INFO - Software Houses : The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

Well, after 4 years on the Amiga one gets to know the various software houses.
Over the past 4 years I have seen many houses come and go, some due to lack
of financial support, others just didn't have it cut to go Amiga.
Well, I thought perhaps to make a list of the GOOD, the BAD & the UGLY in
the world of Amiga, featuring both previous and current software houses.

CINEMAWARE - Probably one of the better known Amiga software houses, this
company has created many classics for the Amiga, and has been dedicated to
it since it was first released.  SINBAD & THE THRONE OF THE FALCON was 
actually one of my first ever games, and it sure made a milestone then in
computer entertainment.  Cinemaware have always produced their games in a
film fashion. That is, their games are presented like that of a movie, where
you play the hero against the evil, whatever it may be in any case.  The only
real problem with this is that a Disk-Access was very slow, due to the immense
amount of graphics and sound every scene.  Options for Hard Drive boot are
current but your average games-player doesn't really have a HD.  So where
does it leave them? In the cold really. It's up to them on wether they are
willing to go and fork out the cash for a HD or not. I am not saying that
Cinemaware's games are unplayable on disk, that's far from what I am getting
at.  It's just their games are not played to their full potential by disk.
As soon as the CD ROM comes about the average games player is going to see
some mighty big changes in the software industry, and Cinemaware will be
leading the trend of hundreds of megs available at lightning speed.  Out of
20 this is at least a 16.

U.S GOLD - Well, 64 fans would know this company for sure.  Perhaps they've 
released the most games on the 64, and some of the best.  But that doesn't
ensure them the same place in the Amiga marketplace.  I feel that U.S GOLD's
first attempts at Amiga games were close to pathetic.  Going from the 64 to
where they were a legend to the Amiga where they hit a brick wall.  Now, as
time progressed things weren't that bad.  One saw LED STORM, rather enjoyable
and rated quite high in most magazines.  Then there came such games as 
GAUNTLET II, which seemed not to be a real hit on the Amiga. Besides, by then
we'd seen Garrison courtosey of Rainbow Arts, and Garrison II.  But without
the Amiga US GOLD we'd be missing out on a great deal of software. Almost all
arcade conversions of games are done by US GOLD, and half of these aren't bad
at all.  So, out of 20 I would give them a 10, which is average, because not
all their releases are great, but they're not all rotten apples either.

RAINBOW ARTS - Remember Bad Kat? Not too bad for a first game really, and this
company is responsible.  It was their very first venture into computers from
what I can remember, although I may be mixing up Great Giana Sisters with
BAD KAT for the first release from them.  Rainbow Arts have really stuck their
necks out for Amiga fans, because not so long ago one can remember fights over
the game GREAT GIANA SISTERS, which had a remarkable resemblance to SUPER MARIO
BROTHERS on the Nintendo.  But face it, if they hadn't of made it who would?
Then, shortly after, there came KATAKIS, which was one of the best shoot em
ups for that time.  Electric Dreams took them to court over this due to it
being remarkably similar to R-TYPE, which was soon to be released by E.D.
Rainbow Arts had to redraw all of their Katakis games for this, and I feel
this was un-necessary. If Electric Dreams, as they were boasting at the time,
could program such great games then what were they afraid of? Katakis being
better than their paid-for R-TYPE?  Nowadays you can still catch Rainbow Arts
hard at work, recently bringing the game CONQUEROR to the Amiga screen in
great glory (see Newsflash issue 10), and to say the least Conqueror had a
better adaption to the Amiga than Virus, by Firebird, ever did. I'd say a 12 
out of 20.

PSYGNOSIS - My favourite company, known for their fantastic startings to all
their games, their excellent graphics and sound, and their continuous stream
of good titles.  In early Amiga days they brought you Barbarian. Not the one
where you chopped off the other guys head, but the one where you travelled
through caverns to reach a volcano and destroy an orb.  This game had to be
one of the best of its type around at the time, and shortly after out came
Obliterator which featured similar routines, only not as succesful as 
Barbarian due to its great slowness.  Then came Menace, in the era just after
R-TYPE, and bearing a resembalance to R-TYPE though they were in the clear
over it.  After that they brought you BAAL, a game with arcade and strategic
elements in it resembling Obliterator somewhat, only being faster for sure.
Then out came SHADOW OF THE BEAST, a definate must.  It had great graphics
and sound, and is still one of my favourites. A bit of controversy over a game
called Aquaventura. I have seen demos of the game, up and running, and it is
once again a classic. However, all companies can be excused by the odd bad
game, and of course some have more than others, but the only real flop of a
game I can recall from Psygnosis may have been Ballistix, which had great
graphics but was the type of game up against the BITMAP BROTHERS "Speedball",
which was undoubtadly booming at that time, getting rave reviews.  However,
you can catch the likes of BLOOD MONEY, a shoot 'em up with that bit extra
to make it another of their better releases, and recently STRYX, a multi-level
shoot 'em up sort of game along the lines of BAAL. I haven't had the pleasure
to play STRYX but I have seen the starting to it in a shop and it's good to
say the least. Nowdays you can catch Infestation in your local shops.
One can definately say with it's fast 3D routines Psygnosis have overcome
what Obliterator stumbled on. Out of 20 this is a 17.

