Received: from decwrl.dec.com by s.ms.uky.edu id aa17471; 16 May 90 19:03 GMT Received: by decwrl.dec.com; id AA27690; Wed, 16 May 90 11:08:27 -0700 Message-Id: <9005161808.AA27690@decwrl.dec.com> Received: by limbo; Wed, 16 May 90 10:05:15 pdt From: The Moderator Date: Wed, 16 May 90 10:05:08 PDT Subject: Digital Games Review Digest, #3 Reply-To: Digital Games Review To: Digital Games Review Digest X-Mailer: fastmail [version 2.02] Digital Games Review Digest, Number 3 Wednesday, May 16th 1990 Today's Topics: Macintosh: "Omega" IBM PC: "Sorcerain" Genesis: "Forgotten Worlds" NES: "The Legend of Zelda" GameBoy: "Hyper Load Runner" GameBoy: "Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle" GameBoy: "Heiankyo Alien" and "QBillion" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) Subject: Macintosh: "Omega" Date: Thu May 3 11:05:28 PDT 1990 Omega -- CyberTank Engineering for Fun (C) Copyright 1990, Dave Taylor "Good Morning. As a new member of the Organization for Strategic Intelligence, your first assignment is to use the neural cybertank design and simulation system on your computer to help us create an unbeatable cyber, or automated tank." "We recognize that this might be a challenging task, so we are making available to you the 200 page CyberTank Engineer's Notebook document for your reading, as well as many other items of information and sample cybertanks for your education." "Since our vetting process revealed to us that you have an Apple Macintosh computer, we have arranged for a copy of the OMEGA Mac Cybertank simulation to arrive with this recording. Characterized by an easy to use interface and a complete implementation of the Cybertank "AI" programming language, it should prove more than sufficient to get you well on the way to some tough and powerful cybertanks." "To further aid you in understanding, attached please find OSI Report 00234-BA-O/3, Common Questions and Answers About Omega." "Message Ends." Official OSI Report 00234-BA-O/3 DELTA-4 Classification Common Questions and Answers About OMEGA Q: What is OMEGA? A: A sophisticated and well engineered high tech tank programming and simulation program. Based on the original CoreWars program as created in the late 1960's, OMEGA is for those of you that like games that are more thinking and exploration exercises than hand-eye coordination tests. Q: What's a CyberTank? A: A cybertank consists of the following elements; a chassis, including armor, weaponry, and similar, and a tank AI module, which is the 'brains' of the tank. When designing a tank, you can choose from a great number of different weaponry, engine, and armor options, relative to your credit level (which is a function of how well the tanks you design perform in combat simulation or "validation") and then are expected to spend most of your time designing the program that "runs" the tank. Q: Cybertank AI module? A: Let's look at an incredibly simple example: START DO SEARCH DO DESTROY BRANCH TO START That gives us a very simple tank that can move around until it finds something worth shooting at (an enemy tank or the enemy headquarters), at which point it will sit and shoot until dead or the target is destroyed. In the actual simulation, however, you'll want more sophisticated tanks than that, like the competition-winning AI module attached below. Note its use of scanning and identification of obstacles to improve the sophistication of the movement and attack sequences too. Q: What does the simulator look like? A: Well, we can't include graphics here, but the display is typical of the types of graphics one sees in a PC game ported to the Macintosh. A typical display has lots of buttons, dials, and status indicators, including, during cyber evaluation time, the following items: F = Fuel Remaining, I = Internal Damage, A = Armor Damage, T = Tread Damage, S = Scanner Damage, W = Weapon Damage, SL = Scanner Lock, DS = Defense Shield, LD = Listener Disengaged, T = Total number of battles to be simulated, B = Battles previously fought, S = number of successful battles, R = number of active Cybertanks remaining. Q: Do I need a security clearance? A: To enter the Organization for Strategic Intelligence you will have to submit to a retina scan to verify your identity, and thereafter that, coupled with your self-selected password, will be sufficient to allow you to enter the simulation. Q: Is the game fun? A: Something this serious should hardly be considered a game, per se, but for the purposes of this document, yes, it is fun, and it's the kind of game that a group of people could get enthused about and swap tank designs and such, pitting them against each other in various simulated environments. Q: What does the reviewer think of it? A: (excerpts from a classified review) "...of the many thinking games I have for my Macintosh, OMEGA is one of the finest, allowing my friends and I to compete for best tank design in a such a way that we don't have to be all in th same room (with a stack of computers) at the same time, but can still have lots of fun anyway." "...quite playable, with the graphics - non-Mac and clearly a direct translation from MS-DOS P being very slick. The amount of effort that has been put into the documentation also makes the CyberTank Engineering Notebook quite enjoyable reading." Q: Nothing bad? A: (excerpts from a classified review) "... on the down side, it's a bit confusing to take all the steps needed to go from a tank design to being able to create a simulation and have the tank a part of the simulation." "...as usual, the game only uses a Plus-size screen image, so if you have a larger display as I do, you're stuck with it all in the top left corner. Support for larger screens would be especially nice during combat simulation." 