Received: from decwrl.dec.com by s.ms.uky.edu id aa27506; 1 Nov 90 4:43 GMT Received: by decwrl.dec.com; id AA11589; Wed, 31 Oct 90 17:58:10 -0800 Received: by limbo; Wed, 31 Oct 90 10:45:59 pst Message-Id: <9010311845.AA08600@limbo.intuitive.com> From: The Moderator Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 10:45:56 PST Subject: Digital Games Review Digest, #14 Reply-To: Digital Games Review To: Digital Games Review Digest X-Mailer: fastmail [version 2.02] Digital Games Review Digest, Number 14 Wednesday, October 31st 1990 Today's Topics: PC: The Magic Candle Stunt Driver Lynx: Klax TurboGrafx: Double Dungeons Genesis: Cyberball Super Monaco GP Whip Rush ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Wyvern@cup.portal.com (Wyvern) Subject: PC: The Magic Candle The Magic Candle is a game produced by Mindcraft Software, Inc. This game is available for IBM, Apple and C64. This review is based upon the IBM version. The IBM package includes 3 disks, a map, and a lengthy, informative and humorous manual. Mindcraft, obviously sympathetic to the real players in the market, includes in the manual a section called "Quick Start". The disks that came with my game had a few errors but this did not prevent my ability to play the game extensively. Having filled out and mailed in my registration card, a correction disk was sent to me very quickly at no additional cost. The story of The Magic Candle is one of great evil threatening to regain hold over your beloved country. This is a classic plot done creatively. The game allows the player many options. Though the difficulty of surviving in certain dungeons, towers, or even a cross country trek will prevent you from venturing into areas you are not yet able to handle, you still have a lot of freedom of choice. Saving your game is easy to do and you are allowed to title each save with short notes to remind you of your place. The Magic Candle is a FUN game which requires extensive research (note taking). It progresses in difficulty in pace with your character's ability to handle it. Deruvia is a land of variety which aids in keeping your interest high. Efforts are rewarded continously through out the game by means of increase in stats, equipment, ability or knowledge. Unlike the Ultima games where the people seem to exist just to supply information, the population of Deruvia have a feeling of reality. The Magic Candle is an excellent game well worth the money, time and effort to play it! ENJOY!! Playability: 10 Documentation: 10 Graphics: 8 Value for $: 10 The Magic Candle, for the IBM PC, Apple IIgs and Commodore 64 from Mindcraft Software, Inc. >This review is copyrighted 1989 by Wyvern. All rights reserved< ------------------------------ From: nxh@meaddata.com (Nobuya "Higgy" Higashiyama) Subject: PC: Stunt Driver Few years ago, a new arcade game called Hard Drivin' took the country by storm. With its fantastic smooth 3-D graphics, it gave a very good simulation of driving on a racetrack. Just to make things fun, it also gave you a choice of a fast track or a stunt track (populated with banked curves, loops, etc.) Well, if you loved Hard Drivin', I think you'll like Stunt Driver. Stunt Driver is a new auto race simulation published by Spectrum Holobyte, people who specialize in simulation games. It requires 640K memory, and it can work with most video modes, although it is most spectacular with a VGA. You can use the keyboard, mouse or joystick to control the car, but I would strongly recommend the use of a good joystick. You'll want to have a fast PC to play this game. It includes a chart showing the recommended speed and detail settings for a given video mode/CPU speed combination. Fast/most detailed mode worked fine on my EGA/16 Mhz machine. It supports Adlib sound board, but also provides pretty good digitized sound. The idea behind this game is to compete against up to three other cars on various tracks. Tracks range from really easy (Course #1 is a simple circle) to really hard. As the name implies, many types of obstacles are available: banked curves, loop, sharp up-and-down hill, oil-slicked road, tunnels, drawbridges (open or close, depending on when you get there), a twist-jump ramp over a river (like a stunt in one of the James Bond movies), and lots more. The beauty of this game is the track editor: using the editor you can create your very own track layout. Eight pre-built tracks are included in the game. It keeps track of best times for each track, but you cannot score a best time unless you beat all your opponents to the checkered flag. Speaking of opponents, you can have up to three other cars competing with you. They have different personalities: a grandma (in a VW Bug) whose main mission in life is to pull up in front of you and drive slowly, a yuppy (in a Porsche) who wanders all over the road, and a punk (in a Camaro) who takes pleasure in running into you and forcing you off the road. While