Received: from decwrl.dec.com by s.ms.uky.edu id aa14610; 9 Jan 91 5:26 EST Received: by decwrl.dec.com; id AA21008; Tue, 8 Jan 91 00:27:09 -0800 Received: by limbo; Tue, 8 Jan 91 00:21:24 pst Message-Id: <9101080821.AA22442@limbo.intuitive.com> From: The Moderator Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 0:21:21 PST Subject: Digital Games Review Digest, #18 Reply-To: Digital Games Review To: Digital Games Review Digest X-Mailer: fastmail [version 2.02] Digital Games Review Digest, Number 18 Tuesday, January 8th 1991 Today's Topics: Amiga: Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday Amiga: Dragon Wars TG-16: Super Volleyball Genesis: Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Genesis: Technocop Lynx: Rygar Lynx: Rampage GameBoy: DuckTales GameBoy: Skate or Die: Bad 'n Rad [Digital Games will be represented by a number of folk at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later this week, so if you're going to be in town, look us up! Drop me a note for details... -- Dave Taylor] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jimmy Chan Subject: Amiga: Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday First of all, this is about the Amiga version of Buck Rogers. Program comes with a hard disk installation program that can also be used to install the game onto a ram disk for those with memory to burn instead of a hard drive. In my version of the game there is included a paperback book that can also be found in bookstores that is the first of a trilogy, I don't know if all games include this book or not because if I remember correctly, a flyer I received from SSI about this game a month or so ago, only special editions would include a book. The game runs fine with other programs, just like many of the RPG games that SSI makes for the Amiga. The only protection on the game is a look up in the manual for a word protection; you will have to find a word in one of two manuals, Rule Book and Log Book. The game comes on two disks. The setting of this game is based in the 25th Century with you and your band of adventurers have to protect Earth and defeat the Russo-American Mercantile (RAM) forces. In this game you travel though the solar system from planet to planet to asteroid field, while fighting off spaceships in your own spaceship or just planet hopping. There are basically three planets that you can visit, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. There is also the asteroid field beyond the orbit of Mars and also spacestations located on moons or asteroids to visit and explore. This game is set up much like many of the previous SSI games based on TSR rules. There are 7 stats that determines the well-being of your characters - strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, charisma, tech. There are experience points that you have to attain to receive level advancement up to level 8. You choose from 6 character races - Terrans, Martians, Venusians, Mercurians, Tinkers, Desert Runners and also if male and female selections. There are five different careers that you can have for your characters - rocketjocks, warriors, engineers, rogues, medics. There are also skills and abilities that you will have to allocate points for your characters when you first create them, as your characters attain levels there are additional points that you allocate to these same skills and abilities or add new skills and abilities. Game play is pretty much the same as SSI's previous AD&D games but with the exception that the setting is now in the future so, your party will be riding around in a spaceship and weapons are now of the 25th century. In combat you have the option of fighting with bladed weapons: knives, swords, polearms for close up fighting, or ranged weapons: guns, crossbows, rifles, stunners and heavy weapons/explosives: grenades, grenade/plasma/rocket launchers. Armor is basically a space suit or some type of battle armor and goggles. Monsters come in the form of genetically engineered monsters who do not have ranged weapons or RAM forces who have deadly ranged weapons to attack you with. There are non-player characters (NPC) who may join you on a planet at times of a battle in which case you may be able to lead these NPCs as one of your own characters or other NPCs that will join your group for a short period when you are exploring in which case you only can have 2 NPCs in your party. I have only encountered two bugs in the game. One bug is not really that bad but the other could hurt in the long run. The first bug is when encountering a group of monsters and I opted for hiding but the monsters found my group, the game put me into a combat area with one room with the monsters on the other side of the wall. I could not get to the monsters nor could the monsters get to me. There was a door leading out of the room but not towards the monsters. To get out of this situation, I killed all my characters and then restarted the game from last save. Later, I thought maybe I should have tried fleeing from the encounter but I could not redo this bug. The second bug is a overflow error with the bank. This bug could hurt as it has to do with the money used for repairing and restocking your spaceship. The number of credits it