - SE shore of Dagger Isle
Spirituality - ???? (I never did find this one)
Valor - Small isle SE of Jhelom
Honor - Southern tip of Brittania, SW of Trinsic
NOTES:
There is a secret area located a few feet SW of the pirates' campfire
on the Isle of Ambrosia (invisible wall into the mountain)
To kill Lord British (not that you would want to): There is a sign
above the doorway at the north end of the central courtyard of the
castle, which LB has a bad habit of standing under. Look at the sign
while he is standing under it.
FEEDING YOUR TROOPS:
-------------------
Beef, Ham, and Mutton are the best things to feed your party.
Other foodstuffs require several items to satisfy their hunger, while
the above meats require only one portion to cease your friends ever-
nagging request for sustenance. The best prices are obtained from
Morfin in Paws.
WHERE TO BUY: (Best prices for stuff)
------------
Food - Morfin in Paws
Lockpicks - Dell in Trinsic (even if he is a royal jerk) ($8/each)
Hourglass - Beverlea in Paws ($5)
Sextant - Beverlea in Paws ($20)
Ship - Gargan in Trinsic ($600)
Spells - Mariah in Moonglow
Reagents - Mariah in Moonglow
Carts - Petre in Trinsic ($60)
Rooms - The Modest Damsel in New Magincia ($3/per person/per night)
Healing - Lord British (free) also does Cure Poison and Resurrection
STEALING:
--------
In general, stealing is a no-no. If you steal too much:
A) Your party members will leave you (and you will have to get them to
come back).
B) The endgame will change.
It is OK to:
A) Take any keys that you find
B) Steal the Runestones from the museum in Britain
C) Look in chests, dressers, nightstands, barrels, crates, etc.
But DON'T move anything.
D) Take anything from Spark's house (Trinsic), or Iolo's (in Yew).
GENERATORS (in the order that you need to destroy them)
----------
TETRAHEDRON - Located in Dungeon Deceit on Dagger Isle. You need the
Ethereal ring to get in. The Ring is on the Isle of
Spektran, can be enchanted by Penumbra (Moonglow). If
you haven't found a Glass Sword yet, you may want to
spend the time to find one before you enter this generator.
SPHERE - Located in Dungeon Despise, NW of Britain (Lake entrance)
You need the Hourglass (from Beverlea in Paws) which
must be enchanted by Nicodemus (just south of Empath
Abbey).
CUBE - Located in behind the Fellowship Retreat (island just
NE of Serpent's Hold). Need Caddelite Helmets for each
party member to get in. Caddelite ore from Ambrosia isle
must be given to Zorn the weaponsmith (Minoc). One chunk of
ore for each party member.
This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Mitch Aigner. All rights reserved.
This month we're pleased to spotlight one of our premier reviewers
for Game Bytes, Richard Wyckoff. Rich, tell us about yourself.
I'm a junior at Wesleyan University where I major in English and am
a co-music director at the radio station. I spend almost all the
rest of my time in the computing center. When I'm not catching up on
lost sleep, I read science fiction novels, recite the script of Monty
Python and the Holy Grail (forwards and backwards), and have even been
known to play a computer game or two.
My personal preferences are sci-fi games of any type, almost all role-
playing games, and select war games. Recent favorites include Wing
Commander II, Ultima 7, Rampart, Wolfenstein 3-D, Castle of the Winds
(a great shareware game for Windows), and, of course, Civilization.
I play games (and try to do serious work) on the following system:
486/33 clone with AMI BIOS
8 megs of RAM
The ususal floppy drives
2 120 megabyte Maxtor IDE hard drives
Sony CD-ROM 7205
Gateway Telepath modem
Soundblaster Card (soon a Gravis Ultrasound, if it's ever released)
Standard joystick
Gravis PC Gamepad (highly recommended)
I runs my games under DOS 5.0 and OS/2 2.0, and am looking forward to
games written to take advantage of OS/2's advanced features. My feelings
about Windows are generally unprintable, but I will use the occasional
well-written Windows app (like Castle of the Winds, above).
In our last issue, we incorrectly listed a game title and didn't give
credit where credit was due. Issue #5 contained a review we erroneously
called The Lost Treasures of Infocom II, when in fact it was the Lost
Treasures of Infocom I. Steve Bauman was the author of that review and
we give him full credit, copyright, and thanks for his contribution to
Game Bytes #5. It first appeared in 'The Electronic Gamer' review service
on Compuserve, for which we are grateful to the sysop of the games forum,
'Nightshift', for allowing us to reprint it in Game Bytes.
Sorry for all the mixup.
The 1992 Game Bytes Game of the Year Awards
While we won't make it on national T.V., and there's no way Dana Carvey
will even return my phone calls, we are proceeding, nonetheless, with our
1st Annual Game of the Year awards. However, unlike Hollywood, the
decision to see who wins this most prestigious award will not be made by
the 'beautiful people' or the cultural elite. No, in our awards, it's
simple. The winner is who gets the most votes. No electoral college
here.
The process works something like this:
Nominations will be accepted in the following categories -
Adventure
Fantasy Role-Playing
Sports
Action/Arcade
Strategy/Wargame
Edutainment
and finally,
Overall Game of the Year, 1992.
To qualify, a game had to begin shipping between December 1st, 1991 and
November 30, 1992. To nominate any title in these categories, either
electronically communicate with us via different services (addresses
listed below), or write us at:
Game Bytes
108 Castleton Drive
Harvest, AL 35749
Nominations will be accepted up to November 30, 1992. Then we will take
the top three vote getters in each category and announce the finalists.
You will then have from December 1st, 1992 through January 31st, 1993 to
vote for your favorite of the finalists. Then we'll announce the winners
in the February issue of Game Bytes. Actual awards will be created and
sent to each award winner. So, get your nominations in now and let's
show these developers that there's a HUGE reading audience for Game Bytes.
Let yourself be heard.
