BLUE_MAX_GAME B L U E M A X I was asked to write some text about a few games for the DBA, and I excepted it gladly. This is my first text about a game. The game is called Blue Max, and it is a French airplane-simulator. You have to fly in airplanes from the first world war. When I got the game from Bonus and we tried to load it we had to wait such a long time that I thought the disk had to be broken. But after a minute of three suddenly something appeared on my screen. It was an animation on the background in black and white. we also saw a 3d airplane moving in front of it. My sister had just played with the computer and had turned the noise down. As we did not hear anything during the animation I turned up the noise. I'd better did not do that. I could not believe what I heared. The sound was so terrible that I immediatly turned down the noise. I have never heard such terrible sounds, not even when i had an MSX. Yes Bonus said the sound isn't very good. Later I noticed the game isn't much better either. Two days later I tried to play the game. After a long loading time and the terrible intro-screen I saw finally the option screen. You can choose between one and two players, and you can choose with what instrument the player wants to play. (Joystick, Mouse, Keyboard.) You can choose between four or five planes. ( I don't know exactly because I didn't find this game as interesting as the others.) If you have chosen another plane you will not notice much difference while playing, because only some colors change and your maximum-speed. You can set the weather-conditons, and the sound. This is an option which I do not understand, because it doesn't make any difference how you have set the sounds, you hear nothing, only when you shoot you hear the board cannon. I think I have said enough about the options-screen, you can set more things, but they are not so very interesting. If you choose to play the game you get a black screen and the diskdrive starts loading. After a while you are asked to change disks. If you have done that the diskdrive starts loading again. After a while the game is there. You are in the air with your plane. If you press F2-F4 the disk loads another viewpoint in. If you press F9 the computer loads an information-screen. If you dare to press the fire button ( if you play with joystick) for the first time the disk has to load the shots in. The landscape is green and has one house and a river. If you crash the computer has to load the option screen from disk one. I think I have had said (typed) already to much of this horrible "game". If I may give you an advice, then don't buy this game because it is a waste of money, and if you want to loose your money then you can also send it to me. The loading time of this game is terrible, and it has load on the strangest times. The graphics are bad, and the sound is worse. There are much more better flightsimulaters for the Atari ST. Text by O.T.M. of Digital