Received: from uucp-gw-1.pa.dec.com by s.ms.uky.edu id aa05229; 15 Jan 92 22:44 GMT Received: by uucp-gw-1.pa.dec.com; id AA23352; Wed, 15 Jan 92 14:35:55 -0800 Received: by limbo; Wed, 15 Jan 92 14:29:14 pst Date: Wed, 15 Jan 92 14:29:14 pst Message-Id: <9201152229.AA06370@limbo.intuitive.com> From: Info-Source To: abbott@ms.uky.edu Subject: Re: Your Request For Information X-Mailer: The Info-Source System (send Digital.Games/Digests/Digest.27) Digital Games Review Digest, Number 27 Friday, June 21st 1991 Today's Topics: Genesis: Elemental Master Amiga: Monopoly PC: Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. SimEarth Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers get all the girls ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 May 91 20:04:47 -0500 From: milton@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Milton W. Kuo) Subject: Genesis: Elemental Master Elemental Master is Tecno Soft's fourth software title for the Mega Drive (previous efforts include Thunder Force II, Thunder Force III, and Herzog Zwei) and contrary to what some magazines say, it is not the se- quel to Thunder Force III. Rather, Elemental Master is an altogether different type of shooting game which revolves around a theme of fantasy and magic unlike the Thunder Force series which are outer space shooting games. In fact, Tecno Soft labels Elemental Master as a fantasy-action shooting game. The sounds and background music in Elemental Master are outstanding and stand as an example to all other game manufacturers as to how sound should be done on the Mega Drive (take notes, Taito :-) Tecno Soft's musical staff is to be commended for consistently composing the best background music for Mega Drive games and with Elemental Master, they have really outdone themselves. Even though there are a few songs that I do not really like, the other remaining songs are among my all-time favorites for Mega Drive. Graphics, while good, are not up to Tecno Soft's usually high stan- dards. One of the first things I noticed about this game is the sparse use of additional backgrounds to achieve an illusion of depth. After seeing Thunder Force III, I expected even better graphics from Tecno Soft's future releases and Elemental Master did not deliver on that hope. However, the monsters in Elemental Master are well animated and they do move fluidly although their small size does not make it readily apparent. Elemental Master's graphics are straight forward -- there are no special effects like scaling, rotation, line scrolling, or whatever other tricks the Mega Drive can do. For this reason, I feel that Ele- mental Master's graphics were only slightly above average for a Mega Drive game (which is still good). However, despite the great sound and good graphics, this game falls short of what one normally expects from Tecno Soft. The pacing is poor and the latter stages of the game definitely show a lack of originality. For example, on the final level you have to fight every boss over again. It seems like many new games coming out nowadays decides to have a level where every boss makes one final appearance. This, in my opinion, is a game maker's attempt to lengthen out what would be a short game. Poor pacing aside, the game play for the most part is quite good although some getting used to is required since two buttons are used for firing. One button is used to shoot forwards while another is used to shoot backwards. Furthermore, each press of the button will result in a salvo of bullets and continuous fire will require continuous pressing of the fire buttons. Those with auto-fire joysticks will find that auto- fire is not very helpful in this game since each of the weapons can be powered up by holding down a fire button. Powering up of weapons is ab- solutely necessary to finish this game so the unusual method of shooting could cause troubles at first. Overall, Elemental Master is a fairly interesting game but with so many other shooting games for the Mega Drive, it fails to stand out as an exceptional game. Severe shortcomings in its originality and game play detract from what would otherwise be a pretty good game. Further- more, the graphics are not truly exceptional. All of these factors contribute to making this game less fun than it could have been. Graphics : 7 (sparse use of multiple backgrounds) Sound : 8 (excellent background music) Gameplay : 7 (pacing of the game is too slow) "Funness" : 7 (too short and poor pacing) Originality : 6 (not very original at all) Difficulty : 3 (an average game in terms of difficulty) Overall : 7 (definitely not Tecno Soft's best) Elemental Master, from Tecno Soft, 4 Mbits (512K) for the Sega Mega Drive (available in Japan only, at this time) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 May 91 07:48:59 EDT From: hoffmann@ssd.Kodak.Com (Marty Hoffmann) Subject: Amiga: Monopoly Many of us who grew up before every home had a computer or a game machine (hey, I'm only 28) can appreciate why Monopoly was and is the best selling board game of all time. Today, for those