Here are the electronic addresses that we can receive your vote through:
Compuserve: 71441,1537
Internet: ross@kaos.b11.ingr.com
Prodigy: hskv30a
America On-Line: RossGBytes
EXEC-PC BBS: Ross Erickson
GEnie users - Hold on, we're working on getting our account imminently.
We look forward to receiving _thousands_ of votes for your game nomination
and ultimately your vote. Thanks for participating with us.
Special Thanks To.....
As usual, we couldn't produce a single issue of Game Bytes without the
terrific support from our readers, reviewers, and others who make it
all happen. As always, my hat's off to you.
In no particular order...
Mike McCole Lisa Erickson Chris Alveras
Andy Van Fossen Ken Fishkin Johnny Georgi
Bob Bates Hwei Yin Chad Naeger
Chris Crouch Chuck McMath Shannon Adams
Sir Launcelot Du Lake Michael Trick Paul Purda
"Sonny Bonds" Thom Vaught Richard Schaft
Chuck Meo David Elliot Eric Stewart
Richard Wyckoff Mark Bylander Adam Pletcher
Ian Mercado Steve Mayo Mark Lam
Kit Kimes Mitch from N.C. Dave Masten
Alexander Hobson Mark Edward Kern Ed Goldman
Mitch Aigner
A Hearty Thanks from Game Bytes!!
HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT GAME BYTES?
The positive response we've received from so many around the world has
given us great hope for continuing to publish Game Bytes. As you man
know, there is no income generated through any means for this publication
to continue, yet there are significant expenses, both monetarily and
time. We would like to resist changing our strategy indefinitely, but
expenses are getting tight.
If you enjoy Game Bytes and feel it is of some value to you, please
consider making a donation or contribution of some kind to our cause to
help keep Game Bytes alive. We need your assistance. Your welcome
contributions can be sent to:
Game Bytes
108 Castleton Drive
Harvest, AL 35749
In return for your donation of $15.00 or more, we'll make sure we mail you
directly the next issue of Game Bytes.
Thanks for helping us keep Game Bytes alive.
Ross Erickson
Editor and Publisher, Game Bytes
ACCOLADE RELEASES HARDBALL III MLBPA PLAYERS DISK NEW ADD-ON DISK EXCLU-
SIVELY FOR USE WITH AL MICHAELS ANNOUNCES HARDBALL III
Category: Add-on disks
Price and Availability:
HardBall III MLBPA Players Disk - IBM PC and compatibles - $24.95
HardBall III Big League Ballpark Disk - IBM PC and compatibles - $24.95
(October 1992)
San Jose, CA - September 22, 1992 - Accolade, a leading publisher of
sports simulations, today announced the release of HardBall III MLBPA
Players Disk, the company's first add-on disk exclusively for use with
Al Michaels Announces HardBall III. Under an agreement with the Major
League Baseball Players Association, this new product is the first Add-on
disk to feature digitized color photographs of 650 real players from all
26 Major League Baseball teams. In October, the company plans to release
HardBall III Big League Ballpark Disk, its second add-on disk exclusively
for use with HardBall III. The Big League Ballpark Disk will contain 18
accurately detailed, professional ballparks from cities like Oakland,
Minnesota and Montreal. Together, these add-on disks will unlock some
of the hidden features in HardBall III that, until now, were not access-
ible. Both add-on disks are sold separately at a suggested retail price
of $24.95.
With the MLBPA Players Disk, HardBall III provides baseball fans with an
entire league of players including the names, faces and statistics of
their favorite Major League players. The add-on disk features active
players from both the National and American Baseball Leagues and includes
their statistics and line-ups through mid-season 1992.
The Big League Ballpark disk contains the remaining 18 stadiums (eight are
provided in HardBall III) from both the American League and the National
League. Additional season schedules, including one for expansion teams,
are also provided. Each of the stadiums are rendered in 256-color VGA
graphics and built to exact specifications to look and play like real
life.
Released in May of the year, Al Michaels Announces Hardball III has
already found its way to the top of the charts. It is the third game in
the well known HardBall series built on a reputation of action, strategy
and pure fun. The product features play-by-play commentary by sports-
caster Al Michaels, "team effort" play, and a complete 162 game season
including an all-star game, play-offs and championship games.
Al Michaels Announces HardBall III and both add-on disks can be purchased
at local software retailers or can be ordered directly from Accolade by
calling 1-800-245-7744.
ACCOLADE APPLAUDS APPELLATE COURT DECISION IN SEGA VS. ACCOLADE
SAN JOSE, CA--AUGUST 31, 1992-Accolade, Inc. today announced that the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has dissolved the injunction which
prevented it from developing, manufacturing or selling video games that
are compatible with Sega's Genesis system. On Friday, August 28, the
Ninth Circuit issued a brief, unanimous order, in the landmark Sega vs.
Accolade case, throwing out the District Court's injunction, which was
issued in April of this year. The order also noted that an opinion
specifying the reasons for the Court's decision would be issued in the
future.
Accolade Chairman Alan R. Miller, applauding the Ninth Circuit's decision,
stated, "I'm tremendously pleased by the Court's confirmation of
Accolade's position in our dispute with Sega. We were convinced that the
actions Accolade took to study the interface requirements of Sega's
Genesis game system were perfectly proper and thoroughly in accord with
standard industry practice. Although the Ninth Circuit's final opinion
has not yet been issued, we have every reason to believe that the opinion
will support our position on both the copyright and trademark issues and
vindicate our reverse engineering activities."
In its lawsuit, Sega alleged that its copyright and trademarks were
infringed when Accolade studied a Sega Genesis game system and several
game cartridges to learn how to make Accolade games compatible with the
system. Specifically, Sega claimed that Accolade illegally copied its
software during its reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is a widely
used method of studying how a product operates in order to develop
products that are interoperable with it.
Accolade argued that its actions were protected by law and legal pre-
cedents, which encourage the study of ideas and functional elements in
copyrighted information. No previous case has held that the mere dis-
assembly of computer programs, including the making of copies for the
purposes of analysis of interface specifications, constitutes a copyright
infringement where the final product is not "substantially similar" to the
original program. "Sega has never claimed that Accolade's game programs
are 'substantially similar' to Sega's, because they are not," said Miller.
