What is The Bottom Shelf? It’s where the older Mac games are usually found at your local software store. The games reviewed in this section have been released for some time now but are still selling, so you should get the Inside (Mac Games) Scoop.
Diamonds 2.0
One of the oldest video games on computers (next to Pong) has to be Breakout. The simplicity of the game made it highly addictive to play. A plethora of Breakouts became available as shareware for the Mac. Until recently, the only commercial variation of Breakout released on the Mac was Arkanoid. Alas, Arkanoid met its death when System 7 was released. This left a void in this genre of games. It took a while but the hole in the dike has been patched with the release of Diamonds 2.0.
Diamonds 2.0 is one of three games released by Varcon Systems. The other two are Jewelbox (reviewed last issue) and Aces with Tens. These games are like gems begging to be dug up. But I digress (too late!).
Unlike standard Breakout, Diamonds does not use a paddle to control the ball. Horizontal movement of the ball is done with the use of the left and right cursor keys as the ball bounces up and down. The basic goal of Diamonds is simple. Knock out all the bricks and diamonds so you can move on to the next level. Meeting that goal is another story all together.
The game window is composed of different colored bricks and diamonds. The first step is to clear the bricks. To knock these bricks out, the ball must match the color of the brick. Paintbrushes are supplied on the game field to help you eliminate the bricks. Each time the ball touches a paintbrush, it will change the color (or pattern for B&W Macs) of the ball to the color of the paintbrush. One word of warning, sometimes there may be no paintbrush available to change the ball back to its original appearance.
To add to your peril are traps. They are like bottomless pits. If your ball contacts it, you lose your ball. Luckily each game starts with six balls. Bonus balls are also awarded every 5,000 points.
Once you clear the board of the bricks, you can then collect the diamonds. You may also wind up with bonus points if you complete the level fast enough. On the lower levels this tends to be fairly simple. As you move up in levels, you will contend with keys, locks, and reversers.
Sometimes the only way to collect the diamonds or reach another section of the board is by having to unlock a lock. As with the bricks, the ball must match the color of the key to pick it up. Just make sure you do not change the color of the ball after obtaining the key.
The reversers do as their name implies. It reverses the keys you use to control the ball with. Left become right and right becomes left. This can get confusing in crunch-time situations. As you can see, this game has a great deal of strategy built into it.
Since there is a remote chance you may get bored (ha!) with the number of levels included in the game, Varcon has included a game editor. I found it very easy to use. You can either create new levels or modify the ones included. If you play it on a color Mac, you will find that the graphics are very sharp and vibrant in colors. You can even select your own PICT file as a backdrop for the game. The music and sounds just further enhance what is already a great game.
Tristin Pinball & Eightball Deluxe
Arcade games can be separated into five major groups; Shoot-em-Ups, Maze, Sports, Racing and the old faithful, pinball. Over the years I have seen many different types of arcade games on the Mac. Most categories were well tended to except for pinball. Up to now the only pinball game ever written for the Mac was Pinball Construction Kit (PCK) by Electronic Arts. It was written for the 128K and 512K Mac. It even played digitized sounds on a 512. The only problem was when the Mac’s ROMs went through their first revision, Pinball Construction Kit wound up draining.
PCK was not compatible with the new 128K ROMs and Electronic Arts had no plan of revising the program. Seven years would have to pass before another company would release a pinball program. The company is Amtex and their programs are Tristan and Eight Ball Deluxe Pinball.
Tristan was their first release. It has been on the market for the last year. Over that period of time, Tristan has received it’s share of accolades and awards. The look, feel (esoterically speaking), and sounds are so well balanced. You should see how the ball moves. All laws of physics have been fully taken into account. The ball can get all types of spins on it. Movement can be altered by shaking the machine. Just don’t over do it or you may tilt. I find myself even shaking the keyboard as I play.
One of the joys of pinball is discovery. True pinball players like to find out what each device does by playing the game. Some of the most tried and true gadgets will be found on the board. The interaction between the ball and devices is so real. The only thing missing is the sound a wild moving ball makes when it smacks the cover glass.
Like other software, this one has a minor blemish. First, there is no multiple player mode and you are only given three balls to play. True vintage pinball gave the player five balls per game. I also wish that the LC/IIsi version allowed the player to adjust the screen to that of a 13/14-inch monitor. Well, at least the parts won’t run down and freeze up.
Time passes. More time passes and Amtex releases their second machine. This one is called Eight Ball Deluxe. This company is like a fine wine. It only improves with age. Due to the success of Tristan, major pinball companies contacted Amtex. They felt that Amtex was worthy of translating some of the most famous pinball games to the Mac and PC universe. Ballay’s Eight Ball Deluxe was their first rendition.
