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Floppyshop 2
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Floppyshop - 2.zip
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5791-.end
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dmg-6210
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midwinte.doc
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midwinte.doc
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1995-12-03
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10KB
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193 lines
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M I D W I N T E R II -Flames Of Freedom
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Once upon a time, there was a really great game, featuring
innovative graphics, and unparalled depth of gameplay, released by
Rainbird, and there was much joy, and absolutely no wailing and
gnashing of teeth, throughout the land...
So, following the success of the original MIDWINTER, there was no
surprise whatsoever, when it was announced there would be a
sequel, this being released in the 'Spring' of 1991...
The multitudes waited, and waited...
......And waited some more....
It eventually came to pass, that a tiny voice whispered in my ear
"It's out..." I said "Really??"
And lo, MIDWINTER burst forth before the assembled multitudes once
more, in its sparkling new FLAMES OF FREEDOM guise..
Having notched up an incredible BPM (Bullshit Per Minute) count,
it's on to the review proper....
You can tell this is a Rainbird game, immediately, by the huge
box, and huge pricetag (£33-34 - Oh dear) But, as is often the
case, the game is a three-disk epic, there being, a program,
graphics and mission disk, along with keyboard overlay, and large
manual...
The plot follows on from the events described in MIDWINTER, the
army of General Masters having been successfully defeated, there
is the new problem of rising seas, and the inhabitants of
Midwinter find their way to the friendly island of Agora.. This
is the only friendly island, the other 41 are under the despotic
thumb of the Saharan Empire.. You may think 'El tougho shito' as
far as they are concerned, but the Saharan Empire wants the full
set of 42, which means you!! So as a field agent of COBRA (Covert
Operations Bureau) you are charged with the task of delaying,
impeding, wrecking, sticking a grade 'A' spanner in the works of
the Saharan invasion fleet, by subverting as many of the other
islands as possible...
There is the option of playing a straight 'arcade' mode, or a
single island, or a full campaign, if you have a gamedisk, and a
lot of time, as this is a much bigger game, than even the original
MIDWINTER...
FLAMES OF FREEDOM puts you in a H.Q. corridor, with the option to
go on raids (single island) a full campaign, training (For
Çdifferent types of vehicles and situations) and also the
personality and face creation bit..
There are 22 different modes of transport, ranging from the scenic
but fairly useless balloon, to rather brilliant things like
minisubs, flying subs, biplanes, and jetpacks.. To sample each of
these, in training mode, just click on the icon and...... Wait..
I will discuss this in more detail later, but one of the first
things that strikes you, is the very large amount of disk
accessing that takes place in this game, for example, to load in
part of the training mode, seems to take the best part of thirty
seconds, and it is not much better in the main game itself...
Graphically, the game retains the first person perspective fractal
landscape of the original, and manages to add a seascape where the
waves wash up and down the shoreline, and this is a very nice game
to look at and occasionally there are some spectacular views to be
had as well.. The update is a tad sluggish, and there are real
problems in keeping everything going if there are a lot of enemy
objects in the vicinity, when the 3-D routines are really
struggling.. There are several very nicely drawn static
'Inbetween' screens as well.. Reservations about the 3-D update
aside, this is a very classy looking game indeed...
There are road and railway networks, and villages of various types
of building, in addition to the many kinds of vehicle, and also
the inevitable tropical palm trees dotted about the place,
generally, more varied, graphically... There is also a night and
day mode, and in the darkness, it is advisable to use your infra-
red goggles, which displays the landscape in different shades of
green...
Also following on from the original, the famous fractal maps are
included, and improved, to show a variety of different kinds of
views, including underwater topography, and the positions of
friendly islanders and enemy forces..
Sonically, there were going to be 'Context driven sampled tunes'
but it seems that memory restrictions have overtaken this, as
there are some very bog-standard soundchip tunes occupying the
title and credits sequences (Which can be turned off - thankfully)
and various soundchipped spot fx, such as waves crashing,
birdsong, 'tropical' noises etc, which work surprisingly well..
