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Game Bytes Issue 04
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Game ³ Hardball III ³
³ ³ by Accolade ³
ÆÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍØÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͵
³ Machine ³ û 8088/8086 (XT) û 80286 (AT) û 80386/80486 ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Graphics³ ù CGA û EGA û VGA ù SVGA ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Sound ³ û PC Speaker û AdLib û Soundblaster ù Soundblaster Pro ³
³ ³ ù Disney Sound Source û Roland û Thunderboard ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Control ³ û Keyboard û Mouse û Joystick ù Gravis GamePad ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Memory ³ ù EMS ù XMS ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Size ³ 1.8 Megabytes (fits on 1.44 disk without FastLoad) ³
ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÏÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ;
Reviewed by Ron "Slugger" Dippold
I can always go for a new sports simulation, especially baseball, as I
wasn't too bad in Little League, if I may so myself <koff>. I studied
up to review this game. I went to see the Padres get slaughtered by the
Mets, 8-3. It's worse than it sounds... all three Padres runs were home
runs. They just couldn't get anyone else on base. Oh well.
The team functions aren't bad at all. You can choose from several
teams, and you can get into them with the team editor and change them or
make your own. Set up the team name, manager, uniform colors, and even
the logo. Yes, there is a logo editor included with the game.
Substitute players, set positions, change the batting order, etc.
Choose from several stadiums: Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, LA,
New York, San Francisco, and even Toronto. There are several levels of
difficulty which you can set for either team: Manage only (for you real
couch potatoes), pitcher fatigue, pitching stats, batting stats (so you
know what you're going up against), running speed, designated hitter,
fielding errors, auto-fielding (otherwise you do it yourself), base
stealing, and pitch to center. You can choose whether your view is
from the pitcher, from the batter, or the appropriate one depending on
whether you are batting or pitching.
You can get into league play as well. Edit your leagues, buy a team or
two to manage, set up their seasons, and play them or simulate the
games. Gives it a nice sense of continuity, and if you do well enough
you can go to the playoffs.
The work that went into the user interface is impressive. All the
dialog boxes look like 3D woodgrain (or as close as you can get in
standard VGA). Even the installation program is in graphics, and shows a
spinning baseball as it copies files. Very impressive.
The actual playing interface is standard Hardball I and II. You choose
your options by holding your joystick in one of 5 locations (left,
right, up, down, center) and press the button for the appropriate
action, or use the appropriate keys on the keyboard to do the same
thing. You can do anything you need to do with this with a minimum of
fuss.
They've taken the instant replay feature from another one of their
games, Winter Challenge. You can replay any play with forward and
reverse in two speeds and full stop for those freeze frames. The
graphics are very well done, and the detail is excellent. If there's a
close play at one of the bases a detail screen pops up and you see the
play happen. Then an animated umpire pops up and signals a safe or out.
If a fielder gets close enough to a ball to try a diving catch he goes
for it.
The announcer deserves a special mention. Al Michaels does the
play-by-play if you have something that supports digitized voice, such
as a Soundblaster, and this is a fairly impressive operation. They've
digitized his voice for almost any conceivable situation and then they
string them together appropriately. For example, he'll actually say,
"At the plate, number 36, the designated hitter, batting .247. The
pitch. Curveball! He swings early. Strike two. The count is three and
two. A hit! Fly into right center. The center fielder stops it. A
base hit for number 36." They've got a couple different phrases for each
occasion. However, after about a half hour of this you may be ready to
throttle Al Michaels (I've been told by friends that this phenomenon
isn't necessarily limited to the game). The phrases aren't always
spliced together cleanly, so the voice is a bit choppy. However, if it
irritates you you can always turn it off.
The options you have for either fielding or hitting are pretty
impressive. Steal, hit and run, squeeze play, etc. For the fielding
team, you can even arrange the infield and outfield for special plays,
such as an anticipated double play. Every pitcher has his own set of
pitches that he knows how to do, such as curveball, screwball, slider,
sinker, fastball, and fastball!! for the really quick pitchers. The
action is fairly intense, especially if you've just missed that easy fly
and it's bouncing towards the back wall. It's easy to select your
actions. Just hold the joystick up for 2nd, down for home, left for
3rd, right for 1st, center for pitcher, and push the button if
necessary.
The one thing I dislike is that every now and then as the action
switches from one view to another the game pauses. It doesn't affect
the action, but dang it, I hate it when it does that during an intense
play! Other than that, it's great.
There's one thing you should be aware of. Despite the league play and
the team control you have, this is NOT a massively detailed sports
simulation. You can't buy it, plug in your favorite major league teams
this year, and see how they're going to do. It just doesn't have that
much detail. Just batting average, ERA, and a few other major stats.
And when you're playing the computer it's far too easy to get a hit - a
.350 average here would be pretty bad. Apparently they figured it would
too boring as an arcade game if you only made a hit every 4th time up
to bat.
This is an arcade game. Buy it as an arcade game, and play it as one,
and don't sweat the statistics, and you'll have one heck of a good time.
Play it with a friend and it'll be even more fun. Once you understand
that, you'll have a hell of a good time playing it. It's a great arcade
baseball game.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hardball III
It's summer again folks, and that means baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and
Honda. (or something like that) There's nothing better then taking in a game
of baseball on a warm summer day. The smell of the freshly cut grass. The
sound of the ball hitting the bat. Home runs. Double plays. Shutouts.
Walks. Strikeouts. Double bags of peanuts. Carnation ice-cream with those
annoying wooden spoons. Players charging the mound after an inside pitch.
All of the things that make the game great.
Baseball has been the most popular sport to simulate on a computer. Elec-
tronic Arts really got the ball rolling for true graphic-based baseball simul-
ations when they released "Earl Weaver Baseball," first for the Amiga, then
the IBM. It set the standard by which all others are judged. Later releases
like "Tony LaRussa Unlitmited Baseball" (TLUB) have tried to lay claim to the
title "King of the baseball mound." The newest entry into the baseball derby
is "Al Michaels Announces Harball III" from Accolade.
"Hardball III" (HB3) is a well-executed graphics-based baseball simulation
that, like its prequels, fails as a statistical game. The statistical aspect
of the game is woefully inadequate. The box announces, "major league
realism," but actually delivers major league disappointment. However, arcade
and graphic lovers should flock to this game, as it boasts some excellent
arcade action with some spectacular graphics and sound.
There is one gimmick that sets HB3 apart from the rest of the graphic baseball
simulations. There is continuous play-by-play by ABC's Al Michaels done in
digitized speech. Al announces the players number, their batting average,
their stats for the day, and the actual plays. On my Soundblaster, I was
amazed at the clarity of Michael's voice. I was speaking with someone over
the phone while Michaels was announcing, and he could tell whose voice it
was. It is only a bit choppy as it obviously is stringing together a comb-
ination of samples to form a complete sentence (example: a player hitting .342
is actually a combination of three, forty, and two). I quickly grew tired of
the play-by-play as the novelty began to wear off. Frankly, it began to get
on my nerves. Fortunately it can be turned off from the options menu, as can
the annoying music.
The program comes on either two high density 5.25" disks or three low density
3.5" disks and requires about 2 MB of hard drive real estate. It requires a
10 MHz or better AT with EGA or VGA/MCGA graphics. The 256 color VGA is
stunning, and definitely recommended over EGA. The play-by-play announcer
feature requires 2 meg of RAM and an EMS or XMS memory manager (such as QEMM,
386MAX, EMM386, or HIMEM.SYS) The copy protection is the dreaded Accolade
code wheel. HB3 also comes with a Windows .PIF and an icon, though if you
run it from Windows you will not get digitized sound. QEMM users take note:
you will have to add the command DMA=18 to your CONFIG.SYS (at least I did)
for digitized speech, otherwise the game crashes.
The graphics are excellent, with special accolades (pun intended) going to
the animation of the pitcher and the batter, who steps out of the box real-
istically after each pitch. The menus themselves deserve special mention,
especially when you compare them to the unreadable ones in "Earl Weaver
Baseball 2.0." (EWB2). They are possibly the best looking menus ever, with a
realistic wood grain and embossed letters. These menus are used throughout
the game, from displaying box scores to inputing player statistics. HB3,
like EWB2, offers various camera angles, to view the action as well as
instant replays. It also offers nicely animated close-ups of close plays.
When pitching or hitting, a player can choose to view the action from behind
the pitcher (which is the same view used by television broadcasts) or behind
the batter (which affords a better view of the pitch). The pitcher and
batter views are full-screen closeups (with base runners appearing in pop up
windows in the corners of the screen like TLUB). Once the ball is hit, the
screen switches to a standard depiction of the entire ballpark without the
delay TLUB has.
Once the ball is hit it is up to the player to move their fielder into
position to catch the ball. I found this especially difficult, especially on
balls hit to the outfield. I wish HB3 would have implemented a system like
TLUB where a circle appeared denoting the approximate destination of the ball.
This made positioning of fielders much easier, but not so easy that you still
couldn't botch one now and then. Thankfully, HB3 has an auto field mode,
whereby the computer fields the ball and you select the throwing location.
HB3 uses the normal base throwing routine (ie right=1st bast, up=2nd base,
etc.)
Being an ex-pitcher, I always enjoy the pitching aspect of a game most of
all. HB3 shares one thing with TLUB, and that is that the pitching seemed to
lack variety, with a set number of pitch locations. The only game I've found
with a unique and challenging pitching routine is the otherwise mediocre "Bo
Jackson Baseball."
Earl Weaver baseball II
Electronic Arts (Mirage Graphics)
PC, 640K, EGA/VGA/MCGA
Reviewed on a 386-33 with Soundblaster, mouse and joystick
reviewed by David Masten
Past editions of Earl Weaver Baseball have received more accolades than
any other widely distributed computer baseball game. Version II, heralded
as a merge of state of the art graphics and ultimate statistical realism,
finally debuted after the 1991 season. In the opinion of this long-time
baseball fan and game owner, it is at best a AAA player.
In fairness, I am more a fan of managerial games emphasizing strategy and
statistical realism. What attracted me to EWBB2 was the computer manager
and ability to recreate a season in an evening, not the graphics or arcade
options. I'll summarize the different modes of the game, and compare its
lineup to other games I've played.
I bought both the basic game, the 1990 teams/managers disk, and the
Commissioner's disk. The basic game which features eight all-star teams
spanning 1900-1980, runs about $35. The total package will set you back
$60 or more.
Play options seem impressive. You can choose an arcade mode, where you
control the players' pitching, hitting, baserunning and fielding (throwing
only). Or you can opt to manage only. Two player, one player vs
computer, or computer vs computer are supported. With the add-on disk,
each team has its own distinct computer manager. These teams also have
actual L/R splits for both pitchers and hitters and are stuffed with
individual ratings. In manage mode you can choose full, or single pitch.
Also provided are two non-graphical modes for faster computer-managed
play: a "superfast" mode, and a "stats plus full physics" mode, which is
supposed to account for wind, turf and other factors. I see no use for
the "superfast" mode as it is only marginally faster.
Graphics
========
Ads hyped the games graphics, including multiple camera views and instant
replay. I found the constantly switching "director" controlled views of
the individual players to be distracting, making it hard to follow the
play. When toggled off, you only get an overhead view with tiny players
consisting of few pixels. Not impressive, especially when compared to an
older Mac version. The large, decently rendered pitcher and batter, and
their motions, are exceptions. Movement of players to cover their
positions is done fairly well, far better than Microleague's The Manager's
Challenge (TMC). The user controlled camera angles are confusing and
buggy. I gave up on them after a few tries.
A reasonably fast machine is needed for smooth scrolling graphics.
Although I primarily played the game on a 386-33, I also took a few cuts
with a 386DX-16 and 486-33. I found the 386-16 to be marginally adequate.
With all machines, setting the game speed for realistic pitch velocity
with minimal dead time results in the ball in play being too fast. This
makes it somewhat hard to make fielding and baserunning decisions in play
mode.
MCGA graphics yield poor text which is often against a distracting stadium
in the background. Radar gun readouts are often blocked by other info.
Text entry with the 486-33 often results in multiple inputs for a single
keystroke.
Sound
=====
Sound support is weak. Only the sound of the ball bouncing or hitting a
glove ("blurp") is through the Soundblaster. Other sounds such as the
crack of the bat and umpire calls are handled by the PC speaker. The
theme music is extremely annoying, I disabled it after about a minute.
But if you disable the equally annoying organ music, you lose the pc
speaker sounds.
Play (arcade) mode
==================
This really isn't my interest, but I have tried it. I think results are
supposed to be dependent on both your ability and the players' stats, but
I'm skeptical. For instance, I hit too many homers with weak hitters and
pitchers. In fairness, this may be dependent on the selected difficulty
level. I think kids may find this mode fun. They may not have the
patience for a full game (about an hour), and rarely do I. I also want
realism.
Manage mode
===========
I bought the game because of the computer manager. This allows fast
replays of seasons. But even single pitch, full graphics games take 30+
minutes on the 386-33. Managing is a hassle as you must think quickly or
hit pause. The options menus are pretty comprehensive, but unwieldy. I
would also prefer to control baserunners like a running coach, not with a
before the pitch decision to run aggresively/normally.
For season play, I choose the "stats and physics" mode. The screen shows
a line score, lineups and box listing current hitter, pitcher, and bases
occupied. Games take approximately 30 seconds at the fastest speed
setting, so it is virtually impossible to follow the game. Still there is
some drama as you see baserunners getting on, pitchers changing, and hits
and runs tallied on the linescore. Fortunately, you can stop the game at
any point and choose other manage/play options or speeds.
The computer manager is marginally brain-dead, but not as bad as in TMC.
It is especially poor at pitcher/pinch-hitter management. The game has a
tendency to play musical relievers, often getting stuck with a position
player on the mound. It also may pinch hit for the likes of Rickey
Henderson, yet too often lets the losing pitcher bat. More on manager
foibles later.
The basic game allows only single games or a 162 game format with one team
vs all the rest. A nice inclusion is automatically saveable box scores
and stat accumulation. But stat presentation is only fair with the basic
game, and team stat compilation is virtually non-existent. So if you want
to play a season, the commissioner's disk is a must.
The commissioner's disk allows automatic scheduling of any length season
with any number of teams. It would be nice if it also allowed a user-
input schedule. It has edit/create/copy/draft features for leagues,
teams, players, ballparks and managers. It gives excellent stats
presentation for teams or individuals, which can be sent to screen, disk,
or printer. League leader (or trailer) stats can be shown for dozens of
categories, based on selectable ABs/innings and number of players to list.
This is a great feature! Most usual stats are given, with the exception
of pitcher appearances, complete games, and shutouts. This disk also
allows team rosters, with ratings and/or stats (real or accumulated) to be
saved to disk, so you can have a handy reference when playing. This disk
is by far the best thing about EWBB. If after reading this you still want
EWBB, get this disk!
The commissioner's disk lays bare the faults of the computer manager(s).
With it you can configure any team's manager based on 19 categories,
consisting of a few questions each. Most menu options are covered
including when to platoon, steal, hit and run, guard the lines, pinch-hit,
relieve, etc. I won't elaborate, but as often as not the decisions are
dependent on what I consider unrelated or plain stupid variables. And
even if the variables are correct, often the default values are the
reverse of what they should be (ex: lower minimum bunt rating required for
a slugger to opt to sacrifice than for a weak hitter). Oh well, at least
you can change them.
Back to stat realism. I played a commissioner disk computer controlled
162 game 1990 AL schedule. This took about 14 hours to run on the 386/33
in "stat plus physics" mode. Toronto won the East instead of Boston with
90 wins (86 real), Oakland won the West with 104 (103). For the most
part, other team won/loss records were reasonable. Canseco led with 46
homers, Rickey with 56 steals, Eckersley with 32 saves, Ryan with 225 K's,
Welch and Ryan with 20 wins. All believable results. Inexplicably,
doubles were almost nonexistent. Team batting averages were about 15
points down, as was run scoring (ERA about 0.80 low). The computer rarely
uses backups except as pinch-hitters, so most hitters had 600-750 plate
appearances. Contrary to my settings, injuries were ignored. Pitchers
innings came out very well, unlike the awful job done by TMC.
Occasionally the program miscredited saves and wins.
I played an NL schedule where for the first half-season, I set the lineups
for each game, then let the computer play. This let some drama build as
records accumulated, teams moved up and down in the standings, and players
vied for league leaderships. EWBB does well enough in this mode. But
again run scoring in the commissioner disk controlled second half was
extremely low.
Some other whiffs: Game credits run at odd intervals during the game.
Maybe they were trying to emulate commercials. They succeeded in that it
was about as aggravating. The code wheel copy protection is obnoxious,
especially with the organ music exhorting you to hurry up. Ballpark
dimensions were often as not wrong, Gehrig is listed as a righty (these
can be edited with the commissioner disk). Homers are often listed as
travelling 450-550 feet, trivial, but indicative of a lack of attention to
detail.
As to other games, I prefer the text-based, managerial games, Pursue the
Pennant (PtP) and APBA. The computer versions of APBA and Strat-o-matic
offer computer managers. The next version of PtP will also have one. The
complete EWBB package can be found for now about $60, about the same as
PtP. APBA and Tony Larussa's Ultimate Baseball also have low entry prices
but quickly add up to the same or higher. Judging from reviews of TLUB,
it is similar to EWBB.
All in all, I've bitched about the game, but I found the replays
reasonably entertaining, and infinitely better than TMC. And it has a
quick play mode, without which I can't imagine playing a long schedule.
Graphics: 4
Sound: 3
Playability: 5
Realism: 5
Fun: 5
Overall: 5
So in final, I'd recommend PtP, APBA, or SOM for those who value stat
realism. EWBB2 tries to do everything and doesn't fully succeed in any.
Consider EWBB2 only if you simply must have an arcade option.
Tony LaRussa's Ultimate Baseball
by Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Reviewed by Brian Chung
Tony LaRussa's Ultimate Baseball is a baseball game that combines
action and statistics in the style of Earl Weaver Baseball. Tony LaRussa's
strengths and weaknesses can be characterized in one word: Details. It has
very detailed graphics, detailed statistics for all the stat-buffs and little
details that other baseball games do not have, such as drafting. However,
it also lacks details that other baseball games do have, such as printing
stats. Tony LaRussa's also suffers from a cheap marketing ploy by the SSI.
The graphics in Tony LaRussa's is very detailed and smooth. The
movements of the pitchers, batters, runners and fielders are well-drawn and
easy to see. For example, the fielders can make a standing catch, a running
catch, a sliding catch and even a behind-the-back catch. You cannot choose
what kind of catch your fielder will make, but the program picks the right
one at the right moment. However, there are couple of things that Tony
LaRussa's lacks that seems to be becoming a standard in other baseball games.
First, in Tony LaRussa's, you cannot pick a different camera angle. You
can't even pick between the pitcher's point of view and the batter's point
of view. You are always pitching and hitting from the batter's point of
view. Second, when you want to have conference on the mound, you don't
see your catcher and manager walk out the mound. This is not as terribly
crucial as the choice between the points of view, but considering the fact
that the competing baseball games, such as Hard Ball III and Earl Weaver
Baseball II, have such scenes, it would have been nice to see them in Tony
LaRussa's also.
There are two major screens during a game. The pitcher-batter screen is
divided into two sections. The bottom quarter has the stats and scores in
scoreboard format with little lights forming the words. The rest of the
screen essentially shows the playing field with the mound and the batter's
box magnified in the middle. When the batter makes a contact with the ball,
the screen changes to show the magnified portion of the field. While the ball
is in-flight, you see a highlighted section of the field where the ball would
land so that you can move your fielder towards the ball. Tony LaRussa's
doesn't let you preview the individual stadium, but during the play you can
see the details the artists put into the drawings.
You can play Tony LaRussa's in the exhibition mode or league mode. In
the exhibition mode, you just pick any two teams and play. The league playing
is probably the strongest point in Tony LaRussa's. You can create your own
league, teams and schedules. Or, you can edit the included leagues, teams,
schedules and even your uniforms. If you are feeling like a general manager,
you can trade your players. One drawback is that you are not really dealing.
Rather, you are changing players around. Thus, you can make any kind of
"deal" you want however ridiculous it may be in the real world. For example,
I can trade away Jose Canseco for Pat Borders, and there would be no objections
from the program. You can also pick a team, and have the computer play out
the other teams while you play your own team. Or, you can even have the
computer play out an entire season, half a season, or a round robin.
The statistical aspect of the program is, again, very detailed. There
are a lot of numbers included and the computer does seem to be making a good
use of them. My current season with the stats from the 1990 season is pretty
close to what it was during that season. Rickey Henderson is leading in SB,
Nolan Ryan is the tops in K's, and Mickey Tettleton is the tops in strike
outs. There are also a lot of subjective factors besides the strict sports
section of the USA Today stats, such as fatigue, range, injury and error
factors. The second biggest gripe (I'll tell you the first one later) is the
lack of print option. The program lets you view the stats in many ways,
such as by the league, by the team and by the players, but it won't let you
print them. In fact, the only thing you can print in this game is the box
score at the end of a game.
The documents are adequate. You can read the documents once to learn
the controls and then store them away. On the other hand, you may not want
to do so since the copy protection requires you to enter a word from the
manual. The controls in the game, whether you are using a keyboard or a
joystick, are not too hard to memorize since everything is shown on the screen
while you play. There is no mouse support, joystick is strongly recommended.
I tried to play with my keyboard, but it's almost impossible to move the
fielders around with the numeric keypad.
Now, I'll tell you what my biggest gripe with Tony LaRussa's is. It's
not with the program itself, but rather with the company that makes it, SSI.
SSI has taken a very annoying way to market this program. The program itself
comes along with the program, old timers stats and classic stadiums. If you
want the recent stats, you have to buy the stat disk separately. (The 1990
stats and the 1991 stats are available separately.) If you want the stadiums
from the American League, you buy a separate disk. If you want the stadiums
from the National League, you buy another disk. If you want to draft, edit
players and select manager intelligence, you buy yet another disk. After
buying all the disks, you could spend up to $100. Tony LaRussa's is a good
game, but it is not worth so much. It would have been more appropriate if
the SSI included the stadiums, at least.
