Received: from decwrl.dec.com by s.ms.uky.edu id aa24913; 26 Apr 90 21:45 GMT Received: by decwrl.dec.com; id AA22117; Thu, 26 Apr 90 13:01:37 -0700 Message-Id: <9004262001.AA22117@decwrl.dec.com> Received: by limbo; Thu, 26 Apr 90 11:05:04 pdt From: The Moderator Date: Thu, 26 Apr 90 11:04:51 PDT Subject: Digital Games Review Digest, #2 Reply-To: Digital Games Review To: Digital Games Review Digest X-Mailer: fastmail [version 2.02] Digital Games Review Digest, Number 2 Thursday, April 26th 1990 Today's Topics: Atari 2600/7800: "California Games" Macintosh: "Welltris" GameBoy: "Malibu Beach Volleyball" "Penguin Wars VS", and "The Great Warrior SAGA" Lynx: "Gauntlet III" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bradley@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Eugene Bradley) Subject: Atari 2600/7800: "California Games" Date: Fri, 6 Apr 90 17:05:52 EDT California Games was made in 1987 by Epyx (which is practically dead now). It can still be bought *in its original carton/shrink wrap* at most toy stores. It's retail cost is ~$19.95 (it depends on where you live and where you get it). When one first turns the game on w/ CG (which is what I will refer to California Games as), the song "Louie, Louie" is played along with the designers' (which I will tell you in a later posting, as I don't have the game on me right now) names. During the title sequence, if you press the game reset button or the controller button on the joystick, you will get a listing of names that are shorthand for the major sponsors you can play for. Examples are Santa Cruz Skateboards (listed as StCRUZ); Epyx (EPYX); Ocean Pacific (OP); Costa Del Mar Sunglasses (DELMAR); Spinjammer (SPINJM); Auzzie, a made-up surfboard company (AUZZIE); Casio (CASIO); and Kawasaki Jet Ski (JETSKI). It's possible to play any combination of software games from an average solitare game, up to 8 players. There's only one minor hitch: you can use *only* the left joystick. Diffi- culty switches will not matter in this game. Basically, CF is four games in one. These four games (listed in order) are footbag, skateboarding, BMX biking, and surfing. The highest score in any of these events wins the event. "Ribbons" are given for first, second, and third highest scores in each event, as well for overall performance (i.e. winner of an event gets 5 points toward overall score; 2nd in an event, 3 points; 3rd in an event, 2 points; 4th-8th place, 0 points). You have 90 seconds to finish your turn before moving on to the next player or event. Another quirk: you don't know *exactly* how much time you have to finish your turn (unlike CG for the Lynx) until your score starts to flash; at this point you have ~5 seconds remaining until the event ends. After one has selected the sponsor (you can only select one) to be played for, the first event, footbag, begins. The object of this event is to keep a "bag" (represented by a dot on the screen) in the air for as long as possible. You can move left and right by pointing your stick in that direction. Pressing the button causes the player to do a mini-jump; moving the stick up causes the player to jump ~0.5 inch higher than with the former jumping procedure. Depending on where the "bag" is, you can make the player do an outside kick, an inside kick, a knee lift, a toe-tap, or whatever else you can think of. If you want to turn around and do the same kicks, move the stick down. Every time the "bag" hits a part of the player's body (leg or knee), you will score points for that stunt, which is shown at the bottom of your screen (the lower numbers). The maximum you can score for points/stunt is 1000. If you drop the "bag", the points/stunt score reverts to 0. Your total score is shown just above the points/stunt score. The highest point otal that is displayed is 99,990 points. If you exceed that number, it won't reset to 0; your score just goes higher as it will be counted in the calculations for who gets what place when the event ends. At the end of footbag, the player(s) will start the next event: half pipe skateboarding. To win this event, you must score higher than your opponents by doing kick turns (using the feet to turn around *while on the pipe*), air turns (self-explanatory), and hand plants (grabbing the *edge* of the *pipe* with your hand and turning 360 degrees). The highest single score you can get is 990 points for doing a hand plant. The kick turns' point range is from 120-590 points while the air turns award from 600-710 points. You use the stick to do the air turns/kick turns and the button for the hand plants. If you're off on your timing, you will fall and you will be sent back to the top of the pipe where you started the event. Three things worth noting: if you're in the middle of a stunt *when time runs out*, its point value won't count. Also, if you're doing a hand plant at that time, you will spin *on one finger* and then fall. Naturally, the points won't