Received: from uucp-gw-1.pa.dec.com by s.ms.uky.edu id aa18980; 26 Feb 91 5:07 EST Received: by uucp-gw-1.pa.dec.com; id AA24900; Tue, 26 Feb 91 01:53:01 -0800 Received: by limbo; Mon, 25 Feb 91 11:15:15 pst Message-Id: <9102251915.AA03605@limbo.intuitive.com> From: The Moderator Date: Mon, 25 Feb 91 11:15:13 PST Subject: Digital Games Review Digest, #21 Reply-To: Digital Games Review To: Digital Games Review Digest X-Mailer: fastmail [version 2.02] Digital Games Review Digest, Number 21 Monday, February 25th 1991 Today's Topics: IBM PC: A-10 Tank Killer Genesis: Fire Shark Darius II Crackdown Musha Aleste NES: StarTropics Zanac The Immortal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 3 Feb 91 16:25:10 MST From: kguinn@orion.cair.du.edu (Kip J. Guinn) Subject: IBM PC: A-10 Tank Killer A-10 Tank Killer, from Sierra On-Line, is a very good simulation of the Thunderbolt II Close Air Support plane in service with US forces. In the game, you pilot the A-10, popularly known as the "Warthog", an ugly plane with a nasty disposition and a flair for violence that is unparalleled by its sleek, fancy rivals in the Air Force. When the A-10 flies, it's not very pretty, especially to the ground units who take the heat... The game uses 256 color VGA graphics, digitized pictures involving real actors, costumes, and on-location photo-shoots, full color, detailed scenes to throughout the game, and utilizes new 256-color drawing routines that are faster than the 16-color routines used in previous games. The simulation runs very smooth and fast, and copies (for backups) well, along with having a smooth hard drive installation program wthat allows you to configure the system and save it into the game, so it will always boot up ready to play. Other graphics are supported as well, and it runs well on 640k of RAM (you can run it with only 512k, but there may be some problems, depending on your graphics package, etc--the manual covers this). Optional support of mouse, and Roland MT-32, LAPC-1, Ad-Lib and Sound Blaster cards is included. I don't have a sound card (yet!), but the internal speaker does well. The game offers a training course, to familiarize players with the weapons the A-10 carries and to learn how to make attack runs with them, and six missions guaranteed to keep you sweating. You can configure the plane for each mission, choosing threat levels (whether the enemy is "wimpy" or "major bad news"), ammunition (standard or unlimited) and damage (normal or invincible). You can also tailor the plane's weapons, choosing from pre-set loads. One of the loads will be marked "Recommended"--the one the game thinks you should use. There is a Campaign option, which allows you to take your pilot through all the missions, presuming he survives... The weapons in the game are realistic, and for the most part follow real-life operations. Of course, if you kick enough ass (and with the A-10, that's about all you can do!), your mission will go into the Hall of Fame. You can also choose to review the victims, er, enemy units by choosing the Vehicle Preview option, which shows the various units in the game as they roll by, shooting off missiles or guns, whichever they have. A very nice addition to the game! Each mission carries with it a briefing from Commander Cord, whose digitized picture you will grow to love. The game carries it off well--some missions he is sitting quietly while he reads you the briefing, others he is shown screaming at you to "get that tub up in the air!" You then get your briefing after take-off. Talk about pressure to perform! The A-10 is hard enough to fly without Cord screaming at you. The cockpit is represented well, with only relevant istruments shown (i.e. tactical map, radar warning receiver, message box) and, of course, the two most important instruments--the HUD (heads-up display) and the TID (tactical information display). The lack of "serious" instrumentation is not a problem. In fact, its a blessing. The A-10 is aptly named--it's a _hog_! You have to constantly fight the plane to fly it. It is hard to trim, and your altitude is always flucuating. I imagine that's what the real A-10 is like. You _can_ trim it so that it will fly clean, if you are willing to work a bit. You have to watch it, though--flying close to the ground may be an advantage, until you scream down on some hapless tank, raking it with the cannon, only to find that you are about to park on top of it! Flying higher (which, in the A-10 means 400-600 feet) makes attack runs easier, but also gives those pesky SAM vehicles more room to launch on you. In some missions, you also get reports from the battlefield--either ground units wanting help, or Cord telling you something. A nice feature is your co-pilot (the game uses the two-seat version of the A-10--not many of them in service) who informs you, in his own imitable dry wit, how things are going. You fly by choosing points on the Strategic Map, choosing a tank platoon, for example, and then following the pointer on your HUD until you reach the target. Intelligence updates your co-pilot, (I assume) who then updates the map during the battle. In some of the