it is fun to race against the clock, it's more fun to compete with these unusual opponents. Graphics are excellent for a PC game. Objects are 3-d solid models, and they move very smoothly. The game gives you multiple views of the race, including front/back/left/right from inside the car, a helicopter view (from a helicopter tailing you from behind) and a camera view (just like on TV). Lots of nice touches, such as flying body panels and flames when you crash your car! At any point in time, you can replay the race and watch it from any angle. If you crash your car in a middle of a race, the game will automatically replay the last few seconds before the crash. Like Hard Drivin', it's really a lot of fun to see your car flying end-over-end after going over the hill too fast! Controls are fairly realistic. In order to get around the track as fast as possible, you need to have a very delicate touch; a wild movement of the joy- stick is enough to spin you off the road. I've encountered very few bugs, all of which are reported to be fixed in the next release (available Very Soon Now). Very impressive for an initial release. All in all, this is one of the best racing games I've seen to date. Graphics: 10 Sound (PC speakers): 8 Playability: 8 Fun: 9 Overall: 9 Stunt Driver, for the IBM PC, from Spectrum Holobyte ------------------------------ From: Thyss@cup.portal.com Subject: Lynx: Klax The object of Klax is to accurately place colored tiles that tumble faster and faster down the ramp. To earn points and to progress from level to level, you must place the tiles in vertical, horizontal, or diagonal patterns called Klaxs. Three or more same colored tiles in a row is a 'klax'. IMPRESSIONS Very addictive! If you've ever played Tetris and thought it was addictive, multiply that by 10 and you get Klax. You have been warned. This is the also first Non-Epyx game. The title screen says "TM Atari Games Corp. Licensed to Tengen. (C) 1990 Tengen Inc. All rights reserved. Licensed to Atari Corp." The cartridge is the now standard (I guess?) 'L' shape (non stackable... argh!) like Todd's Adventures in Slime World and other recent Lynx cartridges. It is a vertically played game like Gauntlet (rotate the Lynx 90 degrees). Even though it is vertical, it isn't as hard to see as Gauntlet is. Most of the screen is bright colors and it is very easy to get used to. The only other bad point (?) is that Klax is a one player only game. This shouldn't bother anyone, because you don't interact when you play doubles at the arcade either. On the lighter side, there are 100 waves and unlimited continues. I got up to level 15 after having played for about 40 minutes. When you first turn on the game you can choose "Easy", "Medium" or "Hard". Then a "Please select a wave" screen comes up. You choose from Wave 1, 6, 11 or the highest level played this session. The wave select screen changes as you get to higher waves (1, 6, 11, x -> 6, 11, 16, x). As much as I can remember from the arcade version, the Lynx version matches exactly. Wild blocks, X warps, "Klax Wave", "Tile Wave", "Points Wave" digitized announcer voices. One of the best things about the game is the ability to pause it any time during play. This is really great if you are on a tile wave and 20 tiles show up and your bins are almost full. GAMEPLAY: 10 Superb. Whereas Tetris can get repetitious, Klax always has a challenge. "Wow. I just got a 4 row tetris." vs. "Cool! I just got a big X klax that chain reacted into a 3 block diagonal klax and a 3 block vertical klax. And I used a wild block so it all got multiplied by three and added again." The difficulty is just right. And if it's too easy for you, change the setting to Medium or Hard. I'm glad they put the unlimited continues and the start from level x, x+5, x+10, or highest level features in. GRAPHICS/SOUND: 10/10 Excellent. On the title page, there is an animated white hand doing the sign language for "KLAX" and pushing credits on and off the screen. Neat looking backgrounds change every wave. If you press the drop button when nothing is on the paddle, you can see the spring pop up and you hear a "boing!" sound. The only music in the game is a nice drum/synthesiser/buzz/beep tune that sounds great with headphones and the volume cranked all the way up. Quite a change from the beep-beep tune of Slime World. The sound in this game is the best yet. From the lady saying "Klax Wave" to the crowd going "Awwwwwwwww" when you loose to the "Yeah!" when you get a 5 horizontal klax, it's all there and all in beautiful digitized sound. The crowd even claps when you finish a wave. DOCUMENTATION: 10 This type of game doesn't really need documentation but the documentation is ok. My major problem with the manual is that it is hard to read if you don't have a microscope with you. It is in 1/2 point Helvetica Light. Slime World's manual is in a much nicer font and I wish Atari would do all their