00234-BA-O/3 ENDS Attachment 1: * CyberTank AI Module Listing by Steve Cantrell, Origin Systems Start scanface = 1 Scan if scanface = 8 then Circle scan for tank if tank found then Attack rotate right 1 scanface = scanface + 1 goto Scan Circle scan for tank if tank found then Attack rotate right 2 do Movetank goto Start Attack align tank Looper scan for tank if tank not found then Start if tank within range then Boom if enemydist 5 then do Movetank goto Looper Boom fire at tank fire at tank goto Looper Movetank detect at tank direction if not obstructed then Go if obstacletype = 2 then Go if obstacletype 6 then Attack if obstacletype = 6 then Turn fire at obstruction goto Movetank Turn turn right 3 goto Movetank Go move forward 1 resume [ Ed. Note: the previous review was originally written for "Computer Currents" ] ------------------------------ From: nancy@mips.com (Nancy Louie) Subject: GameBoy: "Hyper Load Runner" Date: Thu, 3 May 90 14:10:13 PDT Hyper Load Runner from Bandai America is based on many ealier versions of Load Runner, including the successful Broderbund PC/Mac game. For the GameBoy, there are 50 levels in the game, 16 of which can be accessed without a password. However, even with this number of puzzles, the game has proven to be very much a disappointment compared to other versions that I've played. The basis of the game is that you are a miner in a maze of brick and stone platforms, each connected by numerous ladders, and you're trying to collect piles of gold. When you've collected all the gold available on a particular level a magic ladder will appear to let you ascend to the next level. Along the way, you run into a number of robot-like droids that follow you and can even carry a pile of gold. If they run into you, they kill you. However, to slow them down (and to get them to release the gold that they might be carrying) you can dig holes into the brick platforms. By pressing the `A' key you can dig a hole to the left, and the `B' key digs to the right. Once they fall into the hole, you can walk over them to continue on your search for gold, also picking up the gold that they had on them. Be careful though, because the holes eventually fill, and unlike the droids, if you fall in, you're not able to climb out, killing yourself. If, however, your timing is good, you can kill the droids, thus hindering them as they are reincarnated somewhere else on the level. One of the most disappointing things is the tedium and frustration associated with the game. Rather than starting the game out with a somewhat easy level to let you get used to the themes and controls, the first level is something that I think would be more appropriate as level ten; it took three of us a good few days to puzzle through how to solve it, and then another day to get the timing right and succeed! Even level two should be rated more like level fifteen. Many of the levels require very precise timing in order to get out of spots where the gold is tucked away in hard to reach spots. It requires going over the same area numerous times in order to clear a column of bricks and have them reform in a certain order so that you can get back out. On the bright side, the droids are pretty stupid and will follow you just about anywhere. The only place that I haven't seen them follow is when you're in the difficult corners trying to clear the bricks in a particular order. This comes in handy in the higher levels where you can use them to bridge deep holes to get to the gold on the other side of the screen. During play, only a portion of the screen is available for viewing, however a nice feature that has been added is you can press START to pause the game, then press SELECT to get a miniaturized overview of the entire whole level. Since it's paused, you can stare at it for as long as you'd like...which gives you a good idea of what you're up against. Level sixteen is a challenge in itself, as it appears to be comprised of multiple screens. Once you clear the first level of the gold and get the key at the top to go through the door, there is another screen that you're put into. Clearing this level puts you into yet another screen to clear. By the time I got to this screen, I was too bored of the game to continue further for the day. Overall, I wouldn't rate this game very high. Rather than offering a high enjoyment factor, it seems to specialize in frustration and aggravation. Definitely try this one out at a store before purchasing, making sure to try out numerous levels. It's very questionable as to whether we'll be picking this one up to play with again. Probably a two or three out of ten. ------------------------------ From: echuang@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Ernest Y. Chuang) Subject: IBM PC: "Sorcerain" Date: Tue, 8 May 90 16:03:38 PDT Sorcerian is part RPG and part puzzle. Actually, it's mostly a puzzle. It's similar to most RPG's in that you create a party of characters (you can take up to four on an adventure) and take them on an