missions, when things heat up, you can find yourself flicking back and forth between the cockpit and the map, choosing targets, wrestling the plane over to them, chewing them up, admiring the explosions (the game has nice, gratifying explosions), dodging SAM's, and doing it all over again! A very frantic, and satisfying, pace. The Strategic Map has grid coordinates, and icons representing various units, both yours and the enemies, so you can get a good feel of the battlefield, any threats to your base (they can and gleefully WILL overrun your base if you let them!), SAM vehicles and their area of coverage (a circle around the SAM's shows you the danger zones), and terrain features (like helpful hills to skim around, allowing you to jump the hapless groundies). The ground and background graphics are good, if a bit blocky. But they serve well enough--when you go screaming at full throttle around a hill, banking your Hog so that one wing scrapes the dirt, you get a good sense of what's going on! One of the missions, The City, has a very good city layout, with buildings, roads, etc. The buildings are not finely detailed, but again--it serves the purpose well. The ground units in the game (they are many and varied, from T-80 tanks to SA-13 SAM vehicles, trucks, planes, airfields, etc) are only somewhat distinguishable. I was especially disappointed with the helicopters (both the US Blackhawk and the Soviet HIND's are represented), which are flying trapezoids. Your TID comes in handy here. Not only does it show you a nice picture of the unit (much better detailed than the actual target), but it gives you the range to it, and puts a box up on your HUD. Also, friendly units are shown in white, and enemies are red. Actually, you _have_ to use your TID. Here is one of my major gripes with the game. You can only fire when the target is locked by the TID, and you can _only_ fire the "recommended" weapon-- i.e. Maverick for vehicles, LGB's for bridges and buildings, Durandals for runways, etc. This is limiting, to say the least. I understand the fact that the Durandal is a runway cratering bomb, but wouldn't a 2000 pound LGB do _something_ to the runway? I think so! The Rockeye cluster bombs are the most frustrating. Airfields, as you may imagine, have loads of targets. If you don't have LGB's, you _cannot_ attack things like the supply dump, fuel dump, control tower. Come on! A few cluster bombs could certainly be used on these things. They may not take them out completely, but a few fires, destroyed munition stockpiles (secondary explosions, anyone?) and ravaged control facilities sure can screw up the enemy's day. This problem limits the A-10's capacity to chew things up--and when you have a hungry beast, you want to feed it, no? :-) Another problem is lost ordinance--occasionally, when you drop a cluster bomb, you hear the lauch blip, see the dot on your radar screen showing the bomb is away, and then--nothing. Nada. Zip. The big El Squat-o. It just disappears. While this may be realistic, it doesn't do much for your frustration level! The missions are relatively problem-free, with the exception of "Tank Killer". If you don't engage the tank platoons that are near the edges of the map first, it's over. They will drive off the map. You can chase them, but you will _never_ catch up! The only way to engage them is with the Maverick, which somehow manages to catch them at extreme range, but you soon run out of those... I guess the game wants you to engage the targets _immediately_, to keep up with the fast tempo the designers envisioned--but it's frustrating. The last gripe is the background music/sounds. The explosions sound alright, but the music, which plays incessantly, is gruesome at best. It's a snappy tune, I guess, but it destroys your concentration. While you fly over this grim battlefield scene, dealing destruction to things, the music (which is loud) grinds on. And on. Always. You can turn it off--but then there is _no_ sound, except the explosions. There is no engine noise at all. This is a serious oversight. The A-10 has two turbofan engines each creating 9,000 lbs. of thrust--it is surreal at best to be in that beast and be flying in total silence. It doesn't work. Another _good_ thing about the flight simulation are the various views available to you. You have three cockpit views (front, left, right) and seven external views (sides, back, front), and two weapon views: the victim view, which keeps the target and the weapon in view until it hits; and the engagement view, which keeps the target and your plane in view. You can also call up a status screen which shows the weapons you have left, and the damage you have taken. Is your plane flying extremely sluggish after you overran those SAM launchers? You check the status screen, and sure enough, they blew your left engine off! But, being an A-10, you fly it home... They have to better than that to take down a 'Hog! The game comes with both 5.25 and 3.5 disks, and a good manual, which includes specification data on the A-10 and it's weapons, an overview of the enemy units you will face, and an interview with the technical advisor