Overall, my impression of the Tony LaRussa's Ultimate Baseball is
a mixed one. I liked the details in the game play and the stats. But I
also missed some details like print stats option and different points of
view. I was also turned off by the cheap marketing by the SSI. Still,
Tony LaRussa's is a better than average baseball game, a lot more realistic
than its main competitor, Hard Ball III. Now, if you will excuse me, I have
to go play my Blue Jays against the Athletics.
Review : SECRET WEAPONS OF THE LUFTWAFFE
Publisher : LucasFilm Games
Requirements : VGA/MCGA 256 Color, EGA, Tandy
80286 or faster
640K (Tandy 768K)
Hard disk
Optional : Mouse or Joystick
Adlib or Soundblaster
DOS 5.0
Expanded Memory (EMS 3.2), 560K recommended
Copy Protection: Code Wheel (Once per game start-up)
Review Machine : 386sx/16 Leading Edge, 5.5 megs memory, 109meg
Conner hard disk with SuperStor v. 2.04
compression utility, QEMM386 v 6.00, Hyperdisk,
Dos 5.0, joystick, MS Mouse, SoundBlaster card
Limited testing on 386/33 Gateway with 4 megs
memory, QEMM386 v 6.00, MS Mouse, DOS 5.0,
HyperDisk
INTRODUCTION
First there was Battlehawks 1942, then came the Battle of Britain and finally
LucasFilm released SECRET WEAPONS OF THE LUFTWAFFE (SWOTL). Each of these
games were "state of the art" when first released and each improved upon its
predecessor. I still remember opening Battlehawks and being awed by the
manual, graphics and subject matter. In fact, Battlehawks is still fun to
play. The Battle of Britain inspired similar feelings. Until recently, SWOTL
was the best World War II flight simulator in existence. However, that honor
may go to the recently released ACES OF THE PACIFIC (More about this latter).
SWOTL is more than a fighter simulation, it is also a bomber simulator and a
modest type of strategic war game! It also has a stunning manual that not
only describes game play, but also gives a historical overview of the period
covered by the game. This section of the manual could easily be sold
separately! It's that good.
SWOTL is first a fighter simulator. You can fly American or German planes in
flight school (practice), "historical" missions (Can you change history?),
custom missions using the supplied mission builder, and tours of duties that
are computer generated. In addition, you can fly in and direct an entire
campaign where you try to influence the outcome of WWII. In this mode, SWOTL
becomes a fair strategy game. SWOTL also allows you to fly a B-17. So if you
like WWII heavy bombers, SWOTL is the only game available until Microprose
releases its B17 simulator.
The following planes are available to fly from the American side: P-47C & D
Thunderbolt ("Razorback"), P-51B, C & D Mustang, and the B-17F & G Flying
Fortress Bomber. With the add-on disks you also can fly the P-38H & J
Lightning and the P-80 Shooting Star (1st American jet). My personal favorites
are the P-47D, P-51D, P-38J and the P-80. The B-17 is a frustrating plane to
fly and defend. There are 8 gunner positions and, while each can be controlled
by the computer, the computer is not very accurate. It also wastes a lot of
ammunition. However, manually controlling each gun requires you to move
quickly from station to station. In other words, in this game, the B17 is
"cannon folder". The B17 is the weakest model in this simulation. Still, it
is very satisfying to make a bomb run using the Nordern Bombsight and actually
hit the target. The P38 Lightning is my all time favorite plane. While the
P38 was a "dog" in the European theater, it was an excellent plane in the
Pacific theater. SWOTL models the P38's poor performance in Europe. Don't try
to get into a turning match with any of the German planes. You will lose. What
the P38 lacks in performance, it makes up for in armament. It has the most
firepower of any American fighter in SWOTL. However, if you take a few hits,
head for home fast. Any further reduction in flight performance will make you
a "sitting duck".
If you are so inclined, playing the German side allows you to fly the fol-
lowing planes: Bf109G-6 & G-10, FW 190A-5 & A-8, Me 163B-1a Komet, Me 262A-1a
& 2a and the Gotha Go 229A-0 (never saw action) "flying wing". The worst of
these planes is the Komet. It is a flying fuel tank and will often explode
when attempting to land. It also has a very limited fuel capacity (about 8
minutes). The best of these planes is the Gotha. This plane is a joy to fly.
At high altitudes nothing can touch it. LucasFilm intends to release at least
two other German planes, but I haven't personally purchased these add-on disks.
The Good
SWOTL is an excellent game and it is well worth the money. There are a variety
of planes and missions. Each plane has its own characteristics. You cannot fly
the P38 like the P-51 and hope to survive. Whether these are modeled accur-
ately is difficult to determine, since I don't know anyone who has flown any
of these planes. However, the planes have a different "feel" to them. The
game graphics are good and the missions challenging. The sounds (with a Sound-
Blaster card) are excellent. Engine, gear, flap, bomb, machine gun, cannon,
flak, and explosions are all modeled. There are even some neat little extras.
For those so inclined, you can shoot at and down parachuted pilots. LucasFilm
has done an excellent job with SWOTL.
The Bad
Of course, no game is perfect. People have complained that SWOTL has an
"arcade" feel to it and they may be right. There are no mid-air collisions.
The "aces" of the computer opponents are easy to beat. There are no night
missions, but to be fair the U.S. Eight Air Force flew mostly day missions.
B17 missions are extremely difficult. The mission builder does not randomize
starting positions giving you an advantage in "design your own missions".
While the computer does consider the angle of the sun, there is NO visual clue
as in Red Baron or ACES. In a campaign you can only control the production of
Germany. So, while interesting, the campaign mode does not satisfy true strat-
egy wargame types. The add-on disks are expensive considering they include
only one plane. However, these complaints do not detract from the overall
excitement the game generates.
The Ugly
Comparisons can get ugly. One mans' gold may be anothers' clay. However, it is
hard to do a review of SWOTL without at least mentioning Aces of the Pacific
(AOTP). AOTP is a Pacific theater game and therefore does not directly compete
with SWOTL but the subject matter - WWII fighters - directly overlaps. A
review of AOTP will follow but for now a brief comparison of features are in
order.
FEATURE SWOTL ACES
Graphics Good Good-Excellent
Sound Effects Excellent Fair-Good
Mission Builder Yes No
Visible Sun Blind No (Modeled but not Yes
Spot seen)
Mid-Air Collisions No Yes
Variety of Missions Excellent Excellent
Campaign Mode Yes Yes
Tour of Duties Yes Yes
Landing on Aircraft No Naval Yes
carriers and Naval Involvement
Involvement
Ground Targets Yes Yes
Limited Ammo Yes Yes
Mission Map Excellent Poor
AI Fair-Good Excellent (Best
opponent AI yet in
a WWII simulator)
Flight Dynamics Good Good-Excellent
(ACES feels less
"arcade-like")
Fluid-motion of Good Poor (Jerky screens
Graphics (Feeling even with fast
of Being There) processors)
Night Missions No Yes
Go "one-on-one" No Yes
with known ACES
Variety of Planes Excellent Excellent
Copy Protection Yes No
Enlist in Different No Yes
Services
Manual Excellent Excellent
Fly Bombers Yes (B17) No (You can attack
them)
There are probably other parameters but these are the ones that come to mind
first. As you can see, SWOTL and AOTP are both different beasts. For me, ACES
edges out SWOTL. In fact, I find myself playing SWOTL less and less. It isn't
because the program is not a good game- It is. The problem is the copy pro-
tection. Many times I just want to boot-up and play. I find it to be a real
"pain-in-the-neck" to have to hunt for the copy protection wheel. I hope Lucas
Films' next flight simulator will eliminate this "feature".
EDITOR NOTES: LucasArts has teamed up with Software Toolworks and have
produced a CD-ROM version of SWOTL that bundles the program with the four
different plane disks that are now available individually. The four add-
itional aircraft available are the He 162 Volksjager, the Do 335 Pfeil, the
P-38 Lightning, and the P-80 Shooting Star. The CD-ROM version offers some
very good benefits over the diskette version. There is an obvious disk-space
advantage that is enjoyed by being on CD-ROM. With all four plane disks and
the main program installed, many precious megabytes are used. When you
install the CD-ROM version, all that is required is a small amount of space
on your hard disk to store saved missions and other roster information. The
CD-ROM version also provides a very useful and interesting Historical
Overview. This is a very useful addition to the program that is essentially
a reference manual to the game on-line, available at anytime. If you have
made the jump to CD-ROM and are expecting a multi-media extravaganza, then
you must look elsewhere. If, however, you are looking for an efficient way
to play SWOTL, and "want it all", then the CD-ROM is a good buy. Certainly
cheaper than buying the program and all the plane disks by themselves.
==============================================================================
Game Title : Rampart
==============================================================================
Publisher : Electronic Arts
Programmed by : BitMasters
CPU Requirements : 286 or better
Memory Requirements : 640K
Hard Disk Space : 3.4 Mb
Input Devices : Mouse, up to two joysticks, keyboard
Graphics : EGA (320x200x16 colors), VGA (320x200x256 colors)
Sound : Adlib, Soundblaster, Pro Audio Spectrum, Roland
Copy Protection : Look up pictures in the manual
Retail : $49.95
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ratings (10 excellent, 8-9 very good, 6-7 good, 5 average, 2-4 bad, 1 reeks!)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall : 8 ********
Playability : 8 ********
Strategy/Action/AI : 7 *******
Graphics Quality : 8 ********
Sound Quality : 9 *********
Documentation : 7 *******
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewed by : Ivan Luk
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ready, Aim, Fire!"
If you enjoyed the arcade version of this game, you'll love its PC
incarnation. Rampart is a game of quick reflexes and strategic thinking.
Your goal is to defeat your opponent by either repelling the ships and mobile
artillery of the computer opponent, or in multi-player mode, by blowing your
human opponents castle to smithereens. Up to three players can play at once,
using various combinations of a mouse, two joysticks and the keyboard.
Darn Copy Protection Gets Me
The copy protection in Rampart can be annoying. Looking up tiny little
drawings at the top and/or bottom of the manual and trying to match that with
what you see on the screen isn't my idea of fun. I'm convinced there is a bug
here as well; there are occasions when what is typed correctly is returned as
being wrong. The best thing to do when that happens is to restart the game
and hope that you get another set of symbols to look up. Generally, I detest
copy protection, and this is NOT one of the better implemented ones.
Once past the annoyance and into the game, Rampart is addicting,
especially so in multi-player mode. There are two ways to play Rampart;
against the computer or against human opponents. The two modes are
distinctively different in strategy, but the action aspect is similar.
The game occurs in phases. Specifically, you select a territory, then a
home castle to start from. After that, you place your weapons and the first
battle begins. Following the first battle, you rebuild and repair your castle
walls, the points are tallied, place your new weapons, and go to battle again.
This repeats until you've either failed to enclose at least one castle within
a surrounding wall three times in a row, or you've managed to score enough
points to go on to the next territory in the one player game. In the multi-
player game, the rounds continue till either a predetermined number as set in
the configuration, or all but one player fails to enclose at least one castle
three times in a row.
The goal against the computer is to conquer a whole continent comprised
of several territories. You can start in either the Recruit Territory, or the
tougher Veteran Territory which yields a 5,000 point bonus if captured. From
the 2D continent map, the view then zooms to the selected territory. The
territory view is also presented in 2D.
Select The Home Castle
The first order of business is to select a home castle, within the 13
seconds time limit. In the beginning, there are four or five castles to
choose from. Land also takes up most of the view, which allows you more room
to build walls and a bigger courtyard to place cannons and other weapons
around your castle. As you conquer the territories, the land mass shrinks,
making it harder to build a surrounding wall. The courtyard begins to shrink
as well, leaving less room for placing the firepower needed to repel the ever
growing number of ships.
After selecting your home castle, a wall is automatically built around
it. This wall is built automatically only before the first battle in a new
territory. The land is comprised of little squares, much like a chess or
checkers board. On these squares, you build walls with different shaped wall
pieces, ala the classic game Tetris, that appear randomly during the build and
repair phase. This phase occurs after the first battles in each territory,
and every battle after that.
While you're busy building the wall, ships begin to appear from the open
sea. Even as you prepare for battle, these ships are loading their cannons
and aiming them in you direction...
Placing Cannons And Other Weapons
As soon as time runs out for building the wall, you are allotted from two
to four cannons to start with, depending on which territory and whether you
chose to continue the game after being defeated. There are only 15 seconds to
place the weapons in the courtyard within the surrounding walls. Each cannon
takes up a two by two square (four squares). In the Enhanced Game (added for
the PC version; the coin-op version is recreated as the Classic Game) you can
place super guns and/or propaganda balloons as well.
The super gun allows you to inflict heavier damage on the enemy. It will
also leave a burning hole on the ground where it lands, forcing opponents (in
the multi-player mode) to build around them. Each propaganda balloon converts
an enemy cannon to your side. Prior to the battle, these balloons float out
to your enemy's most dangerous weapon, and complete with sound effects and
animation, throw propaganda leaflets onto the area. During the battle, the
target of your propaganda will become an extension of your firepower. It
takes four regular cannons to get a super gun and five for a propaganda
balloon.
Houses also appear in the enhanced game, taking up a square on land. You
get additional points for enclosing them within your castle walls in the one
player game. In multi-player mode, an enclosed house becomes a grunt (mobile
artillery) that attacks the opponent's castles. If you place a wall on top of
a house, regardless of the playing mode, they will become your enemy and
attack you.
The Battle Begins
When all the weapons are placed, or when time runs out, the battle phase
begins. After a hearty, "Ready, aim, fire!", the game takes off. The battle
occurs in real time, and the screen is converted into an isometric-like 3D
view of the territory as it turns into a battlefield, replete with detailed
and shaded terrain and objects, smooth animation, beautiful graphics, and
wonderful digitized sound effects.
In battle, you move an aiming cursor on the screen with a mouse, joystick
or keyboard, and press a button to fire your cannons. While the cannonball is
in the air, the cannon that fired it remains inoperative. This means the
farther away you shoot, the higher the arc of the cannonball, the longer the
time it takes to get to its intended target, and the longer time you have to
wait before firing another round. The flight of the cannonball and the moving
ships are rendered very smoothly as are the cannons, as they rotate to follow
the aiming cursor.
Ships that are hit catch fire and houses burn even as more black and red
projectiles fly through the air as they head toward their targets. By color
cycling the VGA palette, Bitmasters has created a great looking coastline,
with waves lapping gently onto the beach. Ships change directions to avoid
cannon fire, while grunts move in for the kill. The scene is one of total
mayhem, especially at the higher levels when more ships appear and you have
more cannons than you know what to do with.
The sounds are every bit as good as the graphics. One hears cannons
being fired, whistling cannonballs as they plummet toward their targets, and
explosions as targets are hit. After what seems like a very short time, the
time comes to take a breath as the words, "Cease fire!" are shouted. Music
plays throughout the game. It isn't annoying like most arcade fare; it is
actually quite atmospheric.
Time For Rebuilding And Repair
The sound of a hammer hitting stone permeates the air as players now
frantically rebuild the broken wall. The view switches back to a 2D view from
the top, as the cursor changes into Tetris like pieces of wall. The goal here
is to enclose a castle, any castle. Preferably, this is your home castle, the
one with the cannons nearby since you can't use any weapons that are not
enclosed in a surrounding wall. Here is when speed and quick strategy come
into play. Rotate the pieces to fit the available spaces when possible and
don't look at the clock. Pieces cannot fit off the edge of the screen, nor
into the sea. Even more ships appear, supplementing what's left of the fleet
after the previous battle.
This phase lasts a mere 31 seconds, and before you know it, another
battle phase begins. If you fail to enclose at least a castle at the end of
this period, you've lost.
Knowing Your Enemy
In the one player mode, you enemies are a variety of ships and grunts.
The ships come is three main flavors; single or double sailed and red ships.
Single sailed ships just fire from offshore and are easiest to sink. In the
early stages, two hits will suffice. The double sailed ships are dangerous
close to shore as they land grunts onto your territory while shooting at time.
The most dangerous is the red ship, which fires a red cannonball which behaves
like one from a super gun. Its cannonball leaves a burning pit in the ground
which you have to build around. You also cannot place any weapons on this
part of the ground. This ship takes a lot of hits before it will sink; as
much as six in the early stages! As if that's not enough bad news, in the
later stages, blacked sailed versions of these ships begin to appear. These
are even harder to sink.
Then there are the grunts. Their primary mission is to surround and
destroy castles one at a time. They also annoy you by being in the way when
you're building and repairing the wall. Unlike a house, you cannot put any
part of a wall piece on top of a grunt. When they're close to your home
castle, it becomes impossible to build the required surrounding wall. Though
they may be plenty, they are easily destroyed with only one hit required.
Useful Strategies
The manual gives little or no advice as to winning the game. The game is
fairly simple, and a little clever strategy can go a long way. Always go
after the double sailed ships that are close to shore. This will prevent them
from landing grunts, which are a big nuisance. If there is a red ship, make
it the top priority, especially later in the game when land is scarce. Those
burning pits that their cannonball creates are permanent and may prevent you
from building that elusive surrounding wall.
As soon as you're done with the surrounding wall, start another wall
anywhere on the map. Building other walls elsewhere will detour some of your
enemy's fire and attention from your main castle wall. Place your weapons
away from the edge of the screen and from shorelines. This will help when you
need to fit an odd piece to complete your wall. If your weapons are close to
the edges, only specific wall pieces will fit and the piece may not appear in
time.
Don't stop firing till all your enemies are destroyed. Count your shots
and fire only the required number to sink the ship. Conservation of shots is
important when you have more targets than rounds. Aiming for the closer ships
first will mean a faster reload time.
Summary
The computer is a very tough opponent. I have yet to beat the computer
at the first, "Very Easy" (NOT!) level. An EA tech support person told me
that he could hardly win at the "Easy" level. And like a lot of arcade action
type games, this can grow old very fast. Rampart's strength is definitely in
the multi-player department. This is a great party game. The rounds are
quick, the game is easy to learn, and the game controls are fairly intuitive.
The graphics and sounds are some of the very best for this genre of
games. As a single player game, I would have given it a six overall. But it
is a definite nine as a multi-player game. As is, I felt that an eight was a
fair assessment.
Rampart is highly recommended.
EDITOR NOTES: Gateway has become a very popular game among our readers and
like Ultima Underworld, three reviews were submitted, all with varying
opinions. For fairness reasons, all three are included here.. Judge
accordingly.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick Pohl's Gateway by Legend Entertainment
Reviewed by Adam Pletcher
Hardware requirements:
o IBM Compatible 286 or higher
o 640k RAM
o CGA/VGA/MCGA/SVGA graphics adapter
o Supports Realsound, Roland, Adlib, SoundBlaster
o Mouse optional
:: BACKGROUND ::
Set in the future, Frederick Pohl's GATEWAY starts with some
interesting circumstances. An interspace explorer has stumbled upon
an incredible find: an alien space station that's been orbiting our
Sun, in our solar system. Of course, this isn't your run-of-the-mill
space station. It was created by a race of intelligent aliens
referred to as the Heechee (a race appearing in several of Pohl's
books). The space station is empty except for thousands of individual
FTL (Faster Than Light) Heechee spaceships. The explorer designates
the station as Gateway, the instrument mankind now has use of to enter
a new age. Shortly after revealing Gateway's location the rest of
Earth, the explorer hops into an FTL ship and disappears.
An international corporation (surprisingly called "the Corporation")
is set up on Earth to reap the benefits of Gateway. The Corporation
has little understanding of the Heechee ships, and statistics soon
prove that 15% of all missions made never return. The Corp sets up a
lottery, giving spaceships to the "lucky" people drawn at random.
This is a mixed blessing: while very dangerous, the missions can be
very prosperous. The Corporation gives bonuses in the millions of
dollars for the return of any Heechee artifacts.
You start the game as one of the (un)fortunate people picked to pilot
a ship. You're lucky, and soon become rich beyond avarice. But in
the course of your explorations, you uncover the mystery of why the
Heechee abandoned Gateway. Another alien race, referred to only as
the Assassins, have a practice of obliterating any lifeforms that
evolve to FTL capabilities. The Heechee, having recently perfected
FTL spaceflight, realized this and left behind all evidence of their
FTL knowledge in order to escape the Assassins. Realizing the danger
mankind is now in, the Corporation solicits your help to uncover and
activate a Heechee shield designed to cloak Gateway from the Assassins'
prying eyes. Here's where your adventure really begins.
:: INTERFACE ::
Whew! Now that that's over, let's get on the actual game! Gateway
can be operated by mouse, but having been weaned on Infocom games I
found that keyboard was quicker and more natural. The screen consists
of a list of keywords (like USE, OPEN, PICK UP, etc.), a list of
available objects, a room description box, and a window that shows a
graphic picture of your surroundings. Although plugged as a graphic
adventure, the graphics only occupy a fourth of the screen.
The parser allows you to type fairly sophisticated sentences like PICK
UP WIDGET THEN GO SOUTH or ASK JANITOR ABOUT SALARY and the like. In
fact, the parser is a direct duplicate of some of the later Infocom
games, even allowing the same shortcut commands (like Z for wait or
NOTIFY to cancel score updates). I realized this is no coincidence
after seeing Infocom alumnus Steve Meretzky's name in the final
credits.
:: SIGHTS ::
Legend Entertainment spent much of the game's packaging and
advertising on flaunting its SuperVGA graphics. After seeing the
relatively small part the graphics played in the game, I was pretty
disappointed. I have to give them good marks for effort, though...
