Received: from decwrl.dec.com by s.ms.uky.edu id aa24565; 3 Jul 90 8:05 GMT Received: by decwrl.dec.com; id AA26510; Mon, 2 Jul 90 11:53:38 -0700 Message-Id: <9007021853.AA26510@decwrl.dec.com> Received: by limbo; Mon, 2 Jul 90 11:42:10 pdt From: The Moderator Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 11:41:59 PDT Subject: Digital Games Review Digest, #5 Reply-To: Digital Games Review To: Digital Games Review Digest X-Mailer: fastmail [version 2.02] Digital Games Review Digest, Number 5 Monday, July 2nd 1990 Today's Topics: Amiga: Tie-Break Amiga: Stunt Track Amiga: Turrican Amiga: Kick-Off 2 NES: Ghosts and Goblins Mac: Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf Mac: Windwalker ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michel Buffa Subject: Amiga: Tie-Break Date: Mon, 18 Jun 90 11:24:36 +0200 Yesterday I played Tie-Break with 3 friends for hours, and it's GREAT ! It's written by Starbyte, a small German company. This is the funniest tennis game on the Amiga: you can play up to four at the same time (with the same joystick expander used by international soccer, kick-off 2, gauntlet 2, tv-sport basketball... the standard one in fact), you can play on any surface, in any combination (single, double, 2 players in the same team, one in the other with a computer player, so on...), you can organize tournament with your friends, play real tournaments (Roland Garros, Wimbledon, etc...) you can save your game, etc... Very complete. By the way, if you don't have the joystick expander, players 3 and 4 can use the keyboard (I haven't tried this yet). The game is from a bird-eye view (like in kick-off), and the computer controls all the movements of the players. You can just choose how you will hit the ball (slice, lift, lob, smash...) and the strength. It's original and it's very very funny because it's very well done. Of course, the timing is also very important. Believe me, this game is a lot of fun. Technically, it's also a great game: the scrolling and the players animation is very smooth, the ball trajectories are very realistic (retro effects, lobs,... much better than in great courts or tennis cup), the sound effects are impressive (digitized voices, balls impacts...) The best tennis simulation. A lot of fun when 3 or 4 players (The double with four human players is incredibly funny). The most amusing game for 3 or 4 players. Playability : 9.5 Graphics : 7 (But it's not important) Music : 9 (Only during the title page) Sound effects : 10 Overall : 9 Company: Starbyte, distributed in Europe by OCEAN ------------------------------ From: nike.cair.du.edu!nyx!bscott (Ben Scott) Subject: Amiga: Stunt Track Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 04:59:31 MDT The closest I've come to describing this English import is as "an automotive flight simulator" - more than anything else, this game puts you in the cockpit of a jet fighter with wheels. Stunt Track Racer (formerly entitled Stunt Car Racer) is set in the early 21st century. Gone are the nice, safe, flat, ground-level walled racetracks. When you start the game you find yourself being lifted by crane onto a narrow unfenced track which rises as high as 500 feet above the ground. At speeds of over 250 MPH, the slightest misstep at any of the hairpin turns and you will find yourself sailing majestically into the skies, unfortunately without wings for support. Adding to the fun is an opponent sharing (or more often attempting NOT to share) the same track as you. Through all this you must navigate the track in the minimum time, while being careful not to overstress your frame lest you end up with irreparable damage, or use up all your special "boost" fuel that gives you your only competitive edge over the opponent. It's fun... but I'm glad it's only a simulation. The game design is outstanding. You are given the pilot ("driver" is an inadequate term) view looking out over your fire-breathing engine and heavy-duty front suspension. Very smooth 3-D graphics, while simple, are more than adequate to give you a hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach along some of the endless jumps. Often they are survivable only if hit at a specific, critical speed. The sound effects too are quite realistic - the engine roar, the heavy clank as you try to knock the other car off the track (or, if your opponent is the computer, more likely IT knocking YOU off the track), the grinding squeal of tortured metal as your frame gives way, even the subtle groan as you make a too-hard landing - all sound as though they were digitized from the real thing. Eight tracks, two in each of four levels (and there is a Super League for those who have won through to Division 1), provide a wide variety of challenges, from banked straightaways to hidden jumps to a 'Drawbridge' where sections of the track actually move up and down (hit them