to the project, Major Chuck "Hollywood" Temple, USMCR. There is a card with the relevant loading and control keys laid out, including view keys, armament selection, etc. Very handy. Graphics: 9 Playability: 10 Complexity: 9 Sound: 3 Fun factor: 10 Overall score: 9 A-10 Tank Killer for the IBM PC and compatibles, by Sierra On-Line ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 17:51:30 -0600 From: Rav Tonsiengsom Subject: Genesis: Fire Shark Fire Shark is a vertically scrolling shooter in which you control a high-tech bi-plane with some really awesome firepower. You start out with three way regular shot fire. The object of the game is to blow through all ten levels of the game just to reach an ending in which they tell you to do it again. Supposedly there are 99 levels to this game though the backgrounds do repeat after ten levels. There are other power up that you can get besides the the basic threee way that comes standard. You can pick up "P"'s which will improve the strength of the weapon you are currently using. Other weapons include a green square, which will give you a green spiral laser, a red square, which will give you the awesome fire weapon, and a bomb power up which adds more bombs to you arsenal. You can also pick up 1-ups and 2-ups. The graphics in this game aren't really fabulous. Adequate is what I would callthem. There isn't that much detail to any of the enemies or backgrounds. I don't see any parallax scrolling as in most Genesis shooters and the bosses look like bosses found in Nintendo games. You definitely do not want to buy this game if all you care about are the graphics. They are only mediocre at best. The sound effects in this game were quite good. The sound of the laser and fire weapons were decent as well as the explosions. The music in this game has a lot of bass in it. It's not a bad musical score but it does seem like the music to every stage sounds the same after a while. Pretty good overall, but I don't make it a point to turn on the stereo as I do when I play Thunderforce III. The thing that saves this game is its playability. There are tons of things to blow away from APCs, tanks, AA-Guns, planes, battleships, cruisers, to submarines, missile launchers, and mobile fortresses. There's literally dozens of different enemies with different attack capabilities. Shoot to survive may be the basic theme of Fire Shark but if you want to rack up points you must collect "lightning bolt" icons that give you bonus points at the end of each round. This bonus total is multiplied by the number of bombs you have remaining. You may want to figure out how to beat the end of round bosses without the bombs if you want to beat you friend's point total. Thus some strategy involved in this game definitely adds to gameplay value. Fire-Shark is a good game for any type of game lover. People who love shooters should especially give it a look. However, be warned: most people either seem to totally LOVE this game or totally HATE it! My personal opinion is that it is a good game that is worth buying, but just barely. There are much better games coming out for the Sega in the future. If you have the money buy Fire Shark, but if you don't, save it for future games like Aero Blasters, Gaiares (especially Gaiares), MUSHA, Sonic the Hedgehog, or Galaxy Force. Graphics: 6 Music/Sound: 7 Playability/"Funness": 9 Overall: 7 Fire Shark, for the Sega Genesis, $49.99 ------------------------------ From: milton@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Milton W. Kuo) Subject: Genesis: Darius II The name says it all - Taito's shooting extravaganza is finally available for the Sega Mega Drive. Boasting 8 Mbits of code, Darius II features all 26 stages and multiple endings - just like the arcade version. Unfortunately, Taito's adaptation of Darius II for the Mega Drive just isn't what an 8 Mbit game should be - while the game is big with its 26 stages, the graphics and sound on Darius II are worse than many cartridges sporting only 4 Mbits of ROM. In brief, Darius II for the Mega Drive fails to live up to the high standards of graphics and sound set by it coin-op counterpart. Needless to say, this is probably the most disappointing cartridge I have bought to date. I should emphasize disappointing - Darius II is not the worst game I have ever bought, just the one that least lived up to my expectations. One of the most striking features of Darius in the arcades was the sharp graphics displayed over three screens. For its time, and even today, Darius features some of the best graphics ever on a coin-op machine. While the Mega Drive's graphics are definitely not up to the coin-op's standards, there is no excuse for the poorly defined, murky graphics found in this cartridge. Enemy ships are small and ill-defined while the big bosses do not move in any way other than the opening and closing of their mouths to shoot lasers at you. To make matters worse, Taito has done a terrible job in color selection. On some levels, it is very difficult to distinguish the background from the objects in the foreground. Another problem with Darius II for the Mega Drive is Taito's poor job in