From limbo!taylor@decwrl.dec.com Tue Jan 28 17:04:50 1992 Received: by csd4.csd.uwm.edu; id AA19779; Tue, 28 Jan 92 17:04:27 -0600 Received: by uucp-gw-1.pa.dec.com; id AA08422; Tue, 28 Jan 92 10:29:28 -0800 Received: by limbo; Tue, 28 Jan 92 09:43:57 pst Message-Id: <9201281743.AA07305@limbo.intuitive.com> From: taylor@limbo.intuitive.com (The Moderator) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 92 9:43:54 PST Subject: Digital Games Review Digest, #38 Reply-To: digital-games@dgrd.Intuitive.Com (Digital Games Review) To: digital-games@Pa.dec.com (Digital Games Review Digest) X-Mailer: fastmail [version 2.02] Status: OR Digital Games Review, Number 38 Tuesday, January 28th 1992 This issue we look at: SNES: Final Fantasy 2 NES: Star Wars Genesis: El Viento Genesis: F22 Interceptor TG16: Efera and Jiliora Lynx: Xybots Amiga: Heimdal Mac: Patton Strikes Back PC: Super Tetris [Welcome aboard to our new subscribers! New FTP Archive in the works too. More details next issue! -- Dave] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dauria@bucsf.bu.edu (David DAuria) Subject: SNES: Final Fantasy 2 Final Fantasy 2 is a rpg for the Super Nintendo. It is the sequel to Final Fantasy on the NES and I hear is actually the fourth game in the series but the other parts haven't made it to these shores. Now truthfully I didn't know what to expect since I had never played the first one. I am a bit of an rpg fan so I figured I would give this one a shot. After playing it I have to say that I like this one. First off everybody wants to know "how are the graphics"? Well I would say they're good and they're not. I know that makes little sense so I have to explain. Normally when you are just running around outside the graphics are not very good like most rpg's. Your characters are kind of small and lack some detail. Also your characters are drawn kind of short and squatty and it doesn't look very nice. The thing that saves this view is the nice use of backgrounds by Square. For example when you are climbing up mountains the background is used to give the effect that you are really high up. Everything in the background looks really far away like it would be if you were really high up in the mountains and the effect is quite amazing. Also in some dungeons you can see through the floor. Now some games would have some generic background but in this game you can actually see the dungeon level directly below you. I like that sort of attention to detail and this impresses me. Also when you fight your characters are drawn a lot better and unlike most rpgs you actually get to see them do their moves. When you cast flame on an enemy you actually get to see them get engulfed in flames. As for music it sets the mood of the area you are in quite nicely. A really rocking background music really doesn't fit in this type of game. It should stay in the background like the music in this game does. Also the sound is pretty nice. Sounds range from the clanging of swords and axes to explosions of fire from your spells. Now on to game itself. First off I would like to talk about the plot. Oddly enough this game actually has one. Most games of this type have a plot like "some bad guy kidnapped some princess and you must kill the bad guy and rescue the woman". Now in this game I will admit that you do rescue your girl friend but its a small part of the game. You start off in this game as a bad guy which is a bit of a switch. You eventually renounce your past and become a champion of good and go after the bad guys, or at least who you think are the bad guys. The plot does have a lot of twist in it which make it interesting unlike some games where you know right from the back of the box what exactly you have to do to win. Also there are various side quests. These quests are not required to beat the game but they are there if you want to do them. I personally like little things like that so it scores points with me. As for fighting I like how that was done too. Unlike many games of this type where you character basically asks Mr. Monster if he will wait a second while you make up your mind and Mr. Monster agrees, in this game both sides go at it non-stop. For example if you are picking a move, don't expect that the computer will not attack you. Also if a couple moves back you had one character start casting a spell, that character could finish chanting part way during your turn. It really makes you think quick since you will get leveled if you don't. Also there are loads of special moves. Some characters can do leaping attacks and some can aim to reduce the chance of missing. Also there are loads of different kinds of magic, ranging from calling monsters and healing, to ninja magic and black magic. Also these spells are actually quite useful and you will have to use them to do well. The quest in this game is long and well done also. Often you will be just a little too late to do anything and often you are so weak that the bad guys will just fling you aside as they do what they want. You will constantly gain and lose members of you party for various reason. Often the you will think you have lost somebody for good only to have them return later and sometimes changed drastically. For example in one part you are involved in a major ship wreck and loose your entire party. Also often you are expected to go into fights which you can never win. Its a nice touch, since you should never assume that your characters are invincible with no equals. Often you are the weak one, constantly struggling but eventually overcoming all. Now another thing you are probably curious is the length of this game. Well It is a nice long quest. It took me over 23 hours of actual game time to beat this one which is pretty good.