In Detail

In brief

c.s.a.g What's happening on the Acorn games newsgroup, including the latest rumours which aren't actually libellous. Updated daily. Heroes of Might and Magic 2 RCI show no signs of resting on their laurels - yet another new conversion on the way! ChopX A preview of the forthcoming game from GEK Pheobe and 3D RCI release information on how Pheobe may be used in conjunction with 3D graphics cards TEK Update Detailed information on Artex's realtime strategy game set for RiscPC release in the Autumn, now includes new unit listings SunBurst from VOTI Preview of this forthcoming game... download the playable demo! Southeast Show A full report of all things gaming related from the show Descent Preview A comprehensive preview of R-Comp's port of Descent Latest news from R-Comp A round-up of all the latest news of R-Comp's four conversions Syndicate+ An overview of Syndicate+, R-Comp's latest conversion NC Games Market Heating up PowerNet are shortly to announce details of their rival to NetChannel's games club Wakefield Show Full report on the recent Acorn show Phoebe unveiled New photo, feature list and what impact will it have on the games market? King and Country Details of a planned new strategy game from Software 7 Skirmish A preview of Skirmish, a new Worms type game from Kindred Software. Now includes exclusive new screenshots Demo News All the latest Demo scene news courtesy of the new demos section Ankh Download the Ankh pre-release demo and get screenshots and info on this brand new game from Artex Bubble Impact Owl-Art Un-Ltd have now acquired the UK distribution rights for Bubble Impact, download the demo here. Iron Dignity Screenshots and info about the new strategy/warfare simulation due for release sometime this year Extreme Force Preview of Skullsoft's new vertically scrolling shoot'em up. Overload A sneak preview of Paradise's next budget release, Overload including some screenshots

