Scanner 14/Scanner - Issue 14 (1993)(TCS)(Disk 1 of 2).adf/reviews/reviews

Text File | 1978-01-12 | 20KB | 396 lines

                                 REVIEWS







KICK 2.

This is a real sweetie if you still only have W/B 1.2 or 1.3 machine
as I have. It enables you very simply to run programs usually only run
with W/B 2.0. Too good to be true...that's what I thought but read on.
All you do is boot  Kick 2.0 and wait a minute or so. When the program
is loaded it will re-boot and you are in W/B 2.0. Simple innit?
In fact after the message that W/B 2.0 will boot in 5 seconds you can
then assume you have a 500+, 600 or even a 1200 as if you then hold
down both mouse buttons you will get a menu giving you the choice of
which disk or partition of a hard disk you want to boot from. Just
choose with the mouse. It couldn't be easier. If in any doubt at all,
when the original booting is finished (the 5 second re-booting
message) you can simply do a warm reset by pressing Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga
and you will be in W/B 2.0. If you want to get back to your ancient
and venerable 1.2/3 then you will have to switch your Amiga off for 30
seconds or so.
This must be one of the most useful programs, PD or whatever, that
I've come across since MessySid or CrossDos.
So why not give it a go right now. There is the odd program on the
last couple of Scanners which won't (normally) run if you have only
1.2/3, for example Scanner 12 Madgad and Thediskute and Scanner 13
WBTris.

Needless to say (or is it) while you are in W/B 2 mode, any programs
which will ONLY run with W/B 1.2/3 won't run...

For hard drive owners who are feeling a little ambitious why not
install Kick 2.0 on your hard drive and amend your startup sequence so
that you can boot up from W/B 1.2/3 as now or from Kick 2.0. There are
a number of ways of doing this but an easy one is to create a menu
using Setkey as Norman has already explained. You will use the
startup-sequence from the new disk as a second script file and your
Setkey menu will give you the option of activating either.

Eleven out of ten Norman. FRED




PREMIER PICKS.

This is a card game but based upon the game (God's Glorious Game
according to the Author) of football.
You start by picking a number of teams to play in the Premier League
and these then play each other. You can either play another human or
the computer. I played the computer as nobody else in our house has
the slightest interest in either football or computers. What's that?
You're all in the same boat..lets form a computer club for outcasts.
(That's how I got to know Norman, nobody else will talk to me and he's
not that keen.)

Anyway back to the story. You then get a chance to apply some fruit
machine skills because by clicking at flashing lights you have a
chance to choose whether you have one to six help cards. These cards
show you what position various cards are when placed face down, in
other words let you cheat. This is about the only skill I have found
in this game. If you can remember where the goal cards are (or aren't)
and your opponent doesn't get there first you are in with a chance.
Now you see a deck of 18 cards face down and you pick each in turn.
Apart from the aforementioned goal cards there are foul cards where
your opponent (quaintly called your rival by the author- sweet that I
thought) gets two turns, substitute cards where another card is then
put in the same place, near miss (where the commentator says "that was
a tremendous effort", quite good the first ten or so times but after
that a little wearing, penalty shots and one or two more but I'm sure
you have the general idea by now.

I should have said at the beginning that when you start you can change
a number of different aspects of the game which adds to the interest.

Actually,though I seem to have been rather critical I rather like this
game. My many fans (???) will know that I rate ease-of-getting-into as
very important. Many games are excellent if you have the time and
inclination to plough through print-outs several inches thick but
apart from one or two rare and honourable exceptions I'm not. After
reading these few  lines you don't even need to look at the doc file
for the game. Just load it and you're off. If you really want to see
how it plays there is even a HELP key which allows you to watch a
demonstration, not bad for a PD game eh?

One very important and enjoyable things about Premier Picks is the
ability to save a current season of games to disk which means you can
watch your progress throughout a number of seasons.