"The impact of the Court's order on Accolade's business will be very
positive," stated Miller. "Now that the injunction against our line of
Sega Genesis-compatible products has been overturned, we look forward to
returning to our previous position behind Electronic Arts as the second
leading independent publisher of Sega Genesis compatible products."
Miller continued, "I want to publicly acknowledge and applaud the
excellent counsel and representation we have received in this case from
the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. The litigation team of Bill
Coats, Rex Heinke, David Shannon, Heather Rafter, Kelli Sager, and Pat
Scatena from the firm's San Jose, San Francisco, and Los Angeles offices,
and their staffs, have my thanks and admiration. And throughout this
litigation, the assistance of our longtime corporate counsel, Doug
Neilsson of Gibson, Dunn's San Jose office, has been invaluable.
"I especially want to thank the groups who recognized the importance of
our case and joined in our appeal of the district court decision as amicus
curia. These include the American Committee for Interoperable Systems
(ACIS), eleven distinguished professors of copyright law, and the Computer
and Communications Industry Association (CCIA). The briefs from these
groups undoubtedly made a significant contribution to this important
decision. All of the information technology industries owe them a vote of
thanks."
Accolade, with headquarters in San Jose, California, is a leading develop-
er and marketer of entertainment software for IBM-compatible, Macintosh,
and Amiga personal computers and is a licensed developer and marketer of
video game software for Nintendo and NEC video game systems.
Strategic Studies Group
8348 Monticello Drive
Pensacola, FL 32514
CARRIERS AT WAR
Available for IBM $69.95, In August of 1992. Requires 640K and Hard drive
EGA or VGA graphics, supports AD-Lib & Sound Blaster cards, mouse or key-
board with 5.25" or 3.5" disk.
Fifty years ago, the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor plunged
half the world into war. Carriers at War is a re-enactment of six crucial
carrier battles from that awesome conflict.
They are Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz and
Phillipine Sea, the scene of the great Mariana's Turkey shoot.
Your task is to seek out and destroy enemy carriers, fleets and air forces
... before they do the same to you!
Carriers at War is a graphically and technically superb simulation of
World War II air/naval operations. The intensity and uncertainty of
carrier battles is brought vividly to life. Hundreds of ships and air-
craft are individually modelled, while the natural and intuitive interface
makes giving orders easy.
"Carriers at War" Features:
-Superb hi-res VGA graphics throughout the game
-Exciting animated combat displays
-Intuitive mouse driven interface
-Limited intelligence simulates the confusion and uncertainty of battle
-Strong Al routines provide the toughest computer opponents
-All ships and aircraft individually modelled for stringent accuracy
-Special tactical battle system for surface combat resolution
This year is the 50th anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. Carriers
at War is a superb simulation of that battle, and the critical struggles
at sea that followed.
LEGEND ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY
CAN FORT NAUGHTYTAIL SURVIVE ERNIE EAGLEBEAK AND SPRING BREAK?
Chantilly, VA - September 18, 1992 - Legend Entertainment Company today
announced the release of their new IBM PC game, Spellcasting 301: Spring
Break. Legend Entertainment Company's products are exclusively distrib-
uted worldwide by Accolade. Steve Meretzky, author of such hit games as
Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Zork Zero has created another chapter in
the life of Sorcerer University's favorite geek, Ernie Eaglebeak.
Join Ernie and his fraternity brothers as they hitch a ride on a flying
carpet and thread their way to the infamous spring break party town of
Fort Naughtytail. Higher education is definitely not on Ernie's mind as
he prepares for a vacation full of sand, surf, sorcery, and sun. He can
forget about relaxing, however, as once he gets there he and his pals meet
up with the very competitive Getta Loda Ye rival fraternity. The Loda
Yu's challenge Ernie and his fraternity buddies to compete in such
physical contests as weight lifting, mud wrestling, body surfing, and
volleyball. Challenges are also issued in the more esoteric areas of
drink mixing, tanning, and sand castle building.
Although competitive by nature, Ernie does have other things on his mind,
like Lola, the woman of his dreams. Will Ernie finally be able to
convince Lola that he's more than a walking pocket protector? Or will
other bikini clad icons of the sand beckon to him?
It's not all fun and sun for Ernie, however, as he seems to keep getting
thrown in the slammer for various infractions and must constantly come up
with novel ways of escaping. He's gotta get out so he doesn't miss one
wet t-shirt contest or bullfight.
Spring Break is available at local software retailers or can be purchased
directly from Accolade by calling 1-800-245-7744.
ORIGIN
Origin Joins Forces With Electronic Arts
Austin, TX September 10, 1992 - The future of computer gaming will have
deep roots in Texas as a result of an agreement between ORIGIN Systems,
Inc. and Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) of San Mateo, California. In this
transaction, which will be accounted for as a pooling of interests,
Electronic Arts will exchange approximately 1.3 million shares for all
outstanding securities of ORIGIN. The value of the deal at the time of
signing was approximately $35 million.
Founded in 1983 by brothers Robert and Richard Garriott, ORIGIN experienced
strong growth with the success of Richard Garriott's Ultima line of fantasy
role-playing games. The series has sold more than 1.5 million units
worldwide. During the past three years, the company has experienced
strong growth in revenues and profitability. These operating results have
been bolstered by the popularity of the award-winning Wing Commander line
of action/simulation games, which has sold more than 500,000 units world-
wide.
"While ORIGIN's financial track record continues to be strong, both ORIGIN
and Electronics Arts see their long-term strategies for the entertainment
industry best served together," said Robert Garriott, ORIGIN's president.
The combination of ORIGIN and Electronic Arts will forge a powerful
partnership in the entertainment software industry. ORIGIN's Senior
Vice-President/Creative Director Richard Garriott said, "Our industry
leadership in developing top-of-the-line properties and technology, when
backed by Electronic Arts' worldwide, multi-platform distribution strength
will, we believe, see our combined companies have an even greater
advantage over the competition."