programming the sound. Taito's programmers failed to recognize a need for balancing the volume of the shooting noises with the background music. As a result, the background music is drowned out by the sound of shooting for almost the entire duration of the game. Couple this and the fact that some soundtracks seem to use only two channels of sound and you end up with a game that quickly grates on your eardrums. Again, a job that is at best mediocre is made worse by the fact that the original Darius had one of the best soundtracks ever. The excellence of the coin-op soundtrack just makes the Mega Drive version seem that much worse. Game play for Darius II is okay but nothing special - the typical destroy the enemy and retrieve the power up. Nonetheless, the game is pretty fun when you become fully powered up since you can really wreak havoc among the enemy. Furthermore, Darius II is a game that can stand up to multiple plays due to the fact that more than one path may be taken to reach one of the multiple endings. After finishing the game once, the game can be replayed, new levels may be explored, and a different ending can be reached thus enhancing Darius II's play value. This is arguably the strongest feature of Mega Drive Darius II. Overall though, Darius II is not a cartridge worth buying. Given the fact that it is an 8 Mbit cartridge, Darius II is going to be expensive (it has a list price of 8900 yen which is about $60). For the money, you'd be better off buying something else. Graphics : 7 (good in some areas, horrible in others) Sound : 6 (can't hear the music for the shooting noises!) Gameplay : 7 "Funness" : 7 Overall : 6 (this game wins my award for "Most Disappointing Mega Drive Game Of 1990") Darius II, for the Sega Mega Drive (the Genesis equivalent, in Japan) by Taito (Japan only), 8 Mbits (1 MB) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 01:19:47 -0600 From: milton@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Milton W. Kuo) Subject: Genesis: Crackdown Crackdown, based upon the Sega coin-op of the same name, is now available for the Sega Mega Drive and will eventually be made available for the Sega Genesis. Crackdown takes place in the 21st century where artificial lifeforms have been created. Unfortunately, the evil Mr. K now possesses the technology to manufacture his own artificial life systems and he intends on using them to conquer the world. The two main characters of the game, Ben and Andy, are government operatives assigned to destroy Mr. K's manufacturing facilities and put a stop to the megalomaniac's schemes. Crackdown is played from a top view much like Gauntlet. The players each have guns, rocket launchers, and super bombs. Guns are the standard weapon but more difficult enemies take more than one hit to kill. For the more difficult enemies, the rocket launcher may be used. The rocket launcher behaves like the gun except its shot is much more powerful. Finally, in times of dire need, the super bomb may be used to destroy all enemies and enemy fire on the screen. Throughout the course of the game, more bullets, rockets, and super bombs may be picked up. The goal of the game is to destroy Mr. K's empire by placing bombs in each of the levels (the game is divided into four levels each of which has four areas to be cleared). Once all bombs have been put into place by the players, they must then leave the area through the exit before the time bombs explode. While attempting to destroy Mr. K's stronghold, the heroes of the game are constantly assaulted by Mr. K's artificial creations. Upon reaching the fourth and final level, Ben and Andy must destroy Mr. K's headquarters and ultimately, Mr. K himself. Although the graphics on Crackdown are almost exactly like the coin-op version, that in itself proves to be the most troublesome facet of the game since objects are too small and quickly induce eyestrain. Nonetheless, if played sitting very close to the television screen, the enemy and the maps are just like the arcade version. Despite the minute graphics though, Crackdown displays an unusual amount of detail - enemies attack using different weapons and if one looks closely enough, the method of attack can be recognized. One of the things that made Crackdown so much fun in the arcades was the two player simultaneous play feature and this feature has been beautifully preserved on the Genesis. In the two player simultaneous mode, each player gets half of the screen showing his view of the map. While playing, players may choose to cooperate or compete in their quest to complete the game. Crackdown for the Genesis is made even more fun because like the arcade, it has the tendency to "rip-off" players who are doing too well by killing them in a mysterious manner. While frustrating in some ways, it makes finishing the game that much more satisfying. Overall, Crackdown is a pretty good game and anyone with an interest in the coin-op version or two player simultaneous play games will enjoy it immmensely. Crackdown's only real fault is its brevity - four levels of this addictive game isn't enough! Graphics : 6 (objects are too small and hard to see) Sound : 7 Gameplay : 8 "Funness" : 8 (two player simultaneous is really fun) Overall : 7 Crackdown, for the Sega Genesis, by Sega Enterprises, 4 Mbits. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 20:44:15 -0600 From: Rav Tonsiengsom Subject: Genesis: Musha Aleste The first vertical scrolling shooter on the Genesis to really impress me, Musha Aleste is as much a favorite with me as is Blazing Lazers (finally a vertical scroller for the Genesis as good as Blazing Lazers). There is a cinematic demo at the beginning of this game, but since I can't read Japanese I cannot give you the full details. What I can gather from the pictures and eventually solving this game, is that you are a part of a squadron of mecha sent to evict some pretty nasty aliens. However, the aliens are stronger than expected and manage to wipe out almost everyone in your squadron. As the only one left able to carry on the mission, you must fly your transformable robot (reminds me of an Alpha Veritech) through seven grueling stages of extremely INTENSE shooting action. The graphics in Musha Aleste are just as good as those found in Thunderforce III. The backgrounds scroll independently, the enemies are large and well defined, there is much use of the color palette, and even scaling in some areas! There is no noticeable flicker throughout the game, but on later levels there is so MUCH stuff being shot at YOU that the game slows down appreciably. Nevertheless, graphically, this is the best looking vertical scrolling shooter that I have seen for the Genesis/Mega Drive. Excellent music and sound effects make this great game even better. The sound effects are quite good from the firing of you main guns, to the sound your thrusters make. Explosions still aren't as thunderous as the ones in Blazing Lazers (the standard by which I judge all non CD-ROM sound effects and music) but they are very well done. The musical score on this cart is almost as good as Thunderforce III but just misses. I suppose the only difference is one's taste in music. Otherwise, all I'll say is that the music is just as intense as the game itself.... Speaking of intensity, Musha Aleste contains some of the most intense game play that anyone will ever try. The levels are quite long, even though the game moves at a very brisk pace. Even on the easy setting the game gets extremely hectic. On the normal and hard levels the enemy is very aggressive as literally TONS of ordinance is continually being shot at you. To help you, you can grab little capsules which give you "helpers". These surround your mech and can be configured in six different firing positions. You can accumulate helpers since they are not indestructable and can be destroyed. Various power ups are available in this game. They can be powered up in four steps for some really major firepower. The power ups are: electro-quark lasers, cluster bombs, and barrier. By powering up the cluster bombs all the way you can get the "black hole" weapon. By powering up the barrier to level 4, the barrier will also sling bolts of energy out as it rotates. You'll need all of this as some of the bosses and even the cannon fodder can be pretty nasty. A very fun, though not as challenging, a game as I first thought it would be, Musha Aleste is another one of those must get games for the Genesis. To get the most out of this cart novices should start on normal (really) and experts on hard. Experts will BLOW THROUGH this game on the easy level. The first time I played on normal I got to the end of level 4. The second time I got mid-way through the last level and the third time I played I put the thing on EASY and cruised right through to the closing credits. Great graphics, sound, music, and gameplay still hold my interest though and I still play this game a lot as I do Thunderforce III. It is not out in the States yet but you all won't have very long to wait. Graphics: 10 Music/Sound: 9 Playability: 8 Funness 8 Overall: 9 Musha Aleste for the Sega Genesis; to be called M.U.S.H.A (Metallic Uniframe Super Hybrid Armor) here in the States. Scheduled Feb '91 release date by Seismic. ------------------------------ From: leo@theory.lcs.mit.edu (John Leo) Subject: NES: StarTropics Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 10:47:36 -0500 StarTropics is an action role-playing game set in modern times. The story involves you trying to find your uncle who mysteriously disappeared. But for Kyoko Watanabe and myself, the real mystery was just who made the game. StarTropics has not only not come out in Japan--it hasn't even been mentioned as coming out in the future there. So maybe this was by some other company and just being released under Nintendo's name, something they often do in the US, but there was no indication of that. So maybe it was the first game by Nintendo of America...certainly some of the aspects of the game seemed more American, whereas others were more Japanese. We figured we'd find out in the ending credits, so we started playing. And this is a really good game. The game is one of the newer-style action RPGs (the first of this style I know of is Capcom's Gargoyle's Quest) in that the action