Received: from decwrl.dec.com by s.ms.uky.edu id aa12951; 24 Aug 90 5:40 GMT Received: by decwrl.dec.com; id AA24228; Thu, 23 Aug 90 22:37:58 -0700 Message-Id: <9008240537.AA24228@decwrl.dec.com> Received: by limbo; Thu, 23 Aug 90 22:28:31 pdt From: The Moderator Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 22:28:28 PDT Subject: Digital Games Review Digest, #9 Reply-To: Digital Games Review To: Digital Games Review Digest X-Mailer: fastmail [version 2.02] Digital Games Review Digest, Number 9 Thursday, August 23rd 1990 Genesis: Super Real Basketball Genesis: Thunder Force III Genesis: Ghostbusters TurboGrafx: Alien Crush TurboGrafx: Bloody Wolf TurboGrafx: World Class Baseball TurboGrafx: King of Casino Mac: Welltris PC: Centurion PC: Flood PC: SimCity ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: chenp@cory.Berkeley.edu (Paul Chen) Subject: Genesis: Super Real Basketball Super Real Basketball (SRB) is the Japanese version of Pat Riley Basketball (PRB). From what I understand, the only difference between SRB and PRB are the names of the players. Anyway, SRB is five on five basketball for the Genesis. One or two players can play; the two player mode pits one player against the other. There are eight teams from eight cities: Seattle, L.A., Denver, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, N.Y., and Boston. The names of the teams are pretty silly (i.e. Wings, Jets). You can play exhibition games or a tournament. In the exhibition games, you pick the team (or teams if two player) and then play a game (simple enough). In the tournament mode, instead of one team, you play a couple games according to how far you get. If you play two player in the tournament, both of you are in opposite draws. If the two of you make it to the finals, you play each other. The tournament includes all the teams, and the computer gives an arbitrary (I think) winner to the games that you don't play. There are stats for the players, but they really don't mean much (if anything). Pros: - Graphics are damn good. The game scrolls very nicely. Slam dunk close ups look very good. Three point attempts look good, also. Graphically, it's very well done. - Three points attempts are fun. Three point shots take timing. Once you get the feel for them, they're pretty easy to knock down. Cons: - Way too easy. The only thing that takes any skill is three point shots. All other shots are easy to knock down, especially dunks. - Defense. There almost none. The only thing to do is steal. You can't block someone from 'driving the lane' and such. Especially when your opponent is dunking, and you have a defender there, it's VERY hard to block a dunk. - Fouling. That's also tough to do. The most fouls I could muster for one player was five, and I was trying for five quarters! It's really not a factor in the game. I don't even see why it's in the game. Summary: Although very nice to look at, Super Real Basketball is not very fun to play unless you play three-point-fest, but that gets old pretty quick. Given the price of Genesis games, it's not worth getting. Graphics: 9 Playability: 3 (not much fun) Sound: 3 (wish there were more than one background song) Overall: 4 (fun for a little while, but not long) Super Real Basketball (sold in the US as Pat Riley Basketball) For the Sega Genesis ------------------------------ From: chenp@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Paul Chen) Subject: Genesis: Thunder Force III Thunder Force III, for the Genesis, is the sequel to the popular game Thunder Force II, but is a much better game! I can't read Japanese, so I can't give you any background story info, but I can give you other stuff. TFIII is graphically MUCH better than TFII. You have to see it to believe it. They make EXCELLENT use of the Genesis' foreground and background capabilities. The bosses also look very good. It's that good. Also, there are no overhead screens, which is a relief, since they were a waste of time. The game sounds pretty good too. They still have the digitized voices which really don't sound close to what they're supposed to be with the exception of 'roll' which is pronounce "loll" since there's no 'r' sound in Japanese or Chinese. Controls are the same as before. There is now a speed option which determines the 'agility' of your ship. Power ups are pretty much the same. You now automatically get two rolls, and there's several, thick laser bolts. Each round is a different planet. You can pick your starting round, but from there on, you progress in a clockwise order. There are six rounds. I haven't finished, but I have seen the strategy guides in the Japanese magazines. The game is much like II in that if you can survive with the weapons you pick up as you go along it's pretty easy. Also, this time, when you die, you at worst only lose the weapon you were using. TFIII is a fun game, but it's also a LOT easier than the II. My friend Han finished III the same day I gave it to him (well, he says he can finish II with ten extra men). I have never finished II, but I also find III a lot easier. That's probably the only problem with the game though. If you