ORIGIN currently employs 160 artists, programmers, musicians, writers and
other professionals. ORIGIN will retain its distinctive Texas person-
ality. The company has purchased a multi-million dollar headquarters in
north Austin and will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Electronic
Arts. Robert Garriott will continue in his role as ORIGIN's president and
CEO and becomes a vice-president of Electronic Arts. Richard Garriott
will retain his position as ORIGIN's senior vice-president/creative
director and becomes an executive producer for Electronic Arts.
"ORIGIN is a highly successful publisher in the interactive entertainment
industry with a strong record of growth and profitability. They have an
excellent management team, and they have proven themselves in their nine-
year history to be a great creative force with unique products. The
acquisition of ORIGIN by Electronic arts is an excellent fit," said Larry
Probst, president and CEO of Electronic Arts. "It will help launch
Electronic Arts into the CD market and enhance Electronic Arts' position
as the leading worldwide independent publisher of entertainment software."
ORIGIN is an international publisher of entertainment software based in
Austin, Texas. To date, ORIGIN has developed and published more than 30
titles on multiple home computer and compact disc (CD-ROM) platforms and
has also developed titles for key video game platforms.
READYSOFT INCORPORATED
EMPIRE PRESENTS CAMPAIGN
East Germany
January 1945
Campaign is the war games simulator designed with Twentieth century war-
fare in mind. Set during WWII years of 1939-1945, Campaign features most
of the hardware available during this period. You alone control the move-
ments of over 100 different vehicles and 15 guns (including anti-tank and
artillery weapons). Plan battles to the last detail using local
factories, supply convoys and airforce support, all clearly shown on your
game screen.
Vehicles and weaponry have been painstakingly recreated to ensure histor-
ical accuracy. Each vehicle on the battle field can be driven independ-
ently during a battle. You can choose to inspect your forces, or move
them to alternate locations at your discretion. Battles are begun when
opposing groups of vehicles get too close to each other on the playing
field.
The Campaign map uses a quad-tree system to store the map. This means
that the memory consumption of a map is dependant upon the detail within
it. Maps up to 2000 miles square (large enough to fit most of Europe)
are allowed.
Available in October 1992 for IBM PC and compatibles, Amiga and Atari ST
computers. Suggested retail price $59.95 US.
SSI RELEASES EXPANSION DISK FOR ITS POPULAR CARRIER STRIKE WAR GAME!
Category: War Game
Versions: IBM PC--$29.95
Sunnyvale, CA -- August 14, 1992 -- Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI),
today releases its Carrier Strike Expansion Disk and presents players with
six new starting points and "what it" scenarios for the war waged in the
South Pacific during World War II.
Continuing the excitement of SSI's original Carrier Strike war game,
players experience what might have happened if different tactical and
strategic decisions had been made during World War II. As example, what
if the Japanese navy had decided to fight for Guadalcanal instead of
evacuating? What if the Battle of Midway had never been fought or Amer-
ican carriers had gone to the defense of Wake Island? Or, what if
American carriers had been sunk at Pearl Harbor? Players will enjoy the
suspense and endless possibilities existing in every scenario and hypo-
thetical situation.
As an enhancement to SSI's original Carrier Strike, battle explosions,
carrier decks, planes and hangers are brought to life through enhanced
16-color EGA/VGA graphics and sound systems from AdLib, Sound Blaster
and Roland. As Task Force Commander, players launch attacks against enemy
ships, control every plane on the carrier, direct air patrol reconn-
aissance missions and relocate forces around the map.
To be used with Carrier Strike, the Carrier Strike Expansion Disk was
written by Garyl Grisgby, best-selling author of Western Front, Second
Front, and Kampfgruppe.
SSI is the leading c;omputer fantasy role-playing
game publisher and
is most noted for its ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS line of computer prod-
ucts. The company is also recognized as the premier computer war game
publisher, and based on industry rankings, is one of the top ten enter-
tainment software publishers worldwide.
We would like to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to all
readers of Game Bytes to express your views back to us. Let us know if
you like the concept we have developed with this type of publication.
Our reviewers love a little controversy and would welcome alternative
opinions to their own. Be prepared, however, to back up your stand if
you disagree with what was written. These are, after all, opinions.
Game Bytes truly wants to become the people's sounding board for the
gaming industry as a whole. Through your comments and feedback, we can
not only make our publication a better vehicle for communicating gaming
information, but we can also effectively communicate our desires for
better and/or different gaming experiences to the software publishers
themselves.
We also want to extend and invitation to all to become regular reviewers
themselves. We have no permanent "locked-in" reviewer staff. Those that
write for us now and excited to do so, but we welcome other reviewers who
wish to have their opinions made known as well. Game Bytes is a magazine
for the gamer from the gamer, and we hope our reviewer ranks will grow.
Don't be bashful - let us hear your views on your favorite games.
In future editions of Game Bytes, we will use this column to publish your
letters, comments, raves, and complaints for all to share. We hope you
will take the time to use it. Editorially speaking, we'll only be
concerned about certain types of four-letter words, so keep those to a
minimum, and we'll not be concerned about censorship. This is a free
forum, but a certain sense of decorum should prevail. Nothing more needs
to be said.
There are several ways to send your letters and comments to Game Bytes if
you wish to be heard. We'll start with the U.S. postal system. Letters
can be mailed to:
Game Bytes
108 Castleton Drive
Harvest, AL 36749
Using Compuserve, your letters can be sent to the address:
71441,1537
On America On-Line, send your comments addressed to:
RossGBytes
And finally, using Internet mail, feel free to mail your letters to:
ross@kaos.b11.ingr.com
Any of these three mailing methods are perfectly acceptable. If you
happen to have an account on EXEC-PC in Wisconsin, one of the largest
subscription service bulletin board systems in the world, or Nitelog in
California, you can also leave a mail message for me there. My full
account name on both systems is Ross Erickson.