READYSOFT - This is a company who went serious to fun.  What I mean is they
first ventured out with the likes of THE 64 EMULATOR, which turned out to be
quite a useless piece of software.  In despair they released THE 64 EMULATOR
II, which was suppose to be improved but no-one could see any real improvement
from the first, because hardly a thing still worked.  Then, after a short 
break REDYSOFT practically hit back with DRAGON'S LAIR, a 6 disk arcade
conversion.  It had excellent graphics and sound, although not many gave it
rave reviews due to it's immense price and loading time between scenes.  
Personally I think DRAGON'S LAIR was a leap in the right direction. While it
DID have long loading times, it made heads turn to the Amiga.  Another blow
to the software industry came SPACE ACE, based upon the same routines as
DRAGON'S LAIR although this time loading time was short and the scenes were
longer, bringing a vast improvement.  This time the magazine reviewers thought
twice, because now the bug had been fixed over loading time the game was close
to a master piece, bar the price of course.  Well, there was a bit of a wait
now and then out came DRAGON'S LAIR II: ESCAPE FROM SINGE'S CASTLE, which
featured a different system as to SPACE ACE and DRAGON'S LAIR which was not
really for the better. If had they stuck with the SPACE ACE loading technique
the game would have been much more enjoyable, but it didn't. Rather it was
back to long waits while the program loaded in a whole lot of anims.  It had
a certain flavour to it which was an improvement, like more animation scenes I
think, and on 5 disks. Anyway, somewhere inbetween the 3 mentioned games came
the likes of a quiz-style game in which you had to answer rock 'n' roll 
questions. Also, a game titled SCARY MUTANT ALIENS FROM MARS, a silly graphic
adventure, had a tiny bit of victory, and was based upon the DEJA VU mouse
driven system.  All in all I think READYSOFT deserve at least a 15 due to their
ventures into the DRAGON LAIR system.

GRANDSLAM - Not an easy company to keep tabs on, I must say.  Recent releases
include a Martial Arts sim titled "Chambers of Shaolin", which turned out to
be one of the better releases.  About a year ago you could probably catch a
game from them titled "Grand Monster Slam", which was a hit amongst most of the
popular magazines and scored alot for originality, which is something hard to
find these days.  

RAINBIRD - A definate jump into the software world was this house.  It first
released a game which most certainly put the Amiga on the map, titled 
"Starglider".  It had excellent routines and was fast and addictive.  Although
it only featured vector graphics, it still scored hits amongst the hardy
games players out there.  Then, they went to work on another title which was
to be the sequel to STARGLIDER, called what else but STARGLIDER II.  It had to
be one of the most favoured games of that time, because it was this time 
created with filled vectors and also the feature to go not just on the one
planet but several planets.  After a short break they soon had their eyes set
upon another titled which was to be based upon the dreams of people, where you
have the dreams go rouge upon you during an operation.  Titled "WEIRD DREAMS"
it has some of the best animation and graphics sequences.  Those out there at
the time with only Half a meg could, unfortunately, not have the enjoyment of
playing it.  People found the puzzles hard but fun to work out, and kept the
mind always working due to time limits placed upon certain scenes.  I think it
may have been after Starglider II that the talented Rainbird team was hired to
create Afterburner, which got a fair rating to its arcade predecessor. Of 
course it was rather close to the arcade in a graphics and action sense, but 
one cannot judge fairly from computer to arcade for this one because the arcade
happened to feature a roll cabinet of which is impossible to emulate on the
computer. Of course if someone wanted to fish out a few thousands for a roll
cabinet to hook up to the system, and reprogram their version of the game and
setup the right hardware interface, fine, but by then its probably worth just
buying the arcade version anyway.  That's about the up-to-date record on 
Rainbird, I don't know what titles they're planning on next, probably another
3D routine game.  Check Newsflash issue 10 for an almost complete list of 1990
releases, and see if they've another game planned.  For now I think Rainbird
score a 16 out of 20.

Well, that's about all from me for this issue. Next issue you can catch another
lot of houses put up on the judging board.  Until then, why not write in to
Newsflash and give either Ron or Martyn your views upon this list and offer any
suggestions/mistakes I may have made.  Thanx. Cheers.
                                                     JOHN WEBSTER