who don't like having to roll dice for themselves or can't find someone with whom to play, Virgin Mastertronic has produced a quite playable version of Monopoly for the following systems: Amiga, Atari ST, IBM, Commodore 64, and Tandy 1000. The game is distributed under the Leisure Genius label, and I would not be surprised to see versions for NES and other game machines (if they don't already exist). [They do! -ed] I recently purchased the Amiga version for $24.95 (list price $39.95). It is hard disk installable and there is no form of copy protection. The game locks you out of the operating system while you are playing, but background processes appear to multitask (something very important to some Amiga game players). Monopoly (the computer version) has good graphics and sounds (for a board game) and allows up to 8 players to play at once, with any or all of these players being computer or human. The program supports both "long" and "short" games. Short games begin with some properties dealt to players at random and a fixed time limit (set by the human players in hours and minutes). The game is supposed to play by tournament rules (I've never played in a tournament), and plays by the rules I've always played by, with the following exceptions: - Properties not purchased are immediately auctioned off - Being in jail does not stop you from building houses, collecting rent, etc. - You can build houses, mortgage properties, etc. at any point in the game -- as opposed to waiting for the start of your turn. The games strongest feature is also one of it's weakest -- the ability to make deals with other players. This feature, required in any real Monopoly game, has alot of problems: - When the computer wants to trade, it will offer the trade constantly -- between every menu selection and every move. This really slows down the game. - The number of times a trade is offered would not be so bad, if the trades were fair. In my opinion, most of the trades are not very good. In fact, if you reject a trade offer, the next offer is often worse that the previous. - If you wish to offer a trade in lieu of paying rent, you must offer the trade, and then the player being offered the trade decides whether the trade is in lieu of rent. For example, you land on Boardwalk and owe $1000. You offer all four railroads and $200. The computer says (in effect) "Thank you very much -- property transferred -- now where's that $1000 rent you owe." The computer really believes that the trades it offers are fair. You can usually use this to your advantage by "reversing" the trade -- offering it a deal similar to the deal it just offered you. Overall, the computer is not very good at managing its money. It often buys houses, only to turn around and sell them immediately when it can't make some payment. When mortgaging properties, the computer will always start with the lowest valued property first. Then, if it ends up with a surplus of cash after mortgaging the properties to pay a debt, it may buy back one of the properties it just mortgaged. The user interface is not very Amiga like (menu selections with the left button, etc.) and shows obvious signs of being a direct port from some other platform. Graphics updates are slower than one would expect, and the computer is slow to surrender the dice, even when there is nothing more it can do. Despite all of its flaws, I find myself playing this version of Monopoly over and over again (maybe its because I can't find any humans to play against). If you like Monopoly and have alot of patience, you probably won't regret buying this game. Graphics: 9 (for a board game) Sound: 9 (ditto) Playability: 8 Shelf Life: 9 (how long before I get bored with it) Monopoly (by Virgin Mastertronic), for the Amiga, Atari ST, IBM, and C64. ------------------------------ From: "Kamikaze" Andy Phang Subject: PC: Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. Date: Mon, 27 May 1991. Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers is Sierra's latest game using the new "graphics and sound" interface. One of the reasons I bought this game was because I had enjoyed Space Quest III immensely, and thus had high hopes for the latest Roger Wilco adventure. After finishing the game in a day (which must mean something, but I wonder what?), I was left with mixed emotions about the game, and the new direction Sierra adventures seem to be taking. First, the plot. After your success in rescuing those Two Guys from Andromeda in SQIII, you decide to drop in and spend some time at the local intergalactic bar before returning to your homeworld of Xenon. However, evil is afoot once again, as the vile Sludge Vohaul (he of Space Quest II) commands his minions to seek out and capture our poor hero. By the time the Sequel Police (that's the name of Vohaul's henchmen) arrive at the bar, Roger has downed his tenth Sirius Screwdriver and is in no position to put up a fight. Meekly he follows them out of the bar, only to be rescued by a mysterious figure (someone who will play an important role in Roger's