While SVGA is available, the game can also be installed in VGA mode
and even CGA! This might account for the game's huge install size,
and is a benefit for users who aren't on the "bleeding edge." It's
kinda a trade off, while SVGA sports much clearer lines and great
1024' resolution, it cannot display the rich 256 colors that the VGA
mode can give. The install program even recommends installing the
game under SVGA _and_ VGA, so you can see the difference and choose
yourself. This was a wise move on Legend's part, if you ask me. I'm
sure it eliminated many complaints from users unaware of SVGA's
current color restrictions.
I chose to play under SVGA mode just for something different, and was
fairly satisfied. There's little animation (an occasional blinking
light, turning head, etc...), but little is better than none.
There are some good digitized sequences of Heechee ships coming and
going, but the game plays them to death, and they soon get old.
There's a few great close ups of people speaking to you, but not many.
Some of the planetary artwork is nothing short of amazing, with real
attention to detail. Unfortunately this isn't so true with the
average graphics accompanying the text during play.
:: SOUNDS ::
To be honest, Gateway doesn't sport much sound. A few locations have
some cheesy bar music, but that's about it. Of course there's a few
bells and whistles accompanying score increases or picking up objects
(not what I'd call a feast for the ears, if you know what I mean).
If you're not buying this game because you lack a sound card, you
might as well splurge.
:: SUMMARY ::
Seeing that Gateway is basically a revved up Infocom game, it does
pretty well without really pushing the gaming envelope. One of the
biggest disappointments was the plot. What started out as a very
innovative story turned into the extremely tired do-this-and-that-to-
save-Earth-from-certain-doom endings.
I can sum this game up in two words: ho-hum.
GATEWAY OVERALL RATING: >> 2 << out of 5
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gateway by Legend Entertainment
Reviewed by Jon Lundy
Gateway is the latest offering from Legend, creators of fine games such
as _Spellcasting 101_, _Timequest_, and _Spellcasting 202_. I have bought
and solved, each of these games, since I am a fan of the Infocom of old (RIP).
In case you have not played any of these games, they all use the same
graphical interface, namely a high resolution EGA screen. This screen has
a picture in the upper right corner, a compass rose in the upper left corner,
menu bars on the lower left side (which can be used to select verbs and nouns
for the typing impaired), and the most important part is the text on the lower
right hand side. Fortunately you can turn off the moderately useless menu
bars to get a full half screen of text, and if you are a true Infocom fanatic
you can even turn off all of the graphics and play the game with only text.
The graphics are done in nice high resolution EGA, with some animation as
well. Like all of these games Gateway has sound card support, with sound
effects and music.
Gateway is a slight departure from this common interface. It has standard
256 color VGA graphics mixed into the game. When you preform certain actions
you get a nice 256 color screen, usually with some animation, and of course
the introduction has 256 color screens that tell the story of Gateway, again
with a little animation. This seems to be an attempt to match the rest of
the market in what types of graphics are offered. These graphics are nice
but the meat of the game is from the text interface. In addition there are
a few 256 color interfaces where you 'direct' your ship where to go. But this
is just a simple selection of a choice from a list.
But of course the most important part of the game is the text adventure game.
Gateway is based on a series of books by Frederik Pohl, the first of which is
Gateway. However, the story of the computer game is not based on the
particular stories in the novels, nor is it of the same style. It has a much
more straightforward style than the flashbacks, and psychological discussions
in the novels. The computer game does reveal facts about the Hechee that are
not revealed until book X in the series. (Actually the back of the box
reveals some data that is kept secret until late in the series, and which
provides a mild spoiler about the underlying story of the game.) Basically
the game does not have the same style as the novels have, instead it is an
adventure set in the Gateway Universe. (Although it is incompatible with the
novels, since it results in a different Universe than the sequence of stories
by Frederik Pohl.)
The game is a standard text adventure, with pretty graphics attached.
The basic premise is that you have won a lottery, and bought a ticket to
Gateway to become a prospector. Gateway is an artifact that was left behind
long ago by the Heechee, a mysterious race that left many artifacts behind,
but who have mysteriously disappeared. On Gateway there are many FTL space-
ships that can take people to unknown places. The majority of the game con-
sists of you flying ships to other systems, which are listed for you, and
exploring them in a standard text adventure manner.
The puzzles were for the most part fairly easy, and not as intricate as
those in Timequest, but the game was a good text adventure in the tradition
of the old Infocom (RIP). I say text adventure, because that is basically
what the actual game is, it does have some pretty pictures, even using 256
color VGA, but the basic game is a text adventure.
The game also comes with a hint book, but I didn't find it necessary to
use it to solve the game. The only point I had significant trouble with was
the fairly neat endgame. However, after I solved the game, I found out that
I did not have a perfect score. I then used the hint book to find out that
I had missed the optimal solution for some puzzles, and I had missed some
completely.
The game starts out with you being a prospector, looking for your big
break, eventually you discover something of vital importance, that causes you
to go on a quest to save humanity.
If you enjoy text adventures (which I do), then I recommend Gateway, as
well as any other game that Legend has produced. (Spellcasting 101,
Spellcasting 202, and
Timequest). If you are not a fan of text adventures
then you probably would not enjoy Gateway, for despite all of the pretty
graphics and sound, Gateway is a text adventure.
Gateway did have some minor bugs. In the endgame, I had problems in
that the graphics would mess up on me periodically. I would not be able
to read the text. This was not a major problem, but it was annoying to
have to restart the game.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Review of Frederick Pohl's Gateway (Legend Entertainment)
by Brian Chung
Gateway is a graphic/text adventure game based on the universe
created by Frederick Pohl. With this product, Legend Entertainment has
provided an important turning point for the PC games community by
supporting the SVGA graphics mode (800x600x16). Be warned, however, since
not all the SVGA drivers work with Gateway. For example, my Trident SVGA
driver did not work with Gateway at several places. As a game, Gateway
falls slightly short of perfection. The puzzles in this game are not
difficult, and there are too few of them. However, the story is fascinating
and well-written. The SVGA graphics, as well as the standard VGA graphics,
are beautifully drawn. The parser is adequate and the mouse-keyboard
interface is easy to use. Overall, I would gladly recommend Gateway to
anyone who is interested in graphic and text adventure games.
The plot of Gateway is based on Frederick Pohl's series of stories
by the same name. In 21th century, mankind finds the ruins of an alien
civilization on Venus. At first, they do not understand the technology
at all, but through a series of trial-and-error testing method, they
eventually discover that these beings, known as Heechees created a space
station with space crafts capable of travelling vast distances. A
corporation is set up to manage the space station and the prospectors who
are willing to risk their lives in those Heechee space crafts. A few
prospectors manage to discover Heechee ruins and ancient technology in far
away planets and become rich. But most prospectors do not return from
their journey.
The story is divided into three chapters. In the first chapter, you have just
arrived at the Heechee space station as a rookie prospector. And it is up to
you to prove to your superiors that you are good enough to join the special
elite corp of prospectors. In the second chapter, you are given a special
mission. It seems that the Heechees were threatened by another alien species,
simply known as the Assassins. The sole objective of Assassins is to destroy
any advanced civilization, and the recent flurry of space travelling by man-
kind has piqued the Assassins' curiosity. Fortunately, the Heechees have
constructed a special cloaking device that will render mankind invisible to
the Assassins' sensors. Your mission is to find the three parts of the
cloaking device and activate all of them. In the last chapter, you find out
that the cloaking devices do not work by themselves. You need a control
device and its location is secretly hidden somewhere in the Heechee space
station itself. After discovering the secret of the space station, you are
off to activate the control device and eliminate an Assassin scout.
The story has a very good mixture of humor and seriousness. I have never read
any of Frederick Pohl's works, but the quality of writing in Gateway is first-
class. The parser is excellent, and there is an on-line list of all the
important words that you can use in the game if you are unsure about the
words. There are also subplots involving virtual reality and environment
which are intricately woven into the main plot. The cinematic sequences,
which are used to advance the plot at important junctions, are as good as, if
not better than those of Wing Commander I. The cinematic sequences do not
try to force the player to conform to a certain storyline, as in Wing
Commander II, but rather complement the storyline and advance the plot
gently, as in Wing Commander I. Unfortunately, the puzzles involved do not
complement the story as much as they should. The puzzles are interesting and
at times, humorous, but I have found the puzzles to be very easy, not only
because of the hint book that comes along with the game, but because the
hints in the game itself are extremely obvious to the player. It would have
been more challenging if the hints were more subtle. Also I felt that there
weren't enough puzzles in the game. It seems as if the writers were too
involved in trying to make a good storyline that they neglected the puzzles
or intentionally limited the number of puzzles. But I wished that there
were more puzzles, especially in chapters two and three.
The graphics in Gateway, as I mentioned earlier, represent a pioneering effort
by the Legend Entertainment. The pictures in SVGA and VGA modes are
beautifully drawn and complement the story well. There are not many animation
sequences, and they tend to be just a simple animation of space ships flying
through the space. But since animation is not the main point of this game,
it's quite understandable. One more word on the supporting SVGA modes.
Personally, I hope to see more and more companies supporting SVGA modes.
Granted that there is no "standard" SVGA mode out there and it makes pro-
gramming that much harder. But I feel that until software companies start
supporting SVGA modes, there will be no consensus on "standard" SVGA modes.
In this respect, I applaud Legend's decision to be the first one to support
SVGA modes.
The user-interface of Gateway also deserves a mention. The standard way of
playing Gateway is with the screen divided into three sections. The upper
left section shows the pictures. The upper right section contains the mouse
interface, such as list of nouns and vowels that you can use in that
particular scene, as well as a compass to move around. The entire lower
section is the keyboard interface section where you can type in your commands.
You can also enter commands through the picture section. If you click once on
an item, it will be interpreted as look. If you double click on the item,
the program will do the most obvious thing that you could do to an item
besides looking. For example, one click on a book will let you "examine
book." But if you double click on the same book, it would be interpreted as
"read book." However, this is not the only way of playing Gateway because in
this game, user-interface is very customizable. For example, you can get rid
of all the pictures and mouse interface and play the game as if you were
playing an Infocom text adventure game. Or, you can get rid of the mouse
interface section only. Or, you can get rid of the picture and have descrip-
tion/inventory/status displayed in that section. Such user-friendliness is
seldom seen in most games, and I again applaud Legend Entertainment for their
design of Gateway.
Unfortunately, I do not own a sound board, so I cannot comment on the sound
quality. But Gateway supports the standard group of sound boards, and the
digitized sounds from the PC speaker do provide a good, unobtrusive, if
limited, sound effects.
This game, however, is not bug-free. There is a major bug involving getting
the gun in the second chapter. And some people have reported losing items in
the inventory. However, Legend provides an 1-800 number for customer support,
and I managed to get around the gun bug thanks to their support.
Overall, Gateway is a game to be recommended. It combines an excellent story
with equally good graphics and user-interface. The puzzles are easy or at
most, at moderate difficulty, but they do contain interesting concepts. I am
very happy that there are companies like Legend that tries so hard in so many
ways to please their customers.
PRINCE OF PERSIA by Broderbund
Reviewed by Russell Sparkes
Graphics: Hercules/CGA/Tandy/EGA/VGA
Sound : Adlib/Covox/Game Blaster/IBM Music Feature/Sound Blaster
Controls: Keyboard/Joystick
Protection: Documentation
Suggested : VGA/Sound Blaster
Rating : **** (out of 5)
PRINCE OF PERSIA - what is it in 10 words or less....
no-typing arcade action adventure, non scrolling screens, smooth flowing
animation.
The story:
In the Sultans Absence, the Grand Vizier Jaffar rules with the iron
fist of tyranny. Only one obstacle remains between Jaffar and the
throne: the Sultans beautiful daughter...
[ animated sequence in which the princess refuses Jaffar's advances ]
Marry Jaffar...or die within the hour. All the princess's hopes now
rest on the brave youth she loves. Little does she know that he is
already a prisoner in Jaffar's dungeons.
Now some history:
For those of you who have (or still do) own Apple IIe's, you may have
seen a game called Karateka. I personally thought it was one of the best
games available for the IIe. When the IIe was exchanged for an IBM
compatible I thought all was lost. Fear not! for Jordan Mechner has
returned with PRINCE OF PERSIA. With VGA and a sound card, Karateka
has been left in the dust. The animation is superb, the digitized sound
effects are excellent, and the mood setting music fits the scenery
perfectly.
Finally, the game:
The graphics are standard 320x300x256 in VGA mode but don't let this
deter you. The smooth animation is excellent, as you watch the young
hero jump, run, climb, fight and carefully walk over the various traps,
guards and levels between you and the princess. I found the game to have
a "I'll just get past this bit" effect.
The keyboard controls are fairly simple. Arrow keys control movement
hold down left/right to run, press to turn. Up for jump down for duck,
up-left to jump left, up-right to jump right. The only other button is the
shift key which is used to strike in combat, in combination with left/right
arrow keys for careful walking, and in combination with the up-left/right to
hang onto the edge of the hole when you miss a jump. After a short time, I
quickly became accustomed to the controls and was fairly confident with
getting around.
You start off in the bottom level of the dungeon with nothing but the
clothes on your back. The first job is to find a sword. Once you have the
sword, it's time to find your way to the next level. Each level is isolated
from the next by a door. For every door, there is a corresponding pressure
plate that opens it. To get to the next level you must find the pressure
plate that opens the door. This is never easy, for between you and the
plate, there are pits, guards, spikes, blades and lots of other doors whose
pressure plates you also need to find. The guards tend to get harder the
closer you get to the princess, making each level a little more difficult
than the previous.
Between each level there is a small animated sequence of the princess
in her room just to remind you of your goal. One of these scenes in
particular has a bearing on the game, if you miss the hint, it will only
lead to hours of frustration.
What didn't I like? I've really only got one gripe. It does get a
little boring, well not so much boring, more frustrating, when you just
can't get past that one guard, or that one pit etc. I suppose if it
didn't have these frustrating bits, I'd be complaining that it was too
easy. Fortunately there is a save and play later option (only one
saved game slot) so when you think you're going to break something,
you can give it a rest and come back later (which you will inevitably
do time and time again).
The time I did finish it, I played it straight through in one sitting.
It took me 58 real minutes to free the princess, including being killed
numerous times, which goes to show that one hour is not entirely
unreasonable. I had probably spent about 20 hours to get to this stage
and would probably have to spend a similar amount of time again.
Summing up:
I find I can sit down now and still enjoy the game. With the superb
animation, sound effects and musical score, PRINCE OF PERSIA is a great buy,
if you are/were a Karateka fan, PRINCE OF PERSIA is a _must_ have.
I also find that it is a great way to show off the pc's graphics/sound
to someone new to the pc world. Best of all, it doesn't take up much space
on the hard disk (~540k).
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Game ³ SimAnt ³
³ ³ by Maxis ³
ÆÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍØÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͵
³ Machine ³ û 8088/8086 (XT) û 80286 (AT) û 80386/80486 ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Graphics³ ù CGA û EGA û VGA ù SVGA û Hercules û Tandy ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Sound ³ û PC Speaker û AdLib û Soundblaster û Tandy Sound ³
³ ³ û Parallel Port DAC û Roland û Sound Master ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Control ³ û Keyboard û Mouse ù Joystick ù Gravis GamePad ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Memory ³ 560K free memory required. Will use EMS to run faster. ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Size ³ 1.4 Megabytes ³
ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÏÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ;
Reviewed by Ron Dippold
Maxis games aren't like other games. Most games give you some concrete
goal to work towards, such as solving the adventure or destroying all
the legions of the evil alien empire. With SimEarth and SimCity, as
with Pac Man, the game is over when you've decided it's over or you take
the game past its limits. SimAnt has that as an option with its
experimental mode, but it also has a "win" mode, which makes things a
bit different. It also includes a computer opponent, which is another
change.
Here's the deal: You're an ant, see. A black ant in a new colony.
Your mission is to spread the colony beyond the single piece of the yard
that you're in to take over the entire yard, without the owner of the
house mowing you, exterminating you, or otherwise trying to get rid of
you. In case that wasn't enough, there's also a colony of red ants
that's trying to do the same thing. Black and red ants share the same
love as Kurds and Iraqis, and will kill each other at any opportunity.
Finally there are the natural hazards such as spiders, ant lions, rain
and the like. All in all, a dangerous universe.
You can take control of any of the black ants, whereupon you turn yellow
to distinguish you from the rest. If the ant you're using dies (usually
because a spider sucked your insides out) you just take over another.
As long as one ant is left, you're immortal. You have the ability to
call together groups of ants and lead them on expeditions to wipe out
marauding spiders or enemy colonies. And then there are all the other
complexities to deal with.
Let's face it, you can't deal with individually managing each one of
hundreds of ants in dozens of colonies, so the computer runs them,
meaning that you aren't in control, except for the groups of ants you're
leading in attack. However, even though you don't micromanage, you can
control the overall direction. You control the breeding ratio of
workers, fighters, and breeders. If you are about to make a major
attack you'll want more fighters and breeders (to make more fighters),
and if you're busy expanding you'll want a lot of workers. Then
there's the choice of how many you want digging, nursing, and foraging.
You can have the computer control both of these choices for you, or you
can do them manually, adding a little difficulty to the game.
As always with a Maxis game, your primary enemy is information overload.
There are just too dang many things going on at once! Where are those
spiders? What are the man and the dog doing? What are the red ants
doing? For that matter, what are MY ants doing? Are the number of ants
I have increasing or decreasing? Is there enough food? I know what's
going on here, but what's going on over there?
Once again, Maxis gives you lots of ways to deal with this information.
A overhead map window gives you an overview of this section of the yard.
You can see the other ants, spiders, food, etc. You can see the black
and red ant nest marker pheromone and trail marker pheromone, which they
leave to let other ants know where the nest and trails to food are. And
then there are the alarm signal pheromones, so you can see if anything
strange is going on, such as a red ant attack. The history window gives
you a tine graph of how many ants you have, their health, food, how many
are killed, etc.
Your basic game involves you and the red ants in a small square of the
yard. Winning is a matter of killing off the red ant queen, which
involves building your own colony up large enough to get the ants to do
that. This is more of a training mode, I think, because it's far too
easy. Your ants can win with no help from you at all - I left a new
game going when I left for dinner, and we'd won when I came back. Of
course, you can make it more difficult by switching the breeding and
activity controls to manual, and the winning isn't really the fun, the
playing is. Still, it's a bit disconcerting to know that I can win
without doing anything.
However, that's just one little part of the yard. There are 154 of
those little squares, and your mission is to conquer them all. And then
there's that strange huge structure on one side of the wall with that
big two-legged and four-legged monsters living there... Now this is the
long involved game that Maxis is famous for!
And that's even more information to manage - what's going on at all the
colonies, and what's going on overall. The yard view is especially
entertaining, as the man and dog actually do things, sort of like with
the Little Computer People Project. The guy mows the yard, sits and
watches TV, gets food from the fridge and eats it, etc., and makes these
little comments.
Okay, now you have your nest windows, your behavior windows, your
aboveground window, your yard window, your history window, and all sorts
of option buttons. This thing must be harder to use than a stealth
fighter! Well, not really. It's as hard as you want it to be. Maxis
has refined its interface to the point where you can get all that
information is easily usable and interpretable format. All the command
buttons have meaningful pictures on them that represent the command (the
button to show you the inside of the black nest has a picture of a nest
with black tunnels), and you can always hit the "?" button, which will
overlay the window with a meaningful description of all the buttons. If
you don't want to worry about behavior or breeding, set them on
automatic and close the windows. If you're not in a full game, just
close the yard window. If the history window doesn't help you, close
that. You can get away with just the overhead map and the ground detail
window.
And there's a special tutorial game. This will guide you through all
your important activities as an ant and tell you how most of the
important things work. I was able to do fairly good in the full game
without ever opening the SimAnt manual, by playing the tutorial game and
then playing around with the limited game. I don't recommend you play
that way, as the manual has lots of good hints and advice, but that it
can be done is impressive.
There are some other options - there's the "silly" mode, in which ants
and spiders and the man say amusing things with little word balloons
(black ant attacking a red ant: "Better dead than red"). If you really
want a laugh, watch what happens when the dog gets the cat... Finally,
there's experimental mode, sort of a SimEarth version of SimAnt, in
which you can place ants, food, barriers, and trails and see "what if."
You can even spray insecticide, and blast that $!! spider into oblivion.
I'm of mixed minds about this game. If you're someone who really likes
to win at a game, this probably isn't for you, the winning isn't really
the point. If you're into detailed simulation games, Maxis has done it
again.
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Game ³ Wordtris ³
³ ³ by Sphere, Inc. ³
ÆÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍØÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͵
³ Machine ³ û 8088/8086 (XT) û 80286 (AT) û 80386/80486 ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Graphics³ û CGA û EGA û VGA ù SVGA û Tandy û Hercules ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Sound ³ û PC Speaker û AdLib û Soundblaster ù Soundblaster Pro ³
³ ³ ù Disney Sound Source û Roland û Tandy ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Control ³ û Keyboard û Mouse û Joystick ù Gravis GamePad ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Memory ³ ù EMS ù XMS ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ Size ³ 720K disk for VGA, 360K for other modes ³
ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÏÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ;
R
Reviewed by Dippold
n
What was the greatest contribution of the Soviet Union to the rest of the
world? It was either the boost that Sputnik gave to the other space
programs or Tetris. I'm serious. Tetris was another one of those games
that was so simple it was massively addictive. Irregularly shaped objects
made of squares fall into a two dimensional tank. If you can completely
fill in a row of the tank, it disappears. Your mission is to keep the tank
from being filled up to the top, as the objects start falling faster and
faster.
Tetris spawned dozens of implementations for every machine made because it
was so easy to program. The genius wasn't in the game, after all, but in
the concept. It inspired 3D versions of Tetris, where you look into a 3
dimensional tank from the top (somewhat awkward, but Blockout did the job
well), other commercial games such as Dr. Mario (a blatant Tetris ripoff),
and even some "official" sequels of it's own.
The latest sequel wasn't very good. Faces, Tetris III, had falling slices
of faces which you had to combine correctly. But the thrill just wasn't
there, and I never knew anyone who actually liked the game.
