Acorn Arcade - PD games

PD GAMES REVIEWS
The Best, The Good, The Rest, Index.
On this page: Abuse, ArcQuake, MarsQuake, Super Foul Egg, Pushy II.

Abuse by Lee Noar

Abuse is an excellent port of a DOS game originally written by Crack Dot Com. It's basically a platformer where you're in control of a soldier type bloke who goes around shooting all kinds of different aliens. The freeware release of the game only has 5 levels and can be played right through in a couple of hours, more levels would have gained it an even higher rating which it probably deserves. The full version with the full set of levels has been released by R-Comp - a full review is in the commercial reviews section
Abuse runs at an acceptable speed on an ARM710, and on an ARM600 it is arguably as good as the full version, but uses a high colour screen mode by default so it won't work on anything less than a Risc PC with at least 1MB VRAM. The game's sound effects are good but the music conversion from the PC does not yet work. The game consists of 2 zip files totalling about 2Mb but it's worth the wait!

Max. players ... 1 --- Status ... freeware

Arcquake by id / Peter Teichmann

This is currently the fastest version of Quake for RISC OS available. It runs at a playable speed on a StrongARM, and will not run at all on anything less. Includes sound, network, internet, mouse and video mode support, and runs from a Wimp frontend.
The only proviso is that you need to get hold of the PAK (game data) files. There is a shareware version included with the shareware version of Quake at id software's web site, or you can get hold of the full version of the game on CD and use the files from that. This is entirely legal if you own a legal copy of the PC version.
At my, and a number of others' behest, Peter has released a version which will run on ARM610, ARM7500 and ARM710 processors.-Graham

Max. players ... 1 --- Status ... freeware

MarsQuake Boom:Deluxe by Paul Taylor

This game is a Bomber Man clone, yet far better than the original. Your task is to drop bombs around a playing area to destroy the rubble created by some huge explosion. The game is, however, a lot more difficult than that because there are various kinds of robot and pipes which will take your explosions to different areas of the screen!
This games has only one flaw - a very tedious menu system where about 7 menus must be worked through in order to start a game. Other than that minor niggle, the playability is excellent and as usual, and the multi-player modes are simply outstanding.

The "Boom:Deluxe" part of the title indicates that this is the second version of the game following its release on an Acorn User cover disc some time ago. The new version has a RISC OS front end which makes it far more wimp friendly. Also included is a level editor, adding to the lifetime of the game. The multiplayer option has been improved even further, and now features fairly intelligent computer players, and serial link option, placing less strain on the keyboard. Internet play has been hinted at, but is not currently available. The sound effects are far better, and a few minor bugs have been fixed. This game gives hours of fun and mental stimulation in single player mode, and lots of fast competetive action in multiplayer mode. Get it!

Max. players ... 4 --- Status ... freeware

Super Foul Egg by Owain Cole (VOTI)

What can I say? A tried and tested formula, beautifully and seamlessly executed. Super Foul Egg is a tetris/columns variant with emphasis on multiplayer action. Two to four players compete against each other, any of which is a computer player.
The graphics are at first sight simplistic but work very well - some nice shadowing effects and little explosive effects give a quite smooth presentation to the game. The music (which unfortunately only plays in the menu screens) is of good quality with good, beefy bass. The sound is the best feature of the game however; lovely ploppy squelchy noises, yelps and yippees, crunches, explosions... it makes it a joy to play.
A MUST for your multiplayer games collection, and one of the best games of this genre that I have played, rivalled only by Paul Carpenter's !lYAToV, from *Info in Acorn User a year or so ago. -Graham

Max. players ... 4 --- Status ... freeware

Pushy II by R Fred Williams

Pushy is a sliding-block puzzle game. The idea of the game is to ensure that each cross on the floor is covered by one of the wooden crates which are dotted about the playing area. You are represented by the small, purple bouncy thingy visible in the screenshot below. The author of this game, Fred Williams describes this game as a "Kid's game". I don't agree because so far I have been unable to complete the 25 levels included although my friends claim to have been able to! Overall this is a very good game and I got hooked on it and spent hours trying to complete the damn thing! This game also takes advantage of the 24bit and hi-res screen modes available to owners of Risc PCs with sufficient V-RAM.

Max. players ... 1 --- Status ... freeware