manuals like that. There is a tiny tutorial on how to arrange blocks on level 1, but it would've been neat if they could have fit a Slime World style manual in the game. The cover and cartridge art is great. SUMMARY: Go get it...in 2 weeks. I talked to the sales guy and found out they got 6 of them from Atari and they all sold out on the first day. I asked him when they expected to get their next shipment and the answer was "2 weeks". This is the game we've been waiting for. If you've been holding off on Slime World, definitely get Klax. It looks like the shortage is over. Two new games in just 2 weeks! Wow. Gameplay: 10 Graphics: 10 Sound: 10 Documentation: 10 Overall: 10 Klax, for the Atari Lynx, from Tengen. $39.99 (PA2031) ------------------------------ From: cyamamot@kilroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Cliff Yamamoto) Subject: TurboGrafx: Double Dungeons Double Dungeons is a one or two player RPG for the TurboGrafx-16. It has 6 different levels or "stages" with a total of 22 dungeons. Each level requires more time to complete as you approach the last (sixth) level. However, to actually play level 6, you must put together the 21 letter password that is obtained from playing levels 1 to 5. To get this far, you must stay alive at all costs since you will lose your gold and hit points if you are killed. This is not too difficult since there are many "power up" items that restore your hit points and/or give you additional abilities, such as increasing your attack power. Throughout the game you can visit shops and purchase new items such as weapons, armament and potions. Of course the better weapons and armaments cost more, but it helps to buy them ASAP. If you hold on to your gold too long, you may find that parts of it disappear during combat. It's to your advantage to get better weapons and armament early on to avoid having gold or potions taken later. Although you can stay at the Inn to revive your hit points it is somewhat expensive. I think it's a better idea to spend your money on potions to revive yourself. There are five basic characteristics that affect your ability to fight and defend yourself. They are: Hit Points (HP), Attack Power (AP), Defensive Power (DP), Evasive Strength (EV) and Experience (EX). They are pretty much self-explanatory. One thing that I didn't like was that all of these characteristics reset to their original values every time you start a new dungeon. This is not to say you lose them when you restart the *same* dungeon using your password. In that case, everything including your gold, inventory, location, etc. is restored. Unfortunately, this game uses a 24 character password which can get tedious at times. It also doesn't use the memory capability of the TurboBooster Plus which I found disappointing. Well as far as graphics go, it's above average. You're presented with a 3D view of the corridor as you travel through the various dungeons. Also any of the items or enemies you encounter also appear in 3D (somewhat). In the one player mode, the corridor view appears on the left half of the screen and your status (hit points, attack power, etc) appear on the right half. While in the two player mode, player 1 has a corridor view on the left and player 2 has a corridor view on the right. The status for both players in obtained by pressing the Select button. Although the graphics aren't that detailed, one thing that impressed me was the speed. I've been accustomed to the speed of RPG games on the PC/Mac and they don't have the graphics speed that this game has on the TurboGrafx-16. You can get slightly dizzy keeping your eye on the screen as you scream down corridors, turning left and right as you encounter corners and intersections. Reminded me of the motorcycle scene from 'Tron'. The sound is mediocre. There are sounds effects when you attack enemies, but they all sound the same. Also there is a annoying BGM that plays throughout the entire game and introduction which cannot be shut off. It repeats the same tune every 20 seconds so it becomes repetitious after a while. In general, Double Dungeons would probably be a pretty decent RPG if it had a little more variety in the graphics department (I guess that's why I'm dying to see how Y's looks). The concept of the game is good, but I found myself getting bored looking at the same scenery over and over again. It could be I'm spoiled with the RPGs on the PC and Mac since they tend to have a better variety of screens, but then we're talking 2 to 4 Megabytes worth of data (probably another reason why CD-ROM adventures should be better). It might be a bit more interesting in two player mode, but my friend didn't seem too enthusiastic about playing it with me. I probably wouldn't rush out to buy one, but it would be okay to rent or borrow sometime. Graphics: 5 Sound: 3 Playability: 7 Overall: 5 Double Dungeons, for the NEC TurboGrafx-16, by NCS. ------------------------------ From: ericc@boris.aux.apple.com (Eric Castle) Subject: Genesis: Cyberball First off let me just say I've never played the arcade version of Cyberball. It looked too complicated. But I decided to get it for my Genesis since I like sports games and because it can be played by 2 players. I'm glad I bought this game because now that I've played it, I really like it. Cyberball is basically football, except your players are robots. You try to score touchdowns but, unlike football, the ball can explode, so in order to diffuse the ball you have to make it past the 50 yard line. When you do the ball cools down again. Then you have to make it into the endzone before the ball heats up and explodes. You get around 7 plays before the ball explodes. Your robots may also become damaged as they get hit during the game. They will start smoking when they are damaged; when a robot is destroyed you get a replacement, the quality of which depends on your available funds. You start with a certain amount of money and then earn money for touchdowns, crossing the 50 yd line, etc.... Your defensive players have turbo-boost capability to help them run down the offensive players. There are 2 ways to play Cyberball; against the computer and against a person. When you play the computer, you play in what is called League play. Here you pick a team and play other teams in a tournament which ends up in the cyberbowl. You start out with a certain amount of money, I think 50000, which you can use to upgrade a player. You can't do much with 50000 unfortunately, but you earn more money as the season progresses. There is a passwd option in this mode so that you can save the state of your tournament and continue it later. You can also play against another person in what is called versus mode. Here both players pick a team and play each other. You start out with $900,000 to work with which can buy you some decent player improvements. I like to spend it all on my quarterback which makes him the best he can possibly be. The quarterback can then run pretty fast unlike the normal quarterback. The only problem with spending money on the offense is that they become damaged and eventually explode, usually resulting in a fumble not to mention losing the player you spent all your money on. I like to spend money on my defensive players since they seldom get damaged. The only thing I have trouble with is with the turbo-boost. I bought the best safety I could but was pretty much unable to control him with turbo-boost; with the touch of a button he zooms off the playing field and the screen :-). The graphics are good, nothing spectacular, but not bad either. At least I can tell the players apart. The sound is pretty simple. Mainly theres this heartbeat-like droning that gets faster and faster as the ball becomes more critical. At first I thought that this music would drive me crazy after a while, but actually I kinda like it since I think it sets an appropriate mood for the game. This game plays well. I love the instant replay when you just executed a great play. Although the instant replays only happen for the offensive great plays. Controlling the players, handing the ball off, and passing are easy to do, although catching a pass is another matter. The only problem I have with this game is that for a person that hasn't played it before there should be a way to pause the game so you can look at the plays longer. You don't get very long to choose a play. You can take a time out, but this goes by just as fast. In league play when you are choosing a play and you move the D-button to that play, it tells you what to do for this play. But since play selection goes by so quickly, you barely have enough time to look at the patterns for the play and read what you ( the quarterback) should do. Picking the defensive plays is a little easier so the time isn't so critical. In versus mode, I busted up laughing when I saw the play selection screen. It gives you a split screen, one half for the offensive player and one half for the defensive player. Talk about small, it was really hard at first to figure out what any of the plays did. All you see is this tiny box with different colored lines drawn in it. Fortunately, you do get used to it but it takes a while. A pause feature would have really been nice in this mode since you don't have very much time again. Passing is a little hard to get used to at first. You can choose to play with markers on the field which tell you where the player will go to catch the ball. A friend and I played this way for a while but we decided to play without the markers since the markers let the defense know where you where going to possibly throw the ball. One thing about league play that bugs me is that you CAN'T turn the passing markers off. I like playing without the markers, but in League play you don't get the option of turning them off ( even though you can turn them off in the options