SOFTWARE REVIEWS ------------------ PUBLIC DOMAIN/SHAREWARE ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ Another issue, another handful of reviews of some of the animation disks by Tobias Richter. I know there is more Trek PD other than that written by Tobi, but it's taken us 4 issues before someone else wrote any PD reviews, (and would you beleive we ended with with reviews from TWO new PD reviewers?!) so it might take another 4 issues before we review anything that's NOT written by Tobias Richter!! AGATRON ANIMATION DISK 16 ------------------------- Reviewed by Gary Moffat ----------------------- This is an animated demo of Tobias Richter's STAR TREK game by Tobias himself. Viewed as a demo for the Star Trek game it is very well presented as it shows several features of the game off. There is a fly by of several of the ships encountered in the game and an animated orbital approach to a planet. Both viewed from the bridge via the main viewer. Some still shots of the bridge plans and the intro screens of the game are also shown which adds a little more info about the game. A nice animation advertising the game very well. 6/10 AGATRON ANIMATION DISK 17 ------------------------- Reviewed by Gary Moffat ----------------------- A very impressive animation of a scene from the film TWOK. It shows the Enterprise sneaking up behind the Reliant and firing at her with a photon torpedo. The objects are well drawn if a bit on the blocky side. However the animation is smooth and the movements of the ships are very good. Especially the Enterprise emerging from below and behind the Reliant. There is a looped sound sample playing in the background which suits the action but you find yourself reaching for the volume control. Worth while addition to a collection. 8/10 Also on the disk is an animation of a robot which is pretty dull. This was probably added to the disk to pad it out and looks as though it was an experiment in movement. AGATRON ANIMATION DISK 18 ------------------------- Reviewed by Gary Moffat ----------------------- The disk contains two Star Trek animations called TWOK-0 and TSFS. As you can tell from the titles they are animations taken from the films of the same name. TWOK is a looped animation with a looped sound sample playing, The sample gets very annoying after a while but as the animation is pretty boring anyway you wont be listening to it for to long. The animation consists of a top down view of the Enterprise and the Reliant passing above and below each other in a nebula. A very short and unimpressive animation with no redeeming features. 3/10 TSFS another looped animation and again with a looped sound sample from the film. This sample however suits the action being shown very well and is easier to listen to. The scene consists of the Grissom flying towards the Genesis planet. This animation is very well put together with an excellently drawn ship, unfortunately the opposite is true of the planet itself which spoils the whole animation. On the whole the animation works well but tends to jerk slightly. Worth getting the disk just to see the well drawn Grissom ship. 5/10 AGATRON ANIM DISK 32 -------------------- Reviewed by Gary Moffat ----------------------- On the disk are three animations: One being Star Trek the other two from Star Wars. The first animation is called `Probe'. The Probe being from the film Star Wars. It is a looped animation lasting only a few seconds. A probe flies from the edge of the screen towards the middle and disappears into the distance. The probe is well drawn and the animation is smooth. However there is a basic star field used as the background which constantly flickers, spoiling the whole effect. On the whole pretty basic stuff. 4/10 The second animation is called `Star Trek' which again is a looped anim of the Enterprise-A in a classic fly by sequence seen in the TV series. The Enterprise is well drawn and smoothly animated and there is a good feeling of speed. Tobias has used one flight path sequence of the Enterprise moving towards us then he has flipped it on its X axis and started the flight path again. Basic stuff but clever as it is used to good effect. Could have been longer. 6/10 The third and last anim on the disk is called `Tie'. Again this is taken from Star Wars. Again a nice looped anim but the Tie Fighters are not accurately drawn. Two Tie fighters fly towards the viewer and over head with one of the fighters firing. Again nicely drawn and animated but too short. 5/10 There is music playing throughout the animations but unforunatly it is the same piece and is very grating on the ears, however a click on both mouse buttons sorts the annoyance out. Tobias mentions in the intro that the anims are very jerky and the use of an Accelerator card will help enhance the viewers pleasure. This problem can be solved by running the anims via `PPANIM' (available on Fish Disk 542) - the anims will be fast and smooth. STAR TREK: THE GAME (by Tobias Richter) --------------------------------------- Reviewed by Sven Harvey ----------------------- Of the Star Trek games that have survived through the recent clamp down by Paramount is this adventure game by the man behind alot of the Star Trek animations on the P.D. circuit. I myself admire his work and his fame has resulted in him producing game intro animations and videos plus a special feature about him and his work in CU Amiga! The game is an adventure based on the movie format with you, James Tiberius Kirk, in command of the second U.S.S. Enterprise. After a nice title animation (which unluckily, like alot of work from Tobias, features a blue Enterprise) and a intro sequence which puts alot of commercial games to shame, you end up in the command chair of the bridge with the ship orbiting Earth (though surprisingly not in space dock). From this point (if you have a 1MB machine) you will notice the sampled sound effects from the original t.v. series and the movies. From the `command' seat you can access several of the starships' systems. The `navigator' button allows you to set your destination and speed using either impulse power or the warp drive up to factor 12. Through the `helmsman' option you can change the degree of impulse power, alter the mainscreen display including putting a tactical display up plus phaser/photon torpedo targeting and firing. `Weapons+defense' also controls the phaser and photon torpedos but also shields. `Communications' allows you to contact other starships and enemies plus change to red or yellow alert. You can control shields, repairs and speed from `engineering' and monitor and change repairs from `damage & repair'. The `sciences computer' gives Spock- like replies to requests for analysis and suggestions while `ship's status' gives information on destination and speed. Four status bars are visible from command and show the status of energy levels, warp speed, impulse speed and damage. Other options are `pause', `quit/save', `bridge' (an overhead view with the option buttons) and `turbolift'. The `turbolift' option accesses another option screen as follows: Bridge returns to `command seat'. Officers Lounge gives details of missions and crew attitude. Transporter allows you to beam supplies to and from the ship. Medical shows number of injuries and your health. Engineering similar to the `engineering' option from the bridge. Cargo Bay shows the ship's cargo and passenger inventory. Hanger from here you can change the responsiveness of the shuttles. Landing Bay allows you to transport equipment etc. to and from the ship. Credits allows you to alter the number of missions, events and reset the game. Through the use of these options you fly around the galaxy completing missions, running into Klingons, Romulans and blackholes and stopping over at starbases of which there are only three, one of which is Starfleet H.Q. which surprisingly is not at Earth. Will someone tell me which is right! I got the impression that Starfleet H.Q. is in San Fransisco with the space dock orbiting above! Other events comprise of asteroid fields, magnetic storms, wormholes and other UFP starships. These can be anything from Dreadnoughts to Knox class starships to the one and only Excelsior. It does sound a little slow and can be but with the settings on many missions and many events in the `credits' option and all hell breaks loose! The game ends when either the Enterprise is destroyed or your crew mutinies, and you are presented with a brilliant hi-res picture with side and top elevations of NCC-1701-A (shame its blue). The Graphics are not quite up to Tobias's usual standard (if they were it would probably be on ten disks instead of two) but the sound effects are good and the gameplay makes alot of commercial stuff look really bad. The game would make a brilliant commercial CD game if all the messages were replaced with speech and the graphics were improved. Unluckily, Paramount would want millions...