In order to complete a single mission, you require a certain
amount of skill in persuading the islanders to help, different
people can be bribed, reasoned, threatened, or seduced (Oooh-errr)
and there is no guarantee that the supposed helpful resistance
fighter won't turn you over to the Saharan Secret police for the
price of a packet of Prawn Cocktail flavoured crisps.. In which
case, your escape skills are going to be put into practice..
Like MIDWINTER, it is impossible for you to die, your character
Çcan take a surprising amount of punishment, and can accomplish
James Bond-like feats of commandeering enemy vehicles, almost on a
minute to minute basis, in the midst of a big battle.. However,
you can be injured, and tire out (run out of muscle power..)
Tasks to accomplish on a typical mission, include assasination of
a key enemy person, sabotage of a major installation, or
recruitment of a neutral, important island native, and often a
combination of all of these on some of the more difficult
islands.. And you are given a range of personal weapons, such as a
pistol, assault rifle, knife, or machine guns to 'do' the job...
On playing the full campaign, your missions are supposed to add up
to delay the progress of the Saharan invasion fleet... When this
is launched, all hell breaks loose, and you are then expected to
call off your campaign of subversion to assist the Agoran forces
in trying to stop the Armada..
It is also possible to pick up various secret weapons, as you
complete certain missions, which give either increased firepower,
or enhanced detection capabilities..
Generally, this is a very, very big game, with a huge and diverse
range of things to do, it would need something like the Rainbird
manual (184 pages) to describe it fully, before I move on to the
end piece, however, the NOT SO GOOD NEWS...
I have already mentioned the sluggish 3-D updating in certain
situations (Very busy ones..) and also the huge amount of disk
accessing... The 3-D is probably the best that current ST's can
manage for that sort of complexity, and cannot really be helped,
but the disk accessing is truly amazing, and it seems that no
account has been taken of ST's with 1 Meg or more, of memory.. It
would be possible for a ramdisk to be put in the extra memory, and
for certain 'common' sequences, such as the map screen, or the
agents notebook to be kept in there, as currently, EVERYTHING has
to be loaded in, a typical loading sequence taking the best part
of thirty seconds... There is probably a case for a lot of the
'frilly' bits to be optional, a cut-down version of the extra
information screens could be enabled, instead, for people who want
to get on with the game quickly, and not have to sit through
umpteem disk-loads, in the middle of a battle...
Lastly, this may be a game which is best installed on a hard-disk
to improve access times, but it is unlikely to happen outside of
any PC versions...
If anybody at Rainbird or Maelstrom somehow happen to read this,
don't be discouraged, we need more Mega-games to counter the
increasing numbers of Platform-games-with-a-film-star-on-the-box
such as we seem to get most of the time now, but what is a
brilliant game, has been compromised by having the playability
chopped about by lengthy disk-loading pauses...
Better luck next time guys..
Ç
RATINGS:-
GRAPHIX:- 90% - Very attractive fractal lightsourced polygonal
landscape, I particularly enjoyed going underwater, and some very
nice still graphix, (Good Artist!) The 3-D system sometimes ties
itself into knots when there is a lot going on at the same time..
SONIX:- 67% - Nothing special here, some 'chuggy' soundchip tunes,
and some nice continuous spot FX..
PLAYABILITY:- 74% - Let down severly by the overlong disk
accessing pauses, you start a mission, then one sequence after
another has to be loaded in, it is possible that 50% of the time
is spent waiting for something to happen/appear.... Or maybe I am
getting old/impatient??
OVERALL:- 81% - This is a massive game, if you have the patience
to sit through the slow bits, then it is worth persisting with,
anybody of a 'Load up and go' frame of mind will be annoyed with
the waiting though... This game may be too big for the current
generation of ST's - Worrying thought!?!?!?!
Chris H (C) 8/8/91