found II to be easy, III won't be worth getting even though it looks great, but for the rest of us, it's a great game. Graphics: 9 Sound: 8 Playability 9 (might be too easy for some) Overall 9 Thunder Force III, for the Sega Genesis (only available in Japan currently) ------------------------------ From: rguion@mips.com (Richard Guion) Subject: Genesis: Ghostbusters All Sega Genesis gamers will be happy to know that Sega has finally released a new game for the 16-bit console: the long-awaited GhostBusters! I've only had a chance to play it for a weekend, but the graphics in the game are very done. Very cartoony, funny looking types of monsters and houses make this game interesting. The graphics are kind of equivalent to those found in Ghouls N Ghosts. This version of GhostBusters doesn't look anything like the other Ghostbuster games out on the market for personal computers. They have really made an effort to make the 3 men that you play look like the actors from the films. You can choose to be one of the 3, and go off to one of 4 different haunted houses to clear out the ghosts. You can collect money as you go along and there are shops for you to buy items and weapons in. Believe me, there are *lots* of things for you to buy. The houses seem big enough that you will have lots of fun exploring the different rooms in each of them. As you defeat the main boss ghost in a house, you will get a piece of a tablet, which you will have to assemble in order to finish the game. Each of the 4 buildings have a different "look" to them. The first one is a pretty standard haunted house; the second is a building that is frozen up by ice monsters (check out the great blue crystal monster in this building); the third is a wooden building that is on fire; the fourth is a skyscraper being menaced by the Marshmellow man (you fight him at the very top of the building--really well done animation of MM here). After you clear all four buildings, you assemble the tablet and go on to the castle at the top of the city. This castle is a really creepy place, filled with zombies, rotating axes, and great eerily effects like lightning going off outside and illuminating the whole castle. On a graphics and sound scale, I'd give Ghostbusters an 8 out of 10 points. The animation of the monsters and other effects in the different buildings are just superb. On a difficultly level, I would have to give it 5 out of 10 points. The game just isn't that hard. It will not require any mapping of any sort for the buildings whatsoever, and there aren't that many secrets (one-ups, power-ups) for you to uncover to make the game more interesting. In each building there are at least 2 minor ghost bosses for you to beat before going on and defeating the main ghost boss of that building. There isn't much challenge as you need to have lots of energy tanks, the right weapon, and good reflexes. But it is a lot of fun going through the buildings and seeing the monsters. On a playability level, I'd give it a 6 out of 10. It's worth playing during a weekend to see all the neat effects, but once you win the game, you probably won't play it too much again. Perhaps this game is more suitable for beginners or children just getting started on video games. Overall, I'd say this game is about a 6-7 out of 10 points. Worth renting for the weekend or buying used; maybe not worth it to pay full price. Ghostbusters for the Sega Genesis ------------------------------ From: Dave Taylor Subject: TurboGrafx: Alien Crush Of all the different games that I've played on different home and arcade video systems, perhaps none has been as addictive as Alien Crush! It's an incredibly cool game that has already moved up to the status of 'virtual legend' with my friends. The game is a video game version of a pinball machine, with some modifications along the way that would be kind of tough to do if we were constrained by the reality of physical laws... The theme of the pinball game is that aliens are the enemy and that the more you destroy the more points you'll receive. For example, the ball launcher looks an awful lot like the octopus-like creature from the film Alien that landed on the explorers face at the beginning of the movie. In fact, most of the creatures in the game look like they're from the film Alien, with one bonus screen having little guys that look a lot like the Slime Monster from Ghostbusters too. Perhaps the only down side with this game is that because of the size of the playing field versus the size of a TV screen, it uses the typical video game trick of 'flipping' between the upper and lower playing field. It's not too bad, but the sudden change can be quite disconcerting, especially when your ball might end up hovering right between the two fields, resulting in the screen flipping back and forth a LOT for a few seconds. This was something that took some getting used to, especially when playing in "fast ball" mode where there wasn't too much time to think. The overall feel for this game is just amazing, though. It's about as close to a pinball game that I've ever seen, and pressing button II even does a 