(this game comes with a built in clock so you can actually keep track of how long you have been playing) You might even want to search for things you missed the first time which means you get even more out of the game. Also Square was nice enough to include basically a walk through for about the first 1/2 of the game and also a fairly complete list of items and spells. Now this game does have some bad points. First off is the price. This game is $70 so you should try and rent it first or buy it from some where you can get your money back since it is a lot of money to spend for just one game. Second the translation really could have used some work. Some times you have to read a section of text a couple of time to understand it. For example in the game a karate yell is actually written as "achooo". Seems like an obvious screw up to me. Also one final thing is it seems that square tried to avoid offending any religious groups so people in the game "wish" instead of "praying". I know its a minor point but it seems like the same thing happened in Actraiser where your character was called a "master" instead of a "god" Graphics 8 could be better, some nice effects Sound 8 sets mood quite well, good battle sounds Gameplay 8 nicely done battles and quests FunFactor 9 I love exploring caves, and looting dungeons Overall 9 very nicely done, thought a bit expensive Final Fantasy 2 by Square for the Super Nintendo. Retail price: $70 ------------------------------ From: an288@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark Hittinger) Subject: NES: Star Wars I got the new NES Star Wars game for my son this Christmas, and while he slept I checked it out. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the graphics although at times they are asking a bit much of the NES. You can see major slowdowns in graphics update when there is lots of activity on the screen. Essentially the game is a replay of the first Star Wars movie. You play the part of Luke. An important note is that the game is not a two player game. It is a single player game. Luke must free R2-D2 from the sandcrawler, find the meditating Obi-Wan Kenobi, and blast out of Mos Eisley with Han Solo. You emerge from hyperspace into an asteroid field which you must fly through without loosing all of your shields. If you do, you will be siezed by the tractor beam of the Death Star and pulled into its hangar. Once inside the Death Star you must spring Princess Leia, destroy the tractor beam, defeat the garbage monster, and make it back to the Millennium Falcon. As you escape from the Death Star, you will be attacked by Tie fighters. The game climaxes just like the movie with Luke boarding an X-wing fighter at the Rebel Base and destroying the Death Star in the traditional fashion. Unlike other movie based games this one does fit very well with the expected story line and your game moves must follow the story line. If you attempt to do a step out of sequence you may not achieve the desired results. There are some very clever additions to the story line that add to the playability of the game. Good old Darth's only appearance is to let you know when your game is over. If you have collected Han Solo and Princess Leia, you may switch from Luke to one of them. There are spots in the game where Han and Leia each have special abilities which are needed to get past some danger. I do find the game very difficult to play. If you are used to other Nintendo games you will find the use of the controls and the timing of jumps to be more precise and sensitive than you are used to. There are spots in the game where critical long jumps will be just missed. There are spots in the game where a series of critical moves must be made in a rapid sequence without pausing. I would not purchase the game for children under 7. They will become very frustrated and play some other cartridge! To a software guy it feels like some floating point compares are being made to the 100'ths decimal precision or something! I wanted to disassemble the 6502 code and fix it! It might be just me, but I found some instances where a mistake on my part, or an attack of some kind, would move me someplace bad when I should not have been moved. If you do not escape from such an event rapidly and correctly, your life "level" will be drained until your life is over. Some of these "moves" will not seem to appear "right" and are not intuitive. Also, if you die you must start the particular "level" over at the beginning. You do not pick up where you died. Don't run when attempting to collect some goodie. Walk "through" it and you will always collect it. I find that if I am running while passing through a desired goodie I will sometimes not pick the item up! Curses! Frankly I think that a mistake was made in not including some sort of difficulty level select so that your average nambi-pambi super mario 1 player could make it. On the other hand my son and I continue to play it. I've managed to make it to the Tie fighters but they always take me out. When my son takes the game to the day care, there is always a crowd around the Nintendo when I come to pick him up. Lucasfilm Games offers a "hint book" for sale, and to tell you the truth it should probably have been included with the game (even if they'd raised the price). I have not gotten this hint book because they were out of stock! If you have a rotary dial phone (like me) don't call the 1-900 hint line, you need a touch tone phone after hours to actually get the hints. The only hints I have are the ones we've derived ourselves! In summary NES Star Wars is probably the best action video game I have played on the Nintendo. It is an excellent although difficult and frustrating game. It taxes the 8bit Nintendo processor and graphics to their limits. I'll be looking forward to the possible release of games fashioned after the other Star Wars movies. Star Wars, for the NES, developed by JVC and Lucasfilm Games. ------------------------------ From: Martin F. Rose Subject: Genesis: El Viento It is the year 1928, and New York's tallest building, the