count. Finally, if you go too high in the air, you will hit the top of the screen and fall. After you've fallen on your rear end several times in skateboarding, you will need what's left of it for the next event: BMX bike racing. The course is lined with trees, rocks, cow skulls, mud bogs, moss, and ramps. You go downhill all the way, hoping to score higher than your opponent(s). Pointing the stick right causes you to go faster while pointing it to the left puts on the brakes. Pressing on the button causes you to jump; doing this on a ramp causes you to jump higher. To score, you can either jump over trees, rocks, or skulls; or do stunts. Moving the stick up (to do a flip) or down (to do a "table top", meaning your bike frame is parallel to the ground) *and landing on both wheels* causes you to do these stunts; however, incorrect timing can cause you to crash. In this event, there is a timer that counts down from 30.0 seconds that is reset by going over or passing a certain flag. Also, there are bonus flags that are worth points (instant). Getting *all* the bonus flags gives you 4000 extra points; finishing *without crashing* gives you a 10,000 point bonus. At the finish, the time difference between each "time flag" is multiplied by 10 and added to your score, as well as any other bonus points that are due to you. After all that bruising in biking, you can relax in the final event: surfing. It's very simple: *don't "wipe out", meaning don't end up off your board in the water.* Points are scored by doing tricks with your board as well as turns in the air with your board above the water (unlike the Lynx, which allows multiple turns in the air, I have managed only *1* 360 degree turn). Just turning the stick in various directions allows you to do assorted tricks (e.g. weaving in/out of the wave) and score points. If you get enough speed, go in the air, do a half or full turn, and land *upright* with the board to get points. If you want to turn faster, hold down the button. You also score points just for staying on the board, but whatever you do, *don't* "wipe out"; it takes >= 5 seconds (a long delay considering you have 90 seconds to complete the event) to get the surfer back on the surf. If you "wipe out" with <= 5 seconds remaining, the computer will end your turn. Some other features that weren't mentioned (until now): in footbag, there is sometimes ~ a 0.5 second between the time the "bag" hits the ground and the computer resets the points/stunt counter to 0. If you're fast enough, you can "dig" the "bag" off the ground and have your points/second meter go up. This is especially important if you're in the middle of a high-score shootout, and your points/stunt counter is 1000. In surfing, when you start repeating stunts, the point value decreases a certain factor until you don't score anything for that stunt. Finally, in surfing, when your turn ends, you have to wait for the figure to "wipe out" before the next player's turn/end of the event. Ratings (from a scale of 0.0-100.0): SOUND. (88.7). Could have been higher if they put in "Wipeout" for surfing instead of "Louie, Louie." Instead of unknown music, they should have "California Dreaming" for the start of each event. Great digitized music for "Louie, Louie", however. EASE-OF-USE. (97.3). A lot of moves with the joystick/buttons for the various events, but easy to remember. PLAYABILITY. (99.0). Addicting element: get the highest score in each event possible. Not boring, except in > 2 player games (can only use *1* joystick, no simultaenous play) DOCUMENTATION (96.8). Often require reading twice in order to get the stick/button moves right. A nice feature is that it has a glossary of all terms of "Californese" (e.g. "Dude", "Bio", "like") GRAPHICS. (93.4). Good graphics for the player in the first 2 games (in footbag he looks like he is wearing sunglasses; in skateboarding he has a helmet) as well as the final game (wears shorts), but the low score was due to the one-dimensional design of the biker (like a shadow) in BMX biking. Also in BMX biking, if you play this game on a black-and- white set (which I did), you can't tell the moss from the mud bog (they both look dark) All in all, this game is pretty good. If you can't afford a Lynx, and have a 2600 or 7800 that is still working for you (and if you can find it), you might want to get California Games. Hey, dude, even if you, like, can't do quads and quints in surfing, man, it's worth it. Eugene ------------------------------ From: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) Subject: Macintosh: "Welltris" Date: Fri Apr 20 11:11:55 PDT 1990 I recently received the game "Welltris" - the supposed follow-on to the fantastically successful game "Tetris" - from Spectrum Holobyte and have had it around for a few weeks. I am quite a fan of Tetris, as is my girlfriend, and so we were quite enthused when the new game arrived, figuring that it had to be another winner. Oh