future life). Once clear of the baddies, our hero's rescuer opens a time portal and sends Roger off into a multicolored time-travelling quest. Emerging in the world of Space Quest XII (which is (will be?) set in a Xenon of the future), Roger finds his homeworld to be a complete dump. Vohaul's forces have taken control of the galaxy and reduced it to utter ruin. As Roger explores the deserted city, he runs into a mutated cyborg (avoid at all costs!) and a slightly familiar pink bunny beating a drum. Aha! Pink bunnies with drums mean that there has got to be something powering that bunny, and if Roger is quick with a piece of rope, he might be able to get that power source. After picking up a laptop terminal that just happens to be hidden inside a thrashed hovercar, it's time to explore the sewers and find out just what has happened to Xenon. Space Quest IV is the second Sierra game to use the completely mouse-driven "point and click" interface (well, Ok, you can use the keyboard if you want to, but only to select icons, not type in commands). As such, the immediate bonus of this is that the game is very easy to get into, especially for novices. If you want to look at an object on the screen, just click on the "Eye" icon (aye-aye icon?) and click on the desired object. Similarly, click on the "Take" icon to pick up objects, and click on the "Use" icon to perform some sort of action with the screen. No more type-in parsers (which, in the case of Sierra games, is something of a godsend since their previous text parsers fell well short of Infocom's magnificient ZIL parser). The only problem is this: with the system being "object orientated", so then are the puzzles. Every problem in the game (with the exception of those dreaded arcade sequences) must be solved by using a relevant object. Now, there might be some out there who would argue that most of the adventures in the market are the same. Not so (well, not to such a degree anyway). Lucasfilm adventures allow for some form of interaction with the characters onscreen (Monkey Island, for example). Perhaps if Sierra had made the puzzles tougher, or more varied. In one situation, Roger faces a Sea Monster (this is in the Space Quest X world) and the only object that he can pick up is an oxygen tank. I don't think I need to say any more on how to defeat the monster. An alternate method of extending the game would be to put MORE puzzles in the game. In one sequence, Roger travels back to the Space Quest I world only to pick up a pack of matches, and then return to the Space Quest XII world. Nothing else. A couple of related puzzles in the Space Quest I world (perhaps linked to your previous adventures at that particular scene a few Space Quests back?) would have enlivened the game. On to the technical side of things, and it is here that the game excels. Sierra has made brilliant use of 256-color VGA graphics, with beautifully drawn (and animated) scenes. In some cases, smoothly scrolling graphics are employed, further enhancing the reputation of the Coarsegold company as an innovator in computer games design. From the look of horror on Roger's face as he is caught in the claws of a giant bird of prey, to the picture of the robot salesthing in the Dandy Electronic store, Sierra has simply outdone itself. Some of the visual jokes that abound throughout the game (and there are lots of these!) would not have the same impact in a lower graphics mode. In the Space Quest I world, for example, the 256-color bitmapped Roger Wilco is drawn against the background of the "primitive" original Space Quest I graphics, providing for a great contrast (and some very funny sequences in the Bar). If not for the price, I would say that Space Quest IV is a worthy buy despite its gameplay faults, just because of the superb graphics. Note that there are two versions of Space Quest IV out because of the graphics: the 256-color VGA ONLY version (in both disk sizes), and a 16-color EGA/VGA version. Equally brilliant is the music, not just for its quality but for its careful and clever use in the game. Strains of a rock melody can be heard as you enter the Galaxy Galleria Mall, for example, but once you get closer to the source of the music (the Roll-a-Rama Zero-G skating area) the volume and intensity suddenly explodes into a real feast for the ears. The choice and tone of the music, from the whimsical Astro Chicken tune to the enthralling title tune, proves Sierra's music department has matched the standards set by the graphics department. Sound effects are similarly impressive, with many digitized sounds and, in one instance, digitized speech. Of course, the humble IBM-PC owner will require a soundcard to hear both music and sound, and as you probably know, the Roland soundboard provides the superior music while the CMS soundblaster has the edge in sound and speech. The best news for those who own both cards is that Sierra has included a sound driver to use the Roland and the Soundblaster simultaneously. The former is used exclusively for the music, and the latter card