'jar' motion, shaking the table just slightly to try to influence where the ball is going. Initially, the choice of button I for the right flipper and the directional pad for the left flipper seems weird, but after a few minutes holding the controller, it becomes quite clear why they did that; it's a LOT more comfortable! The game can be played with two different sound tracks which are selectable at the beginning of the game, and can also be played at two different speeds, slow and fast. We tend to stick with the fast speed as much as possible (though it's REALLY fast at times) and so it's fun to see how slow slow seems. There is a lot going on in this game too, including four different bonus screens of varying difficulty. Many of the targets have point values that are a function of what other targets have been hit first which is confusing, but fortunately our experience is that if you just hit everything all the time it works pretty well! Seriously, arrows light up with different colors to suggest how to get to a bonus round, how to get extra points and balls, and so on. Targets also have colorful names which have quickly become an important part of the overall enjoyment; the ugly pinkish thing on the top of the upper screen is the "Brain Buster" (which we were surprised to find out can be cracked open for a quick half million points!) and on the top right is the 'tentacloid lock', a popular target! Even the bumpers are more than they seem and on the lower playing field they even turn into aliens that try to crawl off the screen after being hit enough times! Like real pinball, this game also has enough variety in play that an expert can occasionally end up losing the game quite quickly (like my 21,000 point score last time I played!) and a novice playing for the first time can crank up an incredibly high score too (like my friend Greg who acheived an astounding score of 27 million as his first game!) In summary, if you even sorta like pinball, this game might well be good enough to justify your purchase of an NEC TurboGrafx machine! It's GREAT and just an amazing amount of fun. Graphics: 10 Sound: 10 Playability: 9.9 (field flipping can be annoying) Overall: 10 ++ Alien Crush, for the NEC TurboGrafx-16 From Hudson Soft, distributed by NEC ------------------------------ From: ppplee@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Peter Lee) Subject: TurboGrafx: Bloody Wolf "Somewhere Over the Jungle, The President's Plane Disappears! A crazed General, seeking wealth and power, orders his troops to kidnap him and hide him away. Now it's up to *you* to get him out!" Thus the game of Bloody Wolf begins... Bloody Wolf is a shoot-em-up much in the vein of Commando or Ikari Warriors. The game is a one player game in which you can choose to be one of two different members of the Bloody Wolf special combat team. The two members are known as Snake and Eagle, though you can choose your own code name (up to five letters). As far as I can tell, there is no difference in abilities between Snake and Eagle, besides appearance. After choosing which character and pressing 'Run', the fun begins. In Bloody Wolf, you can move in 4 directions throughout the playing area. The screen scrolls both horizontally and vertically, though not at the same time. You are equipped with a machine gun with infinite ammo, 20 grenades, and a knife at the start. Button II controls both the machine gun and the knife and the Run button controls your grenades. Button I allows you to jump. The longer you hold down Button I, the higher/longer you jump. In some areas, there are huts or trucks that you can enter to get better weapons or medicine. Better weapons include a shotgun, bazooka, magnum hand grenades, flame thrower, and flash bombs. These goodies are hidden inside boxes which can be opened with your knife. The knife automatically becomes your weapon when you get close enough to an enemy or box. There are also motorcycles throughout the game that you can ride for invincibility until the gas runs out. These motorcycles are hidden in huts/trucks, or can be obtained by killing a motorcycle-riding aggressor. In addition to medicine and better weapons, you must obtain certain items in order to make life easier for you. These items include a key for locked boxes, fins for quicker movement in the water, an infrared scope to see the beams that spring the traps inside the secret enemy hiding place, a rosary that gives you some divine protection, and body armor for obvious reasons. These items are usually obtained while rescuing other hostages. There are eight stages in the game: Recon, The Jungle, The Bridge, Enemy Camp, Rescue Hostages, River Rafting, Marshes, and Enemy Headquarters. In each area there are one or two bosses, all of them tough! They include Shotgun Man, Mega Sub, Flamethrower, Helicopter, Big Sniper, Knife Killer, Rolling Thunder, Gun Boat, and the Boss. But the game isn't made up entirely of bosses! You must also defeat paratroopers, green (rifles), blue (machine guns), and red (bayonets) soldiers, motorcycle soldiers, armored soldiers, and electrified and regular hovering metallic