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Date: Thu, 26 Apr 90 11:04:51 PDT
Subject: Digital Games Review Digest, #2
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                     Digital Games Review Digest, Number 2
 
                           Thursday, April 26th 1990
 
Today's Topics:
 
         Atari 2600/7800: 	   "California Games"
         Macintosh: 		       "Welltris"
         GameBoy: 	        "Malibu Beach Volleyball"
         	     "Penguin Wars VS", and "The Great Warrior SAGA"
         Lynx: 			     "Gauntlet III"

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
From: bradley@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Eugene Bradley)
Subject: Atari 2600/7800: "California Games"
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 90 17:05:52 EDT

California Games was made in 1987 by Epyx (which is practically dead now).
It can still be bought *in its original carton/shrink wrap* at most toy 
stores.  It's retail cost is ~$19.95 (it depends on where you live and 
where you get it).  

When one first turns the game on w/ CG (which is what I will refer to 
California Games as), the song "Louie, Louie" is played along with
the designers' (which I will tell you in a later posting, as I don't have
the game on me right now) names.  

During the title sequence, if you press the game reset button or the controller
button on the joystick, you will get a listing of names that are shorthand
for the major sponsors you can play for.  Examples are Santa Cruz Skateboards
(listed as StCRUZ); Epyx (EPYX); Ocean Pacific (OP); Costa Del Mar Sunglasses
(DELMAR); Spinjammer (SPINJM); Auzzie, a made-up surfboard company (AUZZIE);
Casio (CASIO); and Kawasaki Jet Ski (JETSKI).  It's possible to play any
combination of software games from an average solitare game, up to 8 players.
There's only one minor hitch:  you can use *only* the left joystick.  Diffi-
culty switches will not matter in this game.

Basically, CF is four games in one.  These four games (listed in order) are
footbag, skateboarding, BMX biking, and surfing.  The highest score in any
of these events wins the event.  "Ribbons" are given for first, second, and
third highest scores in each event, as well for overall performance (i.e.
winner of an event gets 5 points toward overall score; 2nd in an event, 3 
points; 3rd in an event, 2 points; 4th-8th place, 0 points).  You have 90
seconds to finish your turn before moving on to the next player or event.
Another quirk:  you don't know *exactly* how much time you have to finish
your turn (unlike CG for the Lynx) until your score starts to flash; at this
point you have ~5 seconds remaining until the event ends.

After one has selected the sponsor (you can only select one) to be played
for, the first event, footbag, begins.  The object of this event is to 
keep a "bag" (represented by a dot on the screen) in the air for as long
as possible.  You can move left and right by pointing your stick in that
direction.  Pressing the button causes the player to do a mini-jump; moving
the stick up causes the player to jump ~0.5 inch higher than with the former
jumping procedure.  Depending on where the "bag" is, you can make the player
do an outside kick, an inside kick, a knee lift, a toe-tap, or whatever
else you can think of.  If you want to turn around and do the same kicks,
move the stick down.  Every time the "bag" hits a part of the player's body
(leg or knee), you will score points for that stunt, which is shown at the 
bottom of your screen (the lower numbers).  The maximum you can score for
points/stunt is 1000.  If you drop the "bag", the points/stunt score reverts
to 0.  Your total score is shown just above the points/stunt score.
The highest point otal that is displayed is 99,990 points.  If you
exceed that number, it won't reset to 0; your score just goes higher as it 
will be counted in the calculations for who gets what place when the event 
ends.

At the end of footbag, the player(s) will start the next event:  half pipe
skateboarding.  To win this event, you must score higher than your opponents
by doing kick turns (using the feet to turn around *while on the pipe*), 
air turns (self-explanatory), and hand plants (grabbing the *edge* of the 
*pipe* with your hand and turning 360 degrees).  The highest single score
you can get is 990 points for doing a hand plant.  The kick turns' point
range is from 120-590 points while the air turns award from 600-710 points. 
You use the stick to do the air turns/kick turns and the button for the 
hand plants.  If you're off on your timing, you will fall and you will be 
sent back to the top of the pipe where you started the event.  

Three things worth noting:  if you're in the middle of a stunt *when time
runs out*, its point value won't count.  Also, if you're doing a hand plant
at that time, you will spin *on one finger* and then fall.  Naturally, the
points won't count.  Finally, if you go too high in the air, you will hit
the top of the screen and fall.  