and RPG aspects are separated for the most part. There are overhead scenes done in the typical Ultima/Dragon Warrior style where everything is sort of square-shaped and you visit towns, get information, and so forth. Unlike other games there is no combat possible in this mode, although there are mazes and so forth to explore. Also the game progresses linearly through a number of chapters, each with a mini-story which is nice. The "story" aspect of the game is good, but certainly not outstanding. I won't say how many chapters there are in the game, since part of the fun is that the game is a whole lot longer than you might expect. It took us several weeks to make it to the end, playing an average of a few hours each day. Then there are the action scenes which are from a slanted overhead perspective. You start out with a yo-yo as a weapon and this gets powered-up at a couple locations; there are also special weapons and items to be found. The action scenes owe a lot to Zelda and those who have played Zelda will recognize quite a few borrowings from that game. One big difference is that you can jump in this game, and jumping is a big part of the action. It's a bit hard to describe since it's rather unique. Overall there are quite a lot of new features, interesting enemies, and so forth in the game. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that there is a strong puzzle aspect as well. There are a lot of areas which are almost impossible to get through by force. The puzzles are quite good and fit in with the game well, and the game gives enough hints and has a very good learning curve, typical of Nintendo. And overall there is a freshness to it, and a sort of magic, again Nintendo-rashii. Yet there is one major failing of the game which really made us wonder if Nintendo had done it. One of Nintendo's greatest strengths is that the play control and "feel" of its games are typically excellent. One reason we keep coming back to play Zelda again and again is because it just feels so good to move Link around. Unfortunately the play control of StarTropics is pretty bad--on par with many other companies (it reminded us a bit of Sega's Sword of Vermillion) but very low by Nintendo standards. There are many times when it's tough to turn your character, tough to get moving, and then tough to stop moving. We got used to it to a certain extent, but it was annoying throughout. With much better play control this could be a truly classic game, but as it is the game is just "really good." StarTropics is a very tough game. I can see a lot of people getting frustrated and giving up, and certainly we took long breaks during some parts. Another Nintendo-like aspect is that they make it seem very hard, and when you think that's hard enough they add something on top of that to make it seem almost impossible. But everything is ultimately quite beatable in the game, and if you are at a place that really does seem impossible you are probably missing something. I lost count of the number of times I shouted at the game that I hated it, then thought it was great when I figured out what to do. Playability overall is very good. The game is automatically saved at the end of the action scenes and there are intermediate points in action scenes that you can start from when you die as long as you don't run out of lives. Still, there are a lot of spots where it can be tough if you miss something or don't try something special out; I can see a lot of people calling the game counselors for this game. There are a number of interesting minor features. StarTropics is apparently the first game to use the MMC6 chip; Nintendo Power had an article on their chips but it only went up to MMC5 so I don't know what features this one has. Apparently like MMC5 you don't have to hold down reset when you turn the game off, although by habit we did that anyway. You don't ever explicitly save the game; instead the game does that automatically. The graphics are good but not outstanding; we didn't much like the detailed stills of major characters but the monsters and so forth in the actions scenes were well done, the colors are good, and there are some very nice special effects and surprises. Aside from the rulebook the game comes with a letter from your uncle, along with a number of warnings not to damage the letter (they decided to glue it to the book, though, and I do recommend separating the two). If you end up losing or damaging the letter you are going to be in big trouble, but it's a neat surprise when you find out how it is used in the game. Another nice feature is a review mode which allows you to go over the last chapter you've completed, to review clues and maybe play the action scenes again. We actually didn't need to use this although we tried it once. You can save up to three games so when I got stuck near the end I started playing from the beginning again and the game is as expected a lot of fun the second time too. Definitely one you can play many times, and the early stages are still challenging. Once you make it to the ending the game saves itself so that you can just watch the ending over and over if you like, and