buoys. But enough about game details! I really, really like this game! I find it very fun, especially the boss characters who are really tough to kill. The game takes just about no time to learn, but mastering it is a different matter. Fortunately (depending on how you look at it), there are infinite continues from the last area which you got to, i.e., they don't plop you back to the beginning of the stage. I especially liked the twists that the story takes througout the game. It's *not* just a search-while-killing-everything-in-sight- and-rescue game, though it mostly is :-). The animation and graphics are smooth and very well done. In later stages, though, when lot-n-lots o' baddies come at you at once, the game does slow down a bit. It doesn't happen often, but if you particularly hate it, be forewarned! I love the use of color in this game. It is great to see a game that is not afraid to dazzle you with colorful, detailed graphics. The different stages are very well done, each looking much like they're supposed to. The sound effects are pretty much standard shoot-em-up fare, pows, booms, and the like. The music is not spectacular and, in fact, is hardly noticed at all due to the sometimes outrageous amounts of action going on at once. Overall, I'd have to say that I recommend this game highly to fans of shooting games. Due to the infinite continues, though, this game could be considered too easy (I was able to finish it in about five to six hours *TOTAL* playing time), but it's definitely a whole lot of fun. This is a perfect example of a game that I'll play through on rainy weekends. Gameplay: 8 Graphics: 9 Sounds and BGM: 6 Story: 9 Difficulty: 7 Overall: 8 (highly recommended) Bloody Wolf, for the NEC TurboGrafx-16 From Data East, distributed by NEC ------------------------------ From: Dave Taylor Subject: TurboGrafx: World Class Baseball Baseball might well be the most popular game in the United States, and is gaining in popularity in Japan at a quick clip, but it certainly isn't the case that it can be easily translated into an enjoyable and playable video game title, as witnessed by the many attempts over the years. Indeed, there is a considerable amount of complexity involved with trying to control a 9 player team when you only have a controller that has a directional pad and four buttons. However, I'm glad to say that Hudson Soft have done a terrific job with their baseball title for the NEC and World Class Baseball is just that; World Class! The cart allows various types of games including two player, player against computer, and 'watch' mode, where you get to see the computer challenge itself to a game. The game is identical with all three different modes, so we have tended towards the two player "VS" option. Once this particular mode is selected (and you'll need the TurboTap and a second controller, of course) both players choose their teams from a list of fictitious teams (that sound curiously Japanese!) and start the game without further adjustment to the lineup. The player at bat has a variety of controls available, including not just being able to swing at the ball being pitched (which is a reasonably useful feature!) but having runners 'lead off' of bases, and even steal if they're daring! Hitting can be modified in a number of ways too, with the player at bat being able to not only try to aim how hard and where the ball is going to be hit, but can even opt for a bunt instead! The player in the field also has quite a few controls that are accessible while pitching and fielding, including the ability to throw different speed balls with different curves (some of them can be amazing pitches, actually) and even the ability to rush towards a man leading too far off a base to tag them out (though it is rather tricky to have the pitcher *throw* the ball at a baseman, rather than just run over to that base) Once the ball is hit the fielding player must move the closest man to the ball, then choose a base with the 'directional pad' (right=1st, up=2nd, etc) and throw the ball there to stop the runner. The game controls take a while to figure out, but so far everyone who has tried it has figured out most of the important elements by about the third inning of their first game. Some of the more advanced features, like leading bases or stealing, take a bit longer to understand, and there are still points in the game where everyone looks on in confusion with no idea what's going on. A example is when a base runner has led off, zipped to the next base, but been required to go back to the original base due to a fly out; sharp enough fielders simply toss the ball to the appropriate baseman and they're OUT but mostly everyone stands still for a minute or two while the players figure out what's going on! The graphics are quite excellent with this game too, very much up to par for the TG16. We even noticed last night that one of the pitchers was throwing underhand (and with some impressive speed! The game clocked some of his fastballs at well over 80mph). One point of confusion is that when the game shifts to showing the outfield you end up with a tiny