screen ). Sometimes when you choose a play the players don't always do what they are supposed to. I have run what I thought was supposed to be a running play and when I tried to hand off the ball to the running back, the quarterback passed it, Yipes! Sometimes the quarterback doesn't pass it where I think its supposed to go either. I don't know if this is because of the defensive play choosen or I did something wrong or what. The reason I don't know is because of the stinkin' manual. The manual for this game leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn't really explain how to pass. If you have the markers on the field to tell you where you're supposed to pass the ball, during the play, they change color to blue ( I believe ). What does this mean? The manual doesn't say. It looks to me like it changed colors when I was supposed to throw the ball but who knows. The manual also doesn't say what the different colored arrows and circles are in the play selection screen. I guess they are for the different positions of the players. It also doesn't explain what happens if you don't choose a play on time. What play do you get? Also, when you need to replace a player who was destroyed the manual just says you will get an opportunity to replace the player in the play selection screen. Well what kind of player can I get. Does it depend on the money I have? I've never been offered a choice, it just tells me to select the player. If I had more money, would I have gotten a better player, say one made out of titanium instead of plastic? Overall I really like this game, although some of that might be because there isn't a football game out yet for the genesis. Its fun, fast and plays well. The only complaints I have is that there should have been a pause available, at least in easy mode, to make it easier for people to learn the game. The manual could be more detailed as well. Graphics 7 Sound 6 Documentation 4 Playability 9 Cyberball, for the Sega Genesis, $49.00 ------------------------------ From: ericc@boris.aux.apple.com (Eric Castle) Subject: Genesis: Super Monaco GP I've been waiting for a car racing game for the genesis and I wasn't dissappointed. Super Monaco GP is great! There's 16 tracks to race on. You can choose free practice in which you can race by yourself on any of the 16 tracks to get practice. You can race like in the arcade where you qualify in a preliminary race and then race in a real race. When racing in this mode however you can't fall behind a certain position in the race or the games over. I usually end up crashing into a barrier while trying to pass other cars. Theres also a world grand prix mode where you race on all of the 16 tracks and try to win the championship. For this mode theres a passwd so you can save the game state. I think the graphics in this game are excellent. They're really smooth, with no flicker. There's also some digitized scenes which are neat but don't really matter since they are mainly used for the title screen, hi score screen, etc... The car controls nicely. I really like that you can make any of the functions for shifting up and down, accelerating, or braking, be any of the buttons or direction controller. I've chosen option F which is D-button for accelerating ( push up ) and braking ( push down ), and use button A for down shifting and button B for upshifting. I don't like to use the D-button for shifting since its too easy to accidently shift gears, but others might like it. At least you can choose from 5 choices. Maybe if more driving games come out, Sega or some third party will give us a steering wheel controller. I'm still getting used to shifting and haven't won any races yet using the manual trans- mission. It looks like you definitley need to use the manual transmission to compete though, since using an automatic you're car just isn't fast enough - or maybe I'm just not a good enough driver. One thing I've discovered is I can run into the other cars and crash them so that smoke is pouring out of them. I don't know if this hurts my own car or not when racing in Super Monaco mode ( arcade mode ), but its kinda fun. In the World Championship mode bumping other cars does damage you car and you will be told to take a pit stop. I haven't played in this mode much so I can't comment on it too much. Basically you are the member of a racing team and you're going to compete in 16 races on 16 different tracks. Each race is 5 laps long with no position limit. But you have to finish at least 6th to get any points. After each race the standings are shown for the race and then for the current World Championship. Before each race you choose the type of transmission to use, the manual says to use a manual transmission since this mode is harder than Super Monaco mode. Also you can take practive "warm up" laps around the track to get used to it. You can take 9 warm up laps. Before each race, you can also choose a rival to