adventure, looking for monsters and treasure while trying to solve a quest. There are 15 different scenarios to choose from, each with its own maze and storyline. Characters are limited in certain ways. You can only choose from four "classes/races": Dwarf, Fighter, Wizard, and Elf. Dwarves are considered as a type of fighter and Elves are considered as a type of wizard. You can also choose to be male or female. The classes aren't as individualized as I would like. The only difference seems to be in the starting ability scores and in what equipment the characters can use. Wizards and Elves have no innate spell casting ability. All spells are imbued in magic items which are found during adventures. Hence any class can cast magic as long as their intelligence is high enough; the only difference is that Dwarves and Fighters use magical swords, armor, and shields, whereas Wizards and Elves use magical rods, staves, robes, and rings. Both kinds of items are found in equal proportions in adventures and are similar in power, so there is really no overwhelming advantage for Wizards/Elves in terms of magic besides a higher starting intelligence. Similarly, fighting is not limited to Dwarves/Fighters. Any class of character with sufficient strength can swing a weapon, be it a sword or staff. Dwarves/Fighters simply start with a higher strength score. The magic system is rather unusual. Items can be enchanted with "units" of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Moon, Sun, Venus, or Saturn, one "planet" for each of the 7 ability scores (for simplicity I'm using the term "planet" to include the Sun and Moon). While wielding magic items, the total units of each "planet" enchanted into your equipment will raise your corresponding ability scores by the same amount. Also each combination of 2 or more planets corresponds to a unique magic spell which the item will allow you to cast. So there are about 120 or so different spells to choose from (although admittedly a lot of the offensive spells do pretty much the same thing with just a different name). While not adventuring, your character can go to town where he has the option of doing a variety of activities such as visiting the magician to enchant another "planet" to one of your items, seeing the town elder to identify unknown magic items, visiting the king the raise your level, visiting the temple for healing, etc... You can even visit the town musician if you just want to hear the repertoire of music used in the game. Characters can also take jobs while not adventuring - different jobs will raise or lower different ablility scores. Time is important in Sorceria, characters will age a year at the end of every adventure and will eventually die of old age. Sorcerian is different from most other RPG's (i.e. Curse of the Azure Bonds, Might and Magic, Bard's Tale, etc...) in that it is made into more of an "arcade" game. Each character appears as a small half-inch icon on the screen and you use joystick/KB to make them run around the screen, up stairs, through doors, and explore rooms. You'll actually see your characters shooting fireballs, summoning lightning bolts from the sky, and other magic effects. A lot of the spells look alike though and they're not all too exciting. The reason I say it's mostly a puzzle is that combat is mostly a joke. Fighting consists of holding down a button (or two buttons if you're using magic) - your characters will swing a weapon up and down and if there are any monsters in front of you they will disappear if you hit them enough times. No fighting technique is necessary at all. Experience from fighting the run-of-the-mill wandering monster is very little. Most of the experience points come from killing the "main" monster of each scenario and completing the quest. For this reason, fighting is kind of pointless. The main goal is to explore the dungeons, find items, talk to people who may give you hints, and complete various tasks in the proper order to allow you to progress toward solving the quest. Each scenario has a different storyline, and most of the quests were fairly interesting. One gripe, however, is that a lot of them forced you to do a lot of pointless running back and forth through the dungeon (for instance - Minor Spoiler - in one scenario you need four or five batches of a white powder in a certain part of the dungeon but the source of powder is at the opposite end of the dungeon. You can only carry one batch at a time, so you have to keep running cross-country to get some stupid powder). I felt that this simply added needless tedium to the game without adding any interest. The scenarios vary in length, taking anywhere from maybe 30 minutes to 2 hours to solve for the first time, but once you've finished a scenario once and learned where you need to go and in what order, you can solve it again in 5 to 30 minutes (depending on the scenario). The design quality is very good. Graphics are excellent, requiring EGA or better, 512K, and is compatible with sound boards -- throughout game play there is always one of nearly 60 music themes running in the background. I played the game with an Ad Lib music card; most of the music helped add to the game's enjoyment, but some themes were a bit dull and unimaginative. The game was slightly "buggy" - or if some "bugs" were intentional, then I question how carefully the designers thought this out. For instance you can buy anything from the town equipment shop for 9 gold pieces and sell it back at the end of an adventure for a LOT more (e.g. you can sell back a robe for more than 1100 GP -- not too shabby...). Also, enchanting a magic item at the town magician doesn't always give you the "planet" you asked for, sometimes you even get a planet removed. Overall, I found the game very enjoyable the first time through, but once you've solved all of the quests, there's not much reason to play it over and over again since it's the same every time. Ernest Chuang echuang@cory.