We look forward to reading your comments about Game Bytes and how to make
it better with each issue. There are a lot of active gamers out there,
and if we can reach just some of you, we will know this effort is
worthwhile.
Hope to hear from many of you soon!
Ross Erickson
Editor and Publisher
We'll be repeating this message in a few more issues of Game Bytes to
encourage readers to respond.
Chris Alveras writes:
Concerning GAME BYTES #5. I liked the mouse implementation in your new
issue, and the addition of a "different" front cover. I also liked the
option to export text into an ASCII file. Really neat. The new menu
system is also an improvement.
GB: Thanks Chris, we think the new front cover gives us a nifty kind of
look too.
I have a few suggestions though. Firstly, the mouse: Scrolling the mouse
up/down to move the page sort of results in a person losing his place in
the text, and the scrolling is not too pleasant either. This is not a
major point, but maybe you could use the left/right mouse buttons for page
up/down respectively, a bar at the bottom so when the cursor is moved
there and you click upon it, the graphic pictures come up, while a bar at
the top could be used for the same function as ESC has (this is all for
use _WHILE_ reading an actual review).
GB: The two mouse buttons at this time act as 'enter' and 'esc'
respectively and changing that would really foul up the use of the mouse
at this point. I think we'll stay with it the way it is for the time
being.
Another point: Maybe you could provide the reader with some kind of small
option where he could change the colours to the text they are reading
(well, speaking for myself, I find the blue background and white text a
little TOO bright - I would prefer to make my own colour selections, so my
eyes wouldn't hurt as much).
GB: Our programmer already has a colorbar on his 'to-do' list. Thanks
for reenforcing the idea though.
I think that's about it for now. Oh, one last question: Why was HARDBALL
3 reviewed for a 3rd time? Couldn't it's slot been used by some other
review?
GB: In our rush to get issue #4 done, we accidently cut off the second
Hardball 3 review in mid-stride and failed to give credit where credit was
due. So, to make things right, we ran the complete review over again.
Anyway, that's all folks (for now). Hope to hear from you soon with the
answers to these questions. Until next time, adios!
GB: Hopefully, there's nothing in my answers that would stop you from
reading. Stay in touch.
Andy Van Fossen of Ohio writes:
Ross, many thanks for Game Bytes! It complements publications like CGW
very nicely. I, like many other readers I'm sure, especially like the
screen shots. The reviews seem objective and well-balanced. And the way
it's distributed (ftp) is very convenient. If I can find the time, I
think I'd like to get in on a class operation like this one. What do I
have to do to submit?
GB: Andy, thanks for the generous compliments. We hope to continue to
use quality screen shots with each issue. Space is always one of our
biggest concerns though. As far as participation, we'd welcome your
insight and experiences of your gaming 'career' so far. Please drop me
some email and we'll see what we can do to get you started.
Chad Naeger from 'parts unknown' writes:
Hello my name is Chad. I have recently started reading your GameBytes and
would like to tell you that they are great. I have just one question for
you. Have you considered selling subscriptions for the magazine? I curr-
ently subscribe to Computer Gaming World. I pay about $30 for a year. I
would like to subscribe to Gamebyte for about the same price and be sent
a disk every month. If I was in school still downloading would not be a
problem but with a 2400 baud modem it is. I read the magazine and you
said if you sent in a donation you would get a copy of that gamebyte and
I assume that gamebyte only. Is what I am suggesting feasable or not?
GB: Chad, you are a marketing research project dream come true! Boy, you
can rest assured that this letter will be filed away for permanent
keeping. Yes, we have considered subscriptions to the magazine and will
likely end up that way to some degree early next year. We just have a
minor resource issue right now, but will plan on offering some kind of
subscription for some who simply can't get the magazine any other way.
Stay tuned..
Great magazine.
GB: Thanks
Chris Crouch from "somewhere in the government" writes:
I've got to say (again) that GameBytes is great. I haven't bought a
gaming magazine since you started.
GB: OOOOOH! This is DEFINITELY a letter I'm faxing to Brian Walker
(editor of Strategy Plus) and Johnny Wilson (editor of Computer Gaming
World)!!
I just got GB#5. It was good to see so many reviews, and the mouse
support was nice. The scrolling panels, however, are just distracting
(even if they look good). The support for us "more" users was good,
GB: Hmm. No scrolling panels eh? Well, I've had a couple of people
say they like'em, a couple say they don't, and about a million
"abstainers".
but it would be good if the return key also behaved like it does in
"more" ie. scroll down one line. These are just nit-picking points,
though - it's the content that matters.
GB: Nit-pickers have feelings too! :-) I think the 'return' key is
being re-looked at right now. Probably in issue #7.
What I think would be a really good idea is head-to-head reviews of
similar games, to help us game-buying plebs decide what to buy. For
instance, in GB#5 there are reviews of Indy 4 and of Monkey Island 2.
What I want to know is "is Indy 4 like/as good as/etc Monkey Island
2". I know this could be a headache, but it could really tell me what
I want to know.
GB: With this, I have to vehemently disagree. Each game must be able
to stand or fall on its own merits. I simple cannot accept a review
which bases its entire conclusions by comparing it another title. That
would be like comparing Ultima 7 to The Summoning and saying, "Well,
Ultima 7 is 'better', so buy it instead of The Summoning". First of all,
these are pure opinions anyway, and secondly, who's to say that both
games are worthy of every players hard disk? I firmly believe that each
game must stand on its own. It's not fair, nor realistic to compare
Monkey Island II to Indy 4. Both are fantastic games. Is one better than
the other? Not in my book. I saw both Silence of the Lambs and Terminator
II. I thoroughly enjoyed both. Was one better than the other? According
to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, one was, and an award was given.
The purpose of Game Bytes is not to give awards each issue. It's to
give advise from gamers to gamers about what titles are enjoyable to have
and which ones have missed the mark. We are having an awards nomination
process going on right now, but it's ceremonial in nature, rather than
editorial. Now, down off the soap box.