race against. This makes things a little more interesting and competitive. This game also has some digitized voices that tell you various things. One says "Come On" when you're not doing so good. Another says "keep it up" when you are doing good. The background music is ok, nothing special but not bad either. In fact as I write this I can't remember what it sounds like at all, so I guess it didn't make a big impression on me one way or the other. Overall, I found this game to be really good. Its still just as challenging as the first day I bought it. I still haven't won a race yet, but I'm getting better and still having fun trying, which is what counts. Graphics 8 Sound 7 Documentation 7 Playability 8 Super Monaco GP, for the Sega Genesis, $49.00 ------------------------------ From: mfrose@caen.engin.umich.edu (Martin F. Rose ) Subject: Genesis: Whip Rush In the year 2222AD, an exploration party of three Alpha-type ships were sent from a crowded Earth. Their mission was to seek out new worlds suitable for human colonization. After five years of exploration and regular communication, the ships notified Earth that they were approaching the planet Voltegeus. Communication was broken off immediately thereafter, and the expeditionary force was listed as "missing and presumed lost". A short time later, an enormous starship appeared from behind the far side of Mars. Examination indicated that the three Alpha ships were within; they had been transformed by a hostile alien culture into a huge juggernaut of destruction! This new titan waded effortlessly through all efforts to stop it on its path to Earth, and the Voltegians were soon well-fortified on Terran soil. In a last-ditch effort to retake Earth from these invaders, the best and brightest of the world resistance united their efforts to create a single mighty fighter, code named "Whip Rush", and sent it to do what noone else could... (Boy, this background hype is corny, isn't it?) In Whip Rush, you once again control a lone fighter, sent out to battle against impossible odds. This time, however, there are some new controls to be learned and some new challenges to face. At the onset, it appears to be a standard, horizontal-scrolling shooter game. It is during the course of the first level, however, that you find the game to be a bit off of the standard. After taking on a couple power-ups and a minor "Boss" (blech! Bad! Evil word!) ship, your voyage takes a different turn-- STRAIGHT DOWN. It is also here that you discover that your fighter always faces to the right, which can hamper your ability to fight when you are advancing to the LEFT. The control capabilities set this shooter apart from others. Instead of picking up "speed-up" power-ups, as in R-TYPE or TRUXTON, *you* control the maneuvering speed of your ship with the A button, which comes in *very* handy in the higher levels. You can also pick up two "friends", little satellites that enhance your firepower, can be pointed in any of the four cardinal directions (but always opposite each other), can be "bounced" at the enemy when a shot isn't available, and cannot absorb incoming fire (@#$%!!). The decisions presented here can be your saving grace or your downfall; a poor choice of motion speed or firepower can ruin an otherwise well-played game. I have already heard one cry of "this is too easy". True, it doesn't take too long to master the four levels listed in the manual. However, the manual doesn't show all of the levels, and after Level 4, the party's over and they *really* get mean. Well, looks like it's tally time! GRAPHICS - 8/10. Colorful, dynamic and detailed, but there are a few mistakes--most notably at the beginning of Level 4, where some asteroids will vanish completely from the screen only to reappear in your face. Still, there are some unpleasant surprises in store. SOUND/MUSIC - 7/10. Sound effects are pretty standard, and BGM shows little variety, but there are a couple of nifty dance riffs in this game :) CONTROLS - 9/10. The new control options are a definite plus for this title. GAMEPLAY - 7/10. This is the game's weakest point. A bit of practice will allow most players to just about walk through the first four levels, but Level 5 is like hitting a brick wall in a Honda CRX at 80mph. OVERALL - 7/10. The first four levels are a fun challenge, but after that, it's war. (I may be wrong about the name "Renovation Products", at least about the "Products" part...) WHIP RUSH, for the Sega Genesis, by Renovation Products. ------------------------------------- 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. Back issues are archived as digests, as well as broken into individual reviews. To receive them via electronic mail, send a note to the address "info@limbo.intuitive.com" (or decwrl!limbo!info) with the body containing the lines "help" and "listall Digital.Games". 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 *********************