says I have in the bank is something like ~460 million and if I try to withdraw or transfer money to this account it always says the number is too high, even if I use 0. If I use the deposit option I can deposit credits but the number still remains the same in the account only making me lose credits. I've since found a way around this but as it might be a spoiler I will not post it, but I will reply to email for any that want to know. I highly recommend this game for those that enjoy SSI's previous AD&D series. Also, this game is supposed to be the first of a series. Combat in this game is resolved very fast unless you have to keep changing weapons, like I do. Also in the Amiga version if you hit Alt-q, this will put all your characters into quick mode for an easy combat instead of having to hit q for each character. ------------------------------ From: decwrl!decvax!grove!pelletier (Brian Pelletier) Subject: Amiga: Dragon Wars I'm not the biggest Role Playing Game fanatic around, but I've managed to solve 3 of the Ultimas, the original Wizardry, and Bard's Tale I. I hadn't gotten into a good RPG for a while, so when I saw Dragon Wars at my local computer store, I decided to give it a try. My general impression? I like it! It looks a lot like the Bard's Tale series and in fact can import your Bard's Tale's characters. It's not copy protected (*clap clap*), hard disk installable, and it exits cleanly to the operating system when you quit the game. It also multitasks, but for some reason seems to eat up a lot of CPU time, even when nothing is happening. The documentation is excellent, consisting of a large 'Dragon Wars' manual and a smaller Amiga- specific reference booklet. I found one documentation error in the booklet (actually the program seems incorrect here) where the 'New party order' command is really P, not O. The Dragon Wars manual gives a nice description of the background of the game, the playing instructions, a large number of magic spell descriptions, and some 150 'paragraphs' which are referred to by the program when certain events happen. These paragraphs provide essential information about the game - I don't see how anyone could finish the game without them. The game plays like your standard adventure - you start with a group of up to 4 characters with no clothes, money, weapons, etc., and you must explore an interesting world and rid the place of the evil Namtar, who has despoiled the formerly beautiful land. The screen is much like the Bard's Tale display, the left half showing a first-person view of the world, the right half used for listing your party members and their vital stats. There are some interesting twists in DW - for example, increasing your AC (Armor Class) by buying expensive armor often decreases your attacking ability (AV). Most games that I've played track these two independently. Also, when you gain experience levels, you are allowed to pick and choose where you want your extra skill points to go. You can add to your general characteristics (strength, dexterity, etc) or you can use the skill points to gain a particular weapon skill, or to learn a new type of magic (there are 4 different magic 'types', each offering a number of different spells). It adds a nice touch to the game, and also makes for some interesting strategic choices. Another nice touch is the auto mapping feature. You won't need your graph paper to complete Dragon Wars. Hitting a key brings up an overhead view of the area you are currently exploring, with the areas you have 'visited' shown in detail. All unexplored areas are left blank. Keeping a good map is essential in DW, as many of the places you visit have hidden or secret doorways that you must find to advance in the adventure. Like any good RPG, Dragon Wars has plenty of monsters lurking in the cities, forests and dungeons. When you encounter a monster (or group of monsters) the nearest attacking creature is shown on the left half of the screen (there are some great animated beasts!) while the right half displays your combat options. There are many options for each character, including Quick fight, Fight, Cast spell, Use item, and more. The battle is handled in terms of rounds, where each character is given an option at the start of the round, and the game displays the results of the round on the screen. So what makes this game different than the other RPG's available today? Well, a lot of little things done right add up to an excellent gaming experience. The graphics are good, but not great. I imagine the MS-DOS version of this game looks pretty similar. The sounds are decent, a nice unobtrusive background score, encounter themes, and digitized sounds during battles or other special events. The puzzles are numerous and challenging, but not impossible (at least so far!). I have just begun to explore the vast DW world, but already I've discovered so many interesting items, spells, hidden rooms, transporters, etc that I look forward to exploring every new area I find. The game 'plays' well; the controls are easy (mouse or keyboard) and intuitive. Clicking on a character name for example brings up a menu, allowing you to examine his stats, items, known spells, and more. The screens move quickly, thanks in part to having