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_________________________________________________________________________ PORTABLE ADDICTION ISSUE #02 THE Newsletter for Lynx and Portfolio Freaks _________________________________________________________________________ Editor - Tjerk "MegaJerk" Heymens Visser Editorial Assistant - Yiri "NeuroMancer" Kohl With special thanx to: Andre "ALU" Luyer, Mr.Doom, Decoder, BJ Gleason (for being such a great PFolio programmer), FunTronics Computer Shop (for being so slow with their imports), Robert Jung (for the extra info on fidelity chess). _________________________________________________________________________ Introduction... Aaargh! Wotta month this has been! First of all this newsletter ascii file corrupted. Then, after reconstructing it, we had our exams! And then the biggest problem arose!!! Since this is the first time we've done the newsletter on a PC, there were some problems in uploading it. We didn't have a PC near our modem, so a friend had to do it. Our *friend* then found out that his account on Internet had expired! But finally here it is! Now this issue has become a little bit lame, because of the afore men- tioned problems. Some featured had to be left out, like an interview with Stephen Landrum, and most of the stuff that our editor, MegaJerk, wrote. We'll have all these features included next month. Next month the entire Portable Addiction will have a new face, too. From then on we'll also cover the Sega Game Gear. And in two months, our Portfolio section will be gone. Sad, but true! Anyway, share and enjoy! And let us know what you think of PA! Sayonara! Yiri "NeuroMancer" Kohl Editorial Assistant P.S.: I have typed this issue myself (instead of Tjerk) just to find out which one of us makes the least number of errors, so please let us know what you think! ________________________________________________________________________ +--------------------------------+ HOT (OUCH!) NEWS AND GOSSIP... +--------------------------------+ PANTHER: It seems that there will be the possability of ComLynx with the panther console. This would mean that you could connect your Lynx with a panther for multi-player games! Sound like an original idea! PORTFOLIO: The internal RAM-expansion is now officially available. Here, in Europe it costs about $250,-. This set will upgrade your D-Ram to the astonishing amount of 640K. PORTFOLIO: Although the normal Atari modem for the Portfolio runs at the very low 1200 baud, there seems to be a 2400 baud model. We are still trying to find out more about it, so you'll hear more when we got it. PORTFOLIO: More and more software is coming out for this little dream! There is official software for sale ranging from $50 to $270! One of these pieces of software is a replacement for the diary. We'll have full reviews next month! LYNX: here's some news for our European readers! Atari Europe will NOT be importing the Lynx mark II into Europe this Christmas! Some people say that they will do it in the middle of next year, but I doubt that very much! Argh! GAME GEAR: Finally released in Europe! The TV Adapter will be launched very soon, too. And since this thingy is portable, we'll be covering it from next month on in Portable Addiction! LYNX: Prospects for the Lynx in Europe are very good at the moment. The Lynx costs only $20,- more then the GameBoy. This means that the Lynx will soon have a very solid user base in Europe, which opens up new perspectives for the European software houses! Yeah! (Hey, Bit- Map Bros! When will you be making SpeedBall II for us on the Lynx?!) Current developers known to me are US Gold, Telegames, Imagitec and Psygnosis. PORTFOLIO: Although this little machine is megagreat (as we all know), the sales aren't going that well at the moment. Lots of people are waiting for this new Hewlett Packard thingy, which will probably released within this year. Let's just hope that 1992 will be a better year for the PortFolio. PORTFOLIO: You can now also buy Eproms for the PortFolio. They're very cheap, and you can get them for 64K and 128K. _________________________________________________________________________ Just for the fun, here are the Lynx charts from both Germany and England! Germany (or Deutschland) United Kingdom (UK) 1. Blue Lightning Road Blasters 2. Slime World PaperBoy 3. Gauntlet RoboSquash 4. ElectroCop Zarlor Mercenary 5. K L A X K L A X 6. Chip's Challenge Blue Lightning 7. Gates of Zendacon Gauntlet 8. Road Blasters Gates if Zendacon 9. Zarlor Mercenary ElectroCop 10. Xenophobe Slime World _________________________________________________________________________ LYNX Review THE FIDELITY ULTIMATE CHESS CHALLENGE From: Telegames/Atari I Couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this. A chess game for a portable games console that only runs about 6 hours on batteries!!! But yes, of course it was true. Fidelity Chess is probably the first chess game on any portable console ever, and it's good too! I am not going to explain the rules of chess here, for the simple reason that if you