home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Coming Soon 3
/
COM3A.ZIP
/
VIRTUOSO.R
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1995-02-16
|
5KB
|
90 lines
REVIEW
VIRTUOSO from ELITE SYSTEMS
FORMAT: PC-PC/CD-ROM
DATE: JANUARY
PRICE: £ 39.99
"Virtuoso" is a DOOM-a-like game. The concept is a bit strange but it did
not bother me too much. You are playing a mega rock'n'roll star in the
twenty-first century. Your too many adoring fans always want to see you or
touch you. Maybe it is because of your music or look, or they are simply
head-bangers. Because of them you are confined to your hotel suite, and you
decide to try the adventure of virtual reality to escape this world. Fortunately
I read the manual to get this information and here is the game as it
really is. You are playing this hard rock mega star whose description is
long hair, black shades, leather jacket, and a gun in each hand. You can
choose from three different episodes: Mars, The Haunted House, and Marine.
Let us begin with Mars. Your screen presentation is like a third person
perspective, a bit above and behind the guy. You can move in every
direction you like with smooth turning and going about like in "DOOM". You
shoot everything that moves or floats. Even to pick up the power-ups, you
have to shoot them first. This is not a major concern because you have
unlimited ammunition for each of your weapons. You begin outside shooting
'bots, scorpions, bugs, gigantic spiders and some other flying things.
In the Marine episode you begin by being attacked on a beach by crabs and
seagulls. While you are making your way to the underwater base, you have
'bots and marine dudes shooting at you.
The Haunted House episode begins in the snow where your enemies are
snowmen, giant rolling snowballs and crows. I found the game a bit too
stiff to play. The only choice available is the level of difficulty. There
are no detail selections, no large arsenal of weapons (you do not even know
which one you have in your hand, but always have the most powerful that you
have found), no counting your three last bullets while being cornered by a
mob of enemies because the ammunition is unlimited. One pretty annoying
fact is that you have to aim to shoot, so you cannot walk and shoot at the
same time. You can not even run because it was not designed like that (no
running in the corridors!!). The controls are done with the keyboard or
joystick; mouse users are out of luck.
One of the new things in this game is that your cool hero can move real
close to the walls with his back against them. You can also get a radar
from a power-up which can be very handy in the future. Each episode
consists of seven or eight maps. Once you have found the power-up map, you
have access to the complete map. The levels are completely flat with no
steps, high buildings or lifts, which I found to be a bit simple. The real
goal of this game is the score you make in each level without leaving the
level, which is rather easy to do. Unfortunately, you can only save a game
at the end of a map, and some of them are quite large.
To get in the destructive mood, you can listen to seven CD audio tracks
played during the game (naturally CD version only). These tracks are from a
new rock band. At first, I felt like Beavis and Butthead, listening to loud
rock music, shooting everything I saw, watching it explode and saying "let's
burn something".
Conclusion:
It is a DOOM-a-like game but much simpler with flat levels, one speed
(which is not that fast), few weapons, bright colored simple textures,
and hard rock CD sound tracks. There is no possibility of modem or
null-modem play with your buddies. It is an entertaining game, but not
one that will be remembered in the next three years.
─────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: │
─────────────────────┘
486 DX-33 MHz or better,
Min 4 MB memory,
MS-DOS 5.0 or later,
Hard drive required,
Single speed CD-ROM drive (150 Kb/s) or faster,
VGA 256 color graphic card and monitor,
Microsoft Mouse or 100% compatible and joysticks supported,
Sound Blaster and 100% compatibles.
───────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────
┌────────┐ ┌─────┐ │Elite Systems Ltd.
│GRAPHICS├─────────────────┤ 75% │ │Anchor House, Anchor Road, Aldridge,
│SOUND ├─────────────────┤ 80% │ │Walsall, West Midlands WS9 8PW, England.
│MUSIC ├─────────────────┤ 78% │ │Tel: +44-(0)922-55852
│GAMEPLAY├─────────────────┤ 72% │ │
│INTEREST├─────────────────┤ 65% │ │Vic Tokai Inc,
└────────┘ └─────┘ │22904 Lockness Avenue,
┌────────┐ ┌─────┐ │Torrance, CA 90501.
│OVERALL ├─────────────────┤ 73% │ │Tel: 800-478-0217
└────────┘ └─────┘ │
│
───────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────