NetChannel Drops Acorn Boxes (22/8/98) It has just emerged that NetChannel, a leading network computer (NC) ISP, are to stop using the Acorn licensed NC box in favour of an Intel based unit called The NetBox. The move comes following the recent takeover of NetChannel by the cable company NTL who obviously don't see Acorn-based NC technology as the way forward any longer. This news almost certainly spells the end of the Acorn-licensed NC box in the consumer market with only Powernet and Argonet still using the technology. However, Argonet only have about 200 NC subscribers and Netchannel are reported to have only attracted 1000 customers nationwide prior to today's news so Powernet cannot have recruited many more. Source: The Acorn Cybervillage This news will certainly be a huge blow to many Acorn games developers who were hoping to be able to market their wares to the NC service providers. Companies such as TBA and R-Comp stood to make a lot of money licensing their Acorn titles for NC distribution and an NC version of TEK from Artex is currently being developed. We'll do our best to keep you up to date with this unfortunate story but there is a rumour that something more pleasant is in its way for Acorn game developers. Martin Piper of TBA software commented today: "Well yes it is bad news for everyone concerned and it's news that we could have really done without. But hey these things happen and it doesn't stop us from producing projects in the future." Project Sunflower (17/8/98) Updated: (21/8/98) A team of programmers are currently working on a project aimed to revive the freeware side of the Acorn games scene. 'Project Sunflower' consists of two main stages: Create a module to manage aspects common to all games Develop a games DDE (Desktop Development Environment) A mailing list has been setup for the discussion of this project, if you wish to be added to this list, send an email to the project co-ordinator, Nathan Briggs. There is also a website, this can be found at http://www.argonet.co.uk/sunflower/, if contains full details of the mailing list, and the source code of an early development version of the Sunflower game management module. BotKiller 2 (17/8/98) Artex software have just announced that they are working on yet another Acorn title following the release of Exodus then Ankh. As the name suggests, BotKiller 2 is indeed the sequel to the original BotKiller freeware platform game from Artex. BotKiller 2 will feature the same genre of puzzle solving whilst jumping about killing monsters on platforms as its predecessor but will have greatly improved graphics and gameplay. BotKiller 2 is due for release in time for Acorn World 98 in early October and will retail for about £10. Artex are still hard at work on TEK, their forthcoming war strategy game, and also a new 3D title which is still top secret at this time. Richard Wilson is taking on most of the programming for the BotKiller project whilst Jan and the team in Germany will do the graphics and marketing. New SNES Emulator (14/8/98) With the advent of Gareth Long's port of SNES9X, the SNES Emulator, some of the classic games of the nineties can be played on your RiscPC. Amazingly, 16-bit titles such as Super Mario World, Zelda and Super Off Road are capable of running at near-full speed on a StrongARM, even with preliminary sound support. And there's likely to be a lot of progress; this last test version isn't fully optimised as some debugging code has been left in. Unfortunately, some games simply don't run quickly enough to be playable and some (like Mario Kart and Pilot Wings) don't run at all. Gareth hopes to have these bugs ironed out and the testing code removed for the first full release 'real soon now', but in the meantime you can download the latest test version of SNES9X from Gareth's web site. Alisdair McDiarmid Dire Destiny demo released (14/8/98) A new demo version of Acorn-native Doom clone Eternal Destiny has been released by Robert Templeman, and is available from his website at http://ds.dial.pipex.com/rtt or via FTP at ftp://mphhpd.ph.man.ac.uk/pub/destdemo.zip However, the same problems that have beset the full version, and which have delayed a review appearing on Acorn Arcade, seem to be much in evidence in the demo too; after downloading the 4.4MB archive and decompressing it in to 12MB of disc space, three attempts at loading the game crashed the computer in three different ways. Such problems prompted one industry insider to comment that it "sounds like even basic testing was skipped on that project". This comes on the back of several delays including the "disappearance" of the main programmer around the original release date of the Wakefield show, and long running public disputes with a rival 3D programmer on the comp.sys.acorn.games newsgroup. It would certainly appear that those who pinned their hopes on Eternal Destiny being the next big thing in the Acorn games scene will at least have a while longer to wait. ABE News (11/8/98) Jonathan Murray has just announced ABE News, a new news service on the WWW for Acorn users. However, this is a news site with a difference since all the best articles are taken from a selection of sources and linked to from the ABE News site. Try ABE News for yourself at: http://the.hypermart.net/acorn/news/. ABE lists news from the following sources: Acorn Arcade Acorn Cybervillage News.Com comp.sys.acorn.announce Please Note: ABE News has special permission to link to individual Acorn Arcade articles, we would prefer that others do not do the same without our permission. You are of course, welcome to host a copy of our banner or include a link to our front page. Acorn User CD4 coming soon! (3/8/98) Acorn User's fourth cover CD is now under construction and will be appearing on newsagent's shelves in the Autumn. Stephen Scott is once again compiling the CD and the hunt is now on for submissions to the disc. A full off-line copy of Acorn Arcade will be included on the CD along with many other gaming resources such as rival site, 32-bit Acorn Gaming. If you have written a game which you think should be included on the CD, please get in contact with Steve at Acorn User by e-mail at: scotts@post.idg.co.uk. However, please do not send copies of games by e-mail without asking first because I imagine Steven won't want his mail account to be flooded! Abuse released (31/7/98) RCI are now shipping the action arcade game Abuse. A full review is now available on this site, click here to see it! Ported by Lee Noar and available in a cut-down, shareware-levels-only version on the 'Net since Christmas, the full commercial package brings it up to the level of the orignal PC game, plus has one or two RiscOS only enhancements: Lots of additional levels, with many much larger than the originals An awesome array of weaponary, including beam weapons, flamestrikes, and missiles Loads of new monsters and graphics Extra powerups, including a jetpack RiscOS version supports up to 1024x768, and desktop play Desktop level editor included, with RiscOS menus and windows. A full manual is included for the level editor Full sound and (MIDI) music, with additional effects over the original Multi-language support for English, French and German Support for add-on levels and total conversions Stunning lighting and palette effects 4 skill levels, and many additional traps, and tough new enemies Huge full-screen explosions RCI's August Offer (25/7/98) Details have just emerged of a new scheme from R-Comp to get more people buying their range of PC conversions. They are to offer a 3rd game free to people who buy two of their games at the usual price, this means savings of up to £35 could be made. The offer will only be open to existing customers who have registered products with R-Comp and it is not yet known whether those who have registered copies of their HTML authoring software rather than other game titles will also be eligible for the free games. This means that those who have already purchased DOOM will be able to get three excellent games from; Abuse, Quake, Syndicate and Descent for between £50 and £60, surly good value for money in anyone's book! Bombz II released (9/7/98) Updated: (23/7/98) Wag software has announced the release of a new puzzle game titled Bombz II. The game will work on all machines running RISC OS 3 or higher and atleast 1mb RAM, and includes a level designer. Initial reaction from Jon Hall, our ardent game player... At last we have the follow up to the very playable PD game Bombz. This new version looks much the same as the original, but has some added features, including a level designer (which was included in later versions of the first release of Bombz - Ed), the old Bombz levels, and an app to import/export new/old levels. You can also choose from new level sets, which provide different playing environments. These are: Tutorial levels Speed levels Mental levels Skill levels Bombz 1 levels Sound is minimal and there is no music but this does not detract from the gameplay. Well done to all concerned with producing this addictive winner. All in all, a totally absorbing game, that leads to the old lemmings-style 'lost hour' syndrome. The game costs £8.00, and can be ordered by sending a cheque or postal order to: Wag Software, 5 Queens Close, East Markham, Nr Newark, Notts. NG22 0QY

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