This one is different. I can say without fear of contradiction that if you
show this game to a crossword puzzle lover, you're going to have to
threaten to shoot them to get them off your machine. When I showed it to
one, this person who in the past has chided me when I didn't register a
shareware program in a reasonable amount of time begged me to let him
"borrow" a copy. Barring that, he headed for the software store.
This game is not going to be as popular as Tetris, however, because while
Tetris only required a good sense of shapes, Wordtris requires a knowledge
of words. This means that most American high school graduates are
underqualified to play. C'est la vie. Those of you who can read should
like it.
The game is arranged somewhat like Tetris. You have your background
picture and your rectangular tank, 9 letters wide and 9 letters high.
However, it's divided into two sections. The top 5 letters high are your
standard air that the letters drop through. The bottom of the tank is
somewhat like a rubber membrane - it can support one letter at any
horizontal position. As soon as another letter lands on top of that
letter, the bottom letter is driven down, and the top letter is now resting
where the membrane used to be. New letters drive the other letters down
until the bottom letter rests on the bottom of the tank. Then they start
growing up in standard Tetris fashion. If any of the nine positions stacks
letters all the way up to the top, you lose.
The idea is to spell words from the letters of three letters or more that
drop from the top, horizontally or vertically, or both. When you spell the
word, all the letters disappear, giving you more room. The game apparently
recognizes all the words of the American Heritage dictionary, so you don't
have to worry about a stupid game that doesn't recognize an obscure but
legal word. If possible, you'd like to spell more than one word at once
for more points, and to spell long words for even more points. In reality,
you'll settle for "RAT" and "DOG" just to give yourself some breathing
space. If you spell the bonus word (shown at the top of the screen) you
get lots of points.
The different letters have different point values (Q, for example is worth
more), and special gold bonus letters give you double word scores if you
can immediately use the letter to form a word. To make things a bit more
interesting, there are mystery letters, which don't immediately reveal
which letter they are, so you have little or no time to react. And
occasionally you'll get an eraser, which lets you erase the letter it hits,
just in case you have a pesky "X" hanging around.
There are plenty of options and levels, and you can disqualify repeated
words, which means that once you've used "CAB" you can't use it again, so
the game gets even harder as you go along.
You will occasionally get some help from the game itself. With 81 letters
arranged 9 square, the probability of any combination of letters having at
least one valid word is rather high, so you'll occasionally be surprised
when you just let a letter drop somewhere and a word or even two are formed
that you had no clue about. If a friend is watching you, this is the time
to pretend you knew exactly what you were doing. "Why yes, I was PLANNING
to spell SYZYGY." However, even a good vocabulary and luck can't save you
from eventual doom, and the last minute or so can be incredibly hectic.
The game is nice as far as production values. As with Tetris, the
background pictures have absolutely nothing to do with the game, but
they're kind of nice, giving a little slice of Soviet life and letting you
know when you switch levels. The music is unremarkable, and the sounds are
minimal beeps and boops that don't distract from the game.
Wordtris won't increase your vocabulary. If you don't already know what
the word means, it doesn't do you much good to know that a word like ERGOT
exists, unless you get curious and look it up. But it can help your
spelling and your mental agility. And while I'm generally suspicious of
the "Let's make an educational game fun so the kids will play it, and let's
make it so fun that they don't learn anything" school of thought, it
certainly can't hurt to have the kids playing Wordtris rather than Immature
Radioactive Samurai Slugs. And it's the first game I've seen since
Blockout that captures the feel and addiction of the original Tetris.
SPECIAL OPERATIONS 2 -- Wing Commander ][: Vengence of the Kilrathi
Required 640K ; hard drive ; 12+ MHz ( 286, 386, 486 )
Graphics : 256 color VGA / MCGA ; EGA
Music : Supports Roland, Adlib, SoundBlaster
Digitized Speech : Supports Sound Blaster
Retail price: $29.95
Review by Jason Kuo
REQUIRES WING COMMANDER ][ GAME
WHAT'S GOING DOWN
In Special Operations 2, you will have 20 brand new missions to fly. And
you'll be flying a new fighter, and be able to test out a new weapon. You'll
meet old acquaintances, "Jazz" Colson, and Maniac in this campaign as well.
WHAT'S NEW
You'll be flying a new fighter called the Morningstar. This fighter will give
you the same feelings that you had when you first flew a Rapier in Wing
Commander I. For those who haven't played Wing Commander I, the Morningstar,
to say the least, makes flying fun, instead of a chore. With it's great
maneuverability and extended shields, this fighter was what the Saber should
have been.
Also, you will have a new weapon at your disposal. A tactical nuclear
missile, labeled the Mace, can destroy an entire Kilrathi squadron. The
tricky part is when to launch the Mace. Because to denote the missile, you'll
have to shoot it. But obviously, you don't want to be too close when it
goes off. With a little practice, you can nail capital ships, or a couple of
Kilrathi fighters.
WHAT'S NOT SO NEW
In the Wing Commander tradition, you blow up more ships, and see the storyline
expand. If you're sick of blowing up ships, you might just want to save your
money. However, I found that Special Operations 2 had a flavor of the Wing
Commander game, rather than that of Wing Commander ][. One could blow up
ships left and right, as it seemed that the enemies were giving you the
opportunities to be destroyed, just like in Wing Commander I. Humor was more
apparent in this campaign, just get a load of Maniac to see what I mean.
There are some bombing missions, but with the Morningstar, they become rather
easy. While the plot line wasn't that in-depth, not that they really were,
it does give you a sense that you are "done" (til Wing Commander ]I[).
OVERALL
Unlike Special Operations 1, there is no real waiting period as you autonav to
your next point. It seems Origin finally got their programming optimized.
The missions are much easier than those in Special Operations 1, (at least
easier than the "last" mission in SO1). In fact many of you will probably be
able to finish this game in a day or two. But for it's price, around $21.99,
I would say it's worth purchasing just to fly the Morningstar, and wreak havoc
with the Kilrathi.
PS Watch the entire ending of SO2.
Review: Laura Bow II: The Dagger of Amon Ra
by Alexandria North
The day Laura Bow II: The Dagger of Amon Ra arrived at my nearby software
store, I was waiting to pick it up. While an avid adventurer, I'm usually not
that anxious to get a new release. After playing Laura Bow: The Colonel's
Bequest, however, I knew the sequel would be exceptional.
I wasn't disappointed. Given almost two years between releases and a change
in game interface, the second installment in the Laura Bow series improves
over the first by leaps and bounds. The graphics, lush and finely-detailed,
are fantastic. The music is superbly atmospheric, and the plot -- well,
that's where this game really shines.
In The Dagger of Amon Ra, you play Laura Bow, a young woman in 1926. Laura is
fresh out of college, journalism degree in hand, and is ready to head off to
New York city for her big break as a cub reporter. Her first story,
investigating the burglary of a museum piece (the Dagger of Amon Ra) carries
her into the thick of murder and intrigue.
While the basic story line might sound like something fit for a girl scout,
Laura Bow II is most decidedly not intended for children. I was delighted to
find that this game is thoroughly adult -- containing some dialogue that made
me blush. Unlike the Leisure Suit Larry series, Laura Bow II is not sexist in
the slightest, but it does contain adult situations and adult topics (such as
the flapper who comes on to Laura in the ladies lounge). I believe Sierra
would have done well to place a warning label on the box for parents, but,
other than that, I was thrilled to play a game that didn't treat me like
either an eight-year old or a sex-crazed adolescent boy. The designers of
Laura Bow II can obviously tell the difference between naughty and sexist.
This is also the first game I've played with Sierra's new interface that did
not suffer under the icon-driven approach. Laura Bow II is intended for the
individual who is investigative at heart. You need to study and explore every-
thing around you, and do plenty of eavesdropping, to get through this game.
On second thought, let me amend that. You can get through the game by only
exploring at a minimal level, but you'd be missing a wealth of clues, and you
certainly would not solve the mystery.
Using the icon method to select and examine objects frees you to explore more
items, in the way a detective might. Compared to Laura Bow I, this game
appears to contain many more objects and situations to explore. In addition,
while you needed to keep copious notes while playing Laura Bow I, this game
does not have the same requirement. Topics of interest, places, people, and
objects, are all added to Laura's notebook as she learns about them.
Questioning people about these topics is then a simple procedure of pointing
to the item you want to inquire about. Originally I feared that this would
make it too "easy" to question people, removing some of the challenge, but
the game has plenty of twists and turns to keep you occupied. The inclusion
of the automatic notebook serves to remove some of the tedium present in the
previous game.
I found the length of game play to be very satisfying, as well. The game is
divided into six "acts" -- similar to the first game, though not executed in
the same manner. Because I discovered partway through the game that I had
missed taking advantage of some earlier clues, I decided to replay acts one
through four. Replaying from the beginning at lightning speed (for example,
questioning people but clicking past all their answers) I made it through part
of act three in three hours. The first time through, this took much, much
longer, of course, as I was exploring more and trying to solve puzzles. And I
wasn't even half done!
I recommend Laura Bow II to anyone interested in a moody and atmospheric adult
mystery. The men I know who have played this game have enjoyed it just as much
as I, so don't be put off by a female lead. From the Art Deco architecture to
the dinosaur exhibits, the graphics of this game will pull you into the look
and feel of the 1920s. Horrible corpses, complete with blue-tinged lips and
dripping blood, may cause you to gasp along with Laura as you stumble across
them unexpectedly. And the well-styled music, from cheerful Speakeasy dance
tunes to the eerie what's-around-the-corner chords, will keep you thoroughly
absorbed. Just remind your significant other NOT to sneak up on you while you
play this game!
Technical Note: I did encounter one problem while playing this game, which
prevented me from proceeding further. To avoid anyone else encountering the
same problem as I, let me offer some advice. When you find a boot at some
point during the game, do not look at it or use your magnifying glass on it
until AFTER you pick it up. A bug in the game will prevent you from picking
the boot up if you look at it first. I spent quite some time on the telephone
with Sierra before finding out how to continue with the boot in hand (you'll
need it later).
Gravis PC GamePad by Advanced Gravis
Reviewed by Young
You want a decent joystick for the PC at a good price? The Gravis PC GamePad
suffices. However, I recommend reading a good Zen book to truly enjoy this.
Why?
Yes. <-- a little Zen joke.
To be honest, I have never really found a good joystick for the PC nor for the
Apple/Mac. Most are too "pliable" or too shoddy. On the other hand, I have
found many excellent joysticks for the Amiga and Atari (the Slik Stik). Joy-
stick resistance provides a sense of control for me and the PC joysticks felt
too loose. (So what's up with this?)
In frustration, I threw my old joystick against the wall and it promptly
broke. That gave me a good excuse to buy a new one. Of course the selection
was dismal and after ruling out joysticks over $40 (I might break it again),
carefully examining what was left over (not much), I decided to try out the
Gravis PC GamePad.
The GamePad can be plugged into any joystick port (I used the one on my Sound
Blaster) and it has some very neat features. For those not accustomed to a
"pad" directional control, a screw-on joystick handle can be used. In add-
ition, the GamePad can be rotated for left handed or right handed users and
the responses of the four, color coded buttons can be selected through the
use of two switches. In short, it is highly customizable.
The GamePad comes with two utilities called FindCard and GravTest. FindCard
discovers devices that might conflict with your game card. GravTest merely
checks to see if your GamePad works. These are two utilities that will
probably be rarely used.
Gravis has included a copy of "Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons,
Episode One: Marooned on Mars" and a mail-in coupon for some other not so hot
games. I ordered "Prince of Persia" by Broderbund (not sure if this is the
latest version), but there is a *$10* handling fee. Despite that, it is a
bargain.
Overall, the GamePad is well made and customizable. Although, I found it
sturdy enough, the joystick handle will break if you press too hard (Gravis
warns of this several times: replacement handles are 2 for $5) and if you're
the type of person who likes to play aggressively, this may not be your
joystick. On the other hand, if you have reached the level of enlightenment
where the death of a Kilrathi Warrior is accepted with poetic and fiery
beauty.
Advanced Gravis PC GamePad
Telephone: (604) 431-1807 Internet: 75300.733@compuserve.com
Fax: (604) 434-7809 GEnie: Gravis1
Monday - Friday (except holidays) Compuserve: 75300,733
8:30am to 4:00pm (PST) AppleLink: CDA0312
Pursue the Pennant Baseball v4
Reviewed on a 386/33
by David Masten
Pursue the Pennant (PtP), designer of a very colorful, comprehensive
tabletop baseball game, has just released version 4 of their PC game.
This is a major update as it now includes a computer manager.
PtP is a text-based game like APBA and Strat-o-matic (SOM). The players'
names and relevant ratings are shown in their position at the plate, on
base, and in the field. Results are communicated with a text "radio play-
by-play". So it will only appeal to a certain clientele only. What kind?
The type who second guess managers and GM's and think they can do better
and want to prove it. The type who value managerial strategy and
statistical accuracy above arcade action, fancy graphics, and sound. I'm
one of them. Why go with a game like this when mainstream games claim to
be as statistically realistic? My experience with EWBBII and
Microleague:TMC (and reviews I've seen of Hardball III) indicates these
claims are fallacious.
Graphics
========
OK, it's text based. But presentation is still important. One benefit is
that higher res text is used so more information can be presented in one
screen, which PtP does an excellent job of. The playfield screen shows
the players, the offensive lineup with handedness and league batting
averages, a good summary of the current hitter's ratings, stats, and
keystroke options. A few keystrokes will bring up anyone's stats, the
opposing team's lineup, and option screens for substitutions. Much better
than TMC, at least as good as APBA. Although a mouse is not supported,
cursor and hot keys serve as reasonable as substitutes.
The Manager
===========
The computer manager is what sets v4 apart from its predecessors and makes
it competitive with other text games. The manager profile is quite
sophisticated and allows for considerable user modification. The '91 disk
already comes with managers for each team, and the game will automatically
construct a minimal manager for others. So it isn't necessary to go
through the long process of making one. But with some work you can
designate:
The starting rotation (4 or 5 man plus designate spot starters)
Long relievers
Setup men (vs L and R separately)
Closers (ditto)
Up to six lineups (with a main vs L and vs R)
A depth chart for each lineup (spot starters, platoon, defensive
replacements, utility players)
Managing "tendencies" such as frequency of bunting, stealing, baserunning,
intentional walks, infield in, using relievers...(11 in all)
Unlike EWBBII, the included teams are all identically set with neutral
"tendencies".
How does it do? In a small sample of games, it generally chooses the
correct tactics. Much better than EWBBII or TMC. But its pitcher
management will not fully satisfy the purist. It does a poor job with 4-
man rotations. I've occasionally seen starters give up 10 runs in the
first few innings without being relieved. It typically pulls even
effective starters after 8 innings, sometimes after letting them bat in
the previous inning. Either they are getting fatigued, or the game is
ensuring that complete games come out about right (which they do). One
annoying aspect is that the computer chooses a pinch-hitter only after you
have committed to pitch. In real baseball, the offensive team would be
the first to commit, then you could counter with a reliever. A few times
it failed to pull the starter in clear-cut 9th inning pinch-hitting
situations. Because of this order of events, you may not always be able
to intervene (doable by switching to "human" manager). The computer also
doesn't have to warm up pitchers (an optional rule for human managers).
So you can't factor this in when choosing pinch-hitters.
Features
========
Complete league management, editing, and stat reporting features are
included. You can create/modify/trade/draft players and teams, and set up
leagues. But you will probably have to delete players if you want to add
more than a few new ones, and I haven't found an easy way to do this.
Boxscores and scorecards can be saved. The stat compiler is
comprehensive, and can be listed by team, or by league leaders in dozens
of categories including Bill James types. They generally can be outputted
only to screen or printer, not to a file. Scheduling options have been
added to v4. This can be useful with a feature which keeps track of
pitcher use over the last five days, but you have to manually input the
off days. Players are defined within the framework of a certain "era"
(year) and ballpark. Move a hitter from the Astrodome to the "friendly
confines" of Wrigley, or from a pitcher's to a hitter's year, and watch
his offensive totals grow. All in all, very comprehensive, but fairly
complex to manipulate.
Statistical Realism
===================
This is the most important element to me. I don't expect (nor want) stats
to match the real season. But if it doesn't produce realistic looking
stats, it can't be modelling real baseball and I will soon ditch it.
I played both an American and National league season with the included
schedules to check accuracy. Each season took a bit over an hour in the
fastest play mode (linescore only) on my 386/33. Individual games take a
few seconds in this mode, or about a minute in the fastest normal play-by-
play "graphics" mode.
The same four teams that won the divisions in '91 won in the replays.
Total league stats were all typically within a couple of percent of
reality except steals: BA, SA, OBP came out a few points low in both
leagues, ERA about 0.2 runs high. As mentioned in the manual, the
discrepancy is at least partially due to the computer's more effective use
of stealing. The computer knows those with low success rates, and uses
them less often, thus less baserunners erased. Even fielding pct comes
out well. Individual stats show more variation as expected for small
sample sizes (yes, 600 ABs *is* a small sample statistically). But more
often than not, the real league leaders reprised in the computer season.
It also did a good job of emulating pitcher IP and subs appearances, which
many games fail to do.
The computer game is designed by Tom Tippet, a name associated with the
new breed of baseball statistical analysts (such as Project Scoresheet,
*not* Elias). Thus it is rich in statistical depth. But you have to
accept that play-by-play objective approach, otherwise you will be
confused by many player ratings which contradict conventional wisdom. For
instance, speedster Vince Coleman has an average running rating, Bonilla
has a very good 3B range rating, Bonds has an average LF rating. Why?
Because the stats they analyzed indicate this, and they give no credence
to sportswriters or highlight films. You can change these (I did), but it
may detract from the statistical recreation.
Gameplay
========
In actual gameplay, PtP is user friendly. Lineups are easy to adjust,
play options are clear. Most usual baseball strategies are included
except IF/OF shading and pitchouts . I won't go into it, but both of
these should only pertain to a pitch by pitch game anyway.
I find the play-by-play to be somewhat limited and fairly boring. This
not only detracts from the entertainment value, but also from decision
making. You may have to decide to send a runner home from third on a
"groundball to short". Is it a slow or hard grounder? If there is a
runner on first, is there a chance of him being doubled up? At least you
do have the basecoach type running decisions rather being forced into an
apriori decision to run aggressively as in EWBBII. Also too many deep
flies and line drives. Always seems like the pitchers are on the ropes.
I also don't like the inclusion of actual seasonal L/R stat breakdowns. I
won't proselytize here, suffice to say it makes you manage in an
unrealistic manner, such as pinch-hitting with lefties to face a lefty.
With considerable effort, I changed this using data available in The Great
American Baseball Stat Book. Its worth mentioning that you can change
much with the editor and computer manager, but it takes time and can be
confusing.
I would also like to see some derating factor for pitchers who are getting
bombed (fatigue occurs only in later innings). Otherwise, why take him
out if he is statistically the best pitcher available?
Summary
=======
I've highlighted the shortcomings, as they are easier to list than the
abundance of fine features. I think this game has much to recommend. It
is very comprehensive, although not all features are optimized. If you
want to recreate seasons, draft leagues, and play the occasional game, or
try a play by mail league, I can't think of a better game. APBA does have
a more entertaining play-by-play, but is somewhat less user-friendly and
much more expensive for the full package. SOM is also a direct, and
cheaper competitor ($55), but I haven't played it.
Stat Recreation 8.5
Gameplay realism 7.0
Fun 6.5
Graphics 8.0 (compared to other text games)
Sound beep
Overall 7.5 (none clearly better, but still a ways to go)
Weapons Control System by Thrustmaster
Reviewed by David Masten
The Thrustmaster (no jokes please!) WCS is a replica of the multi-purpose
throttle controls found on advanced fighters. When combined with a
joystick, it mimics the HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) of jets such
as the F15 and F16. So it is clearly a specialty item, only those who
are addicted to flight sims need consider spending the $100 ($80
discount) for this device.
Befitting the HOTAS concept, the WCS is not just a throttle control.
Depending on the game, the 6 buttons and one 3-position rocker switch
control functions such as flare/chaff release, target select, speed
brakes, etc. The above are supported on most flight sims, usually with
the same buttons. So if you have a number of sims and are tired of
memorizing the different keystrokes, the WCS may be for you.
The WCS works as a keyboard substitute with a built in PROM and dip-
switches which control the button-keyboard mapping. It plugs into the
keyboard input of your computer, with the keyboard plugging into the WCS.
Virtually all current sims are supported. Included are Falcon 3.0, SWotL
(and its forerunners), F117A/F19/F15II, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, the
Jetfighters, MS FS4, plus other sims such as Gunship2000, LHX, Wing
Commander and a few others. Yes, now you finally don't have to search
for that missile release key when a Kilrathi is breathing down your neck!
Curiously, nothing is said about Knights of the Sky. True, those WWI
planes didn't have many controls, but Red Baron is supported. You can
probably find a setting that at least gives you throttle control if KOTS
uses a typical setup. I found a setting for throttle and chaff/flares
for F16 Combat Pilot, a game not officially supported. Updated proms
reportedly are available twice a year (cost?).
As to how well it works, the throttle is better than the CH Flightstick's
throttle wheel I used previously. I would prefer slightly greater
resistance, as you might find your hand moving it slightly when hitting
another button. End result may be that the button depress will be
missed. Having the flare/chaff and target/weapons selects available
right at hand does indeed help when in a furball. I've noted that it is
much easier to close on an adversary without overshooting as the throttle
and speed brakes are right there. Landing ease is also improved. I
tried going back to keyboard control of Falcon 3, yuck! I suspect it
will markedly improve your combat performance.
Is it worth it? It cost about as much as two new games which may provide
more entertainment. But if you're a sim nut, it will enhance many games.
I'm happy with it. Comparing peripherals, I'd say first priority is a
good joystick (like the CH Flightstick, or maybe the FCS), then a
Soundblaster. Only then consider the WCS. But be honest, how many of
you really did buy that $2000 computer for games? If that's the case,
what's an extra $80?