the game on hard disk. Multiple games can be saved to disk, and new games can be loaded in at any time (like when you unexpectedly get clobbered by some tough monsters!). All in all, Dragon Wars is a great RPG gaming experience, and I recommend it highly. Graphics 7 Sound 8 Playability 9 Documentation 9 Overall 8.5 Dragon Wars for the Amiga, Interplay Productions ($49.95) ------------------------------ From: zot@caen.engin.umich.edu (Eddy Hsu) Subject: TG-16: Super Volleyball Basically, competition volleyball, as in olympic-style with full six man teams. Eight teams are represented, the US and Soviet teams being the best, followed by the Brazilians and Japan, then Holland and France, with Italy and China lagging behind. There is a team edit function, although without a TurboBooster+ or CD player you cannot save teams. There are lots of options, such as starting score (since volleyball scores only when you are seving [unless it's the final set], full 15 point games can take quite a while, since you're playing best of five sets), handicap, and ball speed (hint: set to slow when you first play, unless you never want to touch the ball). You can play a normal game with whatever teams you want, or play world league, in which you pick a team and play all the other teams in the league. You can also have the computer play itself (watching the US take on the Soviets in 15 point games is a battle...) As for the gameplay, it's fantastic! Unlike most other volleyball games, this takes on a straight sideways view, unlike the top 3/4 shot that the beach simulations prefer. This does not hinder play at all, for the game still is incredibly fast and exciting. You can do most everything you like, there being overhand, underhand, and jump serves, all of which you can aim to a section of the opponents court. There is even a super-underhand serve which zooms off the screen to the top of the stadium (doesn't fake out the computer, but sure plays hell when playing one-on-one). Once you bump a return, the setter will set, although you can make him spike it for a surprise move. You can have a normal set and spike, or set it high and the center-court man will come zooming in for a monster spike. Or, you can have one man jump up and fake a spike, and a second man comes up behind him and actually spikes, which works well to draw the blockers out (although, i can't for the life of me master this move, except for those inadvertant moments. Anyone have any tips?). On defense, you control the center-court man, who you can move back and forth to position for a return, and you also decide when your two sets of net players jump for a block. Timing is everything in this game... You can even have your center-court man jump and dive for balls blocked into the net by your net players, or even dive for blocked spikes! Sometimes your center-court man is knocked senseless by a spike but still manages to get it up to your setter, and your front men have to put it away or try to fend for themselves until the center-court man recovers and gets up! GRAPHICS: 9.5 - Incredible, gorgeous graphics. Set in an indoor stadium, the background has that hazy, smoke-filled look. The scrolling is fast and wonderfully smooth, and gives an excellent view of the action. The players are bright and vibrantly realistic, especially in their movements and actions. Spikes and dives look way-cool... SOUND: 7 - Fairly minimal, crowd sounds and victory music after every score or side-out, good spike and block sounds, nothing overly spectacular. PLAYABILITY/ FUNNESS: 9 - Great, very easy to control the players and the game. Unlike a certain football game, lots of fun to play. CHALLENGE: 9 - Sure, it's easy to beat such cake-walks such as China or Italy, and France and Holland are good tests for beginners (especially Holland, who scrap and amazingly recover almost every ball!), but is it possible to get as good as the US or the Soviet? And I shudder to think about fast speed... OVERALL: 9 - The best sports game I've played for the TG. Nuff said. Super Volleyball for the NEC TurboGrafx 16 - $45.99 ------------------------------ From: milton@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Milton W. Kuo) Subject: Genesis: Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Castle Of Illusion is Sega's attempt at creating a Super Mario Brothers style game for the Genesis/MegaDrive. While Castle Of Il- lusion doesn't have as many secrets to discover as Super Mario Bro- thers, Sega has succeeded in creating a game with that is every bit as fun as Super Mario Brothers. On top of the game play, Castle Of Illusion (henceforth referred to as Mickey Mouse) features graph- ics that are absolutely incredible. The most noticeable feature of Mickey Mouse is the attention to detail in its graphics. Details like the translucent look of liquids and the well drawn bosses all showcase the Genesis' graph- ics capabilities nicely. Complement the excellent graphics with perfectly matching background music and the result is a game that is an audio/video tour-de-force. Gameplay on Mickey Mouse is among the smoothest of any Genesis game out. It appears Sega really put forth a great deal of effort in programming Mickey Mouse and it shows - from the many images