overhead view of the infield as an inset, and that seems to cause quite a bit of confusion as to who is on what base, etc. Overall, though, if you're into sports and have even a minimal under- standing of baseball, then you should like this game quite a bit! It's a lot of fun for a group of people, and is a good example of an enjoyable two player game for the TG16 too. Graphics: 9 Sound: 7 (why no "Ouch!" sound when a batter is beaned?) Playability: 8 Overall: 8 World Class Baseball for the NEC TurboGrafx-16 From Hudson Soft, distributed by NEC ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Aug 90 13:46:18 -0400 From: ppplee@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Peter Lee) Subject: TurboGrafx: King of Casino "Welcome, King of Casino! Get ready for the most realistic video casino games ever. King of Casino features brilliant graphics, realistic sounds and true-to-life action and odds. You take off on a whirlwind adventure with action that rivals 'Vegas', Reno and Monaco!" King of Casino can be played by up to five players simultaneously (optional Turbotap attachment required). There are three modes in which to play: Normal Mode which includes "animation and sound effects which convey the atmosphere of a real casino", Fast Mode which is a "high-speed mode for those who want only to bet and see the results", and Party Mode which is a "multi-player competition to see who is first to reach a pre-determined amount of money." When the game starts, you are greeted at the front desk and asked to register. Here, up to 5 players can be registered (at least two players are required for Party Mode). You are then prompted for to choose either Continue or New Player. If New Player is chosen the players then enter their names and begin. If Continue is chosen, you are prompted to input a password, then you may begin. All new players start out wiht $10000. Everybody starts out in their hotel room. You are shown the amount of money each player has and the number of times that a password will be shown. While staying in the room, you can choose from several things to "see". You can "go" to the front desk to change between the Normal and Fast modes. You can choose which BGM, if any, to play. You can see a password which keeps track of your name and the amount of money you have (this can be displayed 10 times total). You can also see a graph showing you how your money has increased or decreased throughout the day. You can also buy shop data which tells size of casinos, number of tables, and a difficulty rating. You can also exit... After exiting from your room, you are shown a street map. You use the direction key to select a casino (there are 15 casinos), press Button I to enter. Now you're in! While in the casino, move the arrow around to a table that you want to play. To exit the casino, make your way to the cashier and press Button II. There are several games to choose from, Poker, BlackJack, Roulette, Slots, and Keno. I won't go into detail about each game, but supposedly the odds are "just like the real thing". In Poker, you win money depending on how good your "hand" is. After you bet, you are dealt five cards. You can then keep or discard as many cards as you want in order to better your hand when you re-draw (only once). You then win certain multiples of your inital bet. In Blackjack, you play against the computer. After you bet you are dealt two cards, you can then hit or hold until you either bust (go over 21), reach 21, or get a number less than 21 that you are satisfied with. The computer hits in 16 and holds on 17. If you beat the dealer's hand you win back your bet plus the amount of your bet. If you get Black jack (21 on two cards), you win back your bet plus two times the amount of your bet. In Roulette, you bet to see where on the roulette wheel the ball falls. You win money depending on how you bet. For example, if you bet that the ball falls on 5 and it does, you win 36 times the amount of your bet. There are many, many combinations and possibilities, too many to explain here. In Keno, you can pick up to 15 numbers out of 80 and try to match as many as possible when they draw fifteen numbers (supposedly at random). It's a lot like the lottery. You win money according to how many numbers you match against how many you picked. For example, if you pick 15 and hit all 15, you win 50000 times the amount you bet. Slots are slots. Put in your money (up to $250 per line), pull the arm, and wait for the drum to stop. But enough about rules! This game, much like real gambling, is very, very addictive. I mean, if you win, you can't stop because you're on a winning streak, and if you lose, you can't stop because nobody likes to go away losing. I ended up playing this game for many, many hours, trying to build up my winnings to the King of Casino level of $10,000,000. I eventually did this and was extremely pleased to find out that there is then a championship round where you actually get to play for the casinos themselves! I haven't played this round much, though. Personally, I started out playing blackjack, then did some slots, and ended up playing