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: c60c-2cz@web-3g.berkeley.edu (Teh Kao Yang) Subject: Genesis: "Forgotten Worlds" Date: Thu, 26 Apr 90 10:03:36 PDT Forgotten Worlds: This is probably my favorite arcade game. However the game lost a lot of its appeal in the Genesis version. The music is still awesome, the graphics identical to the arcade. However what killed the game for me was that they got rid off a lot of the monsters that were in the original arcade: they got rid of a boss monster and maybe even an entire level or two. They also really skimped on some of the neat stuff..mostly graphics wise. What made the arcade version so great was that there were so many different critters coming at you at the same time and so much variety and detail that it just blows your mind. The Genesis version seems too short and not as exciting. Also after finishing it you don't really feel like doing it over again. If you never played the arcade, you will probably still enjoy the Genesis version. If you have, you will probably be disappointed. It is also too easy in the 2-player mode (with contines), but ridiculously hard without continues. Playability : 4.5 Graphics : 9.5 Music : 9 Overall : 7 TehKao ------------------------------ From: Bard <24945863@WSUVM1.BITNET> Subject: NES: "The Legend of Zelda" Date: Thu, 10 May 90 13:48:52 PLT There's a reason this game is a classic. Not only does it contain perhaps the classic quest (saving a damsel in distress), it contains superb execution and smooth playing. As a player, your task is to guide the diminutive Link in his quest to rescue a princess and kill her captor, the evil Gannon. During the course of your adventure, you explore the 128 screens of the Overworld, and experience the nine dungeons. There are monsters to fight, and people to meet in every corner of this well thought-out fantasy land. The greatest challenge lies in finding the objects and information needed to finish the game. Before the confrontation with Gannon, it is necessary to gather the eight pieces of the Triforce. Each fragment is hidden at the farthest reaches of the first eight dungeons and is guarded by a ferocious monster. Some monsters can only be killed by a specific weapon hitting them in a specific spot several times. That's what stopped me at the end of the fourth dungeon, nothing I did to the dragon seemed to hurt it. Fortunately, after a posting to Games-l, several people offered advice on how to kill the blasted thing, and now it rests in pieces, slain by my sword. My search for the items needed to reach the Tri-force fragments has taken me to all corners of the Overworld, looking for people giving away(or selling) information. The game is complex, even master gamers can expect to sink quite a bit of time into playing. Others, like myself, can find a game dragging on for months as playing time is scheduled around classes, work, and sleep(I recently started a new game in my attempt to finish the quest, and things are going much faster). The save game and continue options are a literal Godsend. For the more technical aspects, play control is excellent, though a little fussy at times. I've found playing with a joystick is easier than playing with the controllers that come with the NES base. In terms of game design, theme, and execution, Zelda gets high marks. Like good adventure games, Zelda mixes arcade action(fighting monsters) with a unifying quest that gives the game a point beyond seeing how many Blooger Beings from the Planet Zarkon a person can blow up in one session. Since Zelda was one of the first NES games, the graphics are not as detailed as say, the graphics in Contra. But, in my opinion that does not detract from the game itself. And, for those who thought the quest was over, try starting a new game, using the name 'Zelda'. Rating: **** + Stephanie Manke 24945863@WSUVM1.BITNET ------------------------------ From: Dave Taylor Subject: GameBoy: Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle Date: Tue, 15 May 90 2:18:46 PDT Upon waking up this morning, we, Bugs Bunny Esquire, find that our dearest Honey Bunny, bunny girl friend and general pal, has been kidnapped and dragged through to the further reaches of the dreaded Crazy Castle. Not being a rabbit that shuns our familial duty, we promptly dash to the front door and bang on it until it swings open to reveal... "Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle", for the Nintendo Gameboy. Distributed by Kemco-Seika Corporation, this game is one of the first for the GB that uses easily recognizable non-Nintendo characters. Indeed, it represents one of the first licenses of the popular Warner Brothers cartoon characters Bugs Bunny (who is celebrating his 50th birthday this year), Wiley Coyote, Daffy Duck, Sylvester and Yosemite