for the sound effects (and speech, which owners of Roland-only cards would miss out on). Those Two Guys From Andromeda have injected Space Quest IV with another redeeming feature, that being their zany (and often hilarious) humor. Explore the software bin in the Galaxy Galleria Mall's Software store for some extremely funny (and accurate!) descriptions of bargain basement games. It lampoons everything from SimCity to the King's Quest series, and my personal favorite, a simply poetic description of Lucasfilm's LOOM. Have a peek at the Space Quest IV HintBook (the software version you will find somewhere in the game) for even more laughs. Then of course, you can fool around with the various icons (depending on how warped your mind is)... One aspect of Sierra games that is almost universally abhorred by the adventure gaming community is the inclusion of those pesky arcade sections. In Space Quest IV there are two, one of which is non-essential. This is the Astro Chicken arcade game, which has no relevance to the plotline whatsoever. A running joke that has become worn out, perhaps? The second arcade sequence is set in the Monolith Burger bar, where you must keep dishing out hamburger ingredients in order to make some cash. You can also bypass this sequence completely and get the cash (but miss out on some points), or if you're game, you can give it a go. One tip for successfully completing this subgame: set the speed level to its absolute minimum, and set the detail level to the absolute maximum. Besides the many game disks (7 Hi-density floppies), the Space Quest IV box also contains the usual Sierra manual (updated to deal with the new interface) and a "Space Piston" magazine that, funnily enough, lacks some of the humor of the game. It does serve as copy protection though, so I suppose you could (if you're really twisted) consider that to be funny. No on-disk copy protection, and hard-disk installable (a necessity!!). Overall, Space Quest IV is a triumph in some parts, and (for want of a better word), a tragedy in others. The graphics and sound of the new Sierra games undoubtedly leave the rest of the competition far behind, but the lack of puzzles in quality and quantity will bring the seasoned adventurer back to earth. Beginning adventurers will, I think, enjoy the game because it can be completed without any major obstacles, and this will hopefully foster the "adventuring spirit" within them. For the experienced adventure gamesplayer, it's advisable to follow the old adage and "try before you buy." Graphics: 10 Sound/Music: 10 Gameplay: 5 Ease of Use: 8 Fun Factor: 8 (improved with the humor of the game!) Documentation: 6 Overall: 7 Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers, from Sierra-on-line, 1991 for IBM-PC (286 and 12Mhz or higher recommended), seperate EGA and VGA versions, all major soundboards supported. Amiga version due soon. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 May 91 17:27 EDT Subject: PC: SimEarth From: rmg3@psuvm.psu.edu (Bob Grumbine) The Premise The idea behind SimEarth is to simulate the evolution, both physical and biological, of a planet. Your role is to play god, j.g. to steer the evolution of your planet to a status you like. The game provides a wide variety of specific tools to help you reach your ends, such as volcanoes to produce land and warm the planet. The game also provides system models which let you rearrange the planetary system's basic operation. You can, for example, decrease the strength of the greenhouse effect on your planet. SimEarth has two parts then -- then game of trying to reach your goals, and the simulation of planetary evolution occurring around that goal. SimEarth succeeds well as a game, and passably as a simulation. The game comes in both black+white and color versions (for both the Mac and IBM). I tried out both on my system (Mac IIx with 13" Apple High Resolution color monitor, system 6.0.5). In SimCity, also by Maxis, the black and white version of the game is as easy to play as the color, perhaps a little easier. This is not the case for SimEarth. I found it almost impossible to read some of the information in the black and white version. A friend who has played only the black and white version has no such problem. If you have a black and white screen, I strongly recommend you try the game before buying it. My copy was $40 from MacConnection; Maxis lists it for $69.95 in their catalog. The Play SimEarth passed my basic test of a new program -- I was able to play a satisfactory game without ever reading the manuals. This is all the more significant since the main SimEarth manual is about 200 pages long. The quick start manual is only 8 pages. You should be able to get started fairly speedily. At the start of the game you select the planet (random, present day earth, mars, or venus for example) and then the time period or time scale (prior to multicellular life, land invasion, civilization, industrial revolution, and 'exodus'). The different time scales allow you to see planetary behavior at different