Empire State Building, is nearing completion. But very few realize the sinister purpose behind this monumentous construct, for it is to be the site where Hastur, the evil god of the wind, is brought down to wreak havok and chaos upon the Earth. Only Annet, a powerful (and very cute) young Peruvian sorceress, can prevent this disastrous occasion... What? You were expecting maybe the Ghostbusters? ;) El Viento is, at the basics, a run-jump-shoot format game where you control a young girl on her quest to save the world. If this sounds familiar, it's probably because Renovation already has a game which has the same basic theme for the Genesis. That game, of course, is Valis III. Indeed. I thought, at first, that El Viento and Valis III would have much more in common. But Valis III was created by Telenet Japan, while El Viento was produced by Wolfteam. I have spent much time with both, so I may proceed by contrasting the two games... First, the gameplay itself. In V3, you get the feeling that you're moving in slow-motion. The entire game progresses more or less at a crawl, and bringing your basic weapon, a sword which emits a force wave, up to spec is a major part of this (you *NEED* to get the sword power and charge speed-up to even play the game!). It just gets to be a chore to run down the street at the start of the game. And magic attacks are invoked by a special maneuver which makes you a momentary sitting duck when the move is complete, in addition to being basically useless. In EV, on the other hand, they assume you've seen the intro and/or read the manual, and have a handle on what you should be doing. Not that this is ever a problem in this game format, mind you. Just run to the right and kill anything that gets in your way. The first thing to notice here is that your new main character is quite a sprinter! The only video-game character that moves faster than Annet is Sonic. :) Bid farewell to the Six Million Dollar Man look and feel. Annet's basic weapon, a pair of boomerang-blades, need no powering up, though there is a third to pick up in the second level, which allows for better rapid-fire. Rather than needing to collect MPs to use magic attacks, your MP gauge builds itself back up after use, making magic just another form of attack, rather than a prized resource to be spared for special occasions. Next, consider the graphics. I won't try to compare the background art with other games of this genre--I mean, you've seen one over- detailed scene, you've seen 'em all--but where EV really shines is in the animation of Annet's every movement. Whether running, crouching, jumping, turning around, landing, throwing, or casting any type of magic attack, it's all livelier than ever before. The game does have some flicker, since Wolfteam seems to derive some sort of perverse pleasure from making huge explosions that tax the machine's ability to display concurrent moving objects. Still, there's no mistaking when something blows up. In the sound department, we can definitely tell it's a Wolfteam game, since it has the Wolfteam Sound. (Wolfteam seems to have a preoccupation with a mediocre bass guitar sound, not to mention a certain cheezy hand-clap sample.) Not the worst BGM for the Genesis, but still not the best. The music for the ending is better than TF3's even if the rest of the game music comes in below Technosoft's game music, not to mention Yuzo Koshiro's. The game boasts an 8 Megabit capacity, even though it is only seven levels long. The information must have gone into animation of game objects, because it sure didn't go into intermission animation--there isn't any. Just pretty pictures and text that should be rewritten, as usual. Is it really that much trouble to get a good editor for the English text? The manual is poorly done, again, as usual. Their attempt to explain the use of continues is pathetic at best, the fifth form of magic (Star Fire) is not listed or described, and a VERY important move is NEVER MENTIONED. Another bang-up job by Renovation, don'cha know. (The pictures of Annet inside the manual, as well as in the game itself, don't much resemble the buxom lass on the box, but that's another issue entirely.) And it all comes back to how well the game plays. If I had to rank its sheer fun-to-toodle-around-in-ness, I'd probably put it next to Wolfteam's other really fun game, Granada. It's fun to play, and you gotta try it, though you should try to get it for less than the going rate. Still, if this is any preview of what the Earnest Evans game is going to be like, sign me up! Graphics: 8.5 I haven't seen a character animated this thoroughly! Sound: 8 The Wolfteam Sound. Wish they'd spring for a new clap. Control: 9 Just as fluid as the animation. Challenge: 6 But maybe I'm just too good for this sort of thing. Fun: 8.5 More fun than Valis III, by a long shot. EL VIENTO, for the Sega Genesis, released in the US by Renovation Products, a subsidiary of Telenet Japan. Created by Wolfteam. Retail price (current): ~$64. ------------------------------ Subject: Genesis: F22 Interceptor From: portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com F22 Interceptor, from Electronic Arts, puts you in the pilot's seat of an advanced fighter airplane with a vast amount of destructive potential at your disposal. It's the first true air combat game for the Sega Genesis. If you set up a spectrum of realism for air combat games, with arcade titles like Afterburner and Blue Lightning rating a 1, and a "realistic" simulator such as Microsoft Flight Simulator ranking a 10, F22 gets somewhere around a 6. It is a true 3D out-the window simulator, with filled polygon graphics (as opposed to cheesy scaled bitmaps), simulation of flight dynamics, and simulation of sun glare and pilot blackouts due to acceleration changes during climbs and turns. The game also accurately simulates in-air refueling, and landings and