poker 95% of the time. It was good to be able to build up some considerable winnings at blackjack, waste some of it at slots, and then parlay that into millions of bucks! I tried roulette, found the rate of return much to slow, and went back to poker. I even played keno when the keno girls came around asking me to play. Now let's get specific... Control was good, the arrow that showed postion moved smoothly and freely around both the streets and the insides of the casinos themselves. Control of bets was also very well done, I never misplaced a bet because I botched the controls. Playing the games themselves, especially poker and blackjack, where you must interact with the dealer, was very easy to learn and easy to control. Besides that, there really isn't much controlling going on. The sound effects were pretty lame. I mean, there really weren't that many: shuffling cards, clinking coins, roulette spinning, and the slot machine. I can't remember any more of any significance. But then again, what kind of sound effects do you expect? The BGM was horrible!!! After playing for 5 minutes, I "ran" back to the hotel to turn it off. Thank goodness I was able to do that! The BGM consisted of a 15 second ditty repeated over and over and over and over. Arrrggghhh!!! The graphics in this game are excellent. I expect as much from the TG-16 though. The playing cards actually look like cards, the roulette wheel is drawn and animated very nicely, and the slots are actually kinda' interesting to watch (there are two different slot machines. What I mean by different, is that there are different pictures). There are four different dealers, two men and two women. This helps to add a little bit of variety to the game. The only difference is appearance, though (as far as I can tell). The Keno girls are drawn like "Playboy bunnies". They are pretty and buxom. It's too bad there is only one shot of them :-P :-)!!! But seriously, the graphics are very well done. There are also screen shots lauding you as you reach certain money levels. They are at $100,000, $1,000,000, and $5,000,000. These screen shots are beautiful. Again it's a shame that there are so few. Gameplay: 8 Sounds and BGM: 2 Graphics: 9 Story: 6 Difficulty: 8 Overall: 7 King of Casino, for the NEC TurboGrafx-16 ------------------------------ From: Sanjiv Sarwate Subject: Mac: Welltris Welltris, as the name implies, is the sequel to Tetris, the hot tetrominoe game written by Soviet programmer Alexey Pajitnov, and distributed in the spirit of Glasnost by Spectrum HoloByte. Be warned now, this game is as addicting as Tetris. The object of Welltris is pretty much the same as Tetris. Form a variety of peculiarly shaped blocks into complete straight lines of eight squares. This time, however, the pieces range from two to five cubes in length, and are falling along one of four walls in a deep well. The object is to move these pieces around the walls, and rotate them so that they form complete lines of eight, either horizontally or vertically. A piece will drop and move along the floor of the well until its progress is impeded by other pieces or the oppposite wall. Welltris is not an easy game. Visualizing things in the 3rd dimension is not always easy, and as the pieces start dropping faster and faster, the game becomes one of nerve. "Don't Panic". One feature Welltris shares with its predecessor is the insanely fast level. In Tetris it was level 9, in Welltris, it's level 5, where Pajitnov smiles at you from the graphic on the side as you struggle to rotate and fit pieces into the grid as they fall at light speed. Welltris is not a game for those looking for arcade action. It is a thinking game, after a fashion. It does share one arcade feature however; no matter how good you are at the game, there is a ten year-old who can beat you every time. In this case, it was my brother. As I was struggling to break 10,000 points, he had racked up scores of 12,000 and up! Welltris, for the Apple Macintosh From Spectrum Holobyte ------------------------------ From: dachurch@athena.mit.edu (Doug Church) Subject: PC: Centurion Centurion has incredibly pretty 320x200 256 color static graphics, and a nice full field army battle mode which is fun yet quite simple and fast. In fact, it's a great idea for a game; don't just fight wars but actually have diplomacy and chariot races and populaces to appease and so forth. Unfortunately, other than the battle it really doesn't work. Gladiatorial combats are totally lame. Chariot races would be nice if there were turns. You are seen top view always heading north. You can tell where on the track you are by looking at the four colored pixels in the nice static map drawn above. When you win them you parade in front of the crowd, which never moves. It remains completely static. Sea battles are one on one, but you bounce off the edge of the screen, and if you win or lose it has little to do with the overall battle, represented as numbers changing independently of your actions on the bottom of the screen. The diplomacy is a total joke. Indeed, a typical diplomatic sequence is pretty similar to: I click