at the wrong time and your jump will be out of control). It is operated only by joystick and I suggest a durable one. If you are blessed with two Amigas a whole new type of play opens up: head-to-head. The game allows two players on the same track playing on separate Amigas connected via a null-modem cable (a modem link is not supported), and this is about the most fun I've ever had with my Amigas. Though the computer opponent is challenging, especially on the higher levels, he cannot be hurt or make a mistake or fall off the track. With a human opponent the challenge takes on an entirely new dimension. Nice touches, such as victory screens that end on one monitor and continue on the other, add to the fun. The manual is 50 pages long but only the first 22 pages concern themselves with the game itself - the rest is a fascinating history of auto racing of all types from the late 19th century to 2008! Illustrated with many photos and written in a fast paced, not-overly-technical style, it makes for good reading all on it's own. Stunt Track Racer is available for Amiga, Atari ST and IBM computers. I have only seen the Amiga version, and am not even sure the IBM has the computer-to-computer link mode. You can save your character, and the high score list, on a formatted floppy. The game is copy protected and does not support hard disk installation. I am not much of a game player as a rule - I rarely have the time for anything but a quick game of Tetris now and then - and before I even consider buying a game I must be positive that it will have a shelf life of years. So far I've only bought three - F-18 Interceptor from EA, StarGlider II from Rainbird, and Stunt Track, and none have disappointed me. Even though I've had some for years I still reach for them whenever I have a free moment. Stunt Track is definitely worth the money. Stunt Track Racer, from MicroPlay. ------------------------------ From: Michel Buffa Subject: Amiga: Turrican Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 10:58:16 +0200 I bought Turrican by Rainbow Arts yesterday, and it's the best arcade game yet for the Amiga! Why? It's a kind of super super super Mario Bros, an gigantic Great Giana Sister, if you know this game on the Amiga. Very much inspired by Nintendo games. It's very playable, and very smooth. The graphics are very good. The game is also very addictive... The aim is to find the exit of each level. Sometimes it's very easy, but there are plenty of hidden rooms with a lot of bonuses, so you've got to explore the whole level if you want to go far, sometimes the exit is very hard to find because the level is a real maze. One of the best features is that every 2 or 3 levels there is a secret door to an higher level. If you know the first level by heart, just go to the secret door and jump to level 6. If you know the level 6 by heart, jump to level 12, the level you haven't finished yet, and so on... Some features: -The best animation I ever seen on this machine: multidirectionnal scrolling, very very very smooth (50 frames/s), perfect movements of your robot, enormous sprites, sprites everywhere... You can control your jumps perfectly. -Gigantic levels (So huge, they are impossible to map). One level is about 10 x 10 screens, and you can go anywhere (scrolling) -Secret doors, secret rooms, hidden bonuses. -Very powerful weapons: Multiple-laser, enormous laser when you keep the fire-button pushed, you can rotate it 360 degrees but you can't move while using it. You can put time-bombs on the ground, use large side-lasers, turn yourself on a spiky wheel (like in the nintendo game Metroid) It's a great arcade-adventure game (more arcade than adventure, but the levels are so huge, it semms sometime impossible to see the end) Compared to Strider (this game is also a game with multidirectionnal scrolling, and you can go anywhere), Turrican is many many times better. The level of difficulty is very well gradiated; Anybody can enjoy this game, the beginner, the arcade pro, even your grandfather.... Playability: 9.5 (WOW !) interest: 10 (gigantic levels, secret doors...) Graphics: 6 9 Music: 10 10 (WOW !) Sound effects: 8 Overall: 9.5 (Great game !) ------------------------------ From: Michel Buffa Subject: Amiga: Kick-Off 2 Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 09:49:13 +0200 Kick-Off 2 is the follow-up to the universally accaimed Kick-Off. I have personally played Kick-Off for many hundreds of hours. Both are soccer simulations with full size multi directional scrolling pitch and the players, markings, goals...in correct proportions. Kick-Off 1 was already the most complete and accurate soccer simulation, but Kick-Off 2 has many more features, including: - Single game or team game: A single game can be between a player and the computer, or between two players. Two players can team-up against the computer or