take-offs from runways and aircraft carriers. You have real-life weapons such as Sidewinders, Tomahawks, and Maverick missiles. You also fight real-life enemies such as MiG fighters, helicopters, and tanks with anti-aircraft weaponry. At the same time, F22 also incorporates several video game elements, making it fun to play as a game rather than being another boring old simulator program. For one thing, the control layout is fairly simple compared to other combat simulators. A activates the afterburners, C fires your guns, and B will launch the currently selected weapon, that you can choose from a graphic diagram of your jet fighter. You press the Start button, choose your weapon, then press Start again to rejoin the battle. There are some esoteric button combinations to use as shortcuts (such as A+B to switch to your next weapon without using the menu), but it's possible to get by without them, so you needn't learn them at first. If you can't cope with the standard controls (which emulate the control stick of a plane), you can choose the "steering wheel" option. Like an arcade game, you also get background music. However, there is only one piece of music and it gets tiring after a while. Fortunately, you can turn the music on or off at any time from the Start menu. When you launch a missile, you get to see an animated sequence from the missile's point of view while it homes in on its target (much like the TV footage we saw during the Gulf War). In the case of a radar or heat-seeking missile, you actually get to guide the missile in on its target. You also see animated sequences from the missile's point of view when the enemy fires them at you! When you complete a mission, you are treated to a "chase plane" view of your craft as it swoops through the sky on its way to the next assignment. You can choose from one of three different skill levels: Cadet, Training, or Combat. Once you are in the air, you can access a customization menu that allows you to adjust several factors of the simulation. For example, you can make yourself invincible, give yourself unlimited fuel/ammo, change your plane's armament, or change the overall speed of combat. You can also control the behavior of your enemies, including their overall intelligence, whether they remain cool-headed or panic in the face of destruction, and their amount of aggressiveness. The game provides several campaigns for you to work your way through, much like levels in a more conventional video game. You go through tours of duty in the U.S., Korea, Iraq, and Russia. There's also a special campaign where you fight against air aces from all four countries. Once you've worked through these campaigns, or if you a military nut, you can use the game's customization features to build your own combat scenarios. You can choose the country, number of enemy waves, and the enemies you will encounter for each wave. The computer will anticipate your combat needs and equip your F22 with a set of weapons to meet them, but you can also choose your own armament. Overall, F22 strikes a good balance between realism and arcade action. I think it is much better than Afterburner II on the Genesis or Blue Lightning for the Lynx. I wasn't impressed with Afterburner II on the Genesis at all. Blue Lightning was a good arcade contest, but neither game has anywhere near as much depth as F22. I'm also pleased by the fact the game uses true 3D graphics, rather than scaled bitmaps. However, sometimes it cheats with the graphics -- ground features close to you (such as trees and airport runways) are sometimes rendered as really coarse bitmap-scaled objects. My guess is that it stops rendering ground features realistically once they reach a certain size; perhaps the work to fill large polygons is too expensive. But the graphics frame rate is pretty high, and the action is very fast. Those people who are into military stuff and/or want an air combat game with an air of realism should be pleased with this game. Ratings: Fun Factor: 8 It's a true aircraft combat simulator that plays like an arcade game. Playability: 7 The control layout is simple and uncluttered. The customization options are very powerful; not only can you tinker with the parameters of the game, you can even turn off the theatric scenes or skip the landing and refueling sequences if you don't care for them. But the multi-screen menus are complex, and sometimes hard to access. Also, there is no way to save custom missions, and the password save feature for the built-in missions is incomplete (it saves your point in the mission, but not the state of your plane or any of the customization options). Replay Value: 8 The built-in missions are very scripted. But when you tire of them, you can set up your own. Challenge: 9 The "Training" level is more than enough challenge for me. The game is extremely difficult if you want it to be. The menus let you custom-tailor the amount of challenge you want. Graphics: 8 The 3D rendering is very good, though it loses a point for the really coarse pixelation you sometimes see. Audio: 6 The sound effects (gun cannons, explosions, in-flight computer) are good; the one piece of background music gets annoying real quickly. Sometimes the music doesn't play properly if a lot of stuff is happening at once. Overall: 8 Another success from Electronic Arts. F22 Interceptor, by Electronic Arts for the Sega Genesis ($55 retail). ------------------------------ From: shimkevi@buchmf.bu.edu (shimkevi) Subject: TG16: Efera and Jiliora Efera and Jiliora is a role-playing fantasy game based on a Japanese animated movie of the same name, similar to Y's-Book 1&2. As in most RPG games, you travel in various mazes (wilderness, ruins, castles, dungeons) viewed from the overhead perspective. Your character can attack the mosters that inhabit the wilderness either with a sword (at a short distance) or with magic spells (you learn stronger