the ending itself is very long and pretty good--in some ways standard but there are some nice touches, such as a series of stills showing various highlights from the game, done in a very differnent style from the action scenes themselves. And yes there are credits, and we found out the game was done by Nintendo, in fact essentially the same team that did "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!", one of my favorite games. This game isn't up to that one, but any new Nintendo game is a cause for celebration, and here's a Japanese game we get to play before they do. Originally Kyoko gave this 5 points out of 10, then by the end raised it's marks to 7. I started at 6, went to 7 for a while, and have settled on 7.5. If the play control were better I'd give it an extra 2 points; feel is very important to me. Still the game was so good I didn't mind that much, and although I can't recommend it unconditionally I would say that if you don't mind somewhat poor play control and are looking for a fresh, interesting and very fun game I recommend this one. I paid about $40 and feel StarTropics is well worth it. Especially now when essentially no other good games are coming out for any system this is one to get and enjoy. StarTropics, for the Nintendo Entertainment System, by Nintendo. ------------------------------ From: c162-hx@danube.berkeley.edu (Teh Kao Yang) Subject: NES: Zanac Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 11:01:58 PST Zanac is not only the best shooter, in my opinion, for the Nintendo, but probably one of the best shooters ever created. The game was written by Compile, who also wrote Blazing Lasers for the TG-16 and Musha Aleste for the Genesis. The other two games are also arguably the best shooters for their corresponding systems. Basically Zanac is a vertical scrolling shooter with stages and "boss enemies" in between and at the end of each stage. But Zanac is so much more than your ordinary shooter. There are so many great things and original ideas in this game. You can obtain an amazing number of different weapons. Your ship is armed in the beginning with just missiles. You can upgrade your single missle shots to triple missiles. There are 8 other different weapons you can obtain. Each one of them is unique and effective in their own way. One is a shield that protects your ship. Another is a smart bomb which destroys everything on the screen. Another is an awesome machine-gun- type blaster. Each weapon can be powered-up to higher levels by grabbing the same weapon consecutive times. For example a guided bomb can be upgraded to a double-bomb and ultimately into a devastating laser weapon. Each weapon is also limited either by amount of shots or by a timer. The scrolling in this game is amazingly fast and smooth. Each scene has its own unique background scenery which scrolls at different speeds. Some scenes scroll so fast its comparable of intense 16 bit shooters like ThunderForce 2 for the Genesis. The sound in this game is great too. The introductory music and the ones in the game itself are all catchy, exciting tunes. The sound effects are great as well. There is a bewildering variety of enemies. Each require different ways to destroy and defend against. My favorite is the fat saucer which drops a continuous stream of missiles at you. The boss enemies are all basically ground installations which don't move but have a lot of different parts to destroy. They also shoot at you A LOT. The boss enemies shoot so much that often the screen is completely full of bullets. Amazingly there is no slowdown or flicker at all, even when there are dozens of thing on the screen at once. There are 10+ stages in the game. There is a continue feature plus a secret level select feature. So it'll help keep you interested for a long time. This game is a must have for any Nintendo or shooter fan. It's an utterly original and exhilirating game to play. Amazingly this game was released I think in '87. or '86. It's pretty old but since then there hasn't been a game released that even comes close to Zanac. One problem is that it may be a bit hard to find. You could probably get it for around $20 from any good NES mail order place. Graphics: 10 Gameplay: 10 Music: 10 Addictiveness: 10 Overall: 10+ Zanac, for the Nintendo Entertainment System, by Compile, $20.00 ------------------------------ From: Jay Vosburgh Subject: NES: The Immortal Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 13:55:48 PST "The Immortal" is, quite honestly, the first game I've ever wanted to smash into little pieces with a hammer. The plot for this game isn't too unusual: A single character must work his way into the depths of a dungeon to rescue somebody, who is incidently being help captive by a dragon. The implementation this fairly standard sounding plot is very unusual, however, in many good and one extremely bad way. On the good side, "The Immortal" has a lot going for it. It's got just about the best manual I've seen, except maybe for Final Fantasy. It's got good graphics, especially considering how small everything ends up being. The animation is excellent. The dungeon you must explore