against two other players. (the four players at the same time option requires the joystick expander, the standard one) - The League 8 teams, 14 weeks. The league championship can be saved to be continued later. You choose the names of the teams, and decide if they are controlled by the computer or by human. - The Cup Like English cup, with extra-time, and penalty shoots at the end of a match if there is a draw. - International game Identical to single match except that each team is international. If you play Brasil against Germany, each one will have different caracteristics and tactics. (Germans will be more agressive and tackle more often than the Brasilians who will run faster and be more accurate in shooting) - Practice mode Allow one or two players to practice ball controls without being harassed by the opposition. Very useful when you're learning! - Special events This option is used for loading data disks to be published at a later date. The World Cup 90 is sold with Kick-Off 2, with all the real teams, the groups, the players,.... - Action Replay You can, during a match have a replay of the last 10 seconds, with optional slow motion. You can save the replay on disk, with the name of the team, the name of the players, the date. There is a special menu in the game that allows you to edit, past and cut them and make "golden disks" of your best actions. - Kit design You can choose the colors of your shirt and shorts. - Many options -Duration of a match: 2x3, 2x5, 2x10, 2x2 minutes -Pitch: a choice of 4 playing surfaces (Normal, soggy, wet, artificial) -Wind: Off, light, medium, strong -Tactics: 8 tactics available, but each player must choose a set of 4, which will be available during the match. Tactics designed in "player manager" can be loaded in replacement of one or more of the 8 standard ones. Tactics greatly influence the game play and the results. -Extra time and penalties: enable/disable -Skill level: 5 skill levels available for each team independantly: international, 1st,2nd,3rd and 4th divisions. -There is another special level called "player manager level". It allows a player manager team to be loaded along with the current tactics and players skills. This is very interesting since each player can build his own team, train it, design its tactics, and the day of the match, each one loads his team. -league options: the skill level at which the league is played can be set. -Game speed: the speed of the game can be changed. At reduced speed, it's possible to play a very tactical game and see how your tactics actually work. -After touch: if set, the ball direction can be altered for a short duration after shooting. Ideal for bending the ball. Very hard to master but very impressive. A great option! -Select referee: you may select one of the 24 referees. They are all different. Random choice is possible. Each player has a unique mixture of attributes and skills. Attributes are pace, stamina, aggression, resilience, and skills are passing, shooting, tackling. If you played player manager you'll understand how important it is to have good players. Gameplay Players can head the ball, do blocking or sliding tackles, scissor kick, dribble, shoot, top the ball, pass, chip, bend a shoot, shoot penalties, shoot corners, shoot free kicks, throw in... The main difference with Kick-Off is that the duration for which the fire button is kept pressed determines the strength of the shoot, of the corner, the height of a free-kick, the length of a throw in... Corners are more technical than in Kick-Off 1. Free-kicks are a completely new feature: The ball is placed where the foul occured. A few yards away of each side of the ball stands a player from the team taking the free kick. If two players are in team mode, the main player takes the free kick and the other stands on the side nearest to the goal. There are two distinct joystick controls: one before touching the ball and one after touching the ball. Before, a player can choose to Jump over the ball, slight left bias, slight right bias, more left bias, straight kick, and even swerve the ball.... With practice a player can dip the ball into the opposition net or bend the ball round the opposition wall. A player is allowed to make two substitutions during the match, to change the tactic of his team. Referees can give red or yellow cards. A player can be injured, there is a scanner (you can set the size) which indicates all the players positions... It's probably the most complete soccer game ever made! Well, Kick-Off 2 is not a completely new game. The arcade part (The match) is the same as in Kick-Off 1, except that a few bugs have been corrected, and the ball control is more technical. Free Kicks and bended shoots are a great feature too. It's the best soccer game, with furious action, very smooth scrolling, nice animations, fantastic playability. What is