on "Diplomatic" intention "What lies do you wish to spread, roman swine" I click on "Friendly" intention "Speak your part and we will see what accord can be reached" I click on "Offer Alliance" "Your silence begets death. We go to war" Hmm.... The graphics are really nice, though static. In general, the game is conceptually good enough that it made me wish that the authors had bothered to write all the other modes, as opposed to do them in two day hacks. In _Dragon Wars_ the author brags on the back about how it was written in 3 months and two disk sides. This game shows similar mentality. It is an ok game, better than many, but it could have really worked, instead of being skimped on as it was. An extra month of work on the various other modes and some debugging (did they really ever notice that diplomacy just doesn't work?) and it would be terrific and I could easily recommend it, but as is I can only recommend it in comparison to most of the other junk out there, as opposed to due to its own merits. Challenge-wise, expect about 3 hours to become Caesar at the simple level (Galley Slave). A little longer than Loom. There are higher difficulties, but they basically require only more time to master the individual "events", the strategy and winning requirements seem similar. I didn't bother... I havent really played since winning the easy level, and even then I only barely stayed interested. ------------------------------ From: cmcmanis@Eng.Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) Subject: PC: Flood Flood is a "pick-em-up" type game in the genre of Mouse Trap, or Aunt Artic Adventure. Your character "Quiffy" has to eat all the trash on a particular level before moving on to the next level by entering a teleport. Of course to get to all of the trash on a particular level one must enlist the assistance of various environmental features which make up the "puzzles" in the game. Quiffy has the ability to crawl on walls and ceilings (as long as they aren't covered with ice) and can jump from place to place as well. Livening up the action are an assortment of comical characters who Quiffy has to either eliminate or avoid in its quest for trash. Some, actually generate trash, others eat trash and sort of "help out". Like most pick-em-ups this game doesn't have the adrenalin pumping action of a shoot-out. This makes it a bit easier for the younger crowd and it promotes an environmentally sound message (pick up trash). The time twist (which prevents you from spending all day on a level) is that every level has a faucet, and the faucet is turned on and filling up the level with water. Quiffy can swim but it can't hold its breath forever. So you must finish the level before it fills up with water or you are effectivly dead. Like many home games this one is copy protected and can't be installed on a hard disk. (Which is annoying because it uses both disk protection _and_ a word from the manual type protection.) I haven't run it on anything except a 68000 under 1.3. It does allow you to type in a password to get to a level higher than 1. I managed to guess the password for level 6 fairly easily. The manual (a poster actually) mentions that some levels have a question mark ("?") which contains the password for that level. Overall reccomendation is a thumbs up, the puzzles are fun and the gameplay entertaining. Lightning fast reflexes are not required and the game can be paused while you're trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B. ------------------------------ From: Glen Matthews Subject: PC: SimCity For the uninitiated, SimCity is - according to no less an authority than the Cable News Network - Nintendo for adults. Basically, it allows you to build your ideal city. You take the high view. Looking down at your city, you see buildings rising, traffic flowing, residential areas expanding (and contracting), and businesses either failing or succeeding. Boats sail down the rivers, airplanes crisscross the sky, traffic 'copters alert you to rush hour traffic - and every now and then, disasters strike! Mind you, you aren't troubled by the need to decide where the buildings are placed, when to build a house, and where the traffic is - the Sims, denizens of SimCity, do all the building, living, and dying in the city for you. If you are benevolent and do well by them, they praise you and rejoice. And if you are a stinker, this knowledge is imparted to you, too! What does one actually do? What "knobs" are available? Well, land is divided up into square zones. You have the choice of zoning each cell into Residential, Commercial, or Industrial. Period. You cannot build, and you cannot import people. The Sims decide on their own to migrate or not to migrate, to build or not to build, and to leave or not to leave. Zoning these areas costs you something, and you initially have a small amount of money. Deplete it too quickly and you can do nothing in terms of altering the landscape. However, you can replenish this fund - via taxation. You can set the tax rate. Set it too high and everybody exits stage left. Set it too low and a large population