spells as your level goes up). You buy better swords, armor and stronger medicine in towns. Unfortunately, I cannot say much about the storyline since I do not know Japanese. It appears that Efera and Jiliora are fighting some sort of a demonic cult. The game has many graphic/voice intermissions which explain the story which seems to be fairly complex. When you start the game, you can pick either Efera or Jiliora. There is a two-player mode which allows two people to play at the same time, something that is unusual in RPG's. Jiliora is a strong fighter, but she cannot use magic. She obtains magic rings as her level goes up which enable her to power-up her sword for a short time, recover lost HP and to become invincible for a short time. Efera is a weaker fighter, but she can use magic spells which are very effective against boss enemies. She does not possess a healing ring and depends on medicine and healing magic which uses a lot of MP. Mp can be restored only by magic herbs that she has to carry with her and there is a limit to how many items your character can carry. Thus, it is easier to explore with Jiliora since she can restore her HP anywhere, but fighting the bosses is much easier with Efera. For example, it takes a lot of time and effort to kill the final enemy with Jiliora, but it is extremely easy with Efera, granted that you use the right spell. (Also, Efera is cuter, IMHO). The graphics in the game are very good for a role-playing game, especially in the later levels. The soundtrack is nice and conveys well the dark atmosphere of the game. An interesting detail is that, unlike other RPG's, you can swing your sword in the towns as well. However, if you kill one of the townspeople by accident, the others will come and strike you down in a moment - game over. Since you use the same button for closing the conversation window and for striking with your sword, make sure your turbo-fire switches are off when you enter the towns, or else you might kill the person you've been talking to with dire consequences. I really liked this game. If I could know the storyline, I would have enjoyed even better. In fact I was quite surprised that I was able to finish it without knowing the language - guess after playing a lot of role-players you tend to know the logic they are based on. I would recommend this game even if you do not know Japanese - it is still fun to play, especially in the two-player mode. Graphics: 8 Sound/Music: 8 (standard CD-ROM quality) Playability: 8 Difficulty: Sometimes you have to wander just to kill some more monsters to build up your level, though not very often. Pretty much the same as Y's. Game Machine: PC Engine CD-ROM. The game is a regular CD and will play on the TurboGrafx CD-ROM player that is sold in the U.S. without the additional Super System Card. ------------------------------ From: rjung@aludra.usc.edu (Robert A Jung) Subject: Lynx: Xybots OVERVIEW: Daleks, Replicants, Terminators, Robotrons, Xybots -- the robots are at it again. EarthBase 26-B9, a remote station in the Federation's intelligence network, has been completely overrun by the alien Xybots in a surprise attack. Recovery of this base is of the highest priority; since you are the closest agent available, you must infiltrate the station, battle the Xybot forces, and stop the Master Xybots from taking over. NOW! Storyline aside, XYBOTS is a Lynx adaptation of the Atari Games' arcade title. One or two players must travel through the station's levels, as seen from a first-person 3D view. As you wander through the maze, you can grab coins, keys, and weapon enhancements, all while fighting the various Xybot forces. Your battlesuit will protect you, but it loses energy through time and from attacks; if it runs out, you are captured and the game ends. Reach the exit, and you have an opportunity to buy more equipment before going even deeper, featuring trick walls, transporters, and even more dangers. GAMEPLAY: Though a few recent Lynx games have been disappointing, XYBOTS is happily not continuing the trend. This is a respectable version of the game, with all the features of the original. The enemy comes in many different forms, using various defenses while firing on your position. Your gun fires unlimited shots, and an energy-draining zap can temporarily freeze the Xybots. The main action is seen from directly behind your fighter, and a second screen showing the level layout and status information is available. Every tenth level is a fight with a Master Xybot, but the main game remains maze-running and robot-blasting. Temporary enhancements such as robot locators and extra firepower are available, but financial frugality will help you survive later. The game is not perfect, though, since the Lynx version is a little easier than the coin-op. The Xybots are not too bright, and often spend time waiting until you are in range before attacking. They are still dangerous, but you will rarely have to worry about being overwhelmed. You also start with 35 coins, enough to stay well-armed for three or four levels. As a result, the game may seem to start off slow for more experienced players, but Warp Exits allow travel to the higher stages quicker. Overall, XYBOTS on the Lynx remains formidable, but don't be too surprised at the initial progress you make. GRAPHICS/SOUND: With XYBOTS, the Lynx once again pulls off game graphics that look almost completely identical to the arcade. The station mazes are spartan, drawn with identical wall panels, but enemy Xybots and other game items are well-animated and detailed. Other visual extras such as the teleporter and the transition between stages have been duplicated exactly. The only shortcoming is that rotating your view is done with a 90-degree "snap", which can be a little disorienting. Sounds are also very faithful, with the few blasts and explosions of the original copied closely. The mechanical