appears to be immense, with plenty of interesting things to do, items to find and characters to meet, not all of whom exist merely to be killed. I don't recall if there was any music at all (which can be viewed as both good and bad), but the various sound effects were well done, and certainly didn't detract any from the game. Combat is reasonably well done. When you encounter a foe, the game switches to a closeup view of the two of you, with scales for damage and fatigue. You must dodge in the proper direction to avoid being hit by the other guy, and attack in the right direction to overcome the other's dodge. The more you attack, the higher your fatigue goes. The more fatigue you have, the slower your attacks get. Dodging never slows down, and the manual recommends that you dodge until the other guy gets tired and then beat up on him while he's too tired to fight back. That sounds good in theory, but dodging is fairly difficult to get right consistently, so we generally just beat on the other guy as fast as we can. You don't slow down too much until your fatigue gets fairly high, so this worked pretty well early on. In the second level of the dungeon, though, it rapidly got us pummelled into submission. The number of items is pretty large. In just the first two levels, we found around 14 different things (one of which you can buy from a merchant, who lowers his price if you keep pestering him). Collecting items is necessary to solving the game, since it appears that you must do something special on each level to get to the next level. For example, on the first level (the only one we finished), you must find an amulet and use it a special way to open a secret trapdoor. The manual includes an excellent walkthrough of the first level, and has a "notebook left by your master" as well, filled with hints about the deeper levels. After you complete each level, you're given a password (ours was about 14 characters long). You get unlimited continues from the beginning of the last level you completed, but you must finish each level with only 3 lives. The dungeon itself is very well detailed, with lots of traps and assorted whatnot scattered about. There are sections of floor (in the room you begin the game in, as a matter of fact) where nicely animated worms pop up and eat you. There are pink cannon things mounted on the walls that fire at random intervals. My favorite, however, are the "flame jets," which are scattered around. These are little dots on the floor, that occasionally shoot out a burst of fire. If you're too near when that happens, or you're foolish enough to step on the dot at any time, they fry you dead. There are also black (and incredibly hard to see) bats flying around, they run into you repeatedly and damage you. There are pretty much two categories of obstacles: those that do a point of damage, and those that kill you outright. The ratio between the two types is about 50-50, with the predictable result. Now, lest you be deceived by all that praise, let me tell you about the bad part. The game is done in 3/4 perspective (you know, like Zaxxon), and it's damn near impossible to control the main character with any degree of precision. If you push "up" on the controller, the character moves "up" on the screen, which is generally diagonally across the room you're in. Since there are very few areas where you want to move diagonally, it's usually very difficult to move with any precision "in parallel" to the action, since you tend to veer one way or ther other if you don't hit the joystick just right. Plus, you move pretty fast in a relatively small and crowded area, full of "flame jets" and other assorted things to run into or step on. You do get a fireball shooter to blast things (like the bats), but your target is generally moving parallel to the walls, and that's the direction you can't aim in easily. If you do try to aim at them, you start walking and run into something nasty that kills you, like the "flame jets." The difficulty involved in just moving the character without dying is so bad that we only played the game for a total of maybe two hours. I would've liked to play more (since everything else is so wonderful), but I was getting very tense and frustrated, and I got the game to relax and have fun with. In summary: A truly well designed and thought out dungeon exploration game, horribly scarred by abysmal character controls. If you can deal with the controls, then you've got a real winner on your hands, but they just drove me up the wall. I found it to be the single most frustrating game I've ever played, entirely due to the difficulty with the controls. I'd say rent it as the "one" on a "two for one" coupon at your local video store. Graphics: 8 (good, but small) Animation: 10 (let a worm get you once, just to see it) Sound: 5 (not fantastic, but not bad, either) Playability: 1 (if you can deal with it, good; I couldn't) Overall: 3 (A 9 if the controls were as good as the rest) "The Immortal," for the Nintendo Entertainment System, by Electronic Arts ------------------------------------- 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 *********************