don't know how to play chess this is definitely NOT your game. As you may all know, chess games have the annoying tendency to have VERY long waiting times on higher levels. Fidelity Chess is no exception. For this reason the automatic shut-off system of the Lynx is disabled (otherwise it would just shut off while calculating the next move!). Now on to the game itself. The gameplay itself it quite nice. All options are selected using very clear icons. The game is based on the latest most powerful chess playing technology from Fidelity, so you are assured very competitive gameplay! The controls are a bit sluggish, though. The button detection is not very accurate, so you may have to press buttons twice before the program takes note of them. This is what we call a major drawback, but even with it's control flaws it's a great game. The presentation is very good. Icons are very clear and well drawn, and the chess pieces and board are also very good. You can toggle between a 2D and a 3D board, although the game is best played in 2D. Of course there isn't much sound, and in my opinion you don't need sound in these kind of games. For that reason I have not given any rating for the sound. Fidelity Chess is a very good game of chess, but I doubt it very much if there's any idiot out there who wants to play chess this way. I like a game of chess, but Fidelity Chess just could not hold my interest. +-RATINGS-----------------------------------------+ Graphics - 8.0 : Good use of icons Sound - -.- : I told you!.. Playability - 7.0 : Some flaws with the controls Lastability - 7.5 : I don't think you'll play This again AND again. Overall - 7.0 : Great, but you'd be mad if you'd buy it! +---------------------Neuromancer-----------------+ _________________________________________________________________________ LYNX Review SHANGHAI From: Mediagenic/Atari Well, this too is a thinking man's game, I'm afraid! But I must say this is a very good one! Shanghai is based on Mah-Jongg. It uses the same tiles, but the rules are much different. The tiles are laid out in preset formations. The idea is to get rid of all tiles by sliding them off the board, either to the left, or to the right. You can only slide two matching tiles, so you must match pairs. You can only slide a tile if it's free, with free meaning that there's no tile on top of it, and there is an open space to either the left or the right of the tile. As you may already understand, you must think forward! If you don't like puzzle games, you won't like Shanghai. It's as easy as that. You must know however, that Shanghai is a very time- consuming and addictive game! Before you know it you have been playing for an hour! But now let's see the other aspects of the game. The control method is a very effective and easy-to-use one. The home computer versions of Shanghai all had mouse control, but the joypad is just as convenient! The game is very user-friendly too. Everything is done using option menu's and the like! The instructions are also build in AND you'll never have to reset your Lynx, because you can restart just as easy from a menu! Great! The graphics are very well drawn, although I know people who have difficulties with reading the tiles. Everything is drawn in perfect detail, and the whole game looks very professional. There are nice pictures throughout the game to keep you happy, and everything is done in a nice eastern style. The sound, too, is very good. The game has many tunes throughout, with four selectable in-game tunes and an option for sound-fx. Conclusion; Shanghai is a MEGAGREAT game, but is only good for puzzle -freaks. +-RATINGS-----------------------------------------+ Graphics - 8.5 : Very effective and clear Sound - 8.0 : Jolly tunes throughout Playability - 9.5 : Instant appeal Lastability - 9.0 : You'll play this a LONG time! Overall - 9.0 : Great! You'll be hooked forever! +---------------------Neuromancer-----------------+ _________________________________________________________________________ M E G A - M A G A Z I N E S There were some people who were interested in the European computer magazines, so here follows a short description of the leading mags. The One - now divided in two seperate magazines (Amiga & ST). This mag is namely for games players. Includes a coverdisk. A.C.E. - a mag for real computerfreaks. Games are reviewed here, but there are more features, like on VR, programmers etc.etc. C.U. - Commodore User Amiga, a cross between The One and ACE. This mag, too, includes a coverdisk. Video - A German magazine for consoles only. Very good with the most Games recent games. ZZAP! - A really pathetic C64 magazine. For $4,- you get 50 pages!!! Raze - Formerly The Games Machine. A very good magazine for all formats. Mean - THE console mag. Extremely good mag, although they do not Machines cover the Lynx. C+VG - Or Computer & Video Games. A cheap mag in every meaning of the word, but since they cover Lynx games, I like them. Of course these are only the popular mags, and as you can see, there aren't much console mags out there! It's