Shining in the Darkness ((c) 1991 Sega)
Sega Genesis Cartridge, 8 megabit 1 player
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
You, the son of Mortred, have a grave task to perform: find and rescue
Princess Jessa and your father from the labyrinth of her captor--the evil
Dark Sol. _Shining in the Darkness_ leads you into an adventure of
exploration and combat as seen from your eyes.
The village in Thornwood has a variety of shops and a Shrine and Tavern
where you meet friendly (and sometimes unfriendly) people who provide
services, purchase and sell equipment, and provide hints to help you find
your way. The King and his attendants also provide you with hints and
special items to assist you in your quest from the King's castle.
After you meet two of your friends who join you, your quest in the dungeon
begins with four trials to prove your ability and continues with the
labyrinth proper. Throughout the labyrinth you fight fierce monsters with
brute force, cunning, and magic.
Like many other roleplaying games currently available, _Shining in the
Darkness_ has one integral fault: there is only one plotline and quest.
With this fault follows that most of the clues given throughout the story
revolve around what is currently occuring or will occur shortly. Other
than this fault, _Shining_ has very little going against it.
Another minor fault of _Shining_ though is that after a while you become
bored with fighting the same monsters time and time again. Luckily for us
adventurers, the designers came up with a keen solution: a Peace spell,
giving you a set amount of time without encountering the mundane monsters
you normally would trudge through at a minor cost to your magic power.
As a fan of roleplaying computer games, I found this game a relieving
break. The plotline is fascinating with lots of special scenes and
effects, and you're always given another chance at finishing the quest
properly. The graphics are astounding, using a wide variety of special
effects to enhance combat and various points in the storyline.
Commands are chosen by selecting little animated icons with a simple push
of the direction pad, and most can be undone in cases of emergencies.
Accompanying this is a small text item describing the selection so there
is less confusion.
I highly recommend _Shining in the Darkness_ for anyone interested in
spending a bit of time with a well designed roleplaying adventure, instead
of months of drudging through puzzles and combat. The conclusion to the
game is definitely worth the work.
--
---King Claudius--
Birds of Prey by Electronic Arts
Birds of Prey (BOP) is an exciting new flight simulator that allows the player
to fly over 40 different aircraft on 12 different mission types. It is
available now on the Amiga and boasts of different flight models for each
aircraft flown. Ranging from Russian built Mig-29s to Rockwell B-1B bombers
and F117A Stealth Fighters, all of the 40 aircraft have purportedly been
researched to represent flight dynamics, performance and graphic detail as
accurately as possible. EA reports that the same level of detailed research
has gone into the weaponry, radar systems and targets featured in the game.
Because of the wide variety of aircraft, each of the cockpits from plane to
plane are the same. With 40 different cockpits, there would be a huge
learning curve to deal with each time you switched planes.
The player can choose from 12 different mission types, ranging from aerial
interception and bomb runs to troop drops, test flying experimental aircraft
and aerial reconnaissance with the latest photographic surveillance
technology. Results of the mission are recorded for the player's personal
record and have a direct impact on the hypothetical war.
BOP is set in a real-time environment where both sides are constantly active.
Enemy planes roll out of hangers, trundle across runways and take off. Bombed
buildings will gradually be repaired and become fully operational once more.
Ground-based forces move across desert plains or green fields, and sea-based
carriers and warships steam toward their destinations. Time passes as the
game progresses: real constellations traverse the night sky, and the sun
rises and sets.
Complex navigational aids and a user-friendly heads up display help you in
tracking down the enemy craft. Not only can you view your own plane
externally from any angle, but also any active plane, whether allied or
enemy, enabling you to keep track of movements of opposing forces or ensure
that your air support is keeping up with you. For flight sim fans, BOP
looks hot.
Challenge of the Five Realms by Microprose
This is one epic of an RPG headed our way from Microprose (actually Paragon,
but Microprose just bought Paragon out completely). Marc Miller, of Mega-
traveller fame, has created an original scenario that pits you as a young
prince that must save the world from the evil Lord Grimnoth's plague of
darkness. This quest is huge - you'll adventure through several mystical
realms -- an enchanted forest, a land on the bottom of the ocean, a kingdom
among the clouds, and underground caverns to gather clues, recruit and
question players, and use magical objects necessary to break Grimnoth's
spell.
The artistry in this adventure is just gorgeous. As you move from realm to
realm you'll notice a distinctive difference in the art style and color
scheme. There are also very effective sound effects and a compelling
medieval music score that really add to the drama. Art is alone in this game
though; there are also some major animations included as well, including a
6.2 megabyte cinematic introduction. The program even claims to have lip-
synching capability. Fortunately, in the age of the multi-megabyte game
and precious hard disk space, the introduction can be easily removed after
it has been viewed.
Spellcasting will be an important factor in winning the game. Even though a
spell can only be cast by a magician, a spell can be bound into objects,
giving any player possessing such an object the ability to perform magic.
The way players use the spells in combat, to perform technical functions, and
counteract other spells will affect their morality and, in turn, the direction
of the game.
I think the overhead look of the game reminds me a lot of an 'Ultima-7' style
of game. The game's character generator is quite a bit different from most
role-playing games which build character's qualities entirely with numbers.
In 'Challenge', each player is given a personality quiz, a series of multiple-
choice questions that determine their natural talents and skills. You'll also
be able to fine tune your character's appearance as well. You can choose the
prince that appears in the introduction, other default characters, or create
an original face by selecting facial characteristics from numerous choices.
A CD-version of the game will be available later in the year that will offer
many more cinematic scenes, and even more speech, graphics, and music. For
anyone remotely interested in role-playing, I think Challenge of the Five
Realms is a must-buy.
Mantis: XF5700 Experimental Space Fighter by Microprose
This looks like a TOTALLY hot outer space simulation that seems to have a lot
of heritage from the Wing Commander type of games. The setting is the future
and earth has been blown away by insect-like creatures with advanced weapons
and futuristic technology. Even worse than the 3 billion deaths, borrowing a
chapter from the Aliens movies, the insects use the remaining population as
host bodies for gestating alien offspring. The Fist of Earth (FOE) world
government was formed to defend humanity and repel the alien threat.
You're a member of FOE's elite fighter corp - a recruit fresh from the
Academy (WC players: does this ring a bell?). You've studied diligently,
spent countless hours in simulations, and prepared yourself in every way
possible for battle. But, until recently, the alien technology and firepower
were far superior to Earth's.
Now, you've been assigned to the XF5700 Experimental Fighter (codename:
Mantis). The ship is heavily armed with Mass Driver cannons and an impressive
array of missiles. Sporting a shock-proof elctroluminiscen HUD, quad-jump
drives, and a sophisticated navigational system, the Mantis is the weapon
Earth needs to destroy these alien invaders.
This stuff is state-of-the-art in outer space combat simulation and features
over 100 different interlaced missions, breathtaking 3-D combat scenes, 5
megabytes of hot bit-map graphics, 6 megabytes of digitized speech and sound
effects, and a great mood-setting sound track. This will really give Wing
Commander a run for its money.
Heaven and Earth by Buena Vista Entertainment Software
Heaven and Earth (H&E) takes place in the legendary setting of Shambhala
in Tibet. The subtitle for H&E is "A Dazzling Journey for the Mind", and rest
assured, this game is for thinkers. It is designed by the creators of Ishido
and Shanghai and will challenge your skill, concentration, and intellect.
The game is divided into three different segments, each with their own chal-
lenge. The H&E card game, inspired by the Japanese card game "Hanafuda", is
played with a deck containing 48 cards in 12 suits, four cards in each suit
including special wild cards that animate with sound effects. The Pendulum
is a series of 24 animated simulations that provide a hypnotic, relaxing
diversion, and finally, The Illusions contains 12 types of brain teasers and
puzzles, on four levels, combining to form over 575 challenges.
Each game of H&E can be played independently or can be combined to form a
fourth game..."The Pilgrimage" to Shambhala. This journey for mind, body,
and soul melds aspects of the cards, illusions and the pendulum in a journey
of 108 steps.
The MS-DOS version of H&E will support full VGA support in high-res mode and
will also support gray scale graphics. H&E will support a wide variety of
sound standards including Disney's Sound Source and the Soundblaster.
Flying Fortress B-17 by Microprose
Any gamer who hasn't been under a rock for the past year knows all about
Lucasfilm's Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and The Battle of Britain. Now,
Microprose brings more WWII action to the screen with their Memphis Belle
knockoff, Flying Fortress B17 (B17). This new simulator is an accurate
recreation of the hazardous World War II missions over occupied Europe of the
legendary B-17 bomber, the Memphis Belle. The simulation features authentic
flight dynamics, ordnance and a pretty impressive World War II atmosphere.
You'll be able to relive the experiences of the courageous Memphis Belle as
you lead your crew to victory or defeat against squadrons of Nazi warplanes.
As the player, you'll be able to fly in formation with other B-17s in an
accurate 3-D world that includes canals, roads, bridges, dockyards, submarine
pens, and factories. You must successfully command a bomber through 25 daytime
missions from bases in eastern England over occupied Europe. Mission brief-
ings and intelligence reports will be available for pilots to study.
You'll also be able to choose a Flying Fortress and customize it with a choice
of nose art. B-17 features
some of the most detailed instrument panels I've
seen in a simulation of this type. You'll also be able to throttle each of
the B-17s four engines and operate the flaps and tail.
You can select 10 crew members by studying their past missions, promotions,
and medals. Crew members can be allocated to specific tasks such as nav-
igating, carrying out bombing runs, and reacting to damage sustained. You
will be able to view the action and take control of each crew member, from
pilot to bombardier. For strategic flying fun, B17 looks like a great buy.
Red Baron Mission Builder by Dynamix
Just a few brief notes about this great new add-on product for one of the best
flight simulators of any time frame. Red Baron was Computer Gaming World's
simulation of the year recently and this new program really gives it a boost.
This title adds some major new features such as a mission builder, new
scenarios and planes, plus more legendary aces. With the Mission Builder you
can actually create your own custom missions. Some of the new aircraft
include the controversial Fokker D. VIII, the sturdy Halberstadt DII, and
the spritely Nieuport 11 Bebe. Among the six new aces, you'll find Captain
D.M. Maclaren flying for the British and the indestructable Hpt. Berthold
from Germany.
This program will likely keep Red Baron fans up late all over again.
Forge of Virtue by Origin Systems
For Ultima 7 players who just can't get enough and want to engage in more
adventuring in Britannia, Forge of Virtue is for them. This is one of the
industry's first add-in disks that takes U7 players on three new quests that
can result in the creation of maximum attributes for their character and a
powerful new weapon. Interestingly, you can access Forge of Virtue from any
point during or after Ultima 7. Once players complete one or more of these
quests, they can return to the point at which they left the original game and
continue to solve the mystery of the Black Gate - of course, they return with
a much more powerful and well-armed character. Even if you've already com-
pleted the Black Gate, you will still find plenty of intriguing puzzles,
characters, traps and monsters to capture your attention as well.
Here's the history of the Forge of Virtue:
Following the defeat of Exodus in Ultima III, Lord British created the eight
shrines of the Virtues. In addition, he created three shrines dedicated to
the principles of Truth, Love and Courage, which were placed on the Isle of
Fire, once the home of the malevolent Exodus. Lord British protected the
three shrines with incredibly dangerous creatures and traps, since he wanted
only an Avatar to benefit from the powers of the shrines. Lord British also
designed and fabricated three talismans necessary to take advantage of the
powers of each shrine. After a group of Gargoyles visited the island and
unwittingly took the psyche of Exodus for their symbol of Diligence, the
island sank beneath the waves. Lord British thought the island and its
shrines were lost forever. The wise mage Erethian discovered references to
the island in a ship's logbook he found in the Lycaeum. He began to collect
information about the island and eventually set off a string of events that
caused the island to begin to rise again, setting off multiple quakes throug-
out Britannia as the land masses shifted.
The quest for truth focuses on the need to pierce the deception of illusion.
Puzzles, especially those emphasizing visual clues, are the essence of this
quest. Successful players will discover the Talisman of Truth at the root
of the labyrinthine "path of many ways." Meanwhile, far above the caverns
of Deception, in the Isle of Fire's mountain passes, the Avatar meets two
remarkable creatures - one stone golem collapsed on the pathway, and a second
keeping anxious watch over his comrade. All stone golems that the Avatar
has previously encountered have been silent, merciless guardians of shrines
and other significant locations. Adjhar and Bollux share a common bond
uncommon to golems, and Bollux refuses to abandon the wounded Adjhar, rather
begging the Avatar to restore him. While executing this quest of love, the
Avatar learns self-sacrifice from these most unlikely of tutors.
Eventually, whether sooner or later, the Avatar must be tested against
Dracothraxus, the unconquerable dragon who guards the unopenable door. But
first the Avatar must penetrate a monstrously populated dungeon leading to
the Shrine of Courage. Erethian, the mage, has compiled useful information
about Dracothraxus, the Shrine of Courage, and indeed, most other aspects of
the Isle of Fire. Through his counsel, the Avatar might actually succeed
in conquering the unconquerable and opening the unopenable.
Three quests, three challenges for the Avatar to overcome. Even then, a
fourth challenge awaits, but if it too can be met, the Avatar will be much
more fully equipped to repel the Guardian of The Black Gate.
A View From the Edge - Editorial
by Ross Erickson
Another issue is upon us, and I must confess that you're reading this one week
late because I've become totally caught up in the Summer Olympics in
Barcelona, Spain. I hope we have some readers there! Every four years, it
seems as though everything else in the world (and my life) can wait as I
watch in wonder at the strength, skill, and determination of ALL the athletes
of the world. But I digress....
I wanted to comment very briefly this issue about an issue that has finally
come home and hit me right between the eyes. Hardware! Years ago (it seems
that long ago, anyway) I had the opportunity to participate in a conference
call with Access Software about what new features would make sense for what
was then referred to as Links II, now known as Links 386/Pro. After airing
my preferred laundry list, I have sat back and waited. Access kept me pretty
informed about what new features would go into this major new upgrade, and I'm
proud to say that most, if not all, of my recommendations were implemented.
In fact, the only one NOT implemented was the course designer, but that's
another story. So you can imagine how excited I was when the ship date
arrived and my copy of Links 386/Pro was eagerly "un"-shrink-wrapped.
The installation proceeded perfectly, the test picture came up fine, and so I
thought I was away to the races. You can't begin to imagine what a sunken
feeling I had then when all I got on my screen was video garbage. I
proceeded, undaunted, to use every neuron of my technical skill to try to
overcome this. With some anguish, I placed my call to Access, and with their
helpful technical staff, it APPEARS (not for sure yet) that the problem lies
with......{drum roll}.....Intel, of all places. It seems in my eagerness to
get on the leading edge of technology in 1987-88, I had a system that had a
386DX/20 MHz "B1 STEP" chip, which is known to have bugs when operated in
the "protected mode", which Links 386/Pro certainly does. In all fairness to
Access, this isn't their fault. I understand they are developing (or are
trying to) a workaround that will get me up and running shortly.
What I truly face is that wrenching decision again - is it time to upgrade the
hardware? The price war is truly in full gear and fully configured 486
systems can be had for a song these days, but is now the right time? Does one
purchase a high-speed 386, a 486SX, 486DX or DX2, or wait until the beginning
of next year and really go all out for a P5 system? Choices, choices.
Ironically, many hardware vendors don't view the computer gaming industry with
a great deal of, shall we say, respect. "After all, is this really why you
are buying a computer? Just to play games?" For some of the answer is an
unequivocal "YES!!!". For the most, remove the "Just", and we're close to
home. I daresay there isn't ANYBODY who's a "suit" and can't see any point
in a computer game can be converted given the right 'type' of game. So, let's
be honest. When you bought that 486/33, it REALLY was to play Falcon 3.0
smoothly, or in preparation for Strike Commander, isn't it? Of course, I'm
preaching to the choir here. Is it really worth spending a couple of thousand
dollars on a computer that is used primarily to play games? That depends
entirely on your perspective and values. In my humble opinion, the answer is
yes, if the hobby gives you the feedbackand enjoyment you want.
Finally, the question comes up - is it fair or reasonable for computer game
designers to build their products with only the high-end of the market in
mind? Origin Systems has certainly been criticized for their recent stand
that their most advanced and recent products REQUIRE a 386 or above and 2 MB
of RAM. I have to side with Origin on this one. If we as gamers complain
about the lack of innovation or sizzle in todays computer games, and at the
same time object to having our hardware made obsolete by advanced designs,
we don't have any justification to complain in the first place. It's a fine
line for designers. Origin has taken the high-road and they should be
applauded for doing so. They truly push state-of-the-art. That doesn't mean
all good games have to have a Ferrari engine driving them. Microprose has
proven that with Civilization and others repeatedly. But truly, for computer
games to advance to ever increasing levels of, "WOW, DID YOU SEE THAT? THAT
BLOWS ME AWAY!", the power of the processor, the amount of memory, the size of
the disk space (or the presence of a CD-ROM drive), and the speed of the video
card MUST BE improved proportionately. There is no other way. Besides, you
really wouldn't WANT to play PacMan forever on your XT, and Strike Commander
on an XT just isn't something you should attempt to do. After five years,
I guess it's time to move up. And in five more years, I guess it will be
time again.
"Honey, about that dining room suite that we've been looking for...I really
don't mind the kitchen table we have now, and besides I've really GOT TO
upgrade this hardware to a 486/50 and a new sound ca..."
{sounds of dish crashing and frying pans and other household items being
thrown...}
This is part 2 of the C.E.S. report...
Electronic Arts was not present on the show floor this year. Instead, they
rented out the top two floors of Red Kerr's sports bar and conducted their
displays there. EA definitely has some exciting new products on the way.
CAR AND DRIVER was on display. There were some rough edges, but this product
just might be what driving enthusiasts are waiting for. This is NOT a F1
type of simulation, but rather a road-racing simulation. One of the most
graphically stunning products at CES was SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE CASE OF THE
SERRATED SCALPEL. This has a very "Indiana Jones" feel to the interface and
the graphics were breathtaking. It's also supposed to be huge! EA definitely
confirmed that POPULOUS 2 is on its way to MS-DOS-based machines, hopefully
late this year. EA also had a short demo running of MICHAEL JORDAN'S
IN FLIGHT basketball 3-on-3. The cinematic effects are quite something and
the digitized effect of "his Airness" was great. You really get a feel for
the amazing physics involved with this amazing player. Still a ways off,
however. Finally, EA gave a good look at JOHN MADDEN FOOTBALL 2. EA is,
without a doubt, one of the best producers of sports simulations in the market
today. JM2 really enhances the original with a huge playbook, the ability to
edit and create your own plays, plus have John tutor you through the play-
calling throughout the entire game, if you want his advice. Graphically, JM2
is a far cry from the original too. Watch for JM2 in just a few weeks.
Fingers are definitely crossed.
Gametek was at CES in full force. There primary titles for the fall/winter
season begin with a massive RPG called DEMONSGATE 1: DOROVAN'S KEY. This
title is expected to rival Ultima 7 in terms of complexity and world size.
Also coming is HUMANS, a kind of human simulation where you have to assist
your cave people into developing their colonies and societies. Finally,
expect to see GADGET TWINS, a two-player action game later this year too.
Impressions Software, a relatively newcomer to the US market was showing
their many new titles at the show. AIR BUCK$ is an interesting economic/
business simulator where you must develop and run a successful airline against
cutthroat competitors. Staying in the skies, but putting the Sidewinders on
the hard-points, comes AIR FORCE COMMANDER. This title is akin
to Harpoon in the air. You control an entire airforce in the strategy of
strategic air superiority. Resource management of fuel, arms, water, and
power is as fundamental to success as military strategy. There are 26
scenarios based in the Persian gulf. More details later. DISCOVERY is
another new title from Impressions that pits you as Columbus attempting to
discover the new world. PALADIN 2 is another title that has you playing the
role of a young boy out on adventure seeking his Knighthood status. This
title was co-developed by Impressions and Omnitrend Software, of Breach 2
fame. A huge strategy epic, CONQUEST OF JAPAN, has as its main objective of
leading a Samurai army to conquer Japan.
Interplay was participating at CES in the SPA booth, and had a running video-
tape of many of their new titles. BUZZ ALDRIN'S RACE INTO SPACE should be
appearing on store shelves soon. This will really be a multimedia extra-
vaganza with plenty of options for Interplay to showcase as you try to make
your way to the moon. CASTLES II is also coming out shortly which features a
much enhanced combat system over its predecessor. You will have improved
abilities to attack or defend, play various personalities, and includes very
fascinating video footage throughout the game. Also coming from Interplay is
BATTLECHESS 4000, the next in the successful series. What sets this apart is
their very effective use of Claymation techniques that makes the animation
very realistic. The chess board (and pieces) are set in the future, and the
"battles" that occur are just hilarious. The one demo I saw of this was
great. As a bishop took a knight, the battle ended in a huge "BOOM" and the
bishop spent the next 10 seconds holding his stomach, laughing hysterically.
It was great.
Interstel has a couple of interesting titles on the way. DARK STAR is a real-
time space combat simulator that has you interacting with a number of diff-
erent space races and hundreds of different planets. Seems like everybody is
jumping on board the Wing Commander bandwagon. Also coming from Interstel is
a title called CONTROL OF THE SEAS. This is a naval strategy simulation set
in the south Pacific during WWII. The goal is for this simulation to be
historically accurate and will even include a modem option for going up
against your friends.
Intracorp will be doing a couple of movie licenses this fall. AN AMERICAN
TALE is already produced and is the story of Fievel the Mouse in the
frontier. Steven King's THE DARK HALF is being put to pixel as well. This
is the horror story of your evil twin, George Stark, and how you must outwit
him, the police and others to solve the mystery. LA LAW is also on its way
where you must solve and win courtroom cases to elevate yourself to partner.
Finally, HOME ALONE 2 is also coming, based on the upcoming movie set in New
York City.