Another, related, idea would be to have people give simple 1-2 line
ratings and descriptions for _all_ of the games they own, along with a
brief description of the machine they have. For example, mine might be:
Name: Chris Crouch (crouch@hfrd.dsto.gov.au)
Machine: 486DX/33, 8Mb memory, 160 Mb HDD, Soundblaster 2.0, mouse,
joystick, DRDOS 6 & OS/2 2.0
Games:
Civilization 9/10 One of my favourites. Great strategy
game.
Railroad Tycoon 7/10 Good strategy game. Can't compare
to Civ
Monkey Island 2 7/10 Nice graphics. Great music. Funny.
Too small.
Simearth 3/10 Interesting, but quickly loses
interest.
Megatraveller 2 6/10 Hard to get into, but satisfying.
Space 1889 2/10 Too hard to get into, and bad
interface.
Red Baron 8/10 I love those old planes.
Spellcasting 101 5/10 I found it too hard.
Lost Treasures of Infocom 6/10 Good value for money, good memories.
Secret of the Silver Blades 6/10 Simple, but plenty of game-play
Ultima 7 5/10 Too slow, hard-to-use interface
Ultima Underworld 8/10 State of the art graphics, great fun.
Castle Wolfenstein 3D 6/10 Great graphics, but limited gameplay
(part 1)
Rules of Engagement 4/10 Too hard, not enough control, not
enough depth
Lemmings 7/10 Amazingly addictive, but no replay
value.
(God, have I really bought that many games :-)
GB: Nice idea to tell your neighbour over the phone, but we're really
interested in a LOT more information than this.
If enough people did this, it could give the magazine readers a chance
to get several opinions on games, and ratings relative to a known
quantity. If they need more detail on _why_ a given rating was given,
they could (where possible) email to the person/people that gave the
rating.
GB: I appreciate your ideas, Chris, but I think you've missed the focus
and vision of what Game Bytes is all about. It's truly meant to be an
alternative to the 'paper magazines' and to offer comprehensive, critical
views on contemporary (and non-contemporary) games. 'Sound Bytes' just
won't make it in Game Bytes.
Hope you like these ideas.
GB: Thanks for expressing them, Chris. I appreciate your candor, and I
hope you follow what we view as our vision.
Chuck McMath of Bethesda, MD writes:
I just got through with GameBytes issue 5 and have to say that is is
unbelievable that you can keep improving from issue to issue. I have
noticed a steady increase, not just in quantity, but also in quality.
Excellent job!
GB: Why Chuck, we're blushing!! :-) Seriously, thanks very much.
I quickly tried to display the pictures from the various reviews (before I
read the text) and on my VGA screen didn't get anything displayed for 7th
Guest. After I read the disclaimer at the start of the article, I muttered
"well, this is the first time I've ever had to get a hardware upgrade in
order to read a magazine!". But it may be so!
GB: Um, sorry about putting you through that, but I'll have to point the
finger you're pointing at me at Access, Virgin, and Three-Sixty so far.
Seriously, though, I think the addition of walkthroughs/solutions is a
great idea. One other idea might be to have detailed reviews on 'older'
games - meaning games from the past year or so. There are many excellent
games which newer gamers, such as myself, might not be aware of. In
addition, those of us who can't afford 486/33's might appreciate reading
about a game that doesn't require a hardware upgrade. For instance, I was
in an Egghead Software store yesterday and saw how Origin has re-priced
their slightly older games - Wing Commander 1 and Ultima 6 for example - at
$20.00. My wimpy computer can't handle Ultima 7 yet, but solicited
opinions on U6 over the net, and heard it is a good game, and that I'd
probably like it. I'm sure there are many such values that are no longer
on the cutting (or is it bleeding...) edge.
GB: Chuck, I've already "blown the horn" on Internet and elsewhere to
have those who would like to have reviews of some golden oldies published
to jump in and contribute their insights. Hopefully it will open up soon.
By the way, it's kind of nice to know that I'm not the only one who can't
play Ultima 7 either. This 386 clunker is fine for some games (Sierra
adventures), lousy at others (Falcon 3.0), and simply incompatible (Ultima
7) with a few. I expect the 'lousy' and 'incompatible' categories are
going to be growing.
I don't think I'd have a serious objection to GameBytes accepting paid
advertisments, as long as they were clearly labeled as such. In fact, it
would be sorta neat to see the 'latest and greatest' ad from the various
advertisers. I enjoy reading the ads in the various game magazines.
GB: If and/or when we get to advertisers, they will be clearly noted,
much like the Vendor Notes section is now. They won't be at all like
what you see in CGW though. There would likely be a 'textual' screen
with a screen shot of some kind that could be displayed. Not sure how
this format will work for some.
I agree with the letterwriter who suggested you come up with some standard
format for the review rating. I don't have a perfect format in mind, but
if you standardize on a particular format it makes comparisons between
games easier.
GB: Working on it, working on it! :-)
And lastly, I'd like to volunteer for whatever you guys need. I saw in GB5
whenever someone suggested improvements you asked if they'd volunteer. I
would be happy to serve as a spell-checker/editor of sorts/grammar person
if you need that kind of beast. Or if you need a review I'd be willing;
advise me on the procedure!
GB: Well, on the spell-checking/proof-reading front, I'm well covered.
Mr. Mike McCole is the closest thing I've got to an editor right now and
his efforts are MUCH appreciated. I have put out a call for more players
to be involved with the magazine by writing hints, tips, walkthrus,
strategies, etc., in addition to the constant need for reviews. Could you
consider something like this?
In summary - great job, keep it up!
GB: Thanks Chuck. It's fun to read letters like this.
David Elliot of Texas A&M University writes:
Great E-Mag!!!! I loved your first four issues, and hope to see more soon!
GB: Hope you caught issue #5 too.