I use to play Eight Ball at the arcades and the Mac version of the mechanical wonder is outstanding. As with Tristan, the graphics and sounds work in harmony with each other. All the weaknesses described above have been eliminated. One to four people can play at a time. Each player is given five balls to work with. You also get to match the last two digits of your score for credit at the end of a game.
Since the game itself is very easy to learn, the manual includes a background history of pinball machines through the years. This is a well rounded package. They even included a pinball flipper in the box. All this game is missing is a screen editor kit. It would be great if you could create your own classic. This method worked well for Glider. People made so many houses that Casady and Greene took the best ones and released More Glider 4.0. Lets hope Amtex takes the hint and releases one sometime in the future.
Both programs have off-disk copy protection. Once you install either game you will then be instructed to enter the serial number and a piece of information from the manual. As long as you do not move the game to another location on your drive, you will not be asked for that information again. This is one type of copy guard I can live with.
As I wrote earlier, due to the quality of their work, Amtex was contracted to translate more vintage machines over to the Mac. Eight Ball was their first rendition. In the near future look for Fun House by Williams and Royal Flush by Gottlieb to be released next. At this rate you will be able to welcome people to the MacArcade.
Blast From the Past
Note: As you can see by the date, this game is a blast from the past. I thought it would be interesting to time trip back to some of the original games that were released for the 128K, 512K, and Mac Plus. There is a remote chance that you may be able to find games like this at Swap Meets or Flea Markets. Just bear in mind that this game is not produced any more. One could say that this is the basement level of the bottom shelf.
Operation Tsunami (1990)
Off in the far Pacific Rim near Asia, an innocent island is secretly taken over by multi-billionaire megalomaniac. It seems that this guy as other persons before him, thinks that he alone should rule the world. To protect the island from intruders, a slew of skilled assassins, armored robots, genetically enlarged insects and different types of traps are brought to the island in case of an assault. It seems that it would take a major tidal wave to over come the odds in order to beat this nasty fellow.
Covert activities conveys information that an all-out attack would never work. Yet it seems possible that a force of one might be able to slip through the multitude of island defenses. You are special agent Frank Pao and you alone get the honor of being assigned to this tactical intrusion that is labeled: Operation Tsunami.
Operation Tsunami (OT) is a fast pace shoot-em-up arcade game. To win the game you must survive 17 levels. Each level consist of four areas giving you a total of 68 different scrolling screens to contend with. One thing I can tell you is that it will be a long time before you reach victory. I have been playing for the last two months it on the easy level and still cannot get pass the Behemoth on level two, area four. This is a killer of a game.
I read the interview that Bob Nordling did with Mark Fong of Spph! Software in an issue of Home and School Mac. It seems that OT has the same basic roots as another game called Leprechaun written by Greg Hale. Apparently Mark enjoyed games like Rolling Thunder and Shinobi when he was a student at Berkeley and decided at first to write a freeware version that would be a cross between the two called The Big One. The only bug in this version was that the sound system was not bomb proof so he omitted the sounds.
Mark got such a response from his friends that he decided to go commercial with it and thus was the birth of Operation Tsunami. To do this, Mark had to resolve the sound problem. Once resolved, Mark added a sound system that included over 500K of digitized sounds that would play in either two or four channels depending upon which Mac you owned. He also increased the number of levels from 4 to 17 and the amount of attackers from 5 to 22. This was no small undertaking and Mark is to be commended for his fine work. Mark then proceeded to market the game on his own. From what I read in the interview, you can purchase OT through The Mac Zone. Hopefully other venders will pick this game up to help increase the sales of it especially on the local level.
Since the games initial release there has been two additional upgrades. The first upgrade gave people who own color Macs the ability to play the game in 256 colors. The second upgrade gave the player the choice of either using the keyboard or the Gravis MouseStick to control the activities on the screen. I talked to Mark about this on America On Line (AOL) and he told me that he talked to Gravis at an Expo and got the information needed to incorporate the use of the MouseStick into the game. That upgrade came to me about two weeks ago and works great (note- I began writing this article on 3/6/92).
With all these upgrades, Mark did miss one option which would have put the icing on the cake. I thought it would be great if an option was offered for multiple players. I mentioned this to Mark in a letter to him on AOL. He also thought it to be a great idea but at this time he is now working on his next game that will have a sports theme that can be played over networks or modems. Maybe sometime in the future he might have some time to go back and add it.
Over all this is an excellent one-player game. It is not one that you will play and then put up to collect dust. As I wrote earlier, I am still on the easy level and still cannot get pass the final area in level two. Probably some 12-year-old will come to my game SIG and go through the whole gambit on the hard level (Oh Boy!). It would not be the first time and it won’t be the last.
