Software reviews¢¢In the last edition of TGR, I said I¢would review the three Top demos, I¢have decided against this, because¢everything about these can be said in¢one word...FANTASTIC!¢¢Get hold of them if you can.¢¢Anyway the first review for this¢edition is...¢*¢Cavernia from Zeppelin Games¢¢This game is written by Ivan Mackintosh¢and Richard Munns, authors of such¢delights as Black Lamp, Crumbles¢Crisis, Space Lobsters and others.¢The main character is Teddy Arklethorpe¢who according to the cassette inlay is¢an ace pot-holer and leader of many¢dangerous expeditions into the bowels¢of the earth.¢Now it seems this danger isn't enough¢for our Teddy and he wants a fresh¢challenge with more danger and¢excitement. That is where the caves of¢Cavernia enter!¢The Gods of Cavernia have given Teddy¢eleven spiritual lives and believe me¢he'll need every one of them! A mis-¢timed or misplaced jump may lead to the¢termination of one of these lives, he¢must also dodge the inhabitants of¢Cavernia, and a nicely animated bunch¢they are too!¢To complete each level Teddy must find¢all the artifacts on a particular level¢when he does this a key will appear¢in the caves and he must then find this¢and make his way to the exit door.¢Teddy must also be aware of falling¢stalactites and rising stalagmites, but¢once you have played the game for a¢while you will be able to spot where¢these lurk.¢The animation of Teddy is superb, when¢he runs along his hat bounces up and¢down on his head, but the best part is¢when he leaps onto a higher ledge, it¢certainly had me purring!¢Your score is at the top of the screen¢and each digit bounces up and down,¢which is another nice touch.¢Overall an excellent game with super¢graphics and excellent gameplay. The¢strangest thing about it is the lack of¢a title tune, I thought maybe Richard¢Munns would have worked up a little¢ditty for us, but this takes nothing¢away from the game at all. It is still,¢in my mind one of the all time Atari¢classics.¢*¢The Mega Megazine issue #1 from the HTT¢¢This is the first edition of the HTT's¢'Megazine' and I have had it for some¢time so maybe issue #2 or even #3 is¢out as I write?¢So what do I think of it? I think it is¢quite brilliant, everything has a nice¢polished and professional touch which¢the HTT have to be congratulated upon.¢The 'Megazine' consists of two sides of¢a disk, one side A is the main part of¢the mag, which has lots of text files¢upon it. There is a lot of text and¢each section was packed to allow more¢text than usual to be stored,¢fortunately each part upacks relatively¢quickly and in most cases you can¢hardly notice it.¢My favourite articles were "The Story¢of the HTT" and "HTT in Poland (prt 1)"¢which I thought were quite interesting.¢You are also informed of the sad demise¢of the forthcoming HTT demo "Platinum",¢which will no longer appear. Pity, but¢I think the HTT were a bit hard on the¢people who were forever asking about¢it. I mean the reason so many people¢were inquiring about it is because they¢were looking forward to it, I think it¢is wrong to blame them for the fact¢that 'Platinum' won't be released.¢Maybe it is because 'The BIG Demo' was¢too hard an act to follow. Admit it! If¢'Platinum' did appear you would either¢think "Not as good as The BIG Demo", or¢"Better than The BIG Demo" wouldn't¢you?¢Things I didn't like were the Lynx¢articles (mainly because I don't own a¢Lynx!) and the Heavy Metal Reviews¢(mainly because I HATE Heavy Metal!),¢also a few of the articles went way¢over my head and I can't help thinking¢that they would be to much for most¢'ordinary' Atarians to follow.¢Also in their review of "The Top 3" it¢is written (and I quote), "If you look¢at the directory and you're a lamer,¢you can see that the parts in the¢directory are just ordinary files".¢What does that mean? That if I look in¢the directory I am a lamer? Mmmm... So¢how did you manage to find out about¢the directory in the first place guys?¢Things I'd like to see in future¢issues are maybe an assmebly tutorial,¢with example programs that can be¢loaded into Atmas II, and step by step¢instructions. I think this will be of¢use to many people trying to get into¢assembly language, but held back¢because they don't have anything to¢get them started.¢On the B Side of the disk are a lot of¢Boulderdash screens that can be loaded¢with the Boulderdash Construction Kit,¢I'm not a fan of Boulderdash so I¢didn't really test them out, but the¢directory is full so I don't see what¢else could have been put on the disk.¢Overall an excellent disk magazine,¢there are a few spelling mistakes but¢the HTT have a great excuse for this,¢maybe I should pretend I'm Dutch???¢*¢Excel #10 from Robert Stuart¢¢Excel is more game-orientated than the¢previously reviewed 'Mega Magazine' and¢apart from the editorial has no text¢files other than a few documentations¢here and there. Robert has dug up some¢really good (and bad) programs for¢previous issues of Excel and I think¢this issue is the best yet! The files¢on the disk are:-¢Kasons Tower, Biorhythms, Moonlord,¢BBK Artist, Troll War II, Marble Magic¢and Boing!¢BBK Art and Troll War II are machine¢code files, the rest are written in¢BASIC apart from 'Boing!' which is in¢Compiled Turbo BASIC and requires the¢whole side of a disk.¢'Biorhythms' is an interesting little¢program, but because Robert has set the¢right margin to 0 (via POKE 82,0), the¢days don't line up correctly when you¢receive your biorhythm curves, this is¢a pity because I can't see why the¢right margin wasn't just left alone.¢There also seems to be some sort of¢bug in 'Boing!', I managed to get my¢name into the High Score List, but the¢file just crashed when it tried to save¢it (I think). By the way 'Boing!' is¢written by Neil Ottaway of Tiger¢Developments and I hope to bring you¢a review of 'Tarkus and the Crystal of¢Fear' in the next issue of TGR.¢BBK Art is an excellent drawing utility¢that is able to load both Koala (.PIC¢ext) and Micropainter (.MIC ext) files,¢there are also some pictures on side B¢of the disk, they are in Micropainter¢format.¢I haven't played 'Moonlord' very much¢but it seems like a decent game in the¢Star Trek mould.¢Marble Magic is a solitaire type game,¢but not a very good one at that.¢Troll War II is a two player game¢similar to Archon, I haven't played¢this one much either, having nobody¢to play against.¢Kasons Tower is a simple running and¢jumping type of game. Not stunning but¢not bad.¢I find it strange that Robert sends¢programs into Page 6 when he could put¢them exclusively into Excel, games¢like Amnesia, Radzone and Pack Land¢(which were written by Robert Stuart)¢have appeared in Page 6 or on the issue¢disk. Amnesia also appeared in an¢early Excel, I'm not sure if Pack Land¢is in a recent issue, but Radzone has¢never been published in Excel, the only¢reason I can think of for him sending¢programs into Page 6 is for him to get¢as much money for his programs as¢possible, and you can't blame him for¢this!¢