well. Frankly, I think that Welltris is a very poor follow-on to Tetris, and after the first day of playing to figure out the subtleties of the game and what the heck was going on, we've tossed it into my games-we-don't-want-to-play closet. Why isn't it that good? Because it offers a more confusing interface including a poorly laid out keyboard (imagine this; you've a tetris-shape piece sliding down one wall of a four wall 'well'. you can use keys on the keyboard to rotate it or move it "clockwise" or "counterclockwise", but as soon as it hits the adjacent wall and wraps over the keys that you must use to control lateral motion CHANGE. Yech! Why not just '4' for clockwise and '6' for counterclockwise, which would be a heck of a lot more consistent!) The display itself, on my 8-bit-deep greyscale monitor, is also not only confusing, but rather unattractive too. Gone is the 3-dimensional feel of the original Tetris blocks, replaced instead with a flat 2D graphic (which is weird when you realize that we're talking about an update of the game from 2D to 3D!). Additionally, the display of "life in the Soviet Union" graphics on the right side of the screen is rather tedious; it was amusing and cute in the first game, but surely Alexey could have come up with a *new* idea...[or the people at SH who distribute the game could have...] Anyway, I'd strongly suggest that people check the game out in the store before they purchase it, and doubly so if you're a real Tetris fan. Dave Taylor ------------------------------ From: Dave Taylor Subject: Gameboy: Malibu Beach Volleyball Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 9:41:44 PDT A month or so ago I had a chance to receive an evaluation cartridge of Malibu Beach Volleyball directly from Activision. It was interesting and fun, but not particularly thrilling; as with many of the sports titles on the GameBoy I had particular difficulty keeping track of where the ball was on the playing field (of course the worst example of that is Alleyway, where the 1-pixel dot of a ball is virtually impossible to track when moving quickly!!). The premise of the game is that you're in control of a two-player beach volleyball team and that you have to compete against three other teams of reasonably similar skills. The "league" is divided into men and women, and each league has four different countries represented; USA, Japan, Brazil and Italy. While the cartridge may have been from an American developer (Activision is based in the San Francisco area) the grapics in the game are nonetheless very reminiscent of anime', the popular Japanese style of graphic animation. Most noticable is the bikini-clad woman who acts as the announcer between sets and matches (indeed, there are an awful lot of little bikini clad women in this game! I guess the GameGirl version is the one with lots of buff dudes... ;-) There are two traits that teams are rated on in MBV: speed and spiking ability. Each team has a specific pair of ratings on these factors (detailed in the instruction booklet) and there are eight total teams (four mens and four womens teams; representing different countries is just a nice selection mechanism). As I recall, USA has the overall strongest teams, but Italy is often the easiest to start out as in the interest of getting the hang of the gameplay. Perhaps not surprisingly, the men's teams tend to be tougher to beat as they're faster and much better at spiking. One thing I never quite got wired was the jumping spike serve. To do this you need to go through almost more hoops than a solid swing in Golf! As I remember, you need to push the 'a' button to throw the serve up, push the 'b' button to jump, then, at *just the right moment* push the 'b' button again to actually hit the ball. Ha! Instead, the serve that I found most aggressive was simply to go to one of the sides and run towards the center of the back court. As you hit the center point do a fast double 'b' serve down the midcourt line. Most of the teams dropped that serve about 50% of the time. Generally, I would have to say that this isn't a sterling example of what can be done with the GameBoy technology, though there are elements of the game that I enjoyed quite a bit. One feature that might well redeem Malibu Beach Volleyball quite a bit is the VideoLink hookup; it supports two player games where you're playing against them or where both of you are on the same side playing against other teams. The "both on the same side" option sounds like a great idea and we were sorry that we couldn't try it out, but we only had one game cartridge. I would recommend that you check this game out in the store for a few minutes before making your purchase decision, and also remember that perhaps too much of the game skills are learned, not automatic. I had a pretty good game after a few hours of playing, and after a week or so could consistently beat all the women's teams... After all, any game that says "bummer!" when you lose a match can't be all bad! Dave Taylor ------------------------------ From: leo@tds.lcs.mit.edu (John Leo) Subject: GameBoy: Penguin Wars VS, and The Great Warrior SAGA Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 12:41:43 -0400 Makaitoushi SAGA [The Great Warrior Saga] (Square) 3500 yen SAGA is the first role-playing game for the Gameboy. It's not out in the US yet, and I'm not sure when it's due (hopefully soon), but it came out last December in Japan to rave reviews and was the best selling game there in the weeks before DragonQuest IV's release. So I asked a friend visiting Tokyo to get me a copy, and he found one in Akihabara for 3000 yen (about $21). Now after about 3 weeks and 100 hours of playing it I finally reached the end and want to write a review. In short, this game is fantastic, and in my opinion along with Super Mario Land is the best game yet available for the Gameboy. If you like RPGs and have a Gameboy you should really look forward to this one. Square is no novice at RPGs; they make for the Nintendo Famicom the second most popular (after DragonQuest, called Dragon Warrior in the US) series of RPGs in Japan, Final Fantasy (and in fact FF1 is due out for the NES this month). And Square has obviously spent a great deal of effort on this one, producing an extremely fun and exciting game. The game is huge--it's one meg, and as they didn't need to waste memory on detailed color graphics that means the world to explore is enormous and very rich. And in fact the graphics are really beautiful; stylized and taking full advantage of black-and-white. I'd say they're the best yet for the Gameboy. The music is also excellent, using stereo to good effect. Although some of the music repeats quite often and gets tiresome after a while, the main music changes as you progress and all the pieces are great. The original name "Makaitoushi SAGA" is a pun in Japanese, meaning roughly "Evil-world Fighter Saga," but the characters for "toushi" (fighter) are different, using the character for "tower." And indeed a tower is the centerpiece of the game. There are legends that a Garden of Paradise is at the top, so you and your fellow adventures decide to find out what's really there. So most of the game involves trying to go up this tower. On the way you visit interesting worlds in which you need to solve puzzles, discover things, and so on in order to proceed. There are also smaller areas along the way often added for humorous effect (and there's a lot of good humor in the game) such as places where people think they've already found paradise, or perhaps its opposite. There are literally hundreds of monsters and objects in the game, and much of the fun comes from exploring the world. At each of a major areas, a sort of mini-saga takes place, and it's very much like you're participating in a good story. In a sense then you're sort of prodded along a certain path, and one might wonder about free will. And it turns out free will itself is an important part of the overall story. There are also in this game more surprising moments than I can count...all very effective. This is the first RPG for the Gameboy, so there aren't any others to compare it to (although SELECTION (Kemco), a first-person perspective RPG, is out in Japan and due to come here soon), but I can compare it to a couple RPGs for the NES, one that I consider to be well-made (Dragon Warrior) and one not (Ultima). You may disagree, but this should still give an idea of where Saga lies. Basically it has a lot more in common with Dragon Warrior, and even surpasses that game in a sense. There are similar towns to visit where you can rest at inns, buy things, get information and so forth as in both DW and Ultima, and the graphics are closer to DW in their use of barriers and limited scrolling to prevent you from seeing things, rather than the ugly blacking-out done by Ultima. Ultima for me was an extremely tedious game, where you have to worry about four characters, their food, and whether they get poisoned or catch cold or whatever. Saga also has four characters, so I was worried about this, but tedium in this game has been reduced to the minimum. You choose one main character, and then get three others by visiting the Adventurer's Guild. In fact if these minor characters die you can just go back and get someone else instead of resurrecting them (although you can do that too). This is also good if you don't like the composition of your party and want to change it later. You can choose from humans, ESPers and monsters. Humans are your basic character; they can carry up to 8 items and use any weapons or armor. Strangely there is no experience point system, and money does indeed buy everything: you can increase your strength, agility and hit points by buying certain potions. Espers are perhaps the most interesting characters. They can only carry four items, but have up to four powers such as Telepathy