FLOOD FLOOD is an arcade game written by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts. It offers fine graphics and animation, excellent sound effects, 42 levels, password feature, joystick control, and copy protection. The Atari ST version is the basis of this review, and you'll need 512K, a color monitor, and a 720K disk drive. The double-sided game disk can be read by a single-sided drive but the title sequence and opening music will be missing. Bullfrog's first effort, the incredible POPULOUS, won lots of awards and landed on many Top Ten lists. Unfortunately, Bullfrog has either exhausted its supply of brainpower or wasted too much time listening to Jeff Healey and Metallica jams: Little more than a game of ladders and platforms, FLOOD tags the Bullfrog team with the sophomore jinx. The best part of FLOOD is the digitized sound, which is most excellent. FLOOD looks and plays okay, even though level changes occasionally caused the game to bomb out. The main character is Quiffy, the lone survivor of a race called Blobbies, and his sojourn into upward mobility begins when he learns that the caverns in which he lives are flooding. The object of the game is to guide Quiffy through the 42 levels and reach the surface. On each level you have to collect trash, deal with various creatures, and find the end of level teleporter, which will transport Quiffy to the next level. The ST screen display consists of the cavern for the current level, which scrolls in the cardinal directions based on Quiffy's movements. Below the action display are oxygen and life force bars, and score and trash counters. When Quiffy goes underwater, he loses oxygen, causing the bar to shrink. When oxygen is gone, the life force bar starts to shrink, and when it is gone, Quiffy will lose one of his three lives. The trash counter counts down as Quiffy collects trash, and when he's collected all that he must for that level, he must locate and enter the end of level teleporter, which is not to be confused with the in-level teleporters that zap Quiffy to another part of the current level. Weapons include grenades, flamethrowers, delayed-action dynamite, and boomerangs. Items include barrels, cocktails, orange cans, and parachutes. Creatures include the ghost of Quiffy's aunt (no kidding!), psychotic teddy bears, sparkling fungi, bulbous-headed Vongs, and vacuous gombos. Most of these creatures aren't particularly clear when they are onscreen. FLOOD is controlled with the joystick. The stick moves Quiffy directionally, but in an oddball way: He kind of falls on his face then stands upright and walks. He also sticks to and walks on walls and ceilings, and swims. The button fires the current weapon, which is not carried over to a new level. Keystroke "P" invokes the pause feature; "R" restarts the current level, knocking off a Quiffy-life in the process. The FLOOD package comes with one 720K disk that's copy-protected and readable by 360K drives, and a poster-size instruction sheet. There will be a documentation check. Technically there is no save option; some levels have a question mark which, when you guide Quiffy over it, provides a password for that level. Enter this password when you reboot and you can begin play at that level. FLOOD looks as good as any ladders and platforms game and it plays easily enough with the joystick. The digitized sound effects are most notable: The clinks and clanks, exaggerated drips and flowing water, occasional voices, and explosions are all clear and distinct. Repetitious sounds or a series of different sounds jam up the speaker, cutting them off early and letting you "hear the loop." This "looping" effect isn't necessarily Bullfrog's fault: the speaker in the ST's monitor is the problem, and not inefficient coding. Quiffy's ability to walk on walls and ceilings is most helpful, especially with the flood thing happening. Bullfrog knows how to program an ST, and I'm not at all knocking the group's individual or collective talents. I do have a question, though: At what audience is FLOOD aimed? Five-year olds, unless they're exceptionally quick with a joystick -- playing Nintendo 18 hours a day doesn't mean anything -- will promptly become neurotic and have to live out the remainder of their lives in quiet desperation; fifteen-year olds are more interested in VIGIJERK or RENEGEEK; and adults, well, only Satan knows what they want and in any case it can't possibly be FLOOD. FLOOD reminds me most of SKATE OR DIE, not because of any similarity between the two but because the intended audience for each game puzzles me greatly. No skateboard thrasher would be caught dead playing SKATE OR DIE, so I could never figure out who the game was written for. FLOOD seems too difficult for youngsters and anyone older than that is going to sneer at a character named Quiffy who comes from a race of Blobbies. However, based on the great success of POPULOUS and the obvious talent of the Bullfrog group, FLOOD deserves a playtest. FLOOD is published and distributed by Electronic Arts.