product reviews
RAINBOW WALKER
Synapse Software 5221 Central Ave.
Richmond, CA 94804
(415) 527-7751
$34.95, 32K - disk $34.95, 32K - cassette
Reviewed by Andrew Bell
Rainbow Walker, Synapse Software's latest arcade-style
game, joins the company's previous games as one of the most imaginative,
graphically stimulating and playable games on the market.
The story is colorful. Once, in a mythical land,
a merciless meanie stole all the colors from the rainbow. Wearing
magic shoes, brave Cedrick tries to restore the colors piecemeal by hopping
from square to square on the dulled rainbow. Wherever he lands, Cedrick
leaves a patch of color; hopefully the arc will be returned to its original
colors.
Unfortunately for Cedrick, there are some monochromatic-minded
creatures who materialize to undo his work. Wherever these creatures
land, color disappears.
You control Cedrick by using the joystick to hop in eight
directions; pressing the fire button, you can take two-square giant steps.
When you color an entire rainbow you advance to the next level. There
are 20 levels, each progressively harder, with a surprise if you make it
to the top level.
As you move up, the rainbows' shapes become more complex,
and new, more aggressive antagonists appear. Fortunately, after each
round you can supplement your stock of extra lives by playing the bonus
screen, a set of three squares that move first slowly, then faster and
faster. The longer you can keep Cedrick on the squares, the more
lives you earn. (This is-a great way to test your reflexes and acquired
skill. -ANTIC ED)
Rainbow Walker excels graphically. The rainbow is
shown in unique perspective, cutting the horizontal plane at the bottom
of the screen and arching back to the horizon. This is a three-quarter
look down at the bow's floor-like tiles. When Cedrick reaches the
bottom of the screen and hops forward, the tiles scroll back and a new
set of squares comes into view. Hopping toward the top of the screen,
Cedrick shrinks in the distance, making the image appear three dimensional.
Rainbow Walker's sound complements the game without becoming
obnoxious. The many sound effects are so well meshed with the action
that they contribute to the game's overall high quality of play.
The game is hard to play at first, but after a little
experience and some determined effort, you will be able to advance to higher
levels and improve your scores. Rainbow Walker has ample action and
surprises, making it challenging to even the most sophisticated game player.
If you're looking for gold, you won't have to go to the end of the rainbow
to find it in this game.
THE SEVEN CITIES OF GOLD
Electronic Arts
2755 Campus Drive
San Mateo, CA 94403
(415) 571-7171
$40.00, 48K - disk
Reviewed by Sandra Carlisle
The Seven Cities of Gold is a role playing simulation of the
16th Century Spanish discovery and conquest of the New World. You
are a Spanish conquistador leading an expedition through unexplored dangers
in search of treasure and glory.
You may face complete panic when you're out of food and
goods and can't find your way back to your ships. If you discover
and enter a village, you find yourself surrounded by natives. At
first you feel frightened - there are so many, crowding too closely.
The subtlety of this game becomes especially apparent
when you must deal with the natives. There is no common language.
How do you communicate with a totally alien culture? You can slaughter
and plunder, try trickery or treachery, trade for your most pressing needs,
or even try to convert the natives and establish missions. These
many variables give the game its authenticity, flavor, and challenge.
As you move about, the detailed terrain scrolls by you,
demonstrating the game's excellent graphics and animation.
Your expedition is financed by the king, including four
ships and their crews, soldiers, food and trading goods.
The strategy and challenge of this one-person arcade-style
game are evident as you explore unknown territory.
If you defeat or trade with the natives, you may have many native bearers. They not only help carry supplies and gold, but also help to locate other villages and gold mines. Your expedition can move at different speeds on land, and much faster on rivers.
Seven Cities has three playing levels. At any level above novice, you must contend with storms at sea, native ambushes, food spoilage, ship wrecks, and even with the disappearance of your ships. Also, the native villages are hidden and can be located only by stopping to look for a "sign." The higher the level, the more realistic the play.
Considering the size of this game (the "game" map alone occupies 65K of disk memory - 2,800 screens!), I was amazed by the speed of the play. I never had to wait for the drive to load the next map portion. Ozark Softscape, the designers, developed a technique to load new portions of the scrolling map without interrupting the play of the game.
