GAMING!¢¢By Richard Gore.¢¢¢Welcome to what will hopefully be a regular feature of the new improved News-Disk. In this column I will take a look at the new and old software available for your Atari 8-bit computer and give mini reviews of them as well as hints and tips and some of the behind the scenes 'secrets' of the software in question. Let me know via the editor what games you would like me to examine. I can't promise to know everything about any game but I do have a large collection (all originals!) and many contacts.¢¢I will give each piece of software a rating of between one and five stars but remember reviews are a personal thing and you may not agree with what I say (although I am yet to find anybody who thinks Frenesis is anything but total and utter !#$%). Okay no problem just write your own review and send it in, its always nice to have an alternate view on a topic.¢¢The five star rating is as follows:¢¢ * Not worth the steam off your tea, total !#$%, forget it ever exists.¢¢ ** Nothing special, one for collectors.¢¢ *** Above average, well worth a look.¢¢ **** Top quality game, definately worth having.¢¢ ***** Super, amazing, brilliant, fantastic. Everybody should have a legal copy of it, if you don't you must be mad or plain daft.¢¢¢Lets start off with Ace of Aces. This classy flight/fight simulator was supposed to be available on disk as well as tape, but I never actually saw the disk version in the UK. Recently, however, it has been re-released on a ROM cartridge but at a rather high price. After US GOLD dumped the 8-bits KIXX re-released the tape version for 2.99, what a bargain! However there was a major problem, it took nearly half an hour to load!!!! In the media there were also conflicting reports of not being able to restart a game once you had died. This is understandable, as the game will load into a 128k 8-bit machine and bank switch the required code in and out when needed so long as you press the START key on the pink, death march screen. This will obviously not work on machines with less than 128k of memory and you will be faced with waiting another 30 minutes for the thing to load in again! Those of you with a YORKY 256k memory upgrade will be pleased to hear it works fine with Ace of Aces. My thanks go to Dave Richardson the designer of the RAMBIT Turbo Tape system (who is still interested in supporting the 8-bits - see his advert on this issue) for supplying me with this tip, he 'discovered' it whilst doing the Turbo conversion of this game.¢¢The game itself has brill graphics and is very addictive. There is a wide variety of game options and it should keep you entertained for many a month, so long as you have access to a 128k+ machine to overcome that L O N G loading time.¢¢ RATING ****¢¢¢How many of you out there don't have a copy of Ballblazer? I bet a few of you have a similar titled game Ballblaster lurking somewhere on one of your disks. Well in fact they are the same game, originally titled Ballblaster it was pirated so much, it was decided to change the name for its actual release. This could have been one of those games we will never see because of software pirates ripping it off even before it was released, however fortunately it wasn't and we can enjoy one of the best two player games ever devised. Basically its a space age 'football' type game with fast scrolling graphics and neat spot sound effects. It is now available on ROM cartridge at a reasonable price. You can tell a game of class generally by who programmed it, mention the name Zeppelin Games and we immediately think of Draconus and Zybex. It is a generally accepted fact that Zeppelin produced some of the best games ever to come out of the UK. Ballblazer and several other classy games (Rescue on Fractalus and Koronis Rift) came from Lucasfilm Ltd in the states. This company produced (and still produce) many excellent films including the Star Wars saga (by the way another film in this trilogy is due to be made within the next three years or so, a long time to wait but hopefully it will be worth it) and is the driving force behind Industrial Light And Magic, the guys who produce those spectacular special effects for films like Terminator 2 so its not surprising to learn they produced such quality games back in the boom days of the 8-bit. My only tip for Ballblazer is make sure you sit on a stable chair and grasp your joystick firmly as you will soon be squirming all over trying to guide the ball into your opponents goal.¢¢ RATING ****¢¢¢Well that's it for this time, not too many tips but hopefully you enjoyed it. If any software suppliers out there would like me to review their products for the News-Disk, let me have a copy (Okay so this statement is very optimistic but doesn't it sound professional?). I won't turn anything away and I'm sure Dean won't either so long as the article is legible.¢¢¢ Article by Richard Gore.¢¢Contact at: 79 SPROTBROUGH ROAD, SPROTBROUGH, DONCASTER, DN5 8BW, ENGLAND.¢¢ E-mail: RG9@UK.AC.YORK.VAXB¢