us- ed to animate Mickey to the little "extra" surprises, the quality of the code in this cartridge would make Walt proud. One of the most important aspects of a fun game is variety and Mickey Mouse delivers. Like Super Mario Brothers, there are two methods of getting rid of an enemy. The first method is to jump up into the air and land rump-first onto the enemy. The second method is to throw apples and marbles which are picked up throughout the course of the game. Each level in itself also offers a great deal of variety in the form of three very different sublevel - one of the most remarkable being a world made out of candy! As of late, many people have expressed interest that games on the Genesis be more difficult to finish. I feel that Mickey Mouse is a fairly difficult game and should offer many, many hours of en- joyment. For the record though, I managed to finish Mickey Mouse in less than 12 hours of total play time. However, it should be noted that I have finished most all Genesis games within a 24 hour span. Mickey Mouse is one of the more difficult games out for the Genesis and is a real delight to play. HIGHLY recommended. Graphics : 10 Sound : 8 Gameplay : 9 "Funness" : 9 Overall : 9 Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, for the Sega Genesis ------------------------------ From: khalede@zip.eecs.umich.edu Subject: Genesis: Technocop Technocop: Before slamming this game to the ground, let me be fair and give a small overview: Technocop is a game where you play the role of a futuristic cop out to kill the bad guys, you are assigned missions, and advance in rank and get better weapons as you are promoted. Technocop costs (retail) $59.99 - i.e. it simply costs too much, given that it really sucks. The game is basically a series of missions, where in each mission, you have to drive your car to the bad guy's hideout, then get in the hideout, kick the ass of everything that moves, find the guy you're looking for, and bust him. The twist in this game is the violence in the graphics. This is a feature that would have made this game unique, and worthy of its price had it been written better. When you shoot a guy with your bullets "designed for internal explosion", he simply explodes and his guts splash on the floor, then he twitches for a second, and dies (the guts don't disappear, but stay there on the floor). You can also shoot kids and innocent people caught in your line of fire, but points will be deducted from your score. Now, I am in no way complaining about the violence in this game. Razorsoft did print a warning message on the box, and people (grumpy parents) who are against video-game violence are expected to read this message and buy columns or Mickey mouse instead. I am complaining because I am probably one of the many players who bought this game because they thought that it had a nice and different feature, and then got very very disappointed. Basically, the driving stages in this game have graphics that come right out of a lousy Nintendo game (and this is not an exageration). What's more, the car responds VERY badly - i.e. the controls suck. As for the other stage of every mission (where you walk inside sleezy buildings and bust the bad guys), I felt as if I was playing a PC game... The action takes place in only the top half of the screen, while the other half is used (entirely) to display the usual crap (# of lives, stamina, weapon selected... like we really need half a screen to print 4 numbers!). The characters are boxy (yes, boxy), and I think the maximum number of colors used at any time is around 16 (you don't believe me? check it for yourself). I got the feeling that the code for this program was slammed right out of a computer version, into the Genesis's 68000, without using any of the dedicated graphic capabilities of the Genesis. (HEY, YOU!, at Razorsoft... when you're releasing a game for the Genesis, and asking a f***ing $59.99 for it, you're competing against titles like TFIII, Revenge of Shinobi, PSII, and Strider, which all use a full screen, sprites with more than 4 colors each, and resolution higher than 64x48 pixels - get it?). So, what I basically want to say is that a nice idea was completely destroyed by lack of competence on the part of programmers. What's more, the game also falls flat on gameplay, which is WAY too repetitive. The driving scenes are actually OK, since you can bump into cars, shoot them, and you even get bad guys to jump on the top of your car and try to slow you down (of course, you have to put up with the Nintendo-graphics). The "inside the hideout" scenes get awfully repetitive, with the same kind of punks and thugs, and even the same basic backgrounds (ARRGHHHH!). Finishing a level reduces to memorizing what doors the bad guys come out of and going through the STANDARD evasive sequence that works for a given type of attacker (depending on wether he has a whip, knife, or chain...), and, of course, busting the boss at the end requires that you find the correct sequence of elevators to take (how challenging) so that you can get to him before the time limit expires. Needless to say that the sequence is fixed for a given level, and that bosses are nothing spectacular. So, to summarize all of the above: Graphics : 3 (worst I have seen on a Genesis so far) Sound : 5 (no BGM, + you really have to listen to the sound of the car's engine...so lousy...) Playability : 3 (and I'm beeing nice here) Theme : 9 (give them credit for an original and daring idea) Overall : 4 (worth renting for one day only) ------------------------------ From: jjung@aludra.usc.edu (Robert Jung) Subject: Lynx: Rygar OVERVIEW: It has been over 10,000 years since the demonic hordes of the underworld drove our people away from the fertle farmlands and forced us into hiding on the desolate slopes. Now, however, the predictions of the ancient sages has come true. You are Rygar the Reclaimer, born of the mystic birthmark, who has the power and the skill to weild the warrior's shield, destroy the demons, and bring our people home. Okay, so the storyline is nothing original. RYGAR for the Lynx is an adaptation of the Tecmo arcade game, where you play the barbarian hero out to battle monsters and beasts across the land. You run from left to right across a scrolling screen, fighting monsters and grabbing artifacts along the way. Your weapon is your armored shield, which, when thrown at the monsters, returns to your hand. If there are too many creatures to be destroyed, you can stun them for a few seconds by jumping on them. The artifacts you find along the way will either give you additional points or extra fighting powers. You must be careful in your travels, however. Touching a non-stunned creature, or falling off the path, spells instant death for Rygar. Run out of lives, and the game ends. You face opponents such as headless zombies, flying griffons, and giant rolling worms across 23 levels. Clear all the levels, and you will return peace to the land. GAMEPLAY: Okay, how's it play? As an arcade adaptation, RYGAR is almost -- but not completely -- identical to the arcade version. Veterans of the original will notice a few differences in the gameplay. For instance, you can't throw your shield in a protective arc, and throwing the shield upwards is possible only if you have a "star" artifact. There are other minor differences as well, but this is an adequate adaptation for the most part. On the plus side, the controls are easy to use, and the game difficulty is not set too high. The game is mostly patternized, with a few random elements in terms of what artifacts appear. You start off with three lives, and get extra Rygars at certain point intervals (the first three are at 50,000, 100,000, and 175,000 points). When you die, there is no "continue" feature, and no "skip levels" feature, so this is largely an endurance contest. GRAPHICS/SOUND: The graphics on RYGAR are identical to the arcade version. Both Rygar and the demons are clearly distinctive, detailed, and animated identically to the arcade. The landscape is done in two-level multilayered scrolling, with nice details and some background animation. While it's not MICKEY MOUSE AND THE CASTLE OF ILLUSION, it is sufficently well done. Sounds are a bit weaker, however. The game effects are appropriate and adequate, though the bells that signal the presence/taking of artifacts can get irritating. The background music is reminescent of the arcade tunes -- a low rythmic drum beat during gameplay and a musical interlude between levels -- but suffers from either being too low-volumed or too high-pitched. Fortunately, you can turn off the music by pressing Option 2 before starting the game. SUMMARY: RYGAR for the Lynx is a "typical" game, neither extremely outstanding nor truly dissappointing. While fans of the arcade game will find slight differences, it's close enough to be familliar (especially since the only other adaptation was a vastly different game for the Nintendo). Though there are only 23 levels, the lack of a level skip and game continues means this is an average-difficulty endurance contest which will take some time to finish. GAMEPLAY: 8 GRAPHICS: 8.5 SOUND: 6.5 OVERALL: 7.5 RYGAR, by Atari Corp., for 1 player, horizontal game $39.95 ------------------------------ From: jjung@girtab.usc.edu (Robert Jung) Subject: Lynx: Rampage OVERVIEW: "Better living through chemistry"? Not for four employees at MegaVitamin Pharmaceuticals, who -- through a mixup in the company cafeteria -- ingested a contaminated sample of Megavitamins. Within 24 hours, Larry, George, Ralph, and Lizzie had transmorgrified into giant animals, wrecking havoc and major property damage throughout the United States. Worse, a rumor is now around that an unnamed lab technician can develop an antidote for the disease, but is hiding this information to extract extortion from the government... RAMPAGE for the Atari Lynx is a conversion of the Bally/Midway game from a few years back. You play one of four monsters (one more than the original), who travel from city to city, smashing skyscrapers, pounding cars, breaking bridges, and eating fruits/humans/vegetables/humans/meat/HUMANS. You and your friends can collectively wreck havoc, or clobber each other, depending on your inclination. As you jump and climb your way through the city, the screen scrolls to show you the action immediately around your monster. Along the way, you encounter the evil forces of the United States Army, who throw