The "Random World" generator is an impressive feature of the game. This will create (and write to a disk) as many unique "New Worlds" as you want (all with 2,800 screens), each with different shaped land masses, swamps, villages, mountains, and so on. This sophisticated technique follows established geological rules of plate-tectonics and consults a cultural dissemination model for its work. You can even make copies of your unique world and exchange them with your friends for "competitive" play.
Upon your return, you can go to the Outfitters Shop to outfit more ships for future expeditions. You can also visit the Royal Palace to receive recognition for your success, you can view the. game map, or drop into the Pub to save the game.
Since Seven Cities is highly realistic as a historical and geographical simulation, it can be used quite easily as an educational tool. There is no set solution, nor is there a single puzzle to solve.
Best of all, the concepts of entertainment and education are totally integrated. Seven Cities will undoubtedly be a strong contender for game of the year in 1984.
PITFALL!
Activision, Inc.
2350 Bayshore Frontage Road
Mountain View, CA 94043
(415) 960-0410
$34.95, 8K - cartridge
Reviewed by Ellen Keyt
Deep in the jungle, far away from technologized, urbanized civilization,
lives (for a short time at least), Pitfall Harry. This daring jungle
explorer has fearlessly entered the dense foliage in search of the fabled
treasure concealed within. Leaping over alligators, rolling logs,
scorpions and snakes, he spots his first goal, a gold bar. He runs
across the clearing to retrieve it, only to fall to his demise in a huge
tar pit.
This may be the most common scenario in one of the most
popular games from Activision. Originally written by David Crane
for the VCS, this fast action game has finally been released for Atari
computers. Every detail featured in the VCS version has been reproduced
and as far as graphics are concerned enhanced. Details are very lifelike:
Pitfall Harry lopes across the screen in long, easy strides; the scorpion's
pincers clutch at Pitfall Harry; barrels roll realistically across the
screen, and a vine swings in a smooth, unbroken arc. The animation
of all the assorted creatures is excellent, and the joystick responds instantly,
preventing "Slip of the Wrist" deaths,
Almost everything about Pitfall is precise and
perfect. Although there is usually plenty of time to finish a game,
the absence of a pause is annoying. The graphics are 3-D and very
realistic, but the game would be improved greatly if the player were allowed
to move in and out of the third dimension. In addition, I miss a
choice of difficulty function, and, since the game was not designed to
eat up quarters at a video arcade, the twenty-minute time limit is entirely
unnecessary In spite of these faults, Pitfall is still exciting, and will
greatly please the young arcaders who have long been waiting for the game's
release.
DROL
Broderbund Software
17 Paul Dr.
San Rafael, CA 94903
(415) 479-1170
$39.95, 48K - disk
Reviewed by Brian Ho Fung
Drol is an original, addictive, arcade-style game with beautiful
graphics. The game takes you to the underground dream world of Drol,
where you must rescue a small family and its pets trapped in the fantasy
world by an evil witchdoctor's curse.
You are equipped with an anti-gravity rescue suit and
an unlimited supply of reality pellets. Drol has three missions:
rescue a wandering girl and her jet-propelled pet lizard; save her propeller-beanied
brother and his pet crocodile; and liberate the kids' mother, who is bound
with rope on Drol's bottom floor.
Your hero, controlled by the joystick, travels through
continuously scrolling multi-levelled corridors seeking captives and trying
to avoid a host of dangers- giant scorpions, monsters, flying turkeys and
a killer vacuum cleaner. When you find a captive, you simply touch
it to rescue it.
Your hero starts with five lives. Completing three
missions, one round, earns you an extra life. Each time your hero
dies, he must start from the top corridor. This can be frustrating,
especially on the third mission where each corridor is separated by only
one or two trapdoors placed far away from each other. Each new round
provides faster and deadlier monsters-some of which must be shot repeatedly
before they die.
Drol is an exceptionally well-programmed game. It
has staying power and a limitless challenge. It can be paused; you
can view the high scores while playing, and high scores can be saved to
the disk. Drol's one drawback-the long time it takes to load each
successive mission-is offset by the game's beautiful animation, smooth-scrolling
graphics and non-stop action. Droll will delight players of all ages
and will challenge even skilled game players.
CARRIER FORCE
Strategic Simulations, Inc.
