FACES (TRIS III)

 Well, the Russians did it. They dismantled their bombs and lulled us into a
state of false confidence, and then, when we least expected it, unleased Alexey
Pajitnov and won World War III without firing a single shot. Now, every computer
jockey in the country is too busy playing TETRIS and WELLTRIS to be programming
missile tracking systems.

 To insure their victory, we now have FACES (aka TRIS III), the final nail in
the coffin of Western society: Just as we feared, FACES is every bit as
addictive as Pajitnov's previous games. (This review is based on the IBM-PC
version.)

 Once again, the concept is simple: Falling pieces are placed by the player in a
certain arrangement. Place them correctly and a space is cleared off so that you
may keep playing. Place them wrong, and the screen gradually fills up until the
game is over. Only this time, instead of abstract geometric shapes, it's (you
guessed it) faces.

 Imagine a playing field five "spaces" wide. Slowly dropping from the top of the
screen are two pieces of faces, side by side, separated by a space. Faces are
divided into five rectangles: chin, lips, nose, eyes and "top." You may move
these pieces from side to side (but only to a limited extent), swap the two
pieces, or see what's on the reverse side. That's because, although you get
points for any face, the game comes with sixty faces, and when you make a
"perfect" face, it's worth more points. Feel free to mix and match, though; you
earn fewer points, but some of the faces you wind up with are worth it!
Completing ten faces moves you up a level, or you may hit the "+" key at any
time.

 Drop a piece into an incorrect spot, and it becomes a slab of marble. The slab
is fixed until you complete a new face on top of it, at which point you again
have access to the pieces underneath. A row across the top of the screen tells
you which "piece" of a face is dropping, and displays a number that indicates
whose face it belongs to.

 FACES has ten difficulty levels; each level brings a new set of faces. Level 0
starts you off with anonymous "Universal Faces," but Level 1 adds World Leaders
(Gorbachev, Thatcher, etc.). Other levels incorporate faces from art, science,
music, history, and literature, as well as fun fantasy figures, like
Frankenstein, Dracula, the Easter Bunny, and Uncle Sam. And in a delightful
move, many of the parts of the faces are animated as they drop down: Gorbachev
has shifty eyes. (Perhaps a wry bit of political commentary?) You can also
choose between "regular" and "advanced" modes; in the latter, pieces drop even
faster.

 Bored with those mugs? FACES will let you load in faces of your own creation.
You must have your own graphics program to do so, and it must be one that
accepts LBM format files, such as DELUXE PAINT II. FACES provides the needed
templates for creating and editing faces.

 Tired of playing alone? Up to ten players can compete simultaneously, but only
by swapping turns. However, if no one will come to your house, you and a friend
can hook up via modem (a speed of at least 1200 baud is recommended), and play
"head to head." An extra wrinkle is added to this mode for greater challenge:
When you complete a perfect face, some or all of your "marble" pieces will be
transferred to your opponent's screen.

 Spectrum HoloByte, the game's distributor, has chosen to ship the IBM version
of FACES in a rather odd way that may prove problematic for some users. One
5-1/4" floppy contains the VGA, EGA, and Tandy versions, but it's a high
density, 1.2Mb diskette. The second 5-1/4" floppy is a 360K disk, but it only
contains the CGA and Hercules versions of the game. The box also includes two
3-1/2" diskettes (both 720K).

 In any case, the diskettes are not copy-protected, and can be installed on your
hard drive (or copied onto another set of floppy diskettes). FACES relies on a
manual copy-protection method. In a nice touch, you won't have to waste time
matching up pictures from the screen to the printed page: When you're asked to
answer a question about a character, you're also given the page on which the
answer is found.

 As mentioned, graphics supported include VGA, EGA, CGA, Tandy, and Hercules.
VGA graphics are terrific, with lots of detail and color. Besides the wonderful
collection of faces (I love the purple alien with the glowing yellow eyes), the
game's "board" changes with every level, displaying pictures of the classroom, a
museum, a science lab, and so on. (These backgrounds are optional in CGA and
Hercules modes.)

 If you have an AdLib sound board or the Tandy 1000, each level has its own
theme song. If, like me, you're stuck with the PC's tiny internal speaker, all
you'll get are sound effects as the faces are completed. The game can be played
either from the keyboard or with a joystick. I found the keyboard to be just
right. 512K of RAM is required.

 Well, that's it. I've already spent far too much time away from FACES while
telling you about it. I definitely need another fix now. _Da svidanya_,
comrades!

 FACES is published and distributed by Spectrum HoloByte.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253