completely new is the ammount of options about the skill levels, the tactics, and so on.... But they will be really useful if you have also "player manager". (I recommend this game too) With player manager, Kick-Off 2 becomes the best arcade-simulation soccer game ever made. Create a team, buy players, design tactics, train you team, increase player skills with player manager, then load your team in Kick-Off 2 and play against a friend who did the same on his side. This is great ! If you've got already Kick-Off, I don't think you should buy Kick-Off 2 without player manager, since the arcade part itself is almost the same. (I don't understand why Anco didn't propose an upgrade for Kick-Off 1 owners). If you haven't got Kick-Off 1, and are looking for a soccer game, then you should get Kick-Off 2! Buy Player manager if you've got enough money. Bad things in Kick-Off 2: The 4 players option seems unplayable. Each human player can control only one player in the team (and always the same). This involves a more tactical play, but it's not very fun. Anyway, I haven't tried this feature much, because I couldn't find 4 experienced players among my friends, so they kept saying "I don't understand where I am, I don't understand where I am". It's true that if one player controls a defender, and one controls a forward, one will be always out of the screen, and will have to move only using the scanner (human players are big spots among the small spots, which are computer players). All in all, Kick-Off 2 is a fantastic game, but not a revolution compared to Kick-Off 1. Playability: 9.5 (WOW !) interest: 10 (very deep strategic components) Graphics: 6 (not important) Music: 0 (No Music) Sound effects: 8 (Shoots, referees, public screams..) Overall: 9.5 (Great game !) Don't forget: Kick-Off 2 is the best STRATEGIC simulation of a soccer game, AND the best ARCADE simulation of a soccer game. by ARCADE, I mean: smooth animation (50 frames/second), smooth scrolling, smooth sprites movements, furious action. The game was all written in assembly language ! It was designed by Dino Dini, an Italian. Italians are the best in soccer ! [ed. note: we'll see which country is best in soccer in a few days!! ] ------------------------------ From: Stephanie Manke <24945863@WSUVM1.BITNET> Subject: NES: Ghosts and Goblins Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 14:57:03 PLT I rented this game with high hopes (I was possibly confusing it with a Sega game with a similar name I had heard good things about), it took about 5 minutes for those hopes to evaporate. G&G has a fairly standard plot, some demon has kidnapped your SO and it's up to you, the knight, to fight through all the monsters and rescue your true love. Graphics were good. Game control was good. Sound was monotonous, but tolerable. The thing that utterly destroyed the game for me was the presentation. In this gem, you get hit two times, you're dead. No extra men when you hit 1000 points, and dispite the claims of the docs, no extra suits of armor to protect yourself with. This, plus an arbitrary 2 minute time limit for finishing each stage went a very long way to creating a sense of disgust with the game. The game would be easy except for the extreme limits on what you can take as damage before dying. On average, it took 3 or 4 tries for uncoordinated me to make it through a stage. Since this game doesn't have a 'restart where you got nuked' feature, I spent a lot of time slogging through the early levels. While I couldn't stomach playing long enough to reach the end, I did jump to the final screen using a short-cut found in a Nintendo Power magazine. After a try or two I killed the demon, did that end the game? Of course not, after reading a message saying roughly "this room was an illusion, the real princess is somewhere else" I found myself plunked back at the first stage of the game. I strongly suspect that the message was NOT because I skipped to the last stage, but a part of the game. As such, it definately qualifies for the worst ending of a game I've seen. Rating: a disgusted 3 out of 10 ------------------------------ From: Dave Taylor Subject: Mac: Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 11:24:05 PDT If nothing else, this should surely get the 'longest game title' award! This is a very disappointing game because, like many other games in the sports simulation category (and, indeed, across the entire gaming world), it's a terrific program, quite attractive, but with an absolutely fatal flaw that makes playing quite tedious and unenjoyable. The graphics in this game far surpass any other golfing game that I"ve ever tried on the Macintosh, and with the addition of other course disks available from Accolade, it's clearly also a game that can keep one amused and entertained for many an hour. Except... The toughest two parts of a golf simulator