possible to get these mags in the US, but then you should take a subscription. This will cost you a hell of a lot more than the usual subsciption price, since the English add about $15 for their overseas readers (can you believe it!). If there is anyone interested I will send them the address where to go for the magazine. _________________________________________________________________________ PORTFOLIO... Just a little note to all the readers out there. ALL the software we test for the PortFolio is either Shareware or Public Domain, unless we state different. Thank you! This month we didn't have much to test on the PFolio, so this section is rather small. I promise, however, that next month there shall be a lot more. We'll then have an in-depth view at all commercial software currently available for our little baby. _________________________________________________________________________ PORTFOLIO Review MERLIN.COM from: BJ Gleason Well, we had to test something, didn't we? So here's MERLIN, once again a game from that BJ Gleason bloke! And this time it's a real nice game, too! In Merlin you are presented with a nice 3 X 3 grid. Some of the blanks in the grid will be inverted when you start the game. The idea is to make the entire grid blank. You can do this by using the number keys. 1,3,7 and 9 will invert four boxes in the corresponding corner. 2,4, 6 and 8 will invert the corresponding 3-in-a-row along the side, and 5 will invert a cross. Merlin is the first game on the PortFolio that keeps my interest. While it's very simple you can just boot it up for a quick go. The sound of the PortFolio is used quite nicely, although it must drain on your batteries! Merlin.Com is so small that you won't have any troubles with your disk space. Nice program, BJ! _________________________________________________________________________ PORTFOLIO... Warning: it seems that the Portfolio Toolkit 2.0, described in an earlier issue of PA, causes programs on your RAM-disk to corrupt slightly. This makes your system crash more often! _________________________________________________________________________ SWAPPING SERVICE Our swapping service has returned! For sale - Road Blasters Trade for - Shanghai Or sell for - $25,- or best offer Address - a15@nikhefh.nikhef.nl _________________________________________________________________________ P O R T A B L E A D D I C T E D M E G A P L A Y E R S +-----------+ HI - SCORES +-----------+ +----------------------------------------------+ Game Score Name +----------------------------------------------+ BMX 1175 MegaJerk Rygar 1590340 Neuromancer Surfing 10980 MegaJerk Zarlor M. 3.500.000 MegaJerk +----------------------------------------------+ Well, these were the only scores worth mentioning! So get your scores coming in! We want MEGAPLAYERS!!!! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yeaaah! _________________________________________________________________________ LYNX Preview Strider II from: US Gold/Atari It's nice to see more and more companies supporting the Lynx. Now US Gold has joined as well. If this game will remain under the US Gold label is yet unknown, as US Gold may yet sell the game to Atari. Strider II follows the same plot as the desk top versions. The female world leader has been kidnapped and take to a secret location. It is the usual "You're the only one who can save the day" story from here on, so you set out to rescue her. This takes you through five levels: a forest, the planet's outer defences, underground caverns, the generating station and the kidnappers' space craft. The graphics look terrific and are a GREAT leap forward for the Lynx. In fact the whole game looks better than, say, the Amiga version! MEGA! From what we've seen it should be a very playable, if a little small, game. However, a lot can change during development of games so we hold our breath and hope for a good game. But then again, this game would be worth buying anyway, if only it was for the graphics! _________________________________________________________________________ T H E L Y N X S O F T W A R E T O P 1 O This is our very own Lynx top 1O. Independant of all the other charts, We don't look at sales figures (a bad game can still be popular thanks to good marketing!). We wish to know what our readers think! So send your very own top 5 or top 1O to us, now! _________________________________________________________________________ +-------------------------------------+ S C R E E N S C E N E E U R O P E or: How Could Nintendo fail like this +-------------------------------------+ Nintendo, now a powerful force in the world of consoles. But how did they get there? Well, the answer is simple: good marketing! They took the world by storm with their NES, and now they're doing the same with the Super Famicom. Or are they? Here in Europe we know about the NES for a long time, but it's only One stinkin' year ago since Nintendo launched it officially here! Why? Well, they've tried to launch the thing before, but it just didn't work! Why??? Here, the answer isn't simple. Sega had