stages of evolution. Different things are important in the different scales. During the post-industrial revolution period, for instance, continental drift will be unimportant, while during the early periods continental drift is quite important. SimEarth includes several windows of information and tools to assist you in reaching your goals. SimEarth includes its own goals for you, but you are free to ignore them. From the map window you can get the big picture. You can get displays for geologic/ geographic, oceanic, atmospheric, and biological information by selecting the appropriate button at the bottom of the map. These displays are very helpful in telling you how your planet is progressing. Should you decide that things aren't progressing rapidly enough you can switch to the Edit window and start tampering with the planet. The tools are all fairly obvious. Selecting a fish in the placement palette lets you put a fish down wherever you click on the map. (Fish out of water if you like. They don't live long that way though.) Tools that represent elements from a more advanced stage, such as cities when you have yet to evolve a sentient species, come back with a beep and give you the message that you can't do that yet. You also have a 'disasters' palette -- volcanoes, meteors, plagues, and more are at your disposal. Not all these disasters are truly disastrous, by the way. Volcanoes are a handy way to raise the sea floor (fish and such prefer shallow waters) and warm the planet. It can also be interesting to see what happens when you drop a nuclear weapon on a nanotech city. A lot of information can be displayed in the editing window, at times more than you would like (or perhaps the wrong type of information). SimEarth addresses this by letting you have some control over the information displays. Having said all this about how you can interfere with or control your planet's evolution, I'll add that often it is best to keep your hands off the controls. My typical game lasts a couple hours. That is a long time to just sit and watch the screen intently. A feature of the game is its 'tone monitor' option. You can select an important parameter, like atmospheric temperature, and the game will beep periodically. The pitch of the beep gives you the temperature. High pitches mean high temperatures. With this option enabled, you can do something else while keeping an ear out for notable changes. Noteable changes, namely the evolution of new species or technological advance, are signalled by their own song and picture. As with the tones, the songs seems to have been digitized from someone playing a recorder (straight wood flute). The Reviewer Here I'll break the cardinal rule of reviewing that the reviewer should be heard and not seen. SimEarth does attempt to simulate the planetary system, which makes this fair game for judging it in addition to the play. Simulating the planetary system is what I do for my living. My work has been in oceanography and meteorology so far. During graduate school I was in a department that resulted from the fusion of the meteorology, geology, and paleontology departments, which gives me some background in all the major scientific models in SimEarth. The Simulation The great strength of the SimEarth simulations is that it lets the elements interact extensively. A rising mountain range grows jungle and forest on the upwind side, which increases the biomass, which draws carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, which cools the planet, which kills off some other life, which puts carbon dioxide back in to the atmosphere, which ... You get the idea. Everything affects everything (almost). This is one of the rules which has been beaten in to my head about my research. SimEarth does an admirable job of having each relation act in the right direction. SimEarth is also the only program I know of, including research programs, which simultaneously models the oceans, atmosphere, geosphere, biosphere, and civilization. There are good reasons why researchers haven't (to my knowledge) done this, but SimEarth earns many brownie points for doing it at all. The inclusion of the interactions is sufficient to make up for the shortcomings of the individual elements. The Gaia hypothesis is built in to the SimEarth simulations. The Gaia hypothesis has been advanced, largely, by James Lovelock. He suggests that the climate of the Earth is regulated by life on Earth so as to make the world comfortable for living things. The hypothesis is still controversial. This actually means two things, one is that many scientists don't believe it is correct. The other is that if it isn't correct, it isn't so badly incorrect as to be proven wrong easily. One of his early demonstrations of how this can work, Daiseyworld, is included in SimEarth. The presentation is a lot prettier here than in the original scientific journal. SimEarth at least makes no major errors by incorporating the Gaia hypothesis. The ocean portion of the model is another matter. The oceans in the model have two major