The AMIGAMER Issue #3 March '88 By Ross Deeley 38 Napier Rd Havelock North New Zealand Phone (070) 775-959 The AmiGamer is published bi-monthly by Ross Deeley. It may be distributed by user groups and clubs provided it is distributed whole including this notice. COPYRIGHT (C) 1988 "The AmiGamer" is the un-registered unofficial trademark of Ross Deeley and anyone else using it will be cursed by ramdom chip-memory errors. SO MOTE IT BE. Games mentioned here are all available off-the-shelf at:- Data Stream 29 Carlyle St. P.O. Box 87 NAPIER Phone (070) 356-195 Prices Quoted are Data Stream List price (inc GST) Crazy Cars (Titus $89.99 [DSL]) Requires Joystick This game is French (which disproves the theory that only English and German speaking people have Amigas) and the paragraph (in all 3 Languages) describing the game on the back of the box is the only documentation you get. After the startup-screen you get a few details of the first car that you will drive, a Mercedes 560 SEC.Note that in these info screens the maximum spped is given im Miles Per Hour but the digital speedo at the top right of the screen is in Kilometres per hour. You may think that this game is similar to TEST DRIVE (which was reviewed in the last column) but this is an arcade game rather than a simulation. The view is the trailers-eye view from behind the car which quickly accelerates to its maximum speed. You don't have to worry about changing gears, all the cars seem to be automatic. This is ok for the Mercedes but you don't get automatic versions of the other cars (Porsche Turbo, Lamborghini Countach & Ferrari GTO ) in real life. There are 6 race- tracks with different background scenery and while the first is the easiest with long straights and sweeping corners, the most difficult tracks are New York (#2) and Space Shuttle (#3). If you crash into another car or the side of the road you do not lose a life or damage the car, you merely slow down or stop. The game ends when you run out of time to complete a track or when you have gone through 72 tracks. As each track takes about a minute this game can take a couple of hours to play. High scores are saved to disk (and is a high scoring game, you get about a million points for each track). The game can but put on a hard disk or into ram: to speed up the loading of each new track. There is no pause button but it will wait for you to press the button before you start a new track so you can take a break to answer the phone etc when you have completed that track. While I like this game, some people may find it to easy and get bored with it. PD Game of the Year Amoeba Invaders (Fish 120) This is a complete clone of the classic Space Invaders. Joystick or (user changeable) keyboard controlled. It even multi-tasks although it will slow down if you have other high priority tasks running. This game could have been sold commercially at $40 but as it is PD you can get it for the cost of a blank disk (See the Chief Archivists report for the latest prices) Star Wars (Domark $89.99 [DSL]) This is a faithful rendition of the Atari/Lucasfilm coin-op. The vector graphics are as smooth as the original. Excellent sound features the same digitised speech as the arcade version. Control is by mouse or joystick. For those of you that have not seen it Star Wars starts of with you shooting at TIE fighters, after which you fly past towers that shoot at you, then it is down the death-star trench, dodging barriers. until you get to the reactor exhaust port. You can hear Obi-Wan urging you to "use the force" but there is nothing in the instructions telling you which key or button turns it on. I am not sure if it saves high scores to disk, it came write-protected and I prefer to leave it that way. Once the game is fully loaded it does not access the disk so it can be removed. The only disapointment is the title music which is not up to normal Amiga standard. Amegas (Digitek/OziSoft $109.99 [DSL]) This is another Arkanoid/breakout game similar to Impact (see AmiGamer #2). The main difference is that Amegas has superior graphics with a coloured pattern background and a 3-d shadow effect. Outstanding accuracy of bat control is provided with the mouse. Playability is enhanced with the special Weapons being easier to obtain; in Impact the number of bonus thingies caught determines the type of special effect obtained (eg 2 tokens enables you to buy the magnet [catch the ball and hold it], but you have to get 6 tokens to get the laser) but in Amegas each effect is obtained by catcing one item and the colour determines the type (dark blue for wide bat, red for laser etc) also if a thingie is caught (but not activated) just before you finish a screen it can be used at the beginning of the next screen. Unfortunately bonus points are not given for unused thingies. the sound is good and theme music is excelent and does not become boring like most. The only thing wrong with the game is the price-$110 for an arcade game is a little difficult to justify even if it is the best breakout game available. KampfGruppe (SSI $89.99 [DSL]) Strategy war games are still rare for the Amiga, so it is good to see the largest war games producer start converting some of their latest titles. Kampfgruppe is a tactical level simulation of the Eastern front (Germans vs Russians). You command a brigade size force where each individual unit is a platoon (5-10 tanks or 30-40 infantry). As usual SSI have gone into great detail, there are about 80 different types of tanks, artillery units etc. There are no restrictions on "stacking" (having more than one unit on a square) and you could put your entire force on one square. The computer tends to stack units faily densly especialy when attacking and it is rather easy to outflank his forces and attack from the side-as tanks have thinner side armour this can give you a big advatange. An excellent manual is provided along with an Amiga refernce card and a data sjheet with info on all the weapons. The game is not copy-protected but asks you a question from the manual when you start the game. However it is not possible to put the game on a hard disk unfortunately.