just launched their Master System when Nintendo first tried to take over Europe. This was bad timing from Nintendo. They didn't stand a chance against the vast Sega-user base. That was four years ago! Then there was an attempt about two years ago. At then, a lot of people were just turning to Amiga's and ST's. There were also a lot of smart people waiting for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis. Again, very bad timing! One year ago, however, a miracle happened. Despite of the Megadrive and the grey imported PC Engines people were willing to buy the inferior 8-bit system! Nintendo had finally launched the NES with success, so there was no long wait till their GameBoy arrived. This little gadget then did well, too, thanks to the high price of the Lynx! But now times are once again changing for Nintendo. The Lynx had dropped in price and is now very close in price to the GameBoy. People who want a Super Famicom will have to import the machines, since Nintendo won't launch them officially because of the fact that they have only just launched the NES. This means that a lot of Famicom fans will turn to the Megadrive, 'cos they're scared of grey import and incompatible Japanese or American cartridges! Nintendo WILL fail again. Thank God and all the other guys who made it possible for Atari and Sega to win the Intergalactic Console Wars in Europe. 1-0 for Atari, yo! And with that I conclude this piece of bull. See you. _________________________________________________________________________ R E - Q U E S T I O N I N G Q U E S T I O N A I R E We didn't get that much response to our Questionaire of last month, so here we are back again with some of the more essential questions!!! And PLEASE! Do send in your reply! -What computers/consoles do you own, or do you wish to buy within the following six months? OWN BUY Commodore Amiga 500/1000/1500/2000/2500/3000/5000... O O Atari 520ST/1040ST/TT/Mega STE...................... O O Apple Mac classic/IIsi/IIci......................... O O IBM or Compatible PC (Please state configuration)... O O Commodore 64/128/console............................ O O Amstrad GX4000 (or whatever it's called)............ O O Sega Master System.................................. O O Sega Megadrive/Genesis.............................. O O Sega GameGear....................................... O O NEC TurboGrafX/SuperGrafX........................... O O NEC TurboExpress.................................... O O Atari 2600/7800..................................... O O Atari Lynx.......................................... O O Nintendo Entertainment System....................... O O Nintendo GameBoy.................................... O O Nintendo SuperFamicom (SuperNES).................... O O SNK Neo Geo......................................... O O -What do you think of our games reviews? Very incredibly megagreat without any doubt......... O Quite good in their own right, but that's it........ O VERRRY Average, and could be a heck of a lot better. O Darned rubbish, I usually wipe my but with them..... O Couldn't be any worse!.............................. O _________________________________________________________________________ LYNX Review CHIP'S CHALLENGE From: Epyx/Atari WHAT IS THIS! The third review of this issue and again it's a game where you have to use your brains. This game has no *real* action, but the gameplay does get very exciting, or annoying when you can't solve a level (I won't tell you what all the options are on this game, because it has been out for a year now, so I suppose that you already know). The levels keep getting harder, so you have to think more as you get to the higher levels. ARGH! There are 144 levels and they don't get boring, as the programmers have succeeded in making each level different. I'm not really into this type of games, though. I like Shanghai and KLAX. But if you like this kind of game, you'll like Chip's Challenge (For the real brain-freaks, there is even a Mandelbrot explorer on this card). But I want some real mindless Arcade Action. Where is my Zarlor Mercenary card!!! *Warning! Don't play all 3 games in a row or it will fry your brains.* +-RATINGS----------------------------------------+ Graphics - 6.5 : Clear but not special Sound - 7.0 : Many different musics Playability - 7.0 : Easy non-complicated control Lastability - 8.0 : It will take time before you have figured out 144 levels Overall - 7.1 : Good, 144 levels and doesn't get boring, value for money +---------------------MegaJerk-------------------+ _________________________________________________________________________ The last bit (not byte, that is)... Well, that's it for this month. See you all next month with our all new Portable Addiction for Lynx, Portfolio AND GameGear! Yay! _________________________________________________________________________ a15@nikhefh.nikhef.nl Tjerk Heijmens Visser c/o Peter Heijmens Visser National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics ( NIKHEF-H ) Computer Department Postbox 41882 1009 DB Amsterdam - Netherlands.