failings. One is that the currents are wrong. There are two major types of current systems in the ocean -- those on the western sides of ocean basins (the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio for example) which are very strong currents directed towards the poles, and the equatorial currents, which race along (near) the equator. The rest of the ocean has very weak currents on average. In SimEarth the western boundary currents aren't represented as being stronger than elsewhere, though they generally go in the right direction. The equatorial currents in SimEarth point almost randomly, something seldom seen in a real ocean. The ocean temperature field is also problematic. This builds on the problems with the flow system. A major reason that Europe is warm is that the continuation of the Gulf Stream carries warm water to northern european coasts as far as northern Norway. SimEarth misses this, and effectively has ocean temperatures which simply mimic the atmospheric temperature. Such things are also done by people using Crays for research, and I complain harder then. There are simple things which could be done to improve both the ocean currents and temperatures. The atmospheric temperatures are generally better. The warm belt migrates reasonably with the seasons. One thing you can adjust is your planet's tilt. No tilt = no seasons. The polar temperatures in SimEarth are too warm; SimEarth Antarctica is warm enough to have forests in the present day. This is a failing shared, to a lesser degree, by the research models, so SimEarth can't be taken to task for it. The temperature also depends on altitude, but it appears only about half as strongly as in the real world. On the whole, atmospheric temperature is fairly well done. Atmospheric circulation is less well represented. One of the major features of the atmospheric circulation is the trade wind system -- winds which blow towards the southwest between about 30 N and the equator, and towards the northeast from 30 to 60 N on the earth. They are mirrored in the southern hemisphere. The SimEarth winds are much more chaotic than typical real-world climatic winds, and often do not reproduce the basic trade wind pattern. The general trade wind pattern is not a special feature of the present-day earth. It would occur on even a landless planet. Actually it would be even more obvious there. The landless simulation in SimEarth does come closer to having a trade wind system, so it appears that some of the fundamentals have been incorporated. Once life makes it onto land (one option is to start your simulation with the formation of the planet.) you will be very concerned about the rainfall distribution. On the earth, for reasons related to the trade wind pattern, there are relative maxima in rainfall near the equator and around 45 degrees N or S. The equatorial maximum is very narrow, but extremely intense. The mid-latitude maxima are broader and not as intense. Between these two maxima, around 30 N or S, are minima in precipitation and quite often deserts (Sahara, Gobi, Australian, and the American Southwest). The SimEarth basic rainfall pattern has only the equatorial maximum and makes it very broad. The SimEarth midlatitudes are generally overly dry, while the equatorial rainforest is usually too large. The subtropical deserts are usually missing in SimEarth. The real land distribution affects rainfall as well. Continental interiors are generally drier than coastal regions, and the upwind side of mountain ranges are wetter than the downwind side. The upwind effect is responsible for the Pacific Northwest rainforest. SimEarth includes both effects, though I haven't been able to decide how. Sometimes interior deserts practically take over the continents, sometimes continental interiors are swamps. The midwestern US has a tendency to turn in to a swamp in SimEarth. Mountain rainfall seems to be treated better, there are big increases in rainfall on the upwind side, though the downwind drying is usually hard to find. Speaking of mountains, one of your options is to directly lift the surface, handy when you want to water a specific region. The subtler method is to juggle the rate of continental drift. SimEarth breaks your planetary surface into tectonic plates. When they collide you get earthquakes (capable of levelling cities) and mountain ranges (on the longer time scale). SimEarth also seems to have its volcanic activity sited preferentially where plates are colliding, as is usual on the earth. SimEarth volcanoes are extremely powerful. A single SimEarth volcano raises peaks about 30,000 feet high and affects an area about the size of Australia. This is extreme even after allowing the SimEarth volcanoes to be at work for a long time. Hawaii represents the tops of volcanoes which do indeed reach 30,000 feet from their base, but the area involved is quite small. SimEarth erosion, on the other hand, is fairly weak. While it is fairly uncommon on the earth to have rapid spatial changes of thousands of feet in area average elevation, SimEarth