or Psycho Blast, and although they can't wear armor or use certain weapons they are the only ones who can use magic books which tend to be the most powerful weapons (especially "Break" (turn to stone) and "Death," both of which kill monsters instantly unless they're resistant). Instead of using items to increase their strength, they get stronger by mutating randomly in the middle of combat, which is usually good but can be distressing when your favorite ability suddenly disappears. You can also choose a monster to be one of the characters, and these are exactly like the ones that you fight. They can't carry any items but have a combination of up to eight ways to attack, along with certain strengths and weaknesses (for example birds are unaffected by earthquakes). Monsters become stronger by eating the meat of enemies you defeat--they suddenly might change into another monster! This is a lot of fun, and you can learn about your enemies this way, but I found the monster to be almost always (unless they have some really nice ability like blood-sucking) the weakest member of the party. But as only the first member of the four is displayed when you walk it's fun to put the monster first as some of them have some interesting ways of moving (there are other reasons to put the monster first, but I won't discuss strategy here). I'd say a good choice for a party would be two espers, a human and a monster; perhaps exchanging the monster for another character later. Combat was perhaps the most tedious and painful aspect of Ultima, since most attacks affect only one monster, you can't change weapons, and you can't run away. Fortunately combat in Saga is closer to DW and very pleasant. You can attempt to run away at any point, change weapons at any point (you can even back up if you make a mistake), and everything goes by quickly and enjoyably. There are 8 different scrolling speeds for the text; you can choose a slower speed when you want to examine the kinds of attacks monsters have, and the faster speeds when you just want to get it over with. It's possible to get poisoned, blinded, put to sleep, turned to stone, and other terrible fates, but this happens infrequently and cures are easily purchased and can be brought with you. My favorite is the frying pan: if a character gets confused, for example due to a monster singing, just have someone hit him on the head and he'll be back to normal in no time. Combat is semi-animated, so you can see the result of your attack on the monsters. This isn't too exciting for things like swords and bullets, but later when you start using lightening or chainsaws it gets more interesting. Sound effects are really good. There is a battery back-up, and you can save the game at any point, not just at one place like in DW and Ultima. Unfortunately only one game can be saved at a time. Be careful when you save the game as well or you might get stuck. I found a sort of bug at the whirlpool where the machine somehow let me leave my boat in the middle of it, and I was stuck and had to start over again. It didn't take long to get back to the same point and it was still surprisingly fun, but despressing at first. Another problem is that occasionally text will scroll by without stopping, which seems to have been done on purpose at some of the more dramatic scenes. I suppose this would be less of a problem if the text were in English, though. There's so much more to be said about this game, but much of the fun is in exploring it yourself. I will say that the last boss is really really terrifying, and that the ending is excellent and well worth getting to. And as I mentioned before playing Saga is like participating in a well-written story, and just as one reads a good book many times this game can be played again even after you win. There's so much to it that there's a lot I didn't have time to explore carefully, and some things I didn't figure out the first time, so I'm really looking forward to playing again. One last thing I'd like to mention is that if you've had at least two years or so of Japanese I'd highly recommend getting the Japanese version. I learned quite a lot of the language just by playing it, although there were a few scenes I didn't fully understand. On the other hand if you don't know Japanese definitely wait until the US version comes out--this is one game where reading the rulebook carefully and understanding the text in the game itself is essential. Without a doubt, this game gets a 10 on the 1-10 scale. * * * Pengin-kun WARS VS. [Penguin Wars Vs.] (ASCII) 3090 yen (about $21) I was in NYC last weekend, and my friend and I visited Yaohan Plaza in nearby Edgewater, NJ (there's a shuttle bus that goes there from Port Authority). One of the stores there is Pony Toy Go Round, which happens to carry Famicom and Gameboy games at steep prices, as well as the units themselves. Although the prices were high I decided since I'd come all the way there