The real reason for my writing this note, is to report a bug. I have four
issues at this point, and the first two work completely bug free on my
system. But when I load the third or fourth issues I have problems. They
(3 and 4) work fine with the text stuff, but when I load up a graphics
image it lets me view the first (if there are more than one) and then if
I hit any key with the image on the screen, the screen goes black and
nothing happens. I have to reboot my computer. I tracked the problem
down to my mouse driver. I have Microsoft Mouse Driver ver. 6.26. If I
cut the mouse driver out of my autoexec.bat file the program works fine.
It is a pain to do this, but if it can't be helped I don't mind doing it
to see the magazine.
GB: David, I would suggest you upgrade your mouse driver to something
more current. I'm using version 8.2 now and have no problems with it
whatsoever.
Overall, I must say that I love the format. Seeing the actual images of
upcoming games excites me to no end. I just about flipped when I saw
the Strike Commander pictures. Seeing the images on the monitor is much
better than any screen shots on the back of the box in the store.
GB: Glad you like the revision. It was quite a bit of work to move to
the "horizontal" look, but I think it was worth the while. Speaking of
Strike Commander pics,......just don't miss issue #7.
Eric Stewart of Cambridge, MA writes:
I've just finished reading GB5, and I am blown away! I thought #4 was
incredible, but five stands head and shoulders above it. The interface is
very friendly (I love the mouse-linked scrolling!) and the format is
quite functional. I hope the readers who are able to continue to support
THE BEST NEW IDEA IN COMPUTER GAMING since graphics were invented!
GB: Stop it! STOP IT!! STOP IT!!!!!!! AAAAUUUGGHHH!! :-) <g> Why Eric
I'm positively blushing! That's about the nicest thing anyone has ever
said about our little project here. We're certainly glad you like it.
I have a question concerning the SVGA pics... are they displayed by the
drivers in the games they came with or with one of your own? The reason
I ask is my system successfully displayed the Links386 screen and Mr.
Slye's photo, but not 7th Quest (I think that is what it was called.)
Is it really as great as the preview says?
GB: Now I can relate to the problems some of these vendors have support-
ing SVGA. It's a mess. No, we don't use the drivers from the games at
all. We wrote our graphics display driver to support 9 different chip
sets, but I'm sure we never caught them all. Then, there's the issue of
video bios age, and older chipsets and what-have-you, and we're not 100%
confident we have everybody covered. We did uncover a compatibility issue
with older Paradise cards with only 512K of video RAM that were not VESA
compatible. [Sigh]. No serious explanation on why the 7th Guest picture
didn't show up on your machine. And yes, the game is truly that
fantastic.
Well, hats off to Ross and crew (again). I can't imagine how you will
improve on this, but more power to you when you try.
GB: We'll certainly give it our best shot!
Kit Kimes of Naperville, IL writes:
I have not seen the first 4 issues of GB but I received Iss #5 via
email. I assembled the parts and uudecoded it. Then downloaded it
to a PC (took almost an hour at 2400 baud) and unzipped it. All I
can say is "It was worth all the effort". I ran it on a 386sx with
VGA. I have to assume that it needs at least VGA to be able to see
the screen shots. I have not tried it on anything less. I didn't
see this mentioned anywhere. If it takes VGA minimum, maybe you should
mention it to save some people a lot of download time.
GB: Yes, that's a good idea, but I'm not sure how to advertise something
in a zip file before one starts to download it. We try to put out several
"billboards" about what's in each issue before you make your choice, but
this information does not always make it around to everybody. We're very
glad you like the magazine.
Thanks for all the effort. I really appreciate it. I just hope you
don't get tired of doing it anytime soon.
GB: We enjoy putting Game Bytes together too, however, this particular
issue was a REAL bear to get all the pieces to come together at the right
time.
Mitch from North Carolina writes:
I just wanted to drop you a line about GameBytes. In a word, WOW!
Well, that is to say, this magazine really rocks! I love it! I down
loaded issues 2-4 a couple of days ago and I was highly impressed by
the quality of the reviews, the screen shots, just everything was so...
well, professional looking. There can be no doubt in mind that you and
your staff have made a tremendous contribution to the world of computer
gaming.
GB: Thanks Mitch. We certainly like to view ourselves as pioneers in
some respect. The magazine has really caught on well, but publicity is
still our biggest challenge. Spread the word around.
According to "Introduction", advertising may show up in the future.
Well, I think this would be a necessary evil. If you have to do it, how
about getting the companies advertising to take advantage of the medium
of GameBytes - i.e., they could provide their own screen shots, possibly
short demos of the program. Also, there may be some legal problem with
advertising. I'm not sure how Internet and other nets operate, but would
it be legal for you to distribute advertising over a "free" net? Internet
access certainly isn't free for me, as I have had to pay for an account at
NC State. Just something you might want a lawyer friend to look into.
GB: Hmmm. Good points, all. We'll have to take a look at this under
find scrutiny when we get closer to this bridge. In some way, the Vendor
Notes section already here is close to advertising already.
I eagerly await #5. Keep up the good work and best of luck to you and your
staff!
GB: Mitch, I hope you've taken a look at issue #5 by now. It was our best
issue (until this issue came out :-) so far.
Paul Purda of New Zealand writes:
I would like to thank you for creating "Gamebytes". I think it is simply
the best collection of games information I have ever seen. I think that
the idea of Screen shots is an excellent idea as it show you exactly how
a game will look on your machine. I also like your magazine because it is
so current and up-to-date. Also it is very quick to get your magazine
from the USA to New Zealand, where it is getting quite popular. Over here,
we don't really get that much information on games so when we have to go
and pay $150 for a game, it is sometimes quite a risk. Thanks to your
magazine and good reviews, the risk of buying a game is less risky and we
are more informed. One thing I would like to see at this time is more
titles in the new games area and less in the old games area as there are
lots of games coming out from now until Christmas. After Christmas it
would be good to then go back to having a lot of reviews on old games.
Anyway, keep up the good work and I look forward to reading the next
issue of Gamebytes!