883 Stierlin Road, Building A-200
Mountain View, CA 94043-1983
(800) 772-3546
$59.95, 40K - disk
Reviewed by Christine A. Lunardini
Historic accounts of great World War II naval battles need little embellishment
to emphasize their drama, The stakes were enormous in both theaters of
the war, but the outcome for the American forces was nowhere so uncertain
as it was in the Pacific in 1942. With Carrier Force, Strategic
Simulations, Inc., has recreated four major battles of the Pacific (Midway,
Santa Cruz, the Solomons, and the Coral Sea), with all the tension, excitement,
complexity, and uncertainty that accompanied the actual conflicts between
the American fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Carrier Force simulations are very realistic. Gary
Grigsby and his creative team accounted for virtually every piece of equipment
on both sides. As fleet commander of either the U.S. Navy or the
IJN, your first duty is to find the opposing fleet. Then you must
determine the most effective way to disperse the ships in your command.
These include carriers, destroyers, tankers, escorts, and submarines.
Aircraft, ranging from B-26 heavy bombers, and F4F fighters to minimally-armed
reconnaissance planes, also must be strategically deployed. How many
should you place on aircraft carriers and runways? And how far from
shore can a strike force proceed before you risk the danger of having to
ditch, thus losing valuable men and planes?
Such decisions continually must be made throughout the
game. As com-
mander, you are given current and detailed weather and fleet information. You know the location, heading, strength, readiness, damage, armament, and base capability of each fleet task force, reconnaissance plane, and strike force. Task force size, location, and the enemy's attack plan are the unknown factors adding to the realistic tension as you develop your strategies, launch your strike forces, and cross your fingers.
In addition to fleet information, the program features a high-resolution scrolling map with the appropriate island configuration for each scenario. As task forces are sighted, they are represented on the map by colored symbols. As in real sea chases, a task force located during one search can change direction or disappear under thick cloud cover. You know it is somewhere in the area, but where? Meanwhile, your radar report indicates an approaching strike force of approximately 150 planes headed for one of your bases. Your next set of orders may well decide the battle.
Carrier Force is an advanced strategy game that is easy to play. The only real frustration I found was with the game's documentation. It is very poorly organized, making it difficult to use effectively during game play. It is also poorly edited. For example, the game's list of abbreviations, which is potentially helpful, is incomplete and is not alphabetized. You must read through the entire list to locate the term you are seeking. Though the game comes with two laminated map boards which are quite handy for tracking both fleets, a similar card summarizing important play information (i.e., aircraft capability, pilot endurance, base operation limits, etc.), was not included. Once you have mastered the play techniques, however, these are minor inconveniences in an otherwise excellent game.
NATO COMMANDER
MicroProse
10616 Beaver Dam Road
Hunt Valley, MD 21030
(301) 667-1151
$34.95, 48K - disk
$34.95, 48K - cassette
Reviewed by Edward Bever
Right now, nine Warsaw Pact armies confront nine NATO corps in central
Europe. Even in these tense times, experts see little chance of nuclear
war, but if one were to start, it would probably start here. You're
in the hot seat; you're the NATO commander.
As the game begins, Soviet divisions attack Berlin and
roll across the West German border. Urgent reports of fighting start
coming in. You must set the missions of air wings and deploy ground
troops while the enemy moves relentlessly forward. Your units also
move automatically once you tell them where to go; play proceeds at a continuous
pace.
Eastern Block units will attack when they come in contact
with your troops, while you must carefully plot your own attacks.
Your knowledge of the enemy's location is limited, and you must keep track
of six variables simultaneously, scrolling across a board the size of four
screens.
Overhead, the Allied air forces struggle for domination
of the skies. If they succeed before Russian tanks break through,
the invasion can probably be halted and peace restored. In any case,
the fight will be dirty with chemical and conventional warfare.
The nuclear genie may remain in its bottle, but then again, it may not. Both sides have tactical nukes. What will the Russians do if they meet exceptionally fierce resistance? What will we do if our air power cannot come through in time, as the Soviets close on our nuclear depots? What would you do?
NATO Commander lets you find out. Although the program does not always execute flawlessly, the game is exciting and exacting. The simulation puts you in command of the most dangerous military operation in history.
UNIVERSE
Omnitrend Software
PO. Box 3
West Simsbury, CT 06092
(203) 658-6917
$89.95, 48K - I or 2 disk drives
Reviewed by Harvey Bernstein
In the past, role-playing games have been confined largely to the fantasy
world of orcs, trolls, demons, and the like, with not much attention given
to the hard-core science fiction fan. Good news, fellow rocket-rangers!
