============================================== The Latest from Jeff Schindler - August 25, 1998 ============================================== It's been a very long and hot summer here at Amiga, Inc. headquarters. We have been busy and working steadily to secure Amiga's future. While we have missed the announced target date for our OS partner, we have continued to negotiate, execute contracts, and work on our plans for the next generation Amiga. I can promise you that we have been working very hard. We are even more excited about the future than ever before, but we are determined to do it right and this takes time. One evening at home I was reminded how important doing things right is. One of my family's favorite things to do in the evenings is to watch a movie or play interactive adventure games. We all headed out to the nearest store to make a selection. With our wallet in our hand, we all stood in front of an array of games. We selected the Titanic adventure. I proudly explained to our children that the Amiga was used in part of the production of the movie Titanic. We all agreed that this would be a great game looked forward to seeing what "adventure" awaited us at home. And an "adventure" it was!! We all gathered in our home theatre room, in front of the Destination PC/TV, and proceeded to install the game. My wife and our four children were excited to play and the "adventure" began. We loaded the game...and it CRASHED! Then we noticed a yellow insert, titled WARNING with a long list of instructions. It had us turn off features that would degrade the video and audio quality and slow the CD ROM performance. We carefully followed each step (under great protest I would like to add). You see, we have a loaded system, with all the latest technology, and believe me I want to use every bit!! Slowly one by one, our kids left the room. Each of them saying..."let me know when you get it running, Dad". Our 7 year old son James was the only one who sat by earnestly waiting for the Titanic adventure to come alive. What he ended up seeing was ... black screens with a white hourglass and his Dad getting ready to throw the wireless keyboard through the 32 inch monitor!! After two hours of shutting the machine down and re-booting our adventure was over (before it started). With anger and disappointment, we put the game back into it's box, to return to the store. The only thing that kept going through my mind was "it shouldn't be this way". Just like the Titanic, no matter how massive, nothing is unsinkable! It really "sunk" in....why the Amiga is different and why it's so important for us to reach our vision for the future Amiga and get it right. Thanks for your continued support and patience, you make Amiga what it is. Remember, its "adventures" like this that keep Amiga in our hearts. Jeff Schindler, General Manager, Amiga Inc. ============================================== Update: Trauma Zero ============================================== I said last week that I was awaiting further details of Trauma Zero and as expected the developers sent more extensive info on what we should expect to see in Trauma Zero along with some new screenshots. Trauma Zero is a new horizontal scrolling shoot'em up under development by an Italian development team who believe that all in the Amiga community will love it. After the lost of Enigma which looked to be one of the best shoot'em ups for a long time in 1997, Trauma Zero could easily take it's place with the non-playable demo proving it to be a promising title. Trauma Zero is played in either Story mode, Arcade mode or Battle mode with you taking control of one of the three crafts (there is also a hidden one). It will have a simultaneous two player mode and contains a massive array of weapons (over 50 available such as Guns, Laser, Side-Shot, Plasma, Missile, Homing-Missile, etc) and it is full of enemies such as big end of level bosses, other enemies can be seen in the various screenshots. It will feature a real time animated background with 256 Colours at 25 Hz and have real time translucency effects like the fire of a missile or the background around an explosion. It'll include digitized Speech, awesome animation sequences, incredible graphics and tons of sprites on screen along with 1/4 Pixel scrolling. The developers of Trauma Zero hope to attend the Pianeta Amiga held in Empoli on the 26th and 27th of September to reveal more of the game. ============================================== Computer 98 Show ============================================== The Computer 98 show in Cologne, Germany is the biggest Amiga show in the world, with tens of thousands of visitors attending each year. It will be running between the 13th and 15th of November but you are advised to book early for admission. This year there is expectation that Amiga Inc will be in attendance to reveal the Developer Machine to the Amiga Community, this is the Interim Amiga designed to allow developers to make software for the Next Generation of Amiga's. However it has not yet been confirmed whether or not it will be available to buy at the Show. There will be many Exhibitors also in attendance to show off the latest hardware and software innovations within the Amiga Market from such companies as Amiga International, Haage & Partner, MicroniK