soldiers, tanks, helicopters, and bombs at your 60-foot-tall self. You can smash them, too, but they are many and you are few, so you've got to keep yourself alive while tearing the town apart. Destroy all the buildings in a city and you move to the next, thus effectively roaming the country. If you survive long enough, you may be able to find the mysterious lab technician who can restore you to your former self. GAMEPLAY: This game is fun. Aside from the sheer silliness of the concept, RAMPAGE is very easy to play, with uncomplicated controls, simple rules, and a sense of difficulty that feels right. There is a lot of stuff to eat and destroy, such as passing trolleys, damsels in distress, neon signs, bridges, and cars. The Army will be able to wear you down through sheer numbers, but if you play it safe and snatch all the food you can get, you'll be able to hold out for a while. If you're lucky, you can find and drink potions, which will render you invulnerable (and invisible to other players) for one level. Players familliar with the arcade game will be glad to know that the Lynx version is very close to the original, and offers more. After your monster loses all its health, it turns back to human and slinks out of the picture -- until you activate another life. Run out of lives, and you're out of the game. If you're playing with friends, you can continue the game with a new life indefinetely -- until you get past level 40. After that, all deaths are final. Your monstrous abilities to destroy are all translated intact, and the levels, though presented on a scrolling screen, are about the same size as the arcade. Unlike the original, though, there seems to be no difference in the abilities of the different monsters. Watch out for crumbling buildings, and don't jump too hard on the bridges. If you survive long enough, you will ultimately find a lab scientist who can cook up an antidote to revert you to normal. Though I can't confirm it, I think this will take _quite_ a while to accomplish. The scientist is rumored to be in Sunnyvale, and level 40 doesn't even take you halfway around the country; you start in the state of Washington, and it seems like you travel counterclockwise throughout the United States. Level 40 only gets you to Tennesee. I hear that this game offers around 100+ levels (the manual doesn't say), and it seems quite possible. As mentioned before, the action takes place on a scrolling screen, so it's possible to be attacked by someone you can't see. This doesn't matter, though, as the game, overall, is slightly easier than the original. It's not a breeze, though, as you will eventually get worn down by a lack of food and an abundance of military might (the lack of continues past level 40 doesn't help, either). A side note: Normally, I don't discuss manuals in these reviews, but this time I'm making an exception. There's a lot of things that you can do in this game, but are breezed over or completely ignored by the manual. For instance, you can grab a dynamite pack and hurl it away before it explodes. Or grab and HOLD ON to a civilian for points. I don't know whether the omissions were intentional or not, but it's a good idea to TRY EVERYTHING -- you may turn up a surprise or two. GRAPHICS/SOUND: The game graphics in RAMPAGE are similar, but not identical to, the arcade original. There's nothing wrong with that; game elements are clearly recognizable, and rendered in the same cartoony, tongue-in-cheek mentality that arcade fans will recognize. Especially delightful are the little "cute touches". Punch an electrical applicance and get shocked, eat an undigestible object and cough up, swallow some dynamite and breathe fire -- there's a lot of visual humor in this game. Between cities, the newspaper headlines present the city, the level, and offers bad jokes (there's monster humor, cow puns, and subliminal ads for Atari, to name a few). The sounds in this game are appropriate, but not special. Sound effects match the game action, as it should. During the game, bouncy/cheery background music plays, sounding similar to the tunes found in CHIP'S CHALLENGE. Fortunately, if it bothers you (I think it's for the wrong game, myself), you can turn the tunes off and keep the sound F/X. SUMMARY: RAMPAGE for the Lynx reminds me of XENOPHOBE for the Lynx: A lighthearted, silly game that's lots of fun for lots of players (the more the merrier). Though it's not hard to play, I feel that there's going to be lots of hours invested in this card before someone finishes it. If you like the arcade original, like multiplayer cooperative/competitive games, or are looking for a casually-paced challenge, RAMPAGE is the way to go. GAMEPLAY: 9.5 GRAPHICS: 8.5 SOUND: 7 OVERALL: 9 RAMPAGE, 1-4 players, horizontal game, for the Atari Lynx, $34.95 ------------------------------ Subject: GameBoy: DuckTales From: Dave Taylor Scrooge McDuck and his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, are off for a globe trotting adventure questing for -- what else? -- gold and treasures. Equal time pops up with Webby, a niece tagging along too, to help find the Five Lost Treasures, scattered through the five treasure lands: The Amazon -- climb vines, knock out spiders (that are bigger than you