¢Mine Sweeper game review¢------------------------¢¢Article by Dean Garraghty.¢¢Well, I said on last issue that I wasn't the right person to review the PPP games, but I thought I'd review this one for one reason - I'm hooked!¢¢It all happened when I bought an ST mouse to try out the new SAM system from PPP. Mine Sweeper also uses the mouse, so I loaded it up to give the mouse a test. Up until this point I'd never actually played Mine Sweeper, or indeed fully understood exactly what you had to do! A quick re-read of the instructions and lots of failed attempts to complete level 1, and I was hooked! In fact, it was more of a quest than anything else!¢¢So, that's how I got hooked. Now on to the review!¢¢Mine Sweeper is an 8-bit clone of the same game available for Windows on the PC.¢¢The game is played on a grid of covered squares. Under each square is either a bomb or a number. The number tells you how many bombs immediately surround that square in any direction thus:¢¢ ***¢ *X*¢ ***¢¢where X is the square you click on. If the number is 1, then it could be in any of the positions marked with a * above, so it's best not to risk it just yet! If you are lucky you will click on a square with no bombs surrounding it. If you do this, all the squares around it with no bombs are cleared, and all those round these are cleared and so on. You can eliminate loads of squares that way! As time goes on, you can see where the bombs have to be by seeing how many bombs surround a certain square, and how many around the others near it. You can also see where bombs can't be, and thus eliminate those squares. To defuse a mine (when you think there is one under the square you're selecting) you press the mouse/joystick button while holding down SHIFT. To select a square without difusing a mine, you just press the button.¢¢The game has 4 levels available. On level 1 you play with a small grid, and have to find 10 mines. On level 4 you have to find 100 mines in loads of squares! I can do level 1 in about 30 seconds. That's also how you are scored - by the amount of time it takes you to solve the level. Your best times go on a best time table, which also gets saved to the disk.¢¢To control the game you can either use a joystick in port 1, or an ST compatible mouse in port 2. Using a mouse is by far the best way. You can easily and accurately position the square selection cross with the mouse. The joystick is a little slower. It's worth buying an ST mouse just to play this game!¢¢The game screen is very nicely done, with a green background and nicely drawn grey squares. There is also an opening screen as well which is nice! The sound effects are quite simple, but you don't anything more for this sort of game! The game plays very well, especially with a mouse.¢¢I got hooked on this game, and I'm sure you will too when you play it!¢¢The game costs 5pounds and that gets you the disk (with a snazzy PPP label on), and a single page of typeset instructions with an example screen on with detailed examples on how to play the game. You can save money and buy Mine Sweeper in the PPP games pack for 12.50 which will also get you Rubber Ball and Glaggs it! as well!¢¢Mine Sweeper can be bought direct in the UK from:¢¢Dean Garraghty, 62 Thomson Ave, Balby, DONCASTER, DN4 0NU.¢¢It is also to be made available in the US soon. Details on the next issue of the News-Disk.¢