frequently allows this. On the whole, perhaps reflecting my relative ignorance, the geological model seems fairly good. Our last scientific model in SimEarth is the biological model. Critters are allowed to reproduce, mutate, and advance evolutionarily. They also affect the cycling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The critter to carbon dioxide link seems to be the way in which the game allows Gaia to work. Critter population changes so as to keep the carbon dioxide level somewhere comfortable while the sun evolves. The older the sun gets, the more solar input there is, and the less carbon dioxide you want in the atmosphere. These elements seem generally reasonable. One problem is that evolution sometimes proceeds amazingly quickly. The evolution from single celled organisms to reptiles once took only 50 years! SimEarth insects appear to be pretty feeble. On the earth they are one of the toughest types of animal; practically anywhere you find land life you find insects, much to our dismay. SimEarth insects on the other hand keep going extinct. I've had to work extremely hard to keep any insects around on my planets. Mammals are darn hard to get rid of on the other hand. The toughness of the two types is hard to assess in an absolute sense, since it appears that much of the present day situation has been arrived at chancily. To the extent that I understand my paleontologist friends, though, mammals should become extinct more easily than insects. This is a small point unless you really like insects. Summary SimEarth attempts both to be fun to play, and a reasonable simulation of planetary system evolution. It succeeds well at the play, being easy to understand but challenging to control. The planetary simulation succeeds less well, but largely due to the difficulty of the goal. The game is almost certainly worth your time and money. SimEarth by Maxis, distributed by Broderbund ------------------------------ From: "Kamikaze" Andy Phang (phang_s@dropbear.cs.uwa.oz.au) Subject: PC: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers get all the girls Date: Fri, May 31, 1991. The demise of Infocom as an adventuring publishing company a few years ago hit me deeply. Infocom's Wishbringer was the first adventure I ever tried (and completed!), and some of my all time favorite games include Enchanter, Planetfall, Stationfall, and of course the legendary Zork series. Just before they wound up, Infocom branched out into producing text AND graphics adventures with games like Shogun and Arthur. Perhaps the best of these was Steve Meretzky's Zork Zero, which the critics raved about because of the use of graphics as actual puzzles (for example, the rebus game and the card game) instead of being mere illustrations. Well, Meretzky is back, bigger and better than ever, with Spellcasting 101, published by Legend Entertainment (under the direction of Bob Bates, another ex-Infocommie who did Sherlock and Arthur) and distributed by MicroProse. Spellcasting is a "sequel" in many ways. No, it's not a continuation of any particular game, but rather a refinement and development of two of Meretzky's past glories - his overall work for Infocom, and the infamous Leather Goddesses of Phobos. By the former I mean that Meretzky has used graphics in Spellcasting the way he promised not to use them in Zork Zero, simply as pictures (albeit "interactive" pictures. You can click on an object on the screen to look at it, or take it, for example). In doing so, Meretzky concedes that the beauty of adventures is in its text, its puzzles, its atmosphere, its storyline. You can turn off the picture mode if you wish, but not the text. This is indeed a return to the classic days of Infocom, and judging from the popularity of Spellcasting 101 since its release, it seems many out there welcome this move. The other "continuation" I mention, with reference to Meretzky's previous work, Leather Goddesses, is of course the "adult" theme exhibited by Spellcasting. This game is pure, raunchy Meretzky at his best. If you found Leather Goddesses too tame (even in its lewdest mode), Spellcasting 101 should help alleviate some of those "frustrations". Note that there is the usual "nice" as well as "naughty" mode in the adventure, but I'm sure most of you would immediately turn on the latter (no pun or dirty thought intended there!). In the game, you are Ernie Eaglebeak, an A-Grade nerd and complete wimp. Living with your mother and your abusive stepfather, you plan to escape this absolute hell by enrolling into Sorcerer University. After all, Sorcerers get all the girls, right? Unfortunately for you, plans are afoot to send you away to work as a servant, so your first task is to escape from the barricaded room your stepfather has caged you in. After a very dirty and smelly rush for freedom, you find yourself in the place of your dreams: Sorcerer University! First you have to register yourself (in other words, it's copy protection time) before you can explore the campus. Be enthralled by the mystical lectures of Mythology 