Xybot voices have been removed, but in their place are several quality techno-rock background tunes. Though enjoyable, they can be turned off from the title page if desired. SUMMARY: XYBOTS on the Lynx is a solid translation, presenting an acceptable version of the game on the go. Though the difficulty has been scaled back slightly, there is still more than enough of a challenge to keep the typical player back for more. Gameplay: 8 Graphics: 9 Sound: 8 Overall: 8 XYBOTS, 1-2 players, horizontal game, Atari Corp., for the Atari Lynx. $39.95, no stereo sound. ------------------------------ From: Michael Richards Subject: Amiga: Heimdal In the beginning, Odin the All Father created Man in his own image (but smaller), and then created the Earth for them to live on. At first the Gods and Man got on famously, but as time passed the Gods got bored with Man and left him to his own devices..... Now the Age of Ragnarok and Gotterdamerung are upon the Earth - basically your average 10th century Norweigan was a morose bloke, and believed that everything was doomed from Day One, and that the final great battle between the Gods and the Beasts is about to begin and the Earth destroyed (my oh my that must have cheered up those long Nordic nights - `Don't moan Eirik, we could all be dead tomorrow' Each of the Gods, Odin, Thor and Frey have a weapon which has magical powers; Odin has a Sword, Thor a Hammer and Frey a Spear. Unfortunatley for the Gods, the God of Evil, Loki has got them all a bit squiffy at a banquet, stolen the weapons and cast them down to Earth...... Why don't they go and get them? I here you cry, well I was just coming to that bit. You see the Gods aren't permitted to walk the Earth during Ragnarok without loosing their powers. How are they going to save the World? Well Thor knocks up a quick storm (which was his speciality) and a lightning bolt hits a small Norweigan village, where a young woman wakes up next morning nine months pregnant ... no doubt with all the ensuing problems!!!!!!!!!!! All this is portrayed in some superbly drawn and coloured animations, very much in the `Asterix' or Don Bluth style - big beards and feet!!!! Great music and speech complement it perfectly. Perhaps a Scandinavian can tell us what is actually said? (Me thinks its a pisstake personally). This is where you join the game, you are Heimdall, who is destined to find the God's weapons so that they can fight the Beasts. (Although to what end I'm not sure since they are destined to loose according to Norse legend), your first task is to see just how charismatic you are - by the traditional Viking method of going down to the local bar, and trying to free a girl who has been pinned to a board by her hair.... did I mention the axes? Oh sorry, by throwing axes in her direction - without hitting!!!! Oh yeah, and that Norweigan beer is strong stuff!!!!!! All this is attended by riotous scenes of drunken Vikings leaping around in the background..... Having successfully avoided turning the girl into puree, your next task is to run around a muddy field, chasing a greased pig (what a bundle of laughs these people were!!!!!!). Some mouthwatering animation here as you end up looking a complete asshole at regular intervals. Finally its that Ancient Norse pasttime of leaping aboard longboats, massacring the crew and getting the gold ... all good clean fun.... `What a game I hear you cry', and most people would be happy with that, after all for once the words `cartoon animation' are true. BUT Core have even more after all that. Heimdall's task is to search the World for the Gods' weapons, so its out with the RPG side...... Depending on how well you did in the previous three sessions you get a crew to accompany you on your suicidal task. The better you did at greased pig catching and the less girls you axed, the more crew and better crew you are offered. The crew members all have different occupations such as navigators, warriors and magicians. Then you set off across a beautifully drawn map, Indiana Jones fashion to one of the many islands that await...... There are three maps in all, each with twenty or so islands dotted across it - plus the de rigeur seamonster and whirlpool. Arriving on the island, your team of three go walkabout in an isometrically displayed world - like `The Immortal' from EA, but much better drawn. The animation is again stunning, flames flicker, cloaks swish, monsters do monstery things, the scrolling SMMOOOOOOTTTTHHHH, and the sound effects are certainly atmospheric. Dodging traps and flicking switches you progress.... Whenever you encounter a denizen of the island, another view flicks up. This time similar to Dungeon Master and Captive. There is no movement in this view, but to make up for it the graphics would have FTL gibbering. Cue some great hacking, slaying, spell casting and general meyhem - LOVELY!!!! All with digitised screams and gurgles. Objects are manipulated, spells cast and conversations held in a menu driven point 'n click RPG interface. Simple to use - no problems at all, this section is quite the simplest I have ever used, some of the dedicated D & D style games could take a good look at Heimdall. Well, to summarise - Heimdall is BIG, BEAUTIFUL and HARD!!!!! It uses both the mouse and the joystick and the keyboard - but each one is simple and logical. This is game that proves the Amiga is still THE games machine, show it to PC owners and watch them dribble...... Graphics : 9 1/2 : The apogee of computer art. Sound : 8 : Fantastic scores and fx. Ease of Use : 9 : You can use a mouse can't you? Challenge : 9 : You'll be playing this until Ragnarok!!!!! Overall : 9 1/2 : THE GAME OF 1991. HEIMDALL from Core Designs. 