Sam. The premise of the game is common to many other video games, and thankfully not based on real life; your girlfriend has been kidnapped and to rescue her, you need to fight through bad guys and puzzles to get through the game. At the end, hopefully, you'll be reunited with her and live happily ever after. Bugs is a real-time puzzle game (e.g. things keep moving and if you turn away you'll get caught) where you move around on each horizontally and vertically scrolling area to collect all the carrots. Problem is, there are a lot of rascals around (all the other Warner characters, each of which tends to have a different level of intelligence in their movement (or so it seems!)) and you need to evade them while you're zipping about collecting carrots. There is no time limit on any of the levels and completion of each level results in another password which can move you directly to that level again when you resume the game later. Being a tough bunny, Bugs can easily jump off of platforms and land many floors below him (of course, the pesky rascals are just as tough and can also survive the falls...) and indeed each level is made up of a variety of ladders (which you can either climb or walk past), steps (which you're forced to walk up/down), pipes (which you pop into and then travel through to wherever it lets you out -- often offscreen and with lots of rascals hanging around the exit!) and elevators which take you from level to level like stairs, but with the ability to pass rascals en transit. In fact, a crucial realization in the game is that you can actually ooze past bad guys while moving along a tube or in an elevator without them attacking you there. Since each character in a pipe causes the pipe to distend just a little bit, it makes for some amusing graphics when you're, say, moving from right to left and you see another distortion travelling towards you, through you, and past you! Of course, it also spells big trouble when you notice one zipping along right behind you! The game has 80 different levels of varying complexity, and indeed I think that they did a good job of gradually building up to some of the more difficult and time consuming levels. On the down side, though, I remain confused over the fact that the booklet 1. says that there are only 60 levels (and the GamePro review claims 58 levels!) (maybe the rest are magic bonus levels?!) and 2. talks about "no carrot" signs that are bad news to touch, but *never showed up* in the entire game when we played it! Since they're supposed to warp you to bonus levels, it's rather disappointing that they seem to be missing. Perhaps the greatest disappointment in the entire game was solving the final puzzle and, instead of getting a happy reunion of Bugs and Honey Bunny, we simply are treated to the legend "Congraturation! [sic] You are Good Player". Bah! The end graphic movie in Super Mario Land is incredibly better and definitely worth the effort to get to it!! Overall, though, even with the loser endgame and the lack of "no carrot" signs, this is still a fun and amusing puzzle game, with the added appeal of the popular Warner characters. One other down side; it's addictive and pretty easy, all in all, so it might not take you more than a week or two to complete the game (Ric B. says he did it in 5 hours, and Nancy L. in about 8...it took me a week or so) so it might be a good purchase for a group of friends to pass along to each other after solving all of the levels...In any case check it out! Graphics: 7 of 10 End Game: 0 of 10 Music: 8 of 10 Fun Level: 9 of 10 Overall Rating: 8 of 10 -- Dave Taylor ------------------------------ From: Dave Taylor Subject: GameBoy: "Heiankyo Alien" and "QBillion" Date: Tue, 15 May 90 15:02:30 PDT Two new games that we've gotten within the last week that are quite cool are "Heiankyo Alien" and "Q Billion", from Meldac and Seta, respectively. They're both puzzle games, though quite different from each other, and both seem engrossing. So far Heiankyo is my favorite of the two, and Q Billion is my SO's favorite... The premise of Heiankyo is kind of similar to both Lode Runner and Boomer's Adventures in Asmik Land (which we *also* have now!) in the sense that you are placed on an edge constrained level and must kill the roaming monsters through digging holes (using "A") and then filling the holes in (with "B") when the aliens fall into them. Lode Runner, however, has the further goal of collecting all the gold dust (and solving the timing-critical (actually, I think I'd rather say timing-pain-in-the-arse) puzzles of how to get to them) while many of the bad guys continue to be regenerated, and Boomer has the goal of finding the key that will allow you to get to the next level, as well as the added wrinkle of hidden (buried) loot and goodies. In Heiankyo Alien, however, all you need to do to advance to the next level is get rid of all the bad guys on the current level. Problem is, the borders of the level you're on aren't constant -- there are buildings that appear to waver in and out of existance over the course of a 5-20 second cycle, and of course when they're not around the aliens (and you) can zip through where they were... What's most interesting about Heiankyo is that the cartridge actually contains two completely different implementations of the "aliens overrunning the town" puzzle; the so-called "OLD" game has what