As some of you have probably surmised by now, OT offers three levels of play. They are easy, normal, and hard. A couple of features are included to help ease the frustration of the game. The first is the continue function once you have exhausted all you lives. You will be given three credits and which will allow you to pick up where you left off except your score will be reset to zero. If instead you wish to start over, you can either wait ten seconds or press the space bar and go back to the start screen.
The other mercy that was given to us by Mr. Fong is only available on the normal and hard level. He felt the easy level did not deserve this perk because of the ease to beat it (Ha!). Each time you play the game you will be given a password to access the last level you died at. This will appear at the Continue screen. Make sure you jot that password down somewhere so you can make use of it at future times. This will then allow you to concentrate on a given level until you master it without having to go back to square one each time you play. This is a great game and really works on your hand/eye coordination.
Operation Tsunami also proves another point about Macs that use the 68000 CPU. Most games that operate under this CPU tend to work slower because of all the routines that are going on to make the game work. This is one reason why the game Splatter will only run on machines with either the 68020 or 030 CPU. Yet for some reason OT does not have this problem. I have seen as many as seven different things going on at the same time on my screen and have not noticed any change in the speed of the game. It just seems strange and weakens the argument that the 68000 chip cannot carry out functions fast enough.
Over all there is no down side to this game. The graphics are well drawn and the animation is very smooth. The 500K of sounds enhances the playing of OT. The manual is well-written and explains all parameters of game play. If you love arcade-style games then this is one that you should not overlook. Just be careful that you are not carried back out to sea as the tidal waves of excitement hit you.
Super Hang-On (1989)
Super Hang-On by Data East is a unique entry in the Macintosh game library. This is the first Pole Position-style arcade racing game. While there are other racing programs out there, they are more like simulations than arcade in play. The object of the game is to complete a race track before the clock runs out. At your command is a 142 horsepower turbo-powered motorcycle. To stop you from crossing the finish line are hairpin turns and other cyclist who love to run you off the track and make you lose time.
This is a well translated game and not another IBM port. The graphics and sounds are well done. I did find one problem with the sound however. Although you can turn the sound on or off, you cannot adjust the volume. Even accessing the control panel does not help. I find the sounds are very important to the game and wish that Data East would have given us a little more latitude in controlling the volume.
Control of your motorcycle is also little awkward. You use the mouse to steer, speed up, and slow down. Control of your brakes and turbo power are done by the space bar and command key respectively. I find the use of scotch tape to hold down the command key very helpful. It allows the turbo power to kick in automatically as soon as I pass 115 mph. Since I do not use the brakes very often this method allows me to concentrate on working the mouse thus making the game play more fun. Except for these two weaknesses, all other parameters of game play are well executed.
If you get tired of the courses that come with the game, then make your own. A course builder is included with the game. This program reminds me of the days when I used to fool around with miniature car racing, only without the mess. You also get a choice of three different backgrounds. My favorite one is the city of the future. Data East did a good job with this game and you should get a lot of mileage out of it.
Thexder
An asteroid spaceship has been taken over by hostile aliens. You have been dispatched to regain control of the ship. At your command is the Thexder Super Assault Vehicle, part robot and part jet. As you enter the asteroid ship you quickly discover that all your exits have been blocked and you are now trapped. The only way out now is to make it through all sixteen levels of the ship and destroy the alien’s central computer. Only this will allow you to regain control of the ship and free yourself. Welcome to the world of Thexder.
Thexder by Sierra On-Line is a fast-paced shoot-’em-up arcade game. Surviving all 16 levels will not be easy. The enemy computer has created a slew of defense weaponry. This is going to be an uphill battle all the way. You are Thexder and, equipped with heat-seeking lasers, you will have to fight your way to the top.
Control of Thexder is done via the keyboard. It has a very natural feel when playing the game. Direction is controlled via the numeric keypad, while the space bar fire the lasers, and the control key activates your force field. Your power is not unlimited. You will have to find different forms of energy orbs to keep your power up to par or your game will end very fast.
Gameplay is very smooth and natural. The animation is excellent and the graphics are some of the best I have ever seen from Sierra. Thexder is bundled with both the B&W and color versions. The sounds are fully digitized. No longer will you have to tolerate the old fashion computer sounds found on their older games. There is even a beautiful piano concerto that plays during the title screen. Try listening to it with a pair of headphones. I find it to be very soothing.
The Fat Lady Sings
Due to some changes that are about to occur at IMG, this is the last installment of the Bottom Shelf. Due to a large volume of letters asking why we do not do more educational reviews, Tuncer has decided to replace the Bottom Shelf with an education section and has appointed me the education editor starting with the September issue. I hope you enjoyed time tripping with me through my blasts from the past and will get just as much delight with our new education section. Till then, stay tuned.