Computer-Service, Village Tronic Marketing GmbH, CFS Amiga-Versand, COOL Bits, IrseeSoft, Prism Leisure GmbH, RBM Computertechnik, Schatztruhe GmbH, Seidel Software service, and Vesalia-Computer. Amiga Gamers should check out the Amiga Games stands such as Titan Computer who are expected to release possibly two of their games, Epic Marketing will have old and new software on sale, developers The Real Ologram will be showing off Olofight and possibly some other games, APC&TCP and Verkosoft should have many of their recently released games on sale. If you have the opportunity to attend this years show, then make sure you take it for it should awesome with many interesting announcements expected. Visit their web site at : Http://www.computer98.de ============================================== GunBee F-99 Released ============================================== GunBee F-99 is APC&TCP's latest game release, a cute manga style shoot'em up by Twin Eagles who are from Peru. GunBee F-99 is a traditional type shoot'em up, its story is about Lord Khenmir whose evil forces have invaded the peaceful planet of Valstyx kidnapping the Princess and stealing 5 Magic Crystals that provided power and stability to the whole planet. You take control of Kiara McGuire, the pilot of GunBee F-99 and go in search of the 5 Magic Crystals, to defeat Lord Khenmir's guardians and rescue the Princess from his evil clutches. There are two modes from which to play in, Story mode which is very tough and Honey Mode which has been created to allow players to practise useful tactics and to learn the rules. It seems pretty easy to get into with a number of weapons such as a Machine gun, Bombs, Firebeams at hand to clear your path of any of Lord Khenmir's guardians with these weapons being upgraded by collecting coloured bells. Throughout the five Japanese-comic style levels you must remember to watch out for the 5 Magic Crystals and in the face Lord Khenmir. GunBee F-99 requires AGA, 4MB Fast Ram and Hard Drive space with it available from Islona (Epic Marketing) at the price of £7.99 UK Pounds. Visit their web site at :- Http://www.chiemgau.com/apc&tcp ================================================================== New Moonbases Demo ================================================================== A new demo of the Dune 2 clone Moonbases has been released. The original demo was released to a mixed responce a few months ago, since then, the developers, Homegrown Software have acted upon critisims and improved the game in a number of ways. Probably the biggest improvement has to be the addition of GFX card support. This was something that was requested by many when the first demo was released and since the game only catered for AGA then the developers saw this is something that had to be added. Using GFX cards, the gameis played in a nice 640x480 resolution, I had a quick go of it and was quite impressed, it is very smooth and the game actually looks a lot better in a resolution like this. This brings me onto the next major improvement that has been made, the graphics. Again, this was an area that received a fair amount of critisism when the original demo was released and again the authors have acted upon these and improved the game in this area. While, they still may not look as good as something like Napalm they are still better then the original ones. They are completly raytraced, the vehicles now look ok, however, I think the building gfx still let the game down a little.... In the demo you can play 2 single player missions, this gives a nice insight into what the game will be like. In the full game there will be 20 missions seperated into 2 seperate campaigns. There will also be the added feature of easy addition of extra missions. Other features of the full game includes in-game speech, 2-player link-up via serial cable or modem and lots more. ================================================= Latest: Vulcan Software release Wasted Dreams Demo Vulcan Software has just informed Amiga Flame that they have released a demo of the forthcoming Wasted Dreams, a gigantic Alien speech adventure combining mystery and suspense. The Wasted Dreams demo support's one or two players and includes digital speech, hand drawn locations, and has roto-scoped character movements. It is available from the Digital Dreams Entertainment web site; the full version will be available at the price of £29.99 UK Pounds in the next few weeks. -->Visit their web site at : Http://www.dd-ent.com/ Digital Dreams Entertainment ================================================== World Of Amiga Show Announced Peter Brameld, Organiser of the World Of Amiga show has announced that there will be a WOA 99 show but no date has been set, however the Hammersmith Novotel, London is the likely setting for such a show. Organisers hope to show working Digital Convergence Amiga (DCA) prototypes for the first time and once again hope to have as many Exhibitors as possible to make it the best WOA ever. The WOA web site is now being hosted by Infinite Frontiers, publishers of Amiga Energy who will maintain the web site and keep everyone up to date on this exciting forthcoming show. -->Visit their web site at : http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/carpenter/241/woa99.htm World Of Amiga 99