The graphics are not outstanding but quite nice, certainly adequate. I
especially like the little touch where each team has the right strip.
There is very little waiting while it loads and providing that you
don't expect the equivalent of a thirty five pound commercial game
then you will be happy enough to have a few enjoyable hours with this.
Not the best but well worth the asking price.  FRED




 BEACH ANIMATION.

 This is an animation by Tony Helm (Carl. INC.) which has been created
 by using a combination of Deluxe Paint 4, Animation Station,
 Audiomaster II, View and Sid.

 When the program eventually loads (it takes a while), a cartoon
 picture postcard view of a beach appears (it can't be Blackpool
 because it's too clean !).

 The scene consists of numerous still characters and sets and several
 animated ones. You need to see the scene for several minutes before
 you notice all the animations.

 You are treated to the delights of a bikini clad girly (watch out for
 her lobster !), a 'gull eating sandwiches and a worm, a fat slob in a
 deck chair, even a Punch and Judy show to name but a few.

 There is something for everyone here, the male readers may find the
 antics of the Dalmatian very interesting, while the girls can watch
 the bodybuilder.
 The sound effects, although limited are used well, especially the
 dog, and although the graphics seem a little blocky at first, they
 are colourful and a lot of work has obviously gone into achieving the
 level of detail.

 There are also various scenes included on the disk which you can
 import into D'Paint 3 or 4 and £5 to the author will get you another
 disk of animations

 Overall, this is worth checking out if you want to see a different
 and amusing animation.  CHRIS



 Giddy.(Wibble World Giddy: Wibble Mania by Phil 93!)

 " He's cute, he's egg shaped, he's got ridiculously big hands, it's
 Giddy,   the world's first ellipsoid hero !
   So say the opening credits but what's the story ?....

 " It was a bright and inevitably sunny day in Clicheland and Giddy
 thought   he'd go out and have a nice stroll, he had just left his
 house when Crump !

   Everything went all weird.

   The world began to spin around him and lights flashed before his
 eyes, I   should have given the Diamond Whites a miss Giddy muttered.
   But no.... reality was folding in on itself; This was no illusion.
   But of course ! I must have entered into a time and space interface
 he   thought, and he had.

   Suddenly the chaos stopped and he found himself in a strange
 forest,   blimey, he gasped this would make a great plot for a game
 if it wasn't so   corny.

   Checking his bearings on the morning sun he made off on his quest
 for   home...

   Well, after the intro text it's straight into the game.
   You take control of the main character, Giddy, a smiling, hat
 wearing, white blob with red trainers and hands that are bigger
 than his whole body and it's your job to get him home.
   This is a basic platformer along the lines of the dizzy series
 although I´m sure that there is no similarity intended. The
 graphics are bright and colourful and the characters move quite
 smoothly and the usual jolly tune accompanies the game.
   Along the way you have to dodge the baddies, collect the coins and
 avoid the traps, there are puzzles along the way to make this more
 interesting(or hamper your progress, whichever way you look at
 it).For example, at the start you encounter a fire that you can't
 seem to get past, remember the bucket of water you found at the
 beginning, just use that and you'll be able to pass.
   You have 5 lives in the game and when you take damage in the game
 your energy bar drops until you eventually lose a life.
   Hints also scroll across the screen when you reach a seemingly
 impassable point in the game.

   There are no readme files on the disk so I cannot provide any
 details on the games construction, however, there is an intro
 before the game starts which provides brief instructions and the
 background story.

   Although this is not the most original game I´ve seen, for little
  more than the price of a disk you can't complain, check it out. CHRIS




18TH HOLE

This is the first PD golf game that I have seen. For those of you not
familiar with commercial computer golf games, normally you can set the
direction and power of the shot and at what stage of the swing to
thump the ball. You are also usually told the strength and direction
of the wind. It's to the author's credit that most of these options
are available in this game.

The game comes on two disks, a program disk and a course disk. If you
have two drives then the program will recognise both, in other words
put one disk in each and you have no disk swapping at all. A lesson
here for a lot of commercial games.