I might as well get a game, and it came down to Yakuman (Mah Jong by Nintendo) or Penguin Wars Vs. (not to be confused with Sega's Penguin Land, which is also coming out for the Gameboy). My girlfriend had thought the latter looked fun from an ad in Famicom Tsushin (which is incidentally published by ASCII, the maker of the game), so I decided to get that one. It was $33, and luckily a great game, worth the price. This is actually an old game. Here's the history according the rule book (slightly edited): "In 1984 the game debuted in arcades. With its cute characters and simple rules, it was also popular with girls. After that, it appeared on the Famicom, MSX personal computer, and others. In the Spring of 1989, "Pengin-kun WARS 2" appeared. Now, the Gameboy version...." And the Gameboy is the perfect format for this game. As mentioned the rules are very simple. The two players are at opposite ends of a table, and each starts with five balls. You throw balls to the other end and when 60 seconds are up whoever has the least number of balls at his end wins. If you can get all 10 balls on your opponent's side before time is up you immediately win and get lots of points for time remaining. The game is sort of like dodgeball in that you want to hit your enemy with a ball, which gives you points and knocks him out for a while. Of course you want to avoid getting hit as well. You can only move left to right behind the table, and only the A button is used: Hit it once to grab a ball, and a second time to release. You can also hold the button the second time to build up strength (your character will begin to squeal) and then release a power shot which travels quickly and knocks out the enemy for a long time if it hits him. However if you hold the button too long you'll collapse from the effort. You can choose from among five characters to play with: Penguin, Rabbit, Cow, Bat and Mouse; you have to fight against the other four to win. Each has his own strengths. The penguin is your average guy. The rabbit is fairly quick but not too strong. The cow is the opposite. Each has his own way of moving as well as celebrating or crying, depending upon the outcome of a set. My favorite is the mouse, who moves very fast but is extremely weak (and his balls roll very slowly, so you may find a whole wall of them rolling toward you!). If you're playing against him you can only see his tail except when he throws a ball, and if you knock him out he disappears completely, his location being given way by the alternating words "HELP" and "GIVE UP". There are also four "obstacle" characters, one of whom appears when the time remaining is 20 seconds. These guys move around in the middle and can bounce your shots back if you're not careful. They can also be a big help when you're knocked out. Once someone wins two sets they win the match, and if you win the match you get to go on to the next opponent; if you lose the game is over. If you win both sets "perfectly," getting 10 balls on the opponent's side, you get a bonus round with just you and an obstacle character, and you can rack up lots of points. Once you defeat all the characters you win the round and the game progresses to the next one where the opponents are more skillful. I haven't made it past the second round yet; these guys have some nasty tricks in that one! In any case this doesn't appear to be a game with an ending--you keep going until you finally lose. Just like two-player Tetris, there's much more to the strategy of this game than you'd guess at first, or even after several hours of playing. You need to throw balls not only to get them to the other side and knock your opponent out, but also to make him have to move a lot and cross your line of fire. Of course if balls hit other balls they start moving in more interesting ways, and balls moving mostly side-to-side are the most dangerous as they can also roll around behind the table and knock you out. You can be really vicious and keep throwing power shots at your enemy when he's knocked out, and believe me your enemies will do it to you if they get the chance. The game can be played with 2 to 10 people via the game link; you use two units so you have to take turns, but the machine sets up a tournament. I hope to get a chance to try this as it promises to be even more fun--lots of psyching out possible. The game, as with many Japanese products, comes with a reply card, and this is the first I've sent in. They asked what I thought of the theme, graphics and music (the choices were: very satisfactory, satisfactory, okay, and not satisfactory) and I gave all of them the highest marks. The game is really fun to play and the graphics are of the cute, stylized variety for which the Gameboy may be the last bastion. The music and sounds are very good, and I especially like the sound of the points being counted--very solid. However the sound at the end of a set when someone wins is a bit too