GB: Wow! Paul, you may win the long-distance award for Game Bytes, that
is until someone from Perth, Australia writes in. Thanks for the kind
words about Game Bytes. We enjoy putting it together even though it gets
kind of stressful at times. We're glad to know we have a fan club of
sorts in New Zealand and hope you will continue to read and spread it
around your country. Regarding new games, yes, I think you'll see more
and more reviews of titles that are just shipping or have just started.
Ramping up as we have, we worked for a quality product first before
trying to completely focus on newer products. There's enough 'new' out
now that this shouldn't be a problem for many months to come.
Hot Tip: Reviews will follow, but here's a couple of titles that are
sure to be very safe, yet very entertaining 'new' titles:
The Summoning - SSI
Crusaders of the Dark Savant - Sir-Tech Software
Conquered Kingdoms - QQP
V for Victory: Utah Beach - Three-Sixty
Stunt Island - Disney Software
Dark Sun - SSI
These should keep you very happy in the coming months!
"Sonny Bonds" in Claremont, CA writes:
Congratulations again on another superb issue of GameBytes. I can tell
that you guys really had your hands full with all the mods made from
GB4 --> GB5! It sure was satisfying to see those 640X480X256 screen shots
appear!
GB: Yeah, well those 640x480x256 color pictures also caused a lot of
problems for some folks too. We're still tracking them down. We're glad
you liked the shots of The 7th Guest and Links 386 Pro.
I also like the change in letter format. Rather than listing by "Letter
#6", people can be listed by name. I also like the online help, which is
actually helpful. This way I can see at a glance all the useful features
that GB has, like printing to an ASCII file. (Very useful!)
GB: Amazing what just going "horizontal" can do for us, right?
The new format is as easy to use as the old format! Thanks for not
screwing up something that worked! (Better not go work for Origin...
<grin>)
GB: Now, now, let's not get testy. I know the Origin folks quite well
and I can assure you they don't go out of their way to put or leave in
bugs in their products. I let them know quite clearly though about bugs
that should be squashed immediately. Heck, I should know about Origin
problems - I STILL can't play Ultima 7 (and any future Origin games)
because our dear friends at Intel decided to produce a B1 Step 386 part
which has known bugs. Now THESE are bugs!! There seems to be no way
around it for Origin as they are programming in 32-bits for U7 and this
is the problem with the 386 chip I have. Ah, for the day when I'll be
riding in a new 486/66!!
But, as usual, I have a few suggestions. First and foremost, you need to
be more consistent about labelling games that aren't MS-DOS games. GB5 was
pretty good about it, but there were some games (like Air Combat) that
weren't labeled. For example, I would have listed it as "Air Combat
(Arcade)."
GB: Hmm. O.K., point well taken, but I don't think anyone made any bad
judgements or decisions because we didn't label this review as a NON-
computer game. I mean, READ ON, right?
As I'm sure you've heard before, it would be nice to see exactly what each
game supports and doesn't support. I and most of my friends buy games
based on what they support. A game that runs only in EGA mode just won't
cut it these days. If it supports SVGA, say so! If it has music, say so!
Probably the most diplomatic method is to just copy the compatibility info
right off the box. This way, if you're wrong, you can blame the
publisher... <grin>. Of course, it's always nice to see what an
independent reviewer thinks the game supports. (And it's sometimes
interesting to see how this compares with what the publishers say. <grin>)
GB: We are really working hard (Mike McCole and myself) to try and stand-
ardize some kind of template for the reviewers to fill in for these very
reasons. We're not quite there yet, but we're getting close. Hopefully,
by issue #7 or #8 we'll have it knocked out. Your suggestion is perfectly
meritable.
It would also be nice in your "miscellaneous" section to include a section
on where to get more info like what you published. For example, a list of
MS-DOS game FTP sites, BBS's, etc. would surely be very popular! Here's a
start:
FTP SITES:
-------------------------------------------------
ftp.uwp.edu game cheats, hints, solutions
ftp.ulowell.edu MS-DOS games, GameBytes
GB: Yes, yes, more good ideas. I like it!
It's always nice to see several reviews of the same game, especially if
the reviewers disagree, but sometimes it's hard to sift through all of the
first article to get to the second article. How about adding a third menu
"layer" to GameBytes which would allow us to access each review
separately?
Something like:
Reviews-+--> Ultima 14 --+--> Joe Blo
| |
+--> M&M 8 ... +--> Susie Pessimist
|
+--> Mouselover Mo
GB: Hehehehehehe. Yeah, you did it. You got the ol' publisher smiling!
So I could see any of the three reviews without sifting through the other
two, and so I could print each one seperately. (It may be tricky getting
each review to show the same screen shot, but you'd know better than I...)
GB: The screen shots do pose a problem, as you say. Maybe each review
could have their own screen shot. Provided it's not too "expensive"
(referring to disk space).
I hope that you'll be able to stave off advertisers as long as possible,
but it wouldn't totally decimate me to see an ad or two included in
GameBytes, so long as it is done nicely. If you allow text-only ads, and
put them in their own separate place, that's great. I just don't want to
have to sift through some publisher's drivel before I can get to what I
really want GB for-- the reviews and information.
GB: Yes, the advertisements (which seem to be inevitable if we are to
survive) would be very carefully placed. Much like the press releases
are now. They would be under something similar to Vendor Notes now.
I'd still like to see more graphics, even though GB will undoubtedly grow
in size because of it. Wasn't that the reason for the split format? Those
who want graphics should get lots of 'em! Those who don't want graphics
can snag the text-only version.
Yes, but the main issue for size, particularly if we do offer subscriptions
at some point, is that it must fit on a single disk. 90% of the space
used in each issue is graphics data. If you know of a fast, compatible
way to decrease graphics size without compromising the graphics quality,
I'm all ears. For now, the issues will remain roughly the same size with
approximately the same number of reviews in each issue (around 14-16).
Again congrats on a fine issue!
Thanks "Sonny". Catch any bad guys lately?? :-)