As is becoming an annual tradition, Konami is going to release a LOT of
products. Perhaps longest on the vaporware list, CHAMPIONS will likely make
its arrival this fall (late) with plenty of role-playing options. GODS should
be available now and offers great arcade play from the Bitmap Brothers, famous
on the Amiga platform. GODS is a platform style action-adventure style of
game. Also due from the Bitmap Brothers is MAGIC POCKETS, available very
soon, and also CHAOS ENGINE, due next year. These guys really know how to
get every ounce of arcade excitement out of a PC. BATMAN RETURNS is also
slated for the PC this fall. This is much more than an arcade game, however.
You will be faced with solving adventures in Gotham, questioning suspects, and
fighting the Penguin and his allies. The storyline follows the movie fairly
closely. UTOPIA should be shipping very soon now also. It is a simulation
that requires you to build the perfect society on distant planets after your
society was destroyed. There are a variety of scenarios for you to engage in
also. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and LURE OF THE TEMPTRESS are also available
soon. These are graphical adventures. Finally, NFL VIDEO MASTER will surely
please many sports fans. This sim allows you to interact with many many
pieces of actual football footage taken from NFL Films. You call your plays
and the video images show you the results of your calls. There is plenty of
flexibility built into the product and it's even possible to control all 28
teams at the same time. General Manager and Owner options are also available
for trades and league play.
Legend Entertainment was gearing up for their two new fall releases.
SPELLCASTING 301: SPRING BREAK has Ernie Eaglebeek back to his old tricks,
and ERIC THE UNREADY is a new hilarious adventure of a bumbling knight on a
quest to rescue a princess from evil clutches (what else?). There's a lot of
parody and lampooning going on in ERIC.
Lucasfilms was not at CES, but they already have announced their plans for a
Christmas release of X-WING, developed by Larry Holland of Secret Weapons of
the Luftwaffe fame. You'll take on the death star and other tie-fighters in
this exciting outer space flight simulator.
Maxis has a few titles on the way too. EL-FISH is an interesting program set
in the environment of the aquarium. You have the unique ability to alter
genetic code and breed different types of fish with each other with very
intriguing results. For the Genetic Engineer budding in all of us, SIM-LIFE
will be a fascinating title. Unlike SIM-EARTH where you dealt with biology
on a macro level, SIM-LIFE let's you alter specific genetic code on animals,
introduce mutagens to alter evolution, and watch for real the results of the
"survival of the fittest" law of the jungle.
Merit Software has a hot looking strategic football game coming. TOM LANDRY
FOOTBALL provides great animation and graphics, but does not burden the player
down with actually controlling the plays. Once the plays are called, the
action unfolds on the screen before you. There are plenty of customizable
options as well. Watch for this one in September or so.
Micro League Sports Association just recently shipped their MICROLEAGUE
BASEBALL 4 product, and they will be following this up with enhanced versions
of MICROLEAGUE FOOTBALL, and a new title MICROLEAGUE BASKETBALL too. Other
sports to follow are soccer, hockey, and boxing.
Microprose, as expected, has a ton of new titles planned. Starting with their
first RPG, Darklands, and their B-17 FLYING FORTRESS flight simulator, MPS
should be off to a big start. Other new titles from MPS are JUMP JET, a
Harrier flight simulator; WORLD CIRCUIT, a terrific looking F1 racing
simulation; DAVID LEADBETTER'S GREENS, facing tought competition of Links
386/Pro; A.T.A.C., an exciting flight simulator that has you pitted against
the drug lords; F-15 STRIKE EAGLE III, probably the most visually stunning
flight simulator I've ever seen; TASK FORCE 1942, an impressive naval
simulation set in WWII; REX NEBULAR, Microprose' first entry into the graphic
adventure genre; PIRATES GOLD, a remake of the original classic done in 256
color VGA; F-22 ADVANCED TACTICAL FIGHTER, set for 1993, this new flight
simulator should take pilots to new graphical heights; NAPOLEON, chronicalling
the military battles of this famous general; GUNSHIP 2000 SCENARIO DISK,
which brings you into urban warfare in this great helicopter simulation;
FLATTOP, a aircraft carrier simulation; ANCIENT ART OF WAR IN THE SKIES, a
strategic level simulation of the battles fought in the skies with less
emphasis on the flight simulation capabilities; and finally HAUNTING, an
adventure set in a haunted house. Busy season for MPS!
Mindcraft was also showing several new titles at CES. Just recently shipped
was SIEGE, a castle/military simulation that is winning rave reviews.
MERCENARIES is coming soon where you are given command of a group of
mercenaries to take on missions even the military doesn't know about. You'll
hire soldiers, buy supplies, and be transported to planets to engage in
strange and challenging missions. THE LEGIONS OF KRELLA is actually the
third in the Star Fleet series. You'll be put in control of the mighty
Krellan forces assigned to conquer the planets of the hated United Galactic
Alliance.
We'll conclude the CES report next issue....Stay tuned!
"Wolfenstein 3D Authors Abducted by UFO and Give Birth to 150 Pound Newt
with a Brain Pan of Unusual Size"
Interview conducted by Dave Taylor
It's 3:30 on a Friday. Somewhere in Mesquite, Texas, a group of game
programmers are coding their fingers to the bone, screaming in agony as
their pinkies amplify the first signs of metacarpal tunnel syndrome.
Actually, it's ID Software's development team for Wolfenstein 3D just
talking to yours truly, but the experience is simlilar anyway. I
listened to the tape afterwards in abject horror, and although I didn't
count, I must've said, "Gotcha" easily a hundred times. How mortifying.
I owe them a buttload of aural gauze.
It was a conference call with Creative Director Tom Hall, Programmers
John Romero and John Carmack, Artist Adrian Carmack, Manual Design Dude
Kevin Cloud, and Chief Operating Officer Jay Wilbur. George Broussard
and Scott Miller, the Co-owners of Apogee came in later.
I couldn't keep track too easily of who was saying what when. This was
compounded by a friend playing Prince of Persia in the background at
the time, but I get the impression that for the first part it was
mostly Jay Wilbur (with a voice that belongs on a radio station
somewhere). The second part was a lot of Tom Hall and John Romero.
who both need to seriously consider stand-up comedy) with some exciting
technical notes from from John (who has something of a lusty "Mmmmm"
for a laugh and obviously digs NeXT computers in a big way).
GB: "How old are you guys?"
ID: "A range of ages, actually. We're 20-30. We're 150 together!"
ID: "I'm [Jay Wilbur] 31."
GB: "Were you the guys who wrote the Apple II version of Castle Wolfenstein?"
ID: "No. Silas Warner from Muse systems. Muse wrote the original Castle
Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein."
GB: "Did you have to get permission to use the name?"
ID: "Actually, the copyright for the title Castle Wolfenstein lay
dormant for so long no one cared about it. It ended up belonging to an
old lady in Michigan who didn't care. The legal dudes got in there and
did the legal dude thing and got it for us."
GB: "What computer games do you like to play, and what have you enjoyed
in the past?"
ID: "That Wolf3D thing. Monkey Island. Origin stuff is real cool."
ID: "John Romero is more into the Ultima type games. Tom is into the
sweaty palms and painful fire-button finger type games. John's is a
big puzzle guy. We all like to drop quarters, big arcade fans. We're
big on Street Fighter II lately. Uh.. Fatal Fury for the NeoGeo. The
job that we have entitles us to do research on all the different home
games systems, and I mean all of them- and we take it seriously."
GB: "How did y'all get started programming originally?"
[massive feedback on the speakerphone]
ID: "Four of us were old Apple II guys.. the artists... are just artists.
[laughter] Kevin was an Apple II artist. We started roughly in 1980.
GB: "When did you start working on Wolf3D? And did you start before
Ultima Underworld?"
ID: "Ultima Underworld has been in the works for like 2 years. We
started December 15, '91. We heard about Underworld, and said that's a
neat idea- texture mapping. John Carmack said, "Hey I can do that!" So
we did it in six months. We kinda beat 'em to it, timewise."
GB: "What were you doing before you started working on Wolfenstein 3D?"
ID: "Commander Keen 4-6. Before that, we were doing a whole bunch of
games for SoftDisk. Keen won entertainment program of the year and
best shareware program of the year."
GB: "Why didn't you use more advertising for Wolfenstein 3D?"
ID: "It's shareware. Low overhead. You don't need ads when you can give
a copy of the game to everybody."
GB: "Is shareware panning out for y'all or are you sorry you didn't
make this a commercial game?"
ID: "We kinda like it, hehe! Low overhead. When you deal with the
commercial end of things, there's a lot of costs involved. That in itself
is a big deterrant. It's far easier dealing with the shareware market.
The public gets the product almost immediately upon completion. You finish
the game, and the first person is playing it within 2 hours.
GB: "How much playtesting went into Wolf3D?"
ID: "A month. John 'Kill-or-be-Killed' Romero, the tools programmer,
is like the fastest player in the world. He finished Episode I in 5
minutes and 20 seconds. He's like so fast it's not funny- He's Dr. John.
GB: "It seems like y'all put a lot of effort into even the "God" mode
for playtesting and all that."
ID: "Oh, that's for debugging. They stay in there, and eventually
someone finds them."
GB: "What does TAB-X do- 'Extra stuff'"
ID: "Just bonus points and stuff.."
GB: "Did you release any of the editors out there?"
ID: "We've seen the editors.. one of them is OK, but we don't put the
stamp of appoval on any of 'em."
GB: "You worried about people taking your engine and writing a
different game with it?"
ID: "Well .. then there'd be some legal problems. It's kinda like
doing tracks for Stunts. Right now, we've released 1.1 and 1.2 to fix
some problems, and there are no editors for that, nor will there be for
the commercial version. We were going to run a high-dollar contest.
It was supposed to be a contest of skill, but since people were able
to cheat, we decided not to do it."
GB: "How were you going to implement the contest?"
ID: "There was a special object in the maze. If you saw it, you could
call Apogee and win the prize. We were going to give like a whole line
of Apogee games or money - like a $1000 check.."
GB: "What was the item?"
ID: "It was in a maze which was very hard to get through. You'd find
it and call Apogee and say "Snapity" and win. Unfortunately, the cheat
allowed them to walk through walls (no clipping). People would call up
and say, "Snapity." There was another version which said "Ardwolf".
Actually, the version with "Snapity" in it was a beta test and wasn't
supposed to get out, so people would call in and say it, and we'd say,
'Oh, a pirated version, huh? You just got one of the playtesters fired.
Congratulations!' (chuckle) "
GB: "What graphics mode did y'all use for Wolf 3D?"
ID: "A 4-chain VGA mode with 4 planes and the ability to page flip. We
were able to draw 4 pixels at once under certain circumstances, so we got
a lot of speed from that."
GB: "What language?"
ID: "The scaling and ray-casting routines were in assembly..."
GB: "What development systems?"
ID: "Borland C++, but we only used it as an ANSI C compiler."
GB: "What neat projects do you have in the works?"
ID: "Wolf3d for the Atari Lynx and Nintendo. We're also working on a
game called 'Green and Pissed'. It probably won't be released under that
name due to pressures from the publisher.. [much chuckling]"
GB: "What kind of game will it be?"
ID: "Like Wolfenstein, but I've [John] improved the engine a lot.
Full-screen version is 50% faster. Walls at arbitrary angles,
different heights, light sourcing, objects that you can raise and
lower. Sorta like Stygian Abyss but no warping and fast. I wrote the
engine for Bard's Dungeon for EOA coming out next year. Also helping
some other shareware dealers. We're doing BioHazard using our Keen 4
engine. Someone is doing a sci-fi game with our Wolf engine."
GB: "Are you going to make a multi-player game which can run over the
modem or a network?"
ID: "Yeah, the next game is definitely multi-player. We're planning on
serial link, network, the Atari Lynx (up to 4 player). That'll be
Green and Pissed."
GB: There's some question as to what some of those guys are saying
in Wolfenstein 3D.
ID: "The main bad guy says 'Guten Tag' which everybody recognizes.
When the bad guy dies, he says 'Mutti' which means "Mommy!"
GB: At the end, it says "KK". What does that mean?
ID: That was going to be for proof that you won. That was for the
contest, but after the cheat program, it was pretty much ruined.
GB: I notice when I play the game, I get motion sickness. Have you heard
similar reports about that?
ID: Yeah.
GB: Do you consider that a complement?
ID: Yeah. We're getting close enuf to reality to make your brain think it's
moving that fast. It's a complement I guess.
GB: Have you considered making an experimental game, a stereoscopic version?
ID: [John] A lot of my current research is towards a virtual reality
game on my NeXT system. It is in our plans to have a full virtual reality
setup with stereo goggles or whatever.
GB: How many of you use NeXT's?
ID: We have two of them. We use them to layout the manuals, do early
algorithmic research, some number crunching. Also write some tools on
there. We recommend one for everybody.
GB: Really? Do you see yourselves writing games for the NeXT?
ID: Yeah, we're waiting to hear back from someone at NeXT right now,
but we're going to either port Wolf or our next game. I'm probably
going to start development on there, as that's where I'm doing the new
refresh.
GB: Do you find programming the NeXT difficult?
ID: No! Easy. First day, had a functional utility coming up. For
research, it's orders of magnitude better than DOS.
GB: Was it easy to get direct access to the screen?
ID: No, but now that I've got it, it's pretty easy.
GB: Have you all played a game on there called "Void"?
ID: Yeah, and it really sucks! Yeah. It's a poor excuse for a game.
It's lousy. We start it to hear the music then quit.
GB: Have you considered writing games for UNIX machines in general or
just the NeXT?
ID: No, probably just the NeXT. It's not a large enuf market to be
monetarily worth while, but we want to do it because it'd be cool.
We're pro-NeXT and everything.
GB: How are you doing financially with Wolf3D?
ID: Really well. Yeah, really well.
GB: Can you mention numbers?
ID: 4 times better than any game we've had.
GB: Have your games done well before?
ID: Oh yeah, they've been supporting us until now. Now they're
"4-times" supporting us.
GB: So shareware really works, huh?
ID: No, don't tell anyone! It's awful! [snicker] It works because of
the trilogy idea where you give the first away and then they're hooked.
We push games, man. [laugh]
GB: Y'all are arguably on the leading edge of high-speed arcade games
out there. Are you going to strive to stay on top?
ID: We like to do things no one else can do.
GB: Are you worried about other companies biting at your heals?
ID: No. We thrive on competition. Come at us! We want the competition.
GB: What should up-and-coming software authors practice on his or her
own or in school to qualify for the team that does Wolf3D?
ID: You have to be really excited about what you do. The reason we're
successful is that we have a bunch of people who are really good at a
bunch of different things. John is really good at tools. Carmack is
good at the technical engine. Adrian and Kevin are amazing artists.
And I [Tom] just like thinking up really stupid stuff all day.
GB: What do you do, really?
ID: Seriously? Stupid stuff! I think up the actors, what they say,
everything that goes in the game,. I design it all. I used to do the
levels, but it became a bottleneck so I got Meryll to help out.
GB: Do y'all have college degrees?
ID: Some of us, but you either need ambition or a love of what you do.
GB: What were the biggest problems you had in writing this?
ID: Turning off Fatal Fury. Getting levels done (there were 60
levels). Coming up with something new on level 59 was pretty tough.
GB: Why did you chose the Wolfenstein theme versus something else?
ID: We used to play Wolfenstein on the Apple II a whole lot. And I
just came up with the idea to make a better version. We popped off
some names, but Wolfenstein was just such a cool name...
GB: Anything else that inspired the game?
ID: Not really. Beyond Castle Wolfenstein.
GB: Do you have any interesting anecdotes during work?
ID: Trying to come up with a name for the second trilogy. We thought
"Special Missions" like the Wing Commander sequel. Then "Night
Missions," then "Nocturnal Missions." Nothing came up better than that,
so there you are! Late at night - you're kinda punchy, you know.
GB: Have you had trouble with OS/2?
ID: OS/2 ate Jay's hard drive, so ... Eeeeevvvviiillll! [I could almost
sense him cross his fingers warding it off]
GB: Are you planning on releasing a construction set type thing?
ID: Nope. Nil. Wrong. We might if we're really nice some day release
the map format, but we don't want to support something like that.
GB: How did you get together?
ID: We used to work at SoftDisk. Scott Miller (Apogee) contacted us
and asked us to do a game. We sent him a paragraph describing Keen I.
After 3 months of weekends and after work, we did the whole trilogy and
released Keen 1. After that, Adrian joined us and couple other people,
too. Basically, everybody at ID came from SoftDisk.
GB: What were y'all doing at SoftDisk?
ID: Basically, we were all working on monthly software. We'd write
like one game a month. It's really good in that it trains you to be a
really productive person, but it's bad because you couldn't do anything
really big. We decided to do it on our own. Decided to grab the brass
ring..
GB: Did you walk into a salaried job?
ID: No, we did it on our own time. We did it after work at SoftDisk.
Scott helped support us until Commander Keen came out. "Gee, thanks
Scott!" [in a voice that sounded eerily like Ren Hoek of the 'Ren and
Stimpy Show'].
GB: You all Ren and Stimpy fans?
ID: [In chorus] Oh yeah! [Tom in thick Ren accent:] "What do you mean?!"
GB: Don't want to take anymore of your Friday afternoon here...
ID: Oh, we don't have anything to do. We're playing Street Fighter II
and getting the beta version of 'Spear of Destiny' (Commercial version of
Wolf3D) ready to send out.
GB: How is the commercial one different?
ID: 20 new levels, new graphics, bosses, songs, plots, new new new
new!
GB: What's your work environment like?
ID: We have a Neo-geo, Super Nintendo, Geneis, Turbo Grafix 16,
Nintendo, Gameboy, and a stand-up Pacman. We can spin around in our
chair take a little Street Fighter II break.. do that all day, then
take a work break, hehe.. when the crunch lands on a project though,
it's 7 days a week, 16 hours a day. It was like that on Commander
Keen. That was a Death Schedule.
GB: Do you set these goals for yourselves?
ID: We're usually say like, "can we get it in this catalog" by this
date?
GB: Do you see what you'll be doing down the road?
ID: Well, 'Green and Pissed' and porting to other platforms will pretty
much take up most of our time. 'Commander Keen 7' after 'Green and
Pissed'. 1993 is kinda spoken for unless somebody comes by with a big
check. [giggle] Then we'll "bend like the wind!" [you tell me- "Dune"?]
GB: What's your relation to Apogee? Are they your distributor?
ID: We kinda hate 'em .. Doooo! [Homer Simpson style] ..
GB: Remember, y'all agreed to be on tape!
ID: Oh boy ... we're all real sorry, Mom. They're our distributor.
They distribute what we make. We hand 'em a disk and a manual, and
they sell it.
GB: I've run out of questions.
ID: We drink a lot of soda! Soda + pizza + programmer = program.
GB: Do you have a favorite food?
ID: John Carmack is fueled solely by Diet Pepsi and pizza.
GB: What do you do on the weekends?
ID: We work.
GB: Ew.
ID: Until we find something to do, and then we do that.
ID: That's why our projects get done in 6 or 7 months. We work all the
time. Call up Origin and they'll give you two years on a team that has
3 times as many people because they don't work every single day and
night. We make our own hours ... but our hours are very long.
GB: Anything you want to add?
ID: We're glad everybody likes the game, and this is OK, but just wait
until you see what's coming up next. Wolfenstein really sucks compared
to our next game.
GB: Y'all make for a really animated interview. This was fun!
ID: Oh this is nothing! We're crazy! "We're the wind!" ["Dune" again?]
At this point, they started asking *me* questions, which I took as a
pretty good sign that the interview was straying a wee bit. These guys
definitely have a lot of fun together and have managed to pull off a
first-class game in the shareware market- a very rare thing.
Congratulations! And we're waiting with baited breath for "Green and
Pissed" (will it come with Dramamine this time?)
------------------------------------------------------------
OS2.GAMES
------------------------------------------------------------
This file provides guidelines for running various games under OS/2.
The info here has been gathered from postings to the net and from
my own experiences. Special thanks go to Ron Dippold (hi Ron :-) and
David Charlap for their contributions on the net, and of course to the
many, many people who have posted their personal experiences. I've
taken the liberty to include direct statements from posts by various
people throughout this file.
Kevin Lowey said something I agree with:
A lot of people say that OS/2 needs a killer-app. In my opinion, the
first killer-app for OS/2 is going to be a game that takes FULL
advantage of the OS/2 features.
---------------------------------------
GENERAL TIPS:
Read the README file in your OS/2 root directory. It has tips for
running specific DOS and Windows apps under OS/2.
Read the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games FAQ. This is very important since it
will tell you about possible problems when running the game even under
plain DOS. If you can't find a copy of the FAQ in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games,
email Chris Warren, the keeper of the FAQ, at warren@apple.com for a
copy, or email me and I'll send you a copy.
If you have trouble installing the game under OS/2 and you are trying
to install the game on an FAT drive, boot up plain DOS (via dual boot
or the Boot Manager) and install it there. Sometimes a game (or other
apps) won't install for some reason under OS/2, but once installed
they'll work fine under OS/2.
If you experience strange anomalies or incompatibilities of any kind
(especially with older games), try booting a real copy of DOS from
a floppy inside a VDM running under OS/2 and run the game in that
DOS session. See VMDISK in the Command Reference online docs for
details.
In order to achieve maximum performance and speed, especially for graphics
intensive games such as flight simulators, try the following settings:
DOS Fullscreen: check this option; best performance can always be
achieved by running the game in a full screen DOS session.