Omnitrend's Universe has arrived.
This game takes place some time after man's colonization
of a galaxy called the Local Group. All contact with Earth has stopped.
At the same time evidence has appeared which hints of the existence of
an alien artifact, believed to be a hyperspace booster. As a citizen
of the Local Group, you must find this mysterious booster and use it to
find out what's happened to the people on Earth.
Rather than beginning the game by endowing your character
(or yourself) with characteristics, such as strength and dexterity, you
borrow 300,000 credits from the Central Bank of Axia (your starting point).
With this money you go on to purchase equipment for
mining, trade, or piracy, all of which you use as a means of survival while on your quest. You quickly find that the easiest way to make money with the least amount of risk is trade and passenger transport. You buy goods and pick up passengers on one planet, and deliver them to a planet of lesser sophistication. As you increase your wealth, you upgrade your equipment and explore the outer reaches of the Local Group, all the while searching for the missing booster.
Many facets of Universe make it a remarkable game, but the main one is its sheer depth of gameplay. Universe is the first Atari game to come on four disks. Included with them is documentation of over 80 pages! The folks at Omnitrend tell me the game takes well over 100 hours to complete, making it one of the better values around. Another first is that Omnitrend has set up a bulletin board that players can access for help. The nitty-gritty action happens after four years of game time play so players can learn the game's fine points before the action gets hot.
Universe does, however, have some serious flaws. It requires a LOT of disk swapping with a one-drive system. The programmers have included a handler for a second drive in the new revision, available now. Also, the game is too slow.
Omnitrend's Universe is a good game that could have been outstanding with a little more polishing. But if you are in the market for a science-fiction strategy game that has more depth than the average adventure, and that will take several months to complete, then Universe is the ideal addition to your game library.
ATARI BASIC
FASTER AND BETTER
by Carl M. Evans
IJG, Inc.
1953 W 11th Street
Upland, CA 91786
(714) 946-5805
$19.95
Reviewed by Jerry White
Atari BASIC Faster and Better is a 300-page wealth of information.
I recommend it highly to those who use BASIC beyond the beginner level.
It is a useful addition to the libraries of both the hacker and advanced
programmer.
This book contains more subroutine and demonstration program
listings than any other book currently available for Atari computers.
The BASIC and machine language subroutines are designed to be easily incorporated
within the reader's programs. All subroutines and demo programs are
also available separately on diskette.
The printing is top quality and easy to read. The
book includes a detailed table of contents, which, along with an index,
makes it an excellent reference. The appendixes supplement the index
by listing subroutines alphabetically and by line number. They also
list assembly language routines, application programs, and demonstration
programs for each chapter.
The first four chapters of this book cover programming
techniques such as USR subroutines and memory management. This information
is logically necessary for implementation of the routines found in later
chapters. Chapters five through fifteen contain hundreds of subroutines,
tricks, and concepts. The presentation avoids technical manual computer
jargon, and uses clearly defined charts and demonstrations. The novice
assembler programmer will benefit from the commented source code listings,
yet a knowledge of
machine language is not needed to use these routines in your BASIC programs.
Some of the topics covered include string manipulation, date and time subroutines, Boolean logic, formatting data entry, display tricks, sound effects, disk utilities, and much much more. The book also contains the most detailed explanation of Atari's error codes that I've ever seen.
If you write BASIC programs on your Atari computer, you will want to keep Atari BASIC Faster and Better near your keyboard. This is one book that will not wind up sitting on a shelf, gathering dust.
(Note:IJG has provided ANTIC with a number of these books, which we are selling for $15.95. We will accept your cheque, or you can charge it to your MasterCard or VISA.-ANTIC ED)
CODEWRITER
Codewriter Corp.
7847 North Caldwell Ave..
Niles, IL 60648
(312) 470-0700
$99.00, 48K - 3 diskettes
Reviewed Joseph Kattan
Even if it's just for recipes, phone numbers or household inventory,
most personal computer users will sooner or later want to have an easy
database or home filing program. Codewriter is the Atari translation
of a popular program written for the Commodore 64. Unfortunately,
this latest entry in the Atari database management sweepstakes pretends
it can generate programs to your specifications instead of adequately taking
care of some basic needs of a home filing system.
You can only look up information by one key field. if
you set up a phone directory with names as the key field, you would not
be able to look up a record by entering the phone number. The
number of records you can save is also too small. In a simple 12-field
application, Codewriter informed me that I could have no more than 211
records. This limit is not enough for many common database uses.