high-pitched for me. The feel is for the most part really good, especially the movement of the characters and balls, but I had some trouble with the A button. It didn't always seem to work when I pressed it, and repeatedly pressing it, which supposedly makes you get up faster when you're knocked out, doesn't seem to have much of an effect. This game might come out in the US soon, as although the instruction book is in Japanese, everything in the game itself is in English (with only some minor errors). You even have to enter names for the two-player tournament in roman letters! But even if it doesn't come out here for a while this would be a good Japanese game to get. I was able to figure out most of it before even reading the rulebook (except the power shots, which came as a big surprise when the opponents started using them). And this is definitely a game you can play many times, always figuring out new things to try. I recommend it, and give it 8/10. John Leo ------------------------------ From: grady@scam.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Grady) Subject: Lynx: Gauntlet III Date: 24 Apr 90 16:48:04 GMT Here's a general GauntletIII review, not of specific features, but of the game in general. Caveat: I never really liked Gauntlet in the arcade, so those of you who enjoyed the arcade game may enjoy the Lynx version just as much. In my opinion, the game doesn't hold enough interest. It's fairly easy to play (you're not likely to die as long as you are careful and keep a Revive scroll handy if you get low on life points), but there are only 40 levels, so I suspect if you had the patience, you could win pretty quickly. I played about an hour the day I got it (with friends), then the next morning, I figured I'd play one game before going to work. Well, I finally died 2 hours later, on level 26, with a couple revive scrolls and 360,000 pts. Basically, I was getting bored and tired, or I could have survived much longer, I believe. Frankly, I wasn't too disappointed when I died (partly because I was missing lunch at work). On the good side, the levels are similar to Chips Challenge in that some are puzzles to solve (find your way through a maze, figure out how to escape without overloading your inventory with gold, etc). Others are pure arcade action. There continue to be surprises as you go down the levels. I think the main positive aspect of the game is that it's a true multi-player game. As someone mentioned, multiple players can't explore different levels, but other than that everyone is independent. There are some levels in which each player starts in a different place (I believe there are specific places on which each player may start -- it's not completely random). If one player is doing something unusual, like using the Farsee spell, it's interesting to see as another player. Players can work together to defeat obstacles, or split up and each grab lots of loot. Unfortunately, I don't think that completely redeems the game. If the game were more complex (in terms of number of levels, or difficulty of levels), I would probably enjoy it more. I suspect that you're supposed to provide greater challenge to yourself by choosing a wimpier character (like the nerd).. I also am disappointed in the fact that it seems other players interfere with each other more than help each other. As I understand it, the arcade game was just the opposite -- you _had_ to work together to survive. Finally, I should say that I've only had it for four days, and I haven't played it a whole lot during that time. But I guess I've been spoiled by Chip's Challenge, which is a LOT of fun, and I've had it for almost two months and I still haven't played all the levels (admittedly, I sometimes let it sit for a week to give it a rest). Maybe there will be some surprise, like when you complete level 40 it sends you to another dungeon, but I don't think that's too likely. I'll probably give it some more time, but if it continues to unimpress me, I'll probably sell it to someone and wait impatiently for the next Lynx game. Steven ------------------------------------- To join this group or have your reviews appear in the next issue, please send electronic mail to Dave Taylor at the following address; digital-games@digital-games.Intuitive.Com We welcome reviews of games for any computer system, including the IBM PC, Apple II and Macintosh, Atari, Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari Lynx, Sega Genesis, Nintendo GameBoy, NEC TurboGrafix, Amiga and so on. The views expressed in Digital Games Review Digest are those of the individual authors only, and do not represent the views or opinions of Intuitive Systems or any of our affiliates worldwide. The copyright of each article is that of the original author, and the copyright of the digest itself, as well as the name "Digital Games Review Digest" are noted here. ********************* End of Digital Games Review Digest *********************