DOS_BACKGROUND_EXECUTION: OFF
(so it won't take CPU time when you switch away from it)
DOS_HIGH: ON (more memory for those that need it)
DOS_RMSIZE: 640
DPMI_MEMORY_LIMIT: 0 (DOS games don't use DPMI memory)
EMS_MEMORY_LIMIT: 1024 (this is EXPANDED memory. If a game
uses more than 1024k, use a higher number; if the game uses no
EMS, such as Ultimas 4-5 and most of the earlier EGA games
[SSI games, Tunnels and Trolls, Might and Magic II, Dragon
Wars, Magic Candle I, Knights of Legend, etc] set EMS to 0)
HW_ROM_TO_RAM: ON (copies ROM BIOS to RAM--several people
have said this boosts performance on their machines)
HW_TIMER: ON (this is important, especially for those games that
use soundboards. However, one user noted that when this setting
is set to ON it causes many games that send sound directly to the
SB to crash the entire system. I have not experienced this myself.)
IDLE_SECONDS: 10
IDLE_SENSITIVITY: 100 (this is important)
KBD_ALTHOME_BYPASS: ON (this prevents the DOS session from
being shrunk to a window via ALT-HOME; keep it on OFF if you
want to run your game in a window)
VIDEO_FASTPASTE: ON (reported by some to boost performance)
VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION: OFF (important for fast graphics,
though you may have to experiment with this one)
VIDEO_ROM_EMULATION: OFF
XMS_MEMORY_LIMIT: 64 (this is EXTENDED memory; when you have
DOS_HIGH=ON, DOS can use this 64k which will help give you more
base memory)
For best performance close ALL windows and apps (especially DOS apps) before
you run the game so that the game can get as much of the CPU as
possible.
-----------------------------------------
SOUND CARDS:
Soundblaster: make sure that you don't have your Soundblaster set for IRQ7.
OS/2 uses IRQ7 (which is LPT1) to print, even though DOS doesn't, so
under OS/2 you need to change the default IRQ for your SB from 7 to
5 (or to some other available IRQ).
Roland LAPC-1: the default IRQ2 and 330 address work fine. IRQ2 is
automatically mapped to IRQ9 on 386 and 486 boards.
------------------------------------------
SPECIFIC GAMES:
Use the settings detailed above for the following games, varying EMS
as needed. Exceptions to the above settings are noted where applicable.
I have decided to include all the games that were mentioned on the net
by OS/2 users--even if there were no problems reported--to allow those
who are thinking about buying a game to know how it runs. A complete
list will also let people post or email additional hints when they see
their game listed.
[NOTE: "runs fine" means I've tested the game myself. "Reported to
run fine" means that the game was mentioned on the net as being
compatible with OS/2.]
ACES OF THE PACIFIC:
--reported to run fine.
ATLANTIS:
--reported to run fine.
A-TRAIN:
--one user made the following report about this game:
Play it under Dos. I haven't found out how to get it
to work under OS/2.
--another user said he was able to get it to run after installing it
in monochrome mode, and although the game was playable there
was no sound.
Anybody got it to run in color?
BATTLE CHESS:
--reported to run fine.
CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN [WOLF3D]:
--this is one of the most finnicky games, and may require some
experimentation to make it run well. According to net reports,
this game uses a special split-screen mode of the video card,
and thus its behavior tends to rely on a person's hardware
peculiarities more than OS/2 itself. I find that I can run this
game fine, but if I switch away from the game and then switch back
to it the bottom portion of the screen will no longer display
the statistics for my character.
--sometimes the special effects sounds for this game (shots, doors
opening, people talking, etc.) will get lost after a brief
period of time. If this happens, create a batch file (wolf3d.bat)
and have your program object point to the batch file. In the
batch file put the following two lines:
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1
WOLF3D.EXE
The first line tells the wolf3d.exe program which address you
are using, which IRQ you are using (in this case it's IRQ5),
and which DMA you are using (in this case DMA1). That should
solve the loss of special effects sounds. SB-Pro owners should
add T2 or T3 to the end of the first line (check your docs for
details).
CIVILIZATION (Microprose):
--Make sure you have the updated version. It will have the "rename" button
on the city screen. This version performs much better under OS/2.
If you don't have this version, you can download an update from the
Microprose forum on CompuServe.
--Always use fullscreen mode, and when the program starts up, use vga
resolution and ibm sound. (ega or no sound slows it down.) If you
want to turn off sound, do it from the options menu.
--one person reported that he could not start a new game in vga since
he got a divide by zero error in the dos box. But it was
possible to load a saved game into vga mode. Another person
reported that he cured this divide by zero error when he set
COM_HOLD to ON.
--another user made the following observation:
I had been having speed problems running the game in adlib/soundblaster
mode (and believe it or not I never tried anything else). However:
When I ran Civilization in PC SPEAKER mode, then quit, and ran it
again in soundblaster/adlib mode (in the same DOS session), it ran
at the correct speed! Since doing this on a regular basis would be
a pain in the ass, I wanted to find another way to 'prep' the system
for Civilization: and I found it. I ran SBFMDRV.COM (comes with the
soundblaster) before running civilization. This way I can run Civ
from a batch file called by a WPS icon.
COMMANDER KEEN 3:
--reported to run fine.
CURSE OF THE AZURE BONDS:
--runs fine.
DRAGON WARS:
--runs fine.
ELF:
--according to one user there are problems with this game.
ETERNAM:
--reported to run fine.
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER I:
--runs fine.
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER II:
--reported to run fine.
F17:
--reported to run fine.
FALCON 3.0:
--several patches have been put out for this game. I believe that there
have been four, with patch 'd' being the latest and the one which
lets the soundblaster work the best. Check comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
for details.
--one user reported that he needed to have the HW_TIMER set to OFF or
the game hung. But when he set it to OFF the screen updates were
excruciatingly slow.
Any other tips for this game?
GLOBAL DILEMMA:
--one user made the following observation:
Well, here's one for the "better DOS than DOS" department: I just
noticed that "Global Dilemma" (or Guns & Butter), which ran just fine on
my Compaq 386, won't run on my new 486; the AMI Bios doesn't seem to like
the way the game addresses the keyboard. That's under real DOS-5.
In a DOS task under OS/2 it runs just fine.
GUNSHIP 2000:
--reported to run fine.
--one user reported that the game would not install onto an HPFS
drive. He was able to install it onto a FAT drive, though.
He could run the game on an HPFS drive if he copied the
installed files from his FAT drive to his HPFS drive.
INDIANA JONES (FATE OF ATLANTIS):
--reported to run fine.
INDY 500:
--reported to run fine.
JILL OF THE JUNGLE:
--runs fine.
KING'S QUEST IV:
--reported to run fine.
KING'S QUEST V:
--runs fine.
KNIGHTS OF LEGEND:
--runs fine.
LEMMINGS:
It is important to have this game configured with HW_TIMER=ON,
VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION=OFF, and to have it configured to run in
a full screen session.
You may also have to install the game under plain DOS if you get a protection
violation under OS/2 during installation (even though it will run under OS/2
after installation).
One user reported that Lemmings wouldn't run except in a "Specific DOS"
session, so if you have troubles try that. Also, if performance suffers,
or if you have flickering problems, try NOT running the game in "High
Performance PC" mode.
LINKS:
--one user posted this helpful notice:
I have adjusted my Links settings and think that I have the best
solution for running LINKS under OS/2 2.0. First, Migrate it to
the DOS File. Next, instead of executing the file LINKS.BAT, use
the SETTINGS to have it run GOLF.EXE with NO optional parameters
(the /t in LINKS.BAT appears to be for the title screen). As soon
as the program starts, select SYSTEM and turn off ALL sounds. This
last step will alleviate the slow down immediately after the swing
as Links tries to create the sound even if HW_SOUND is turned off.
I also have HW_NO_SOUND set to ON and MOUSE_EXCLUSIVE_ACCESS turned ON.
This seems to have the game working quite well for me in full screen
mode. I hope that it helps others.
MAGIC CANDLE I:
--runs fine.
MIGHT AND MAGIC II:
--runs fine. If you have trouble with the keydisk being recognized,
boot up real DOS in a vdm (see VMDISK in the Command Reference
for directions on how to do this).
MIGHT AND MAGIC III:
--runs fine with the exception that the digitized intro speech by
Sheltem at the beginning of the game will not work with a
Soundblaster under OS/2.
--this game runs faster under OS/2 than under plain DOS due to OS/2's
super-FAT and HPFS.
MONKEY ISLAND II:
--one user posted the following observation:
After intensive study and exhaustive analysis ( :) ) I have
finally determined a solution to the problem I've been having.
The problem was that The Secret of Monkey Island 2 would not play
music correctly on the sound blaster under OS/2. I asked several
people for help in reconfiguring my Sound Blaster, and I thank
you all for your help, but that wasn't the problem. The new wave
of LucasFilm games has implemented a new music system they call
iMUSE. It turned out in my case that the iMUSE driver I had for
the sound blaster was out of date or something, I'm not sure. But
I copied the SOUNBLAS.IMS file from my copy of Indy 4 into my
Monkey Island 2 directory. Now, no problems. It may be a hack
solution, but it works now, and I'm waiting for LucasFilm to call
me back.
NOVA 9:
--reported to run fine.
POOL OF RADIANCE:
--runs fine.
PRINCE OF PERSIA:
--reported to run fine.
RED BARON (Dynamix):
--this game runs fine, but two users observed that although RB's music
played OK for them, the sound effects (such as guns and engine
noise) were silent. The cure for this is simply to run Red
Baron's install program (with RB already installed) and choose
the appropriate options again to make them take effect.
--Although I have had no problems running RB with my Soundblaster and
with my Roland LAPC-1, another user noted the following:
At least on my machine (486, 8 Megs and Soundblaster Pro) this program
locks up if you set the sound option to Sound Blaster; however if
you set the option to Adlib, you still get digitized sound and the
program runs fine.
SECRET OF THE SILVER BLADES:
--runs fine.
SIMCITY:
--reported to run fine; if you want to run it in a window, be sure
to turn MOUSE_EXCLUSIVE_ACCESS to ON.
SIMEARTH:
--reported to run fine by several users.
SPACE QUEST IV:
--runs fine, with the exception that some of the digitized sounds
on the soundblaster may be cut short. For example, I noticed
that the lightning sounded fine when I was far away from it,
but when I drew near the sound of the thunder would be cut
short (this is on a 386/33 with Roland music and SB speech).
SPELLCASTING 101 and 201:
--reported to run fine.
STAR TREK: 25th ANNIVERSARY:
--reported to run fine.
STELLAR 7:
--reported to run fine.
TEST DRIVE 3:
--reported to run fine.
TUNNELS AND TROLLS:
--runs fine.
ULTIMAS 4 and 5:
--if you have trouble with the keydisks for these games being recognized,
boot a real copy of DOS in a vdm (see VMDISK in the Command
Reference for details).
ULTIMA 6:
--runs fine.
ULTIMA 7:
--this game will NOT run under OS/2 since it uses its own memory manager.
No amount of tweaking will make it run, so don't waste your time.
Instead, spend the time to write Origin and tell them to patch it!
ULTIMA UNDERWORLD:
--there is a patch that fixes many inventory bugs in this game. Check
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games for more details.
--this game will not run in a window since it will be distorted.
--the digitized intro speeches for this game will not work reliably
under OS/2 with a Soundblaster; this is the only time in the
game where there is digitized speech though. To READ the
intro speeches, configure the game for no sound (or PC speaker)
and then run the intro.
--some people report no problems with this game, other people can't get
it to run under OS/2 at all. Most people are able to run the game
if they start the game in one of the following two ways:
1) Set the game to start minimized with background execution OFF.
Start the game and WAIT until all disk activity stops (about 10-15
seconds on my 386/33). Then switch to the game. This works best
for me, and allows me to switch back and forth from the game safely.
I've never had the game crash on me doing it this way, and I've
switched back and forth from my word processor hundreds and
hundreds of times.
2) Set the game to start in a windowed DOS session. The game will look
garbled, but wait until you see the blue title screen come up. Then
switch the game to full screen mode with ALT-HOME. If the keyboard
doesn't respond after doing this, tap the ALT key to unstick it.
WELLTRIS:
--reported to run fine in a full screen session.
WHEEL OF FORTUNE:
--reported to run fine.
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SAN DIEGO:
--reported to run fine.
WING COMMADER I-II (and SM1-2, SO1):
--these run fine, even with the speech pack.
--I have found that in WCII my soundblaster's digitized voices in
battle often hang causing me to have to hit ESC to "unstick"
them. This happens only when there are lots of enemy ships
in the area. I have a 386/33; testing it on a 486/33 didn't
exhibit this problem.
WINTREK (for Windows):
--one user reported that this game doesn't work under Win-OS2 because
it requires Win 3.1.
WOLF3D:
[listed under "Castle Wolfenstein"]
WONDERLAND:
--runs fine.
Once again, I would like to extend our most gracious thanks to the following
individuals who made it possible for yet another issue of Game Bytes to be
enjoyed by all...
In no particular order:
Ron Dippold Brian Chung Jon Lundy
Adam Pletcher Mr. Young Wayne Baker
Galen Svanas Kathleen Watson Alexandria North
David Taylor Lisa Erickson Tom Conley
David Bell J.A. Lyons Rick Lippens
Robert Keng Russ Merritt Alexander Mozhejko
Jason Kuo Steve Smith Russell Sparkes
David Masten Ivan Luk King Claudius
Alan Fusco
A hearty thanks to all, and hope to hear from many of you again in issue
number five!
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 and your name will appear in the next
issue with our thanks.
Thanks for helping us keep Game Bytes alive.
Ross Erickson
Editor and Publisher, Game Bytes
ACCOLADE
Those unforgettable peanuts characters team together with Accolade in Snoopy's
Game Club
Category: Children's Entertainment
Price and Availability: IBM PC and compatible computers - $49.95
SAN JOSE, CA - July 10, 1992--Accolade, a leading worldwide developer of enter-
tainment software, and United Feature Syndicate have jointly announced the
release of Snoopy's Game Club for IBM PC and compatible computers. Designed
under a multi-year worldwide licensing agreement with United Feature
Syndicate, Snoopy's Game Club is a fun-filled collection of fun-filled
collection of three games designed especially for children aged 3 to 8 to
provide hours of enjoyment, while enhancing problem solving and observation
skills.
For three generations, the Peanuts gang has tickled funnybones and tugged at
heartstrings in newspapers, books and television specials. Snoopy's Game Club
takes that wonderful blend of humor and nostalgia and mixes it in three
imaginative computer games: Charlie Brown's Picture Pairs, Snoopy's Animated
Puzzles and Woodstock's Look-Alikes.
Charlie Brown's Picture Pairs helps children learn the alphabet and enhance
their ability to remember the locations of hidden Peanuts characters. Simply
and easily, the child selects whether to match the picture tiles of the
Peanuts characters of letters from the alphabet and sets the difficulty level
to 8, 18 or 36 picture tiles. As each match is achieved, the picture tiles
bounce whimsically off the screen revealing a portion of a hidden picture.
The program is also helpful in teaching the child the alphabet, for as each
letter is successfully matched, the child hears its correct pronunciation in
a child's or an adult's voice.
Snoopy's Animated Puzzles brings the Peanuts characters to life and challenges
children to put together a moving puzzle. From a selection of nine different
puzzles, the child scrambles the puzzle into pieces ranging from 4 to 64 pieces,
with up to 7 defferent piece sizes. The challenge comes in not only trying to
remember what the puzzle originally looked like, but in putting the puzzle
back together again while the puzzle pieces continue to move. This
continuously animated puzzle contains endless hours of gameplay for the child
since the pieces appear in different places each time they're scrambled.
Woodstock's Look-Alikes is a wonderful way for children to have fun while
enhancing their observation skills. During multiple rounds of play, children
are challenged to select the two identical Peanuts characters, fish or tree
leaves from up to 18 different characters on the screen. Children may play
the game alone or with a friend.
Snoopy's Game Club includes a free offer for children to become a member of
The Accolade Kids Club. Using the Crayola crayons found inside specially
marked packages of Snoopy's Game Club, children simply color in Snoopy's
picture and with a little assistance from a parent, complete the membership
form. as a member of The Accolade Kids Club, children will receive a
quarterly newsletter containing fun activities and other exciting surprises.
The company also announced the details of Snoopy's Trivia Contest sponsored
by Accolade and Working Mother magazine. Consumers who enter the contest
and accurately answer three trivia questions about Snoopy and the Peanuts
gang, will be eligible to win a trip for four to visit Camp Snoopy at Knott's
Berry Farm. Secondary prizes include educational saving bonds and specially
designed Snoopy's Game Club T-shirts.
BETHESDA SOFTWORKS
WAYNE GRETZKY HOCKEY III
RELEASE DATE: October 1, 1992
The best selling PC Hockey game in the world just got better! We took
suggestions from your letter, phone calls, and brought the pro coaches
and players back to our locker room. Using their tips and tactics, along
with your comments, we spent an additional five man-years creating Wayne
Gretzky Hockey III. The result is a faster, more realistic version of the
fastest game known to man. From the adrenaline rush of a breakaway goal to
the tension of Sudden Death Overtime, Wayne Gretzky Hockey III will take you
onto the ice for the test of skill!
TWO GAMES IN ONE
- Use the overhead view made famous in the original Wayne Gretzky Hockey or,
- Switch to 3/4 Mode for a 3-D arcade view!
DETAIL
- stunning 256 color VGA/MCGA graphics let you see each player as he cuts
into the attack zone and fires off a shot at the goal!
- Make up teams, create unique players, load and save teams, or use the
special teams provided!
- Fully compatible with HLS and soon to be released HLS II!
- Full motion video replay of goals and other exciting game highlights!
PLAYABILITY THAT'S BETTER THAN EVER
- Control any player, coach from the bench, or let Wayne coach and watch the
action from the stands!
- WGH III has more player and coach's tips and tricks than ever before!
- Bone-wrenching body checks, ballistic slap shots that fly off the boards,
all the pulse pounding action of a real hockey game!
REALISTIC
- Each player's unique 'signature' is computed using II skill categories
including skating ability, stamina, puck control, and aggression!
Improved hooks into the player A.I. make the game more realistic and tougher
than ever!
- A multitude of animations and graphics let you experience the finesse of the
passing game, the thrill of a last second save, or the crunch of a board-
slamming body check!
- Choose your ref, but watch out! Tripping, slashing, and high sticking are
just some of the numerous penalties that can earn you time in the penalty
box, if the ref sees you!
- All the latest official rules and calls are at the ref's fingertips, so be
on your best behavior!
SIGHTS & SOUNDS
- Digitized sounds taken right off the ice give you the "3rd Dimension" of
gameplay. Hear the cut of the skates, feel body checks, or cheer with the
crowd on a spctacular save!
- Digitized videos give you close ups on the action. See a slapshot fired up
into the crowd, watch the ref make a call. All the things that make hockey
exciting are here, even the occasional brawls!
- Stunning sound effects and music bring the action of the world's fastest
game right into your living room!
Technical Information and Requirements:
For IBM PC's and 100% compatibles
Required:
286 machine with 640k w/ VGA/MCGA only
384K EXPANDED memory required for 3/4 3-D rink mode
Keyboard, joystick, or mouse
Hard Drive required
Recommended:
Mouse
strongly recommended
Supports Roland, Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, and Adlib audio boards
Separate 3.5" high density or 5.25 high density media packages available.
Approximate size of the game is estimated between 2 and 5 Megabytes
Availability: 1 October 1992
MAXIS
MAXIS RELEASES ROBOSPORT FOR MICROSOFT WINDOWS
Orinda, CA - Maxis has released a new version of its networkable software
game, RoboSport, for Microsoft Windows, for $59.95. RoboSport for Windows
is compatible with both Windows 3.0 and 3.1, and uses the power of Windows
by supporting hi-res VGA and multitasking.
Set in a futuristic time in which robots do battle for the amusement of
humans, RoboSport is a battle-simulation game that combines the tactical
challenge of chess with intensity of urban guerilla warfare.
With RoboSport for Windows, players will be able to run other Windows programs
while the game continues to run in the background. Players can program
maneuvers for many as four teams of up to eight robots each simply by pointing
and clicking on an icon instruction set.
Your robots can battle the computer's robot teams, programmed to be crafty,
defensive, ferocious or stupid. Or, play against your friends (who may
demonstrate these same characteristics) on a single computer, on two computers
over a serial or modem link, or on pup to cour computers over any PC network
that supports NetBios. RoboSport for Windows can be connected with either
the Macintosh and Amiga version of the game, for two-computer competition.
Start at the beginner level and work your way up to higher levels as you hunt
for treasure, rescue hostages, capture enemy flags, run a deadly gauntlet of
bases, or simply try to survive the withering assault of missiles, grenades,
zap guns, time bombs and kamikaze robots.
Robots battle in 24 arenas of three basic types: the manicured streets of a
suburb; a giant computer motherboard; or the rubble of a devastated town.
After each battle, you can replay the carnage with VCR-type controls to
analyze your (and your opponent's) strategies.
So play your tactics, instruct your troops, and kick Robutt!
Maxis, based in Orinda, CA and founded in 1987, publishes Software Toys,
which let players learn through exploration, with no traditional way to win
or lose. Maxis' first game, SimCity, was published in 1989 and has been a
consistent top seller ever since. SimCity was joined on the best-seller list
by SimEarth in 1990 and SimAnt in 1991. Maxis is amoung the fastest-growing
software companies today.
PSYGNOSIS
CARL LEWIS CHALLENGE
Psygnosis brings the feel and action of world class track and field events
into your home with the Carl Lewis Sports Challenge.
The Scenario:
Training:
-Take charge of the training programs for your country's ten top athletes.
-Plan and control each athlete's training schedule, honing their abilities
over a simulated five week period.
-Monitor their weekly training performance and select the top five
contenders for international competition.
The Competition:
-Challenge the world's athletes from elimination heats to the "medal
round" of competition.
-The computer establishes a competitive environment based on your squad's
training performance in these events:
Javelin 400 meter hurdles Long jump
100 meter sprint High jump
-Will you be victorious? Were your training and management techniques
successful? Can your squad's skills, training, and effort take you to
the medal round?
-Take the Carl Lewis challenge, and you'll soon find out.
The Challenge Features:
-256 Color VGA
-Realistic digitized images of real world class athletes.