are!) and explore the ruins of the Inca Empire. Treasure is the Sceptre of the Incan King. Transylvania -- explore a haunted house, even walking into mirrors to transport from room to room. The lost treasure here is the Coin of the Lost Realm. African Mines -- before you can even get here, you must find the skeleton key in another land, then you'll have to battle lots of giant slugs and worse! Treasure is teh Giant Diamond of the Inner Earth. The Himalayas -- Questing for the Lost Crown of Genghis Khan you'll find that walking in snow is tough, and that ice can be slippery (which can be especially tricky when adjacent to a hole!) The Moon -- stepping off the planet for a bit, the moon is the place where bouncing takes on a whole 'nother meaning! You'll need to find Gizmo to have him help you find the secret room -- the Green Cheese of Longevity is the lost treasure here. Once you've obtained all five treasures, there's an end-game battle that must be won before McDuck and family are wealthy beyond their wildest dreams... With five different worlds, three levels of difficulty, and some of the cutest graphics on the GameBoy (not to mention some great characters from Disney too), you'd think this game would be terrific fun. Well, it's not. In fact, it's quite difficult and frustrating, because there are lots of places where "jumping just right" is required lest you fall and die, and understanding what's going on takes quite a bit of time. In fact, even the jumping is confusing; sometimes you can jump into a pit and get into underground caverns or rooms, and other times you jump into a pit and kablowie! You've died. There's no "score", per se, in the game either; you get "gold" points for collecting treasures along the way, but there's no way to gauge how far into a level you are (nor where the hidden treasure is), so game after game, it doesn't seem like there's any improvement...I mean, I've picked up 50000 gold in a game. Is that good? Perhaps most jarring is that once you die it immediately goes back to the title screen, without any chance to jot down how much gold you had, what levels you had acheived, or anything. Just a sudden change in the music and back to the title screen. Overall, I'd say that this game has the feel of having been designed on a set of storyboards, with great graphics, cute characters, a terrific theme, but poor playability and some crucial "gaming" features missing. I'd like to see some more effort put into playability and then have another shot at helping Scrooge McDuck and the gang find the five lost treasures! Graphics: 10 excellent, typical Capcom Music: 10 excellent, again, typical for Capcom Playability: 2 Fun Factor: 1 Overall: 3 (get Super Mario Land instead...) DuckTales, for the Nintendo GameBoy, from Capcom USA. ------------------------------ Subject: GameBoy: Skate or Die: Bad 'n Rad From: Dave Taylor When I was a kid I used to watch my friends skateboard with some considerable envy. The one time I tried it, I flew off and banged myself up quite a bit. So when the chance to play a game that not only involves skateboarding, but being bad 'n rad, came along, it seemed like a great idea! It is. Skate or Die is a series of different games for computer, video, and arcade systems, with the unifying theme of being an adventure on skateboard wheels. Sound weird? Skate or die, actually, sounds like a pretty serious version of skateboarding, and appropriately! Bad 'n Rad, the first Skate or Die game for the GameBoy, offers a great variation on the scrolling shoot'em up that seems to pass as one of the games d'jour on the GameBoy... As you'd expect, it's also quite hip. The booklet, for example, starts out with the note: You now own the cool, hip, jammin', mod, bustin' version of Skate or Die: Bad 'n Rad for your GameBoy. We suggest that you read this instruction manual thoroughly before exploding onto the radical scene. Fer shure, dude. I mean, how can you not like a game where all takes place in Rad City USA "where tourists and terrorists collide"? There are four stages, comprising a total of seven different worlds, and the skateboarding theme is carried throughout; hazards include flowerpots being dropped on your head, holes in the street, and rabid dogs bounding towards you at high speed. Fundamentally, Bad'n Rad is yet another theme adventure game, with simple controls: A=jump, B=crouch, and the directional pad controls speed and direction, reasonably enough. The game is rather tricky, and it takes a fair while to master some of the techniques, especially coping with very rough terrain while moving at speed. Curiously, you seem to be able to skate right through trashcans (without even turning them over, amazingly)... If you like adventure games, and especially like the Skate Or Die series in the arcade, then this is a good game to get! It's a tough game, but, in the words of the immortal skate king, "it's like radically cool, dude." Graphics: 8 Music: 8 Playability: 7 Fun Factor: 7 Booklet: 10 (like, mondo fun reading!) Overall: 7 Skate Or Die: Bad 'n Rad, for the Nintendo GameBoy from Konami Games. ------------------------------------- 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. 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