34.99 Pounds, 5 Disks. Copy protected. Manual protection. Not HD Installable. Contents: Disks, manual, world maps and registration card. AmigaDOS 2.0 version due any day now. Needs 1 Mb+ more than 1 drive suggested, uses up to 3. ------------------------------ From: Ben Beecher Subject: Mac: Patton Strikes Back I played the game on a Mac IIfx with 4MB of memory, and a 19 inch color monitor set to 16 color depth. This game will be available for the IBM PC and compatibles. The port from Macintosh to MS-DOS was done by Dave Menconi, and he participated in the design process as well. In the August 1991 issue of The Journal of Computer Game Design, Dave says they decided to try something different with this game: "a more closely parallel process whereby my work lagged Chris' by about a month...This tight feedback loop increased overall project efficiency...I proposed a semi-automated approach to porting Chris' Mac code." The latest Chris Crawford game is an updated version of his earlier work, Patton vs. Romell (PvR). Both games involve infantry and armored divisions fighting on European soil. In both games your objective is to destroy enemy divisions and to capture enemy towns. You can play from the Allied side or the German side. The PvR scenario is Operation Cobra, fought in Normandy beginning on July 25th, 1944. In Patton Strikes Back (PSB) you are fighting The Battle of the Bulge in and around the Ardennes forest, beginning on December 16th, 1944. Despite these similarities PSB is quite different from PvR in many ways. I really like strategy games, and PvR was one of my favorite games for the Mac 512K. It will not run on the later Macintosh models, so I was very eager to try PSB. PSB requires System 6.0.2 or higher, it requires a hard disk with 5MB of free space, and 1MB of memory for monochrome, or 2MB for color. When playing in color you must set your color depth to 16 colors. PSB has an excellent user interface, and it supports color. The graphics are very good. The user can switch back and forth between the closeup display (tactical) and the full display (strategic). The tactical display shows an excellent color map in fine detail and is scrollable, but can't be resized. These displays are just right for a 12 inch monitor. It would be great if one could expand the tactical display, or view the tactical and strategic displays side by side on a large monitor. The tactical display is not available in the IBM version because it requires over 700K of memory, while MS-DOS can only address 640K. There are only four modes in this game (attack, defense, mobile, and shattered) which greatly simplifies the tactics. If you are in mobile mode when you encounter the enemy it automatically switches you to attack mode. Each unit has a strength and readiness factor. When readiness falls below 25% the unit is shattered. When it falls to 0% the unit surrenders. The PSB "game board" is divided into invisible squares and each unit moves one square at a time, horizontally or vertically. No more bumping into your own divisions when they are nudged into your path by the enemy. On the other hand you can't move diagonally and you can't move a few pixels at a time. The free-motion game area made the old game unique. However, since I started writing my own game I realize how much easier it is to create a game with squares or hexes. The biggest new feature is the fact that you give orders constantly, not just at the beginning of each day. This makes the game more realistic but it also takes longer to play: 3 hours to 5 hours per game. There are five display speed settings and I spend a lot of time in the "slow" setting so I can react to events as they occur. In the old game I could sit back and watch the day's events unfold but now I have to concentrate on each battle area and give new orders every time an enemy unit changes direction and every time a battle occurs. Terrain is now a factor in the game: the landscape contains roads, rivers, forests, and clear terrain. This adds a new dimension to the game and makes it more realistic. Unfortunately the game squares don't exactly line up with curvy terrain features so it's often difficult to tell if your unit is on the road, in the forest, in the river, etc. I would rather have square forests and straight roads so I could tell what terrain my units are in. Another big feature: units are resupplied by the roads in your territory. If a units breaks through enemy lines it will be cut off from the supply lines and its readiness will gradually decrease. Air strikes can be used by the Americans to cut off German supply lines or to attack individual units. These air strikes are available after the first ten days have elapsed. The newsreels are black-and-white video clips in a small window, which announce battle results, towns captured, air strikes, etc. They are accompanied by the sound of troops marching, a dive bomber, etc. I like them but the sounds get a little repetitive after a while. Their duration is settable from 1 to 6 seconds but on a IIfx they last only 3 seconds, max. Also included is a ton of historical data and WWII anecdotes, accompanied by monochrome sketches and photographs. You can select this info from the menu and the anecdotes appear automatically during the game. Nicely done. Unlike the old game there are no British, Canadian, or Polish divisions in PSB. All the Allied units are American. You can't modify unit strength or location, but there are five difficulty levels. The manual doesn't say how these difficulty levels are implemented, but experimentation shows that the difficulty affects the strength of each unit when the game starts, not the number of units or their position, or anything else. Reinforcements arrive at predictable times and places, regardless of the difficulty setting. If a unit is surrounded it can be destroyed in a couple of days. This fixed one of the things I disliked about PvR: it took a really long time to destroy a division after it was surrounded. Problems (sigh). This game is very well written and there are relatively few problems. I believe the problems