accumulates, but all clamouring for services and facilities that you cannot afford to provide. (Unlike real governments you cannot employ deficit financing - you must live within your means!) Services and facilities - this refers to the other things that you can do, such as building roads and bridges, laying out power links, placing police stations, fire departments, ports, airports, power plants, etc. Providing all of these things takes funds. The basic problem, then, is to steer a path between no or negative growth and excessively rapid growth, so as to have a happy populace and a clear conscience. An airport is useless until you have the right population base to require and support it. Parkland is important - it helps determine the quality of life. Proximity to industrial areas determines the cost of housing - so for the already familiar, know that by placing some housing by smokey big factories and some housing farther away, one can provide lower cost housing as the Sims demand! I'm told that the cutest aspect of this simulation is the moving traffic and OF COURSE the little train that puffs around your city on the railways that you build. I guess that's true - it's a nice touch. How does the user interface work? In short, well. I've used it on a CGA, EGA and VGA screen, all WITHOUT a mouse (the program is designed to be used with a mouse) and the user interface facilitates and does not intrude in the activities of the simulation. Although I haven't used it with a mouse (yet), I'm sure that it's even easier to use with the little beasty. The interface is menu driven, with a set of icons on the left side of the screen. There is an overall city map, upon which various demographics can be displayed (population, crime, traffic, etc.) as well as the detailed section map comprising most of the screen. The global map can be hidden and brought back at will, and serves as a geographical pick list, allowing you to quickly move from one section of the city to another. It also helps organize your overall view of the city. Various graphs can also be brought up, showing the change of various demographics with time - useful in pinpointing where problems may lie. Of course, cities may be saved and restored later. An interesting wrinkle is the pre-programmed scenarios, such as a nuclear meltdown in downtown Boston, or an earthquake in San Francisco or Godzilla showing up (where else) in Tokyo (I think!!!). In these, you are placed into more of a game setting in that you are given a fixed amount of time to set things right. You make it or you don't. These scenarios can also be saved, resulting in simple city files that can be modified, etc. Another aspect is the Terrain Editor, available separately. This tool allows you to build your own city - for example, I've constructed a simulation of Montreal [without the Mohawk warriors and Canadian Armed Forces, mind you!!!]. An idea that I've passed around several times is that of a city bank, where those living in various cities could construct maps of their cities and make them publicly available. [My version of Montreal is available for the asking, BTW.] Some of the bad points: first, copy protection. This game is copy protected by asking you to provide either a city name or population figure from a sheet provided with the game. While cute at first, it quickly palls. The information on the sheet can be transcribed and passed around, and there exists a patch to unprotect it. Apparently, though, Maxis has kept it's ear to the ground and produced a version slightly different than the one that the patch applies to. Anyway, one has to be sympathetic to Maxis; apparently they've had the devil of a time with pirated versions. Another bad point - installation is a pain. And the type of monitor is not easily specified. Little documentation exists about the requirements. On a CGA the simulation uses B+W for greater resolution. The install program generates a binary config file, if my memory serves me right. And of course - the Terrain Editor should be part of the initial package. (Of course, a random terrain can be generated with just SimCity, but sometimes one wants more control.) The user documentation, though, is pretty good. It has a discussion of urban planning concepts and a bibliography. And the "input and output of this brand-new kingdom" are well documented with illustrations. A random note: floating around on the network somewhere is the SIMCHEAT program, which basically zaps the funds field and provides you the urban planner with millions of dollars to do with as you will. Sort of like how cities REALLY operate ... and the money is about as real, too!!! This is an excellent game/simulation/challenge. I'd give it a 10 out of 10 - second guessing is easy to do, and this program inspires few second guesses. I'm holding my breath for SimPlanet, the global sequel promised by Maxis soon! SimCity for the IBM, Tandy, Mac, Amgia and Commodore C64 From Maxis Software, distributed by Broderbund ------------------------------------- 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. 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