ARTICLE TYPE

  Preview

 PRODUCT NAME

  Fears

 BRIEF DESCRIPTION

  Doom-like game

 AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

  Author:  BOMB company: Manyk (a new english company)

 COPY PROTECTION

  Yes 
  Not Hard drive installable
 
 MACHINE REQUIRED

  Amiga 1200/4000 (AGA only)

 RELEASE

  approximatively in one month

 WARNING

     This version of Fears is not the one released in shareware (the window
was small and the walls were green) but a TOTALLY NEW version.



     "Fears" will be the first Doom-like game for the AMIGA.  It is 
 developed by the BOMB team who made demos like Motion, Real and 
 ORIGIN (under the label Complex for the two latest).  The game is based on
 the algorithm used for Motion and is now 85 percent complete. Let's have 
 a closer look at Fears.

     First of all, you have to notice that Fears isn't like Wolfenstein but
 like Doom (the main difference between the two is that you have stairs in 
 Doom).  The technical specifications are incredible considering the 
 limitations due to the Amiga (no chunky mode).  Everything is mapped (not 
 only the walls) in 256 colors with up to 80 differents patterns.  The 
 differents monsters are animated (15 frames for each type of monster) and 
 you'll be able to blast them with 4 differents weapons (perhaps more 
 because the game isn't finish yet).  There was no music when I saw the 
 game but only the sounds of the weapons.
 
     The speed of the game is very good considering its specifications.  I 
 saw the game running on the Amiga of the programmer of the game (an 
 accelerated A1200 with Fast memory and a 50Mhz 68030).  Fears was nearly 
 one frame on this machine.  This will be different for owners of an 
 unaccelerated A1200: actually, the game is about 5/6 fps but the
 programmer told me that he was planning to double this speed (I don't 
 know if he'll succeed).  If you want to see yourself the speed of this 
 game you can have a look at the demo Motion (which won 3rd place at the 
 Party94) but be careful because the speed has been increased after the 
 release of Motion.  Moreover, the size of the display is resizeable to 
 accelerate the game.
 
     I played with Fears in a level created to test the speed and the look 
 of the game so I can't say if the global gameplay will be good.  I can 
 only say that the game looks great and that it was more than funny to play
 with it.  Imagine: you are walking in a strange corridor when suddenly two
 monster appear just in front of you.  Oops, that was the bad way, you 
 should turn back to the first floor and try an another stair.  OK, but  
 what do I do with two "happy" guys that are trying to kill me?  Blast 
 them with your gun and search for an hidden room filled with health 
 pack....(to be continued)
 
 You'll have 30 levels to complete before reaching the end of "Fears".

 Before leaving you, I just want to present to you the makers of "Fears".
 The BOMB team is composed by Frederic Heintz (GENGIS) -programmer-, 
 Corentin Jaffre (SUNY) -graphist-, laurent Sebire (TITAN) -graphist-, 
 Stephane Elbaze (HOF) -graphist-, and Mathieu Berthaud (CLAWZ) -music-


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                                   *Frederic Rose, our French *
                                   *correspondent, can be     *
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