I could only describe as early-1970's style block graphics, with much less appeal, yet a much higher degree of challenge (for example, in the old, or classic, game, if you're in the middle of digging a hole and an alien hits it, it simply vanishes, but in the new game partially dug holes will detain the alien for a period). When aliens are flaiing about in a hole, as with Boomer, another alien coming along will help it out, so you need to be very careful of what's going on around you on the screen! Retrospectively, Heiankyo Alien seems like a subset of Boomer, but somehow, having both of them, I find Heiankyo more enjoyable, perhaps because there is less complexity to worry about; you simply scurry about and try to kill the evil aliens. No confusion about finding keys, worrying about which weapon you're holding, or anything of that nature. Another plus with Heiankyo Alien is that it's a very well produced game; not only are the graphics and audio slick (with the obvious caveat that the old game looks like a veritable video antique) but between certain levels scrolls roll out and little shows are played out on the screen. I figure that as the game progresses that the shows will improve to the point of being quite interesting in a few hundred thousand points! My top score to date on this game is approximately 55000 in the new game, and, uh, about half that in the old game, which is much harder. One thing that I really like about the old game, when I'm in a sufficiently masochistic mood, is that if you don't kill the aliens in a certain amount of time, the game will suddenly go into double speed with lots more aliens popping on the screen. That's really amazing; it all becomes a blur and you basically just cross your fingers and dig like mad! Quite fun. Q Billion, on the other hand, is a more sedate puzzle game vaguely in the same vein as Ishido, if anyone is familiar with that (btw: Nexoft people tell me that Ishido will be on the GameBoy within a few months!!) In Q Billion you're Mr. Mouse and your presented with progressively difficult stacks of different height tiles. The rules are simple enough in the game; you can push a tile off if you're adjacent to it on a pile that is one tile lower in height. Tiles with patterns on them (like a star, circle, or square) can be removed by pushing them around until you form one of a number of different four-tile patterns. Again, this game is broken into two parts, the first being straight, no time limit puzzles. In this mode there are, I believe, 120 different levels and, very worthy of note, the first level or two has an actual on-screen tutorial presented, which will quickly teach you some of the basic moves required to solve the harder puzzles (like if you've a 3-stack, a 2-stack, and a bunch of 1's, you can move the ones around so that you create a 1 high "pathway" to move the '2' along until it's adjacent to the 3-stack, at which point you can hop on it and push the 3-stack down to a 2-stack, and then to 1 stacks). I think that the addition of this tutorial is a fantastic innovation and I strongly encourage other game developers to check it out!! In the 'b' game things get more complex, since you now have much more complex puzzle setups, the addition of a 100 second timer to solve them, *and* you have a premise for solving them too; you're playing a giant game of tic-tac-toe against the computer (or a videolinked friend) and to win a square in the board, you need to solve the puzzle it presents in the time limit given. This is very tough!! One thing about the QBillion interface that I've found quite confusing is that the designers overloaded the "B" key so that it means "take away this set of blocks" and "undo my last move". I seem to continually get into spots where I end up doing my moves over and over again because I accidentally press the "B" key at critical moments. In Summary If you're into puzzle games, then I recommend both of these highly; in different ways they're both engrossing and enjoyable, and I certainly expect both carts to get a lot of use in my house! QBillion: Graphics: 6 (though the mouse animation is cute) Sound: 4 Playability: 6 (the double meaning of the 'b' key is quite confusing) Fun Factor: 8 Overall: 7 Heiankyo Alien: Graphics: 8 (even the old game is kinda nostalgic...) Sound: 9 (very catchy theme tune while playing) Playability: 7 Fun Factor: 8 Overall: 8 -- Dave Taylor Intuitive Systems Mountain View, California taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor ------------------------------------- To join this group or have your reviews appear in the next issue, please send electronic mail to Dave Taylor at the following address; digital-games@digital-games.Intuitive.Com We welcome reviews of games for any computer system, including the IBM PC, Apple Macintosh, Atari, Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari Lynx, Sega Genesis, Nintendo GameBoy, NEC TurboGrafix, Amiga and so on. The views expressed in Digital Games Review Digest are those of the individual authors only, and do not represent the views or opinions of Intuitive Systems or any of our affiliates worldwide. The copyright of each article is that of the original author, and the copyright of the digest itself, as well as the name "Digital Games Review Digest" are noted here. ********************* End of Digital Games Review Digest *********************