is to portray the distance to the green/hole in a way that is meaningful to the player, and to offer a reasonable aiming/swinging mechanism, so that the player can easily line up their shots. It is the latter challenge that this game fails abysmally with. Basically, you're presented with a very attractive and interesting graphics window that displays the hole with perspective that cues you on distance, some stats on the left side of the window, and a tiny 'dot' on the very top of the screen. That 'dot' is actually the aiming mechanism for the swing; you are supposed to move the dot until the shot is lined up properly. Unfortunately, it's pretty amazingly hard to do this! I found when I was putting that I continually missed the cup by a few inches, going from side to side on the green. Very annoying! What's worst about this is that it would have been pretty simple to offer a different sort of aiming choice, like a thin vertical line that went through the entire graphic, or a crosshair a la Nintendo Golf (which is much easier to aim!). Overall, I'd have to say this game is fatally flawed, and that even if you're a golfing fanatic, it's probably not worth picking up. On the other hand, if Accolade comes out with a new aiming approach, it could instantly become a top seller! Rating: 1 out of 10 -- unplayable Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf Accolade, available for IBM PC, C64, Amiga, Macintosh, Apple IIgs ------------------------------ From: Dave Taylor Subject: Mac: Windwalker Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 11:14:09 PDT A game that tries to be everything for every person, Windwalker, from Origin Systems (makers of OMEGA and the popular Ultima series) touts 'thrilling martial arts action', 'comprehensive role playing' and a 'dynamic population and ecosystem' too. Well, they're there, but the game overall seems to be pretty unplayable. Origin seems to develop most all of their games on the DOS platform then port them (usually not very well) onto the Macintosh. The examples that come to mind are OMEGA, which looks like CGA graphics to me (!) and now, Windwalker. From what one sees, the graphics seem to be done for a computer with about half the screen resolution of the Macintosh so the full window (well, full 9" window) graphics look like they're in 'low resolution' mode, with fat pixels. Interestingly, however, if you minimize the window size you end up with 1 pixel = 1 display pixel, and the graphics become quite attractive. On the down side, the entire window is about 2" across. Actually, I'm being a bit harsh here, since Windwalker does use the Mac menu bar with pull down menus and such (which Omega didn't do). The problem is, this game just doesn't seem very interesting. There are some interesting martial arts training scenarios, but having to either whip around with the mouse or keyboard to select particular moves (kicks, punches, ducking, backing up, etc) is awkward and confusing, and it seems like it would take a fair while before one could actually concentrate on the fight rather than the input device. Much of the game is oriented around the popular 'travelling through feudal Japan' setting, with a small version of the "I Ching" included in the packaging, and much filtered into the role playing and the environment that the character roams about within. The gist of the game is that you wander about and kill off bad guys, and at some point find the top bad guy, kill him, and win the game. It's hard to tell. Coming clean here, part of the problem with this game is that I am just not a massive fan of fighting games; it would be one thing if I were in a holographic room and could *move* to attack, but having to spend so much time fiddling with the keyboard seems to definitely get in the way of enjoying the game. But then again, it might be much better on another platform too... Rating: 4 out of 10 Windwalker from Origin Systems Available on IBM, C64, Apple IIgs, Amiga, Atari ST and Macintosh. ------------------------------------- To join this group or have your reviews appear in the next issue, please send electronic mail to Dave Taylor at the following address; digital-games@digital-games.Intuitive.Com We welcome reviews of games for any computer system, including the IBM PC, Apple Macintosh, Atari, Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari Lynx, Sega Genesis, Nintendo GameBoy, NEC TurboGrafix, Amiga and so on. The views expressed in Digital Games Review Digest are those of the individual authors only, and do not represent the views or opinions of Intuitive Systems or any of our affiliates worldwide. The copyright of each article is that of the original author, and the copyright of the digest itself, as well as the name "Digital Games Review Digest" are noted here. ********************* End of Digital Games Review Digest *********************