At boot up you have the usual option to play the computer or a friend.
As I have already said elsewhere I do have friends but not quite so
dedicated so I invariably play the computer. There are adequate
instructions with the game but you hardly need them, just remember
that almost everything is controlled by the SPACE bar, the  exception
being the angle of the shot for which the right and left cursor keys
are used.

After being presented with the first hole you must decide on the
direction of your shot (cursors) and then work out how much power to
use. This can be a little tricky as the power bar runs up and down and
if you don't press SPACE at the right time you get don't get the power
you wanted, and if you do get it wrong there is no opportunity to
correct it. This would be my first criticism as I would imagine it
should not be too difficult to make this choice a bit easier, or is
this part of the challenge I ask myself? Next choose the swing which
being slower is much easier to get right. The next SPACE press sends
the ball off into the wide blue yonder.

There are the usual hazards such as water (if you land in it your ball
is returned from whence it came), trees which are impenetrable. You
either bounce off them or finish up enmeshed in them with no apparent
way out, very frustrating this though it only happened to me once,
rough and lastly bunkers. All with predictable penalties.

After each hole you are given your score and that of much more
accomplished players. If you have a really bad hole and have used too
many shots then the computer will tell you - time to quit and to get
more practice in- a nice touch that and it does prevent you getting
too bogged down. If this happens you just go on to the next hole.

The courses are quite tricky. You have to work out the best way to get
to the green. Don't try to get through small gaps in trees, it doesn't
work. When you reach the green you get a zoom shot of your ball and
the hole. This is where I would make my last criticism. It is
essential when you are close to the hole that you can position your
shot exactly, otherwise you go off at a tangent. In my opinion the
programming has set this a little too coarse and when you are really
near the hole you sometimes can't get the cursor arrow just as you
want it.

However these are small problems and overall I think this is an
excellent game. Nice graphics, very easy too play and really
absorbing. An example of this is that I intended to spend only about
half an hour getting familiar with the game for this review and I was
still at it two hours later and what's more didn't realise this until
my wife shouted - did I know what time it was etc etc...  FRED






EDWORD V2.2 by M. Reddy.

No, Edword is not a cartoon animation of the husband of Michelle Dotrice,
famed as "The Equaliser" or, for the wrinklys, "Callan" and having too many
"would"s in his name. Or did the vicar have a speech impediment?

The program is called ed W O R D; so straight away you'll probably assume
it's a word processor...... Wrong! Very rarely will an author appear to
down-grade his work, but the Docs, which, incidentally, are well written
in clear, concise, uncomplicated but not patronising language, emphatically
deny that Edword is a word processor, and claim that it is merely a Text
Editor. I start to wonder if there might be a little false modesty here!

Edword is a programmers tool, no don't switch off, I'm just as intimidated
as anyone else by the prospect of attempting to communicate with machinery
in anything other than simple English Language. The program can be as simple
or as sophisticated as you like. If you're a programmer it would appear to be
a very useful tool. I'm not, so I'll leave comment on that score to someone
more able. I have used Text Editors, both good and bad, expensive and cheap,
(The two descriptions do not always equate in the same order) and, similarly,
I can comment on Word Processors. Edword can boast some facilities many,
expensive, commercial products should envy,despite its relative age. It will
even detect virii!!

Have you heard enough and want to know where to get it, well skip to the end
of this review, but remember you might miss something really interesting in
the middle! It's a gamble isn't it?

The main restrictions preventing Edword from aspiring to Word processor
status are the lack of word wrap, page formatting, typestyle, margin settings
and page numbering. There is, of course, no spell checker but there is a
facility to run programs from within Edword, actually intended to be used by
programmers to run Language and Assembly programs. These can easily be used
to run your favourite independent spell checker or text centrator programs;
I still say AZspell (a PD spell checker available from TELESCAN) is superior
to many commercial spell checkers. It's my nightmare to be singing the
praises of a spell checker and fill my prose with mysspeallyngz but here I am
standing up to be counted.

Any ASCII file, of virtually any size, can be opened in Edword . The buffer
defaults to 60K but can be increased as required, thus avoiding the annoying
situation of loading a large file, editing the first few lines and saving
without noticing that the end of the file is missing! Ouch!