The Codewriter package comes with three disks. Disk
1 contains the data entry system while Disks 2 and 3 are, used for creating
reports. Atari owners will not be pleased to find that they get the
Commodore instructions manual plus three pages of changes, which are needlessly
duplicated on one of the disks.
Codewriter will allow you to store records in multiple
fields, as many as 50 on a screen. But that is almost the full extent
of what it can do as a database manager.
The program begins directly enough by letting you design
an input screen identifying the fields of each application, with input-area
masks plus prompts for entering field data.
But once you've designed the screen, your problems begin.
Unless you've got a dual disk drive, Codewriter puts you through an obstacle
course of swapping disks. The manual flat-out admits that "turning
your design into a working program may take from 25 minutes to a bit over
an hour." Not exactly the speedy, effortless operation claimed by this
product's advertising.
Eventually all your work does generate a BASIC program
- which is only slightly altered from Codewriter's standard format.
I wrote several applications that all came out as pretty much the same
program with only minor differences.
Each application took up 190 sectors on a single-density
disk! You're entitled to expect a good database program to use disk
space only for the data and essential information on field arrangement.
In contrast, every Codewriter "program" gobbles up so much disk space that
the manual recommends you put only one application per disk.
For those whose only experience with databases has been
lower-priced products like Home Filing Manager or Microfiler, Codewriter
might be the next step up. Its greatest redeeming value is that it
will use any numeric function legal in Atari BASIC - letting you use it
much like a spreadsheet.
Codewriter Corp. rates credit for offering the buyer a
reasonably priced set of backup disks. The company also sells Disk
1 separately as Filewriter and Disks 2 and 3 as a package called Reportwriter.
ADVANCED PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES
FOR YOUR ATARI
by Linda M. Schreiber
Tab Books, Inc.
Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17214
$14.50
$24.95, 32K - sample program disk
Reviewed by Matthew Ratcliff
Here is a book for the experienced Atari BASIC programmer. It
will teach you how to use all of those special commands you've never quite
been able to master. Advanced Programming Techniques For Your Atari
covers some topics we have seen many times, such as Player/Missile graphics
and character-set editing. But many other techniques are explained
that have rarely been addressed in print. The author presents her
subjects in detail, and gives many sample programs, including assembly
language routines called by USR commands. Complete explanations of
all programs are straightforward and easy to follow.
The book can be purchased with a Sample Programs Disk,
and with all 62 sample routines just a LOAD away, you will find yourself
learning much more quickly than if you had to type all that code and debug
it. A few complete programs are presented as well, including a character-set
editor.
Some assembly language routines are used, and the "source
code" is provided. But if you wish to eventually make the jump to
AL, this book will not help you much. Although the USR routines work
nicely, the comments in the source code are cryptic. The comments
tell you exactly what the AL command is doing, without giving you a clue
to its purpose. Compare the two listings below. Both will result
in the same "object code" (the bytes that the machine operates on), but
which is easier to understand?
SAMPLE #1
(Typical for this book)
LDA #0 ;LOAD THE
ACCUMULATOR
WITH
THE NUMBER
ZERO
STA 77 ;STORE THE
ACCUMULATOR
AT
LOCATION
77
SAMPLE #2
ATRACT=77 ;ATTRACT MODE
MEMORY
LOCATION
LDA #0 ;A VALUE OF 0 STORED
HERE
STA ATRACT ;RESETS THE ATTRACT
MODE (POKE
77,0)
There are things in this book that I have only seen in
De Re Atari, which is a bit on the technical side for those not familiar
with AL. One of the major advantages of this book over magazines
covering similar information, is that it consistently uses the same pro
technique throughout. This is a real plus, provided you like the
author's style. Her BASIC code is well structured and commented.
Some of the more interesting subjects covered include
a Vertical Blank Interrupt routine that plays music continuously, even
after the BASIC program has stopped, and sample code on page flipping.
Below is a quick rundown on the book's table of contents.
Number Systems
The Display List
Graphics
Animation
Inside BASIC
Strings
Display List Interrupts
Scrolling
Page Flipping
Sound Generators
The Keyboard
The Screen Editor
Disk Use
Cassette Use
This book will certainly help you put into code many of those
nifty programs that have been just too tough to tackle before.