would be easy to fix and I hope they will be fixed in the next release. Orders given to each unit involve a series of discrete steps, and each step requires a certain amount of time. Here's an example: move north three squares, turn west, move west one square, switch to attack mode, attack west. Let's say this series of steps might consume 10 hours of game time. After 45 minutes have elapsed on the battlefield I notice that the enemy has moved so I want to change the orders, starting with "move north two squares" instead of "move north three squares". My unit hasn't completed the first step yet but it has accumulated 45 minutes towards the first step. If I "kill all orders" and then issue new orders it starts counting from zero again: I lose the 45 minutes I have accumulated towards the first step. I can avoid this by hitting "kill last order" five times and then adding new orders, but this is a real pain in the neck and it would be easy for the computer to take care of this for you. In PvR the units moved one pixel at a time so this wasn't a problem. On the Mac IIfx the newsreels go by too fast. The display time can be set from 1 second to 6 seconds but on a IIfx the maximum display time is actually about 2.5 seconds. If you're in the tactical display and a game message appears which refers to an off screen area the message includes a "go there" box which allows you to scroll to the action area. Unfortunately you have less than a second to click that box, even though the message is displayed for 2.5 seconds. The click time seems to vary from 0 sec to 2 sec depending on how busy the computer is at the moment. When it's time to select an air strike (bombing) target you would like to see enemy unit strengths before selecting your target. During target selection the strategic display will not show unit strengths. The tactical display will show unit strengths but the horizontal scroll bar doesn't work during target selection. The vertical scroll bar works, however. You may switch back and forth between these displays during target selection. You can't resize the tactical display to take advantage of larger monitors. I think the game would be more satisfying if it gave you a summary at the end of units captured, territory gained, etc. It's a little frustrating to devote hours of concentration and energy to the game and then end up with just a raw score. Conclusions Speaking of raw scores, I am told that my review should end with an overall rating. I give it a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. PSB is fun to play but I wish it didn't take so long. If some of the problems mentioned here are fixed in a later version, the game will deserve a better rating. Some of the problems do not exist if PSB is running on a Mac II with a 12 inch monitor, for which the game was designed. Patton Strikes Back: The Battle of the Bulge, written by Chris Crawford, published by Broderbund. Macintosh version. Not copy protected. $35 at MacConnection. ------------------------------ From: mmarkowi@pepvax.pepperdine.edu (Mike Markowitz) Subject: PC: Super Tetris Designed and programmed in Russia, Tetris has been a monster hit in the West and Japan on a wide variety of computers and game machines. The original version appeared a few years ago -- simple enough to be learned in a few minutes but challenging enough (we thought) for endless hours of entertainment. But the depths of the Russian soul provide a bottomless source of imaginative new torments for players, and the long Russian winter gives programmers plenty of time to perfect them. Super Tetris follows the basic Tetris-Welltris-Faces-Wordtris concept of blocks falling into a pit. But now the pit is partially filled with underwater rubble. When you maneuver the falling blocks to form complete lines, you are rewarded with bombs that can be used to erase mistakes or blast away the rubble, revealing hidden treasures. The more lines you complete at one time, the bigger the block of bombs you receive. There are many different kinds of treasures: squares that award you extra pieces, squares that turn into a bubble that moves upward filling all exmpty spaces until it reaches the water line, squares that turn the next falling piece into a bomb, etc. In effect, Super Tetris requires you to play two games at once -- the standard Tetris challenge of completing lines and avoiding gaps, plus an additional requirement to empty out the rubble-filled pit before you can advance to the next level. You have only a limited number of falling pieces available to complete each level. There are ten levels of difficulty. At each successive level the pit is deeper and the pieces fall more quickly. The bouncy musical background, based on Russian folk tunes, was composed by Ed Bogas. The package includes one 720K 3.5" and two 360 K 5.25" disks. After installation the game's 35 files take up 844 Kb on your hard drive. The game is illustrated with colorful pictures of the Moscow circus. Before you can play the game you have to type in the answer to a circus trivia question (from the 26-page manual) There are various two- player options -- competitive, cooperative or "head-to-head" (two copies of the game running on separate computers connected by null-modem cable or a network). User interface: 9 Graphics: 9 Sound: 9 Overall value: 9 Super Tetris, Designed by: Alexey Pajitnov, Vladimir Pokhilko, et. al. Published by Spectrum Holobyte, For MS-DOS (640K, Hercules, CGA, EGA, or VGA graphics, audio cards, joystick and mouse supported) Macintosh version coming soon List price: $49.95. additional $24.95) ------------------------------------- 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@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". To obtain them via anonymous FTP, connect to "eklektik.cs.pitt.edu" [130.49.2.135] and look in 'videogames/digest'. 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