101! Learn the secrets of the Universe in General Magic 101! No, campus life is not as exciting as that, unfortunately. The only possibility is tonight's 8:00 party at the I Phelta Thi (ooh!) fraternity. But there's a problem. Another frat party is happening at Tappa Kegga Bru at exactly the same time, and you're expected to attend both... The game proper begins after everyone on campus has vanished except for you, and it is your task to find out what happened. Journeying onwards, you will find yourself investigating the Island of Lost Soles, the Restaurant at the End of the Ocean, and the Island of Horny Women. Something to look forward too, says our eager little Ernie. But first you must find a way to travel to those islands, and that surfboard sure looks like the only way to go, dude. Getting it, though, is another matter completely. Spellcasting 101 does not depend entirely on keyboard commands, because the left side of the screen is divided into a list of verbs and objects. If you hate typing, just use the mouse and click on the desired actions. The top left corner of the screen consists of a compass rose (which tells you which way you may move, and you can also click on these to head in that direction), a button that brings up or removes the graphics screen, a button for the "look" of the screen (you may decide to play it all text, or half text and half graphics, for example), and finally a button to bring up a small map of your surroundings. If you do intend to use the keyboard (ah nostalgia!), the parser of Spellcasting is quite good, and has a fairly large vocabulary. For those who decide to stick with the mouse-and-menu method, remember that you won't be able to type in all those nasty disgustingly vile words that every Meretzky (and indeed, Infocom) game seems to have some funny sort of reply to! The graphics are 16-color EGA only, but what EGA graphics! If you didn't read the box label, you probably would not be able to distinguish whether VGA or EGA mode was used, they're that good! Color cycling is used in some scenes to provide pleasing "animation", but it was just the detail and the clarity of the pictures that blew me away. I can't wait for Meretzky to use VGA, if his EGA games are of such quality. Sound is impressive as well, with full support for the Roland MT32 or LAPC-1 cards, and the Adlib (no specific CMS Soundblaster support, so you will have to use the Adlib mode). From a rollickin' title tune to the short melodies played at the beginning of each "chapter" of the game (Spellcasting is divided into several chapters, much like a book, and the completion of one chapter will lead you into the next), the music is simply perfect. Once you enter Sorcerer U, your spellbook contains the BIP spell ("play romantic music"), which I'm sure many will cast just to hear it. In addition to soundcards, Spellcasting 101 makes use of the RealSound technology (often found in Access games like Countdown and Mean Streets), thus sound effects like the cackle of Ernie's stepfather is heard through the PC speaker instead of through the soundcards. The sound effects are well done, but often hard to pick up (maybe this was because of the quality of my PC internal speaker, but then again most PC speakers are hardly worth writing about). Maybe next time, future Legend products can use the preprogrammed sounds on soundcards along with RealSound to provide a double blast of evil laughter and other heinious heckles. I haven't dwelt on the "risque" subject matter of the game because there really is no need to. Sure, some may call it sexist, though I would start to worry if Ernie "gets all the boys" instead of the girls. If you do abhor this kind of product, DON'T BUY THE GAME! It is your money, after all. Personally, I consider the "adult" subject matter to be secondary to the main quest in Spellcasting. I mean, I don't deny that it adds a lot of fun and humor into the game, but in the end the main objective is to solve the mystery, not see how many conquests of the opposite sex you've managed. If you're going to pay a rather hefty sum for a software product just for the "risque" value instead of the adventure, you'd be better of renting a couple of X-rated videos instead. Spellcasting 101 comes in a large brown envelope...oops, white box, on quite a few (I can't remember how many!) low density floppies, and also included with the package is your Sorcerer U registration form, a large map of the general area, reference card, and a manual with a lot of funny stuff inside (especially the last two pages!!). This is definitely the best text and graphics adventure to come out for the PC (in fact, for any computer) over the past few months, so go and get it! NOW! Graphics: 10 Sound/Music: 9 Gameplay: 9 Ease of Use: 8 Fun Factor: 9 Documentation: 9 Overall: 9 Recommended for: intermediate level adventurers. Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get all the Girls, by Legend Entertainment, distributed by MicroProse Software, MD., USA. 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