Moving about a large file can be painfully slow in some commercial word
processors; not so in Edword. I tried moving from the top to the bottom of a
ONE HUNDRED AND NINE THOUSAND LINE FILE. It was instantaneous! The search
procedure is equally fast and has an interesting method of pin pointing the
searched string. The screen scrolls to the relevant section of dialogue and
then cross-hairs "home-in" on the illusive text. The usual GOTO, JUMPTO and
SEARCH & REPLACE facilities are supplemented by a couple of programmers
search tools which, apparently, involve Hex and Byte OffSet; I wonder what
that means? While I'm declaring my ignorance I might as well own up to
another enigma! There are two cursor modes, INSERT and DESTROY. I don't know
what they do and can find no reference to them in otherwise excellent Docs.
What I do know is that while playing about with the cursor mode I lost half
of this script and had to rewrite it. "Was it worth it? "I hear you ask!
Well you've been warned!

The normal file system is easy to use with a couple of extras. Files can be
renamed or deleted and protection bits can be edited. Mentioning editing
brings me to the Cut & Paste procedure, it's as simple and comprehensive as I
need and has a couple of added tricks. Vertical Block marking can be very
useful when arranging tables, Spreadsheet output or even address labelling.
Horizontal marking is limited to whole lines but you can't have everything!
The best bit for me is the ability to see what's on the clipboard.

As an exercise in using the INSERT facility I purloined a small section of
the Docs, which itself was a quote from The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy.

                         \*/\*/\*/\*/

         "It is known that there  are  an  infinite number of worlds,
          simply because there  is  an  infinite  amount of space for
          them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited.
          Therefore, there  must  be a  finite  number  of  inhabited
          worlds.  Any finite number  divided  by infinity is as near
          to nothing as makes no odds, so the  average  population of
          all the planets in  the  Universe  can  be said to be zero.
          From this, it  follows  that  the  population  of the whole
          Universe is also  zero, and  that  any  people you may meet
          from time to time  are  merely  the  products of a deranged
          imagination."

                         \*/\*/\*/\*/

Was this the interesting bit in the middle, or is there more? Who knows!

File information is displayed in the Top Bar. The Bottom Bar gives the
current Line and Column Number, the Tab Setting (which is adjustable), the
Cursor Mode (Careful!), The current Time and ASCII character reference.
ASCII character insertion is not something I would be seeking but it's there
if you want it.

A file of regular commands can be maintained in order that these will be
automatically displayed in upper case characters. This might be created by
redirecting a DIR of the C: directory to the file. Again this is a
programmers tool but with a little imagination could easily be put to good
use by the likes of me. Maybe personal names from your address book or
database would look better in capitals in your Christmas Card list.Word UPPER
or lower casing can be achieved simply with keyboard combinations as can all
the other commands except "View ClipBoard" but including the ~F~ keys which
can be defined with regularly used strings. This can be a great help to
people like me who have never learned to type.

User variables can be saved to configuration files to enable a suitable
working environment to be loaded either to suit your mood or the type of
project being undertaken. Screen mode can be defined to suit your VDU, as can
colours and font selection. The command line for Edword is in itself
impressive in it's choices of opening screens and other options.

There are lots of other attributes to Edword for which Martin can be proud
but, there always has to be a 'but' doesn't there, I have a couple of
complaints (keep taking the pills) to make. Only small ones but here they
are:-- The sort routine simply doesn't work at all and the word count and
occurrence count, though well presented, is very, very s--l---o----w. Another
problem for me was probably not Martin's doing, the program is not small, 84K
when crunched, and uncrunching takes a few seconds......a minor irritation
and one I hope to correct when I find out which cruncher was used. CFX tells
me it's powerpacked but powerpacker denies responsibility. What's CFX ? I'll
tell you soon!

Edword can be found among a disk collection of utilities called LSD Tools 101
from TELESCAN.     COMAC

P.S. I'll do my spell checking now. AZ first and then a couple of the less
reliable ones!!