-Adlib, Soundblaster, and PC speaker sound support.
-Customized in-depth training systems and control options, with
statistical analysis of athlete training profiles
-Fully digitized action replays.
-Up to four player action, each managing their own squad of athletes.
-Three different control modes.
SIERRA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 10, 1992
FANTASY ROLE-PLAYING ADVENTURE FOR HEROES IN WAITING:
QUEST FOR GLORY I VGA SHIPS FOR MS-DOS
OAKHURST, CA--Quest for Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero is now shipping
for MS-DOS. This challenging but light-hearted adventure features exciting
technological advances, blazing VGA graphics and the same time-honored humor
synonymous with the award-winning QUEST for Glory Series, formerly known as
Hero's Quest.
As a graduate of the Famous Adventurers' Correspondence School and looking
for work, you answer an ad for a Hero. Stepping into the boots of a fantasy
Hero, you must battle brigands with the ultimate goal of saving the people
of Spielburg. You will soon learn there is much more to this Hero business
than you expected. Like any good role-playing game, you can choose your
character -- fighter, magic user or thief, and assign their desired amount
of physical and magical attributes. In order to gain more strength, players
go to combat countless times and battle savage monsters. Succeed and gain
more strength....fail and die a painful death.
What's newest and most exciting is the use of more than 40 caly modeled
monsters and talking heads. Five pounds of clay and more than six hours
of sculpting time were devoted to the creation of each 6" figurine. Talking
heads were painted and animated on screen, while the monster figurines were
animated by hand and filmed one movement at a time at 20 frames per second
to create the smoothest, most realistic motion possible.
Another major addition to Quest for Glory I is the use of the no-typing,
point-and-click interface. Players converse with other characters through
the use of "ask about" dialog boxes. At any point, ask a character about a
number of subjects and continue to probe as much as seven levels into a
conversation. "Through a complex series of question branches, we've managed
to retain the same richness and depth of play as the original game but with
less hassle," said Lori Cole, co-designer of the series. "The player will be
able to see and hear much more than in the original Hero's Quest."
Fans of the series should look for Quest for Glory III: The Wages of War,
later this summer.
Quest for Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero supports both 256-color and 16
color on the same set of disks. This new option allows the player to choose
VGA or EGA during installation, eliminating the need for separate packages.
The game is shipping on five 3.5" or six 5.25" disks. All major sound cards
are supported and a hard disk is required.
Sierra On-Line, located in Oakhurst, California, develops and publishes
entertainment and education products for home computers. It is one of the
oldest and largest developers of home computer applications.
THE SOFTWARE TOOLWORKS
LucasArts Games'
The Secret Of Monkey Island
Now available for PC CD-ROM
Many enhancements Accompany CD Adaptation of PC Favorite
San Rafael, CA -- LucasArts Games announces the release of The Secret Of
Monkey Island, a swashbuckling adventure set in the "golden age" of piracy,
for PC CD-ROM.
Taking full advantage of the new CD format, Monkey Island CD features a CD
stereo sound track, as well as fully digitized sound effects. Additionally,
LucasArts Games has added an enhanced icon inventory and streamlined the
interface. Like other LucasArts Games graphic adventures, Monkey Island
features cinematic storytelling, high resolution, 256-color graphics and a
point-and-click interface.
Monkey Island CD also represents a first in the area of "edutainment."
The game features five languages -- English, French, Spanish, German
and Italian -- on the same CD. Players can choose their language of
preference when they start up the game. "The Secret Of Monkey Island is
an ideal resource with which to sharpen important foreign language skills.
One should know how to say 'Pass the Gorg' in any language," joked Kelly
Flock, director of development for LucasArts Games.
The game's twisty plot leads hero, Guybrush Threepwood, on a hilarious quest
throughout the fabled Monkey Island. Tales of pirate wealth attract Guybrush,
who lands at the port of Melee with high hopes, no money and an insatiable
desire to become a pirate. If the player is clever enough, Guybrush will win
the confidence of Melee's established pirates and soon find minself blown by
the winds of fate toward Monkey Island -- a storied isle whose name alone
chills the bones of even the most bloodthirsty buccaneers.
The player is treated to a wide variety of original, entertaining puzzles.
Some take the form of dialogue, in which the player has to unravel hidden
meaning in hilarious repartee. "The one-liners are more lethal than the bad
guys," explained Flock. Others are puzzles in which clues and objects from
diverse locations combine to advance the players toward the end of the game.
Intriguing visual puzzles contribute as much to the atmosphere of the game
as they do to the challenge.
In addition to The Secret Of Monkey Island, LucasArts Games recently
introduced Loom talkie, and The Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe family
(base game and four Tour of Duty add-ons) for PC CD-ROM will be released
in summer of 1992. CD-ROM products will have a suggested retail price
ranging between $79.95 and $99.95.
The Software Toolworks is the manufacturing and distributing the LucasArts
Games PC CD-ROM titles. The joint marketing agreement provides Toolworks
with exclusive retail and OEM distribution rights in North America for the
three titles and non-exclusive distribution rights for these products, and
for foreign language versions, for the remainder of the world market.
LucasArts Games develops and publishes interactive entertainment for personal
computers, video game systems and CD-ROM systems. LucasArts Games is a
division of LucasArts Entertainment Company, a diversified entertainment
company with headquarters in San Rafael, California. LucasArts is dedicated
to quality innovative entertainment and educational experiences. Its products
and services include Academy Award-winning visual effects and sound,
television commercials, licensing, public space entertainment, interactive
game software, audio systems and educational multimedia products.
The Software Toolworks, Inc. is a leading developer, publisher and distributor
of entertainment, edutainment and information software, CD-ROMs and cartridge
products for IBM PC and compatibles, Macintosh, and Commodore Amiga computers,
and Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment
System and Sega Genesis platforms. The company offers the largest number of
CD-ROM titles available for the Macintosh and IBM PC markets.
THEATRE OF WAR
Strategy and Conquest in Real time
Suggested Retail Price & Availability: IBM PC and compatibles - $49.95
Requires: Hard Drive, Dos 3.3 or later; 2Mb RAM-Super VGA; 640K RAM-
256 VGA
Sound: AdLib, SoundBlaster and SoundBlaster Pro
CAMPBELL, CA July 20, 1992 - Three-Sixty, Inc. today announced Theatre of
War, a graphic strategy game which combines the play value of traditional
board games with stunning 640x480x256 color Super VGA graphics and the new
sound capabilities of today's computers.
Theatre of War, like traditional board games, involves a board and playing
pieces, called warriors. Unlike traditional board games, the warriors do
not have specific moves, but rather "actions" that they perform. Addition-
ally the board squares can be changed by warriors and the board is not
limited to a fixed size or arrangement. Theatre of War is based on real-time
instead of turns, meaning that the player and his opponent are moving warriors
simultaneously.
Theatre of War begins with the selection of a warrior set: Medieval, The
Great War of Contemporary. Each warrior set has its own scenarios or boards
to choose from Sets are ray traced for a unique 3-D graphical look. Each
set is made up of different warriors, with unique characteristics for move-
ment, combat and auziliary functions. The interactive soundtrack is upbeat
when the player is doing well, and subdued when the player's opponent has
the upper hand.
Warriors are living entities comprised of stylized representations of archers,
gattling guns, fighter planes, etc., having strength and health points.
Strength is used for moving, fighting and other actions. Health decreases
during combat with enemy warriors, and a piece is "taken" when its health
runs out.
Theatre of War is played out utilizing multiple game screens and variable
sized boards, up to 50x50 tiles. All playing boards are made up of floating
crystal tiles and each warrior set imposes a unique set of properties and
affects to those tiles. Perspective is the main view point, a three-
dimensional look across the playfield in the current theatre. The overhead
view gives the player a zooming effect on the playing field, viewing from one
square to the entire board. The status screen gives the player an instant
overview on the status of all his or his opponent's warriors.
Theatre of War is for one to two players. Two player games can be played
over a serial or modem connection and on a single machine using time allotted
or move based turns. Add-on disks will be available with new scenarios,
boards, and warrior sets to challenge the user.
Theatre of War is distributed exclusively in North America by Electronic Arts
Distribution under its Affiliated Label program.
Three-Sixty, Inc. is a privately held developer and publisher of personal
computer entertainment software for IBM PC's and compatibles, the Commodore
Amiga and the Macintosh.
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 them-
selves. 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
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, one of the largest subscription-service bulletin
board systems in the world, you can also leave a mail message for me there.
My full account name on EXEC-PC 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.
Tom Conley writes:
GB:
I can't begin to tell you how impressed I am with Game Bytes #3! After
looking it over for less than 5 minutes I cranked up my wife's 386SX (we have
his and her computers, she's not allowed to touch my 486!) to upload it to
America On-Line (AOL) while I finished looking it over on my computer.
GB: Wow! Hey, that's terrific! We'd like to count on you to keep putting
Game Bytes up on America On-Line. We're not there _YET_, but will be
soon.
I found Game Bytes #1 on AOL, but have not been able to locate #2. I would
really like to have #2; are you aware of any FTP sites that would have #2?
If not, would it be possible either for you to upload it to an FTP site or to
ems me a copy? Like I said, I really enjoyed Game Bytes and would like to
have a complete set.
GB: Sure. Game Bytes (all issues) will be available at the ULOWELL FTP site
(129.63.32.1) in the /msdos/Games/GameByte directory. Rest assured that
each issue will be sent there very early.
How often does Game Bytes come out? (I want to make sure that I'm looking out
for #4.) If you ever decide that you're going to sell subscription instead of
giving it away, I'll sign up!
GB: Thanks for your encouragement. Game Bytes is scheduled to come out once a
month, though, with the volume of games coming this fall, it may be
necessary to produce more issues in the same timeframe. We'll see.
Thanks Tom.
David Bell writes:
Hi Ross, I just want to take a second and tell you what a great job you
have done with the first 3 issues of Game Byte. Have you considered changing
the menu program you use to let the user access not only the current issue,
but also any past issues they might have? This way we could access all the
reviews we might be interested from the same menu. You could do something
like change the data and index files for each issue, then ask the user
which issue they want to view. Another option would be to save each issue
the user wants to keep around into one BIG data file. Even better would
be the ability to save just the reviews we want to keep. Keep up the
good work.
GB: Unfortunately, the way the system was programmed, that doesn't appear
likely. Besides, after several issues, the menu system would be very clogged
and difficult to find what you were looking for. I think for the time being
we'll stick with the structure of the menus the way they are now. Thanks
for the kind words and encouragement.
J.A. Lyons of Australia writes:
Congratulations on your previous 2 Game Bytes issues. Please don't think this
is a gripe about the third, simply because i have not yet been able to get
hold of the third addition. Is there some other site that Game Bytes 3 has
been downloaded to other than wuarchive, because for some reason i havent
been able to log into that site. I have tried on several machines all to find
that the machine just wont connect. I guess i could really wait until the
mirrors are updated in our own australian sites, but I feel sort of left out
from the discussion. If you do have an info , could you please mail or send
it to the net.
GB: Thanks for the encouragement. If you do have FTP access, and many do
these days, two of the best places to find Game Bytes are WUARCHIVE (128.252.
135.4) in the /pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS directory. Also, in the ULOWELL site (129.
63.32.1) in the /msdos/Games/GameByte directory. How 'bout that!? Our own
directory!
I really think that game bytes is a good idea, and one of the best things
is that its free. It leads me to the question why do you do it, I mean do you
get paid by all the gaming companies that you represent in you magazine.
GB: :-) Why do we do it?? I guess because we enjoy doing it, and wanted to
see what the reaction would be from the gaming community. The response has
been phenomenal. We're constantly amazed at the level of feedback and email
that Game Bytes generates. First thing, NO!, we don't get paid by ANY gaming
companies, and in no way are we representing any in any way, shape, or form.
From a cost standpoint, Game Bytes is getting more and more costly to produce
and because of this we are encouraging those who read and enjoy Game Bytes
to make a modest contribution to the "cause" to keep this effort afloat. Any
donation would be greatly appreciated. Heck, we'll even mail you your own
personal edition if you contribute. The address can be found in the "INTRO"
message that is at the top of this column or in the EDITOR NOTES column.
Also, i would be extremely interested in how you get the screen shots from
some games, because i have tried using a program called PZP (forget what it
stands for) and for some games like wolfenstien 3d it just doesnt work. Has
this been a major problem for you?
GB: Yes, getting screen shots is sometimes a very difficult and challenging
job. In many cases, the programmers of the games have simply locked out any
"meddling" outside programs and screen capture programs just won't work. At
this point, we end up contacting the publisher of the game and generally, they
are quite cooperative with us about getting us some screen captures. We have
a few custom written utilities which aren't for public consumption which
have some nifty capabilities, but sometimes, even they won't work.
Rick Lippens writes:
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on an excellent start
to your first 3 Gamebytes magazines. This is truly an achievement as you are
breaking ground in a medium that will most certainly be a prominent way of
communicating magazines and television in the future (computers will replace
television and paper magazines in the not-too-distant future). I enjoy reading the very well done articles, and really like the nicely done interface. One
question though...in Gamebytes #2, Richard Garriott (in one of the photos) is
carrying a black box of some sort. What is it? A software package? A
briefcase??? Just curious...
GB: Interesting question, Rick. I took the time to talk to the good folks
at Origin and asked them about this mysterious object. Unfortunately, it's
nothing astral, spectral, or anything exciting like that at all. One might
call it...a prop! Lord British is just looking stately, and the props are
there just to ... encourage statliness. (is that a word?)
Robert Keng writes:
Wow! What a mag! Great reviews and check out them snap shots! I have been
looking for good pix of Strike Commander for a long time, and I finally found
them, in Game Bytes!
GB: We just _KNEW_ that would get you!!
Anyway, I just wanted to drop a note to say that you guys have really done a
good job with issue number 3. Kudos on them reviews, and the first look
section is very well done. Only thing I think that was lacking was sound
(it'd be great for those of us who own a soundblaster/SB Pro or Adlib to be
able to read the article with a cool soundtrack playing in the background.
Nahh, that would really be asking too much....).
GB: You're teasing me, aren't you!? Actually Robert, you can't imagine how
many times we've been asked about this sound question. I guess we're just
not convinced that adding this much new code and disk-space requirements is
worth the perceived value-add it might have.
Oh, yeah, since you guys are experts in computer gaming, maybe you people can
answer a couple of questions that's been bothering me for some time now. I'll
list them in order below:
1. Is Dynamix planning to make a patch for Aces of the Pacific? What really
bugs me about the game is that the enemy/friendly pilots fly like 3 year olds.
The so-called aces makes so much mistakes (on expert) that the "fly against
a famous ace" option should of been labeled "turkey shoot" instead. I mean,
they do dumb things like like going into a loop with low speed while I'm still
a good ways behind, allowing me to follow straight up into a lead pursuit and
blast him to kingdom come. Come on, I'm not a good armchair pilot at all, and
I can take them out easily!
GB: First of all, yes, there is a new patch (version) on its way and you
shouldn't have to wait much longer. Secondly, it sounds like you really know
your aerial tactics and countertactics quite well. I know it sounds like a
cop-out, but I'm not sure I'm ready to concede that the programmers should
have A.I. in their programs to intelligently handle every possible variable
there is in a dogfight, of any era. There's simply too much to consider when
you're selling a $50.00 - $75.00 program. Not to say this isn't a lofty
goal, and I believe we're making significant progress towards "smarter"
computer opponents, but this advancement in A.I. techniques takes time and
progresses slowly.
2. When is Strike Commander 'supposed to be released?
GB: The latest word from Origin is that Strike Commander is intended to be
available for sale sometime near Thanksgiving. I'd probably vote for that
great shopping day right after the turkey. Cross your fingers.
3. I heard from someone a while back that the older WCS (weapon control system
for thrustmaster) will not work with Aces of the Pacific. Is that true? If it
is, how can you tell the difference between the compatible and incompatible
ones?
GB: Good question. I don't know the answer to this, but we'll try to get
Jerry Luttrell of Dynamix to answer this for you. It may have been true, but
will likely be fixed in this new version that is in the works right now. As
far as how to tell, I'm afraid I can't answer that one. I would suggest
calling the Thrustmaster people.
4. Are there any good CD-ROM games in the works or slated for release soon?
(Multimedia Stellar 7 is a pitiful CD-ROM game...)
GB: Yes, I think the doors are starting to open. The CD-ROM version of
Loom is excellent. All of the speech in the game is done via professional
voice actors and the mood this sets is stunning. It's very well done. For
strategic players, two chess programs are available on CD that are excellent.
Battlechess MPC and Chessmaster 3000 MPC are highly enhanced and support
high-res graphics, full "redbook audio" sound, and speech and sound effects
throughout. CM3000 also gives you a full english-speaking tutor for learning
how to play chess too. You must be sure to watch for 7th Guest from Virgin
Games around this Halloween. It will give many gamers a clear, distinct
reason to go out and buy a CD-ROM drive.
Whew, that's all I can think of right now. I hope you guys can answer some
(maybe all:-)) of these questions for me. And again, a job well done on issue
number three, and keep up the good work! Looking forward to issue #4......
GB: Thanks. Hope you like it!
Russ Merritt writes:
Ross,
More than excellent job on Game Bytes! I'm not exactly sure when the
second edition came out, but it was full of informative facts on all of my
favorite games. Everything you described them as matched my exact
remarks!
I did a little trouble shooting for you and came up with the following when
I ran the second edition:
--> When I locked my computer in EGA mode, the welcome screen
(intentionally) turned to ASCII form. Once the .EXE was run though, F10
inside the Reviews section threw graphic garbage up on the screen. There
are a few ShareWare dither programs on the market (pardon my ignorance
if you're capable of programming your own...) that will take care of the
screen shots on EGA and CGA systems. They don't take up many bytes or
subside in extra memory, so it should make the compilation of your
program still small enough to keep 1200/2400 baud users on top.
GB: This problem is one even the software publishers face. What hardware
to support. At the very outset of Game Bytes, we made a conscious decision
to make this a high-quality magazine and that meant supporting VGA and VGA
only. This doesn't mean we won't display EGA images properly, but we won't
take the step to dither 256 color pictures down to EGA 16 color renderings.
The quality just isn't there.
Mouse control would be a nice added effect to the magazine. I'm sure
you've already thought about this aspect, so I won't go into it. There are
also several Public Domain/Shareware mouse emulators.
GB: Actually, we intended to have mouse support in _this_ issue, but our
programmer is in the midst of a move to a new home. So, we expect to add
mouse support in issue #5.
To really push your mag to the top, might I suggest an added .MOD file
for the Soundblaster/Adlib users. (I'm a Thunderboard man, myself).
.MOD files (if you don't know) are extremely small music files that sound
nothing like .CMF or .ROL which, in my opinion, offer very little more
than the sound of a $12.00 Casio keyboard. The .MOD could be played
easily in the background or just a loud roar and trumpet score at execution.
Ever since I found the .MOD editor and compiler on the ShareWare
market, I haven't stopped writing .MODs. Look into that factor, please.
GB: Oh boy, here we go again!! ..... sigh..... O.K. I promise I will ask
our programmer to take a look at this, but I'm not going to promise anything.
I can see that it would be kind of nifty to add a little fanfare at the
beginning, but after that....I see not much to get excited about.
One final question, what language was Game Bytes written in? It looks
like it was done in either C or Pascal, but I'm looking more towards Pascal.
Whatever compiler you've used, I'm impressed. most of the functions in
the program are fairly advanced. Congrats!
GB: You're right! Game Bytes is written in Pascal (for now, that is).
Another satisfied Reader
GB: Your welcome!!
Alexander Mozhejko of Moscow, Russia writes:
Hi! It was really great idea to begin published such good magazine as "Game
Byte". There are many new games in Russia, so that's why your journal is very
popular in Moscow and St.Petersburg. But many users don't know English well :)
to understand right your's articles. We can traslate articles in Russia in
some text files, but we think that will be not good, cause we will lose some
pictures and you will lose copyright. And because of it we would like to
offer you the following:
- We can translate your articles from English to Russian
- Your copyright and names will be saved
- You will give to us "Game Byte" Maker, articles and pictures
- You will be the main body and we will NOT change your information and
we will NOT insert our information without your permission
- Our names will be present like
Russian Edition:
Names
at the end of names list
But we are ready to discuss with you other notices and your suggestions.
About ourselfs:
---------------
We are live in Moscow. We are interested in computers and we are like to play
computer games. That's why we are always looking for some information about
games, like solutions, cheaters and different magazines. We have the latest
releases of games in our country, for example, Click-Clak, Hero Quest I VGA
and other new games. But in Moscow and other cities is difficult to find some
real good magazines about games. When we read information about "Game Byte"
and down load it, we were pleasantly surprised. We find in it many useful
information and we are liked your style and design. So, we thinked, why we
can't translate this journal to Russian to give to our computer owner more
correct and useful information on Russian.
Please, answer to our letter in any case.
GB: Alexander, I can't tell you what a joy it was to receive your letter. I
tried diligently to answer your message via email, but the connection points
between us didn't cooperate fully. I hope you will be able to read this
letter and our reply in this issue and have it spread throughout your
country. We're so excited that our efforts have reached such a world-wide
audience.
With regard to publishing a Russian version of Game Bytes, I'm certainly not
going to say no, but I believe we have some hurdles the likes of which Sergei
Bubka would have trouble get over!! Communications would need to improve a
great deal and our source code license is not yet to a point where we could
adequately work with other language versions. Finally, the "maker" program
as you call it, is not in any kind of shape where I would feel comfortable
about giving it to someone else to make their own magazines. It needs a lot
of "cosmetic" work done to it to make it usable by many. Please be patient
with us and try to enjoy the work we are doing now and let us grow slowly.
When we have reached a point where new language versions are feasible, believe
me, I think Russia will enjoy the first non-English version. I know I can
speak for many when I say we congratulate you for your heroic efforts to
stand up for freedom in your country and enjoy the benefits that it provides
for all who taste it.