After you've fallen on your rear end several times in skateboarding, you
will need what's left of it for the next event:  BMX bike racing.  The 
course is lined with trees, rocks, cow skulls, mud bogs, moss, and ramps.
You go downhill all the way, hoping to score higher than your opponent(s).  
Pointing the stick right causes you to go faster while pointing it to the
left puts on the brakes.  Pressing on the button causes you to jump; doing
this on a ramp causes you to jump higher.  To score, you can either jump
over trees, rocks, or skulls; or do stunts.  Moving the stick up (to do
a flip) or down (to do a "table top", meaning your bike frame is parallel to
the ground) *and landing on both wheels* causes you to do these stunts; 
however, incorrect timing can cause you to crash.  In this event, there is
a timer that counts down from 30.0 seconds that is reset by going over or 
passing a certain flag.  Also, there are bonus flags that are worth points
(instant).  Getting *all* the bonus flags gives you 4000 extra points;
finishing *without crashing* gives you a 10,000 point bonus.  At the finish,
the time difference between each "time flag" is multiplied by 10 and added
to your score, as well as any other bonus points that are due to you.

After all that bruising in biking, you can relax in the final event:  surfing.
It's very simple:  *don't "wipe out", meaning don't end up off your board
in the water.*  Points are scored by doing tricks with your board as well as 
turns in the air with your board above the water (unlike the Lynx, which 
allows multiple turns in the air, I have managed only *1* 360 degree turn).
Just turning the stick in various directions allows you to do assorted tricks
(e.g. weaving in/out of the wave) and score points.  If you get enough
speed, go in the air, do a half or full turn, and land *upright* with the
board to get points.  If you want to turn faster, hold down the button.  You
also score points just for staying on the board, but whatever you do, *don't*
"wipe out"; it takes >= 5 seconds (a long delay considering you have 90 seconds
to complete the event) to get the surfer back on the surf.  If you "wipe out"
with <= 5 seconds remaining, the computer will end your turn.   

Some other features that weren't mentioned (until now):  in footbag, there
is sometimes ~ a 0.5 second between the time the "bag" hits the ground and 
the computer resets the points/stunt counter to 0.  If you're fast enough,
you can "dig" the "bag" off the ground and have your points/second meter go up.
This is especially important if you're in the middle of a high-score shootout,
and your points/stunt counter is 1000.  In surfing, when you start repeating
stunts, the point value decreases a certain factor until you don't score
anything for that stunt.  Finally, in surfing, when your turn ends, you have
to wait for the figure to "wipe out" before the next player's turn/end of
the event.

Ratings (from a scale of 0.0-100.0):

   SOUND.  (88.7).  Could have been higher if they put in "Wipeout" for 
      surfing instead of "Louie, Louie."  Instead of unknown music, they 
      should have "California Dreaming" for the start of each event.  
      Great digitized music for "Louie, Louie", however.

   EASE-OF-USE.  (97.3).  A lot of moves with the joystick/buttons for the 
      various events, but easy to remember.

   PLAYABILITY.  (99.0).  Addicting element:  get the highest score in each
      event possible.  Not boring, except in > 2 player games (can only 
      use *1* joystick, no simultaenous play)

   DOCUMENTATION (96.8).  Often require reading twice in order to get the 
      stick/button moves right.  A nice feature is that it has a glossary 
      of all terms of "Californese" (e.g. "Dude", "Bio", "like")

   GRAPHICS.  (93.4).  Good graphics for the player in the first 2 games (in 
      footbag he looks like he is wearing sunglasses; in skateboarding he has 
      a helmet) as well as the final game (wears shorts), but the low score
      was due to the one-dimensional design of the biker (like a shadow) in 
      BMX biking.  Also in BMX biking, if you play this game on a black-and-
      white set (which I did), you can't tell the moss from the mud bog (they 
      both look dark)

All in all, this game is pretty good.  If you can't afford a Lynx, and have
a 2600 or 7800 that is still working for you (and if you can find it), you
might want to get California Games.  Hey, dude, even if you, like, can't
do quads and quints in surfing, man, it's worth it.

Eugene

------------------------------
 
From: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor)
Subject: Macintosh: "Welltris"
Date: Fri Apr 20 11:11:55 PDT 1990

I recently received the game "Welltris" - the supposed follow-on to
the fantastically successful game "Tetris" -  from Spectrum Holobyte
and have had it around for a few weeks.  I am quite a fan of Tetris, 
as is my girlfriend, and so we were quite enthused when the new game 
arrived, figuring that it had to be another winner.

Oh well.  Frankly, I think that Welltris is a very poor follow-on to
Tetris, and after the first day of playing to figure out the subtleties
of the game and what the heck was going on, we've tossed it into my
games-we-don't-want-to-play closet.  Why isn't it that good?  Because 
it offers a more confusing interface including a poorly laid out 
keyboard (imagine this; you've a tetris-shape piece sliding down one 
wall of a four wall 'well'.  you can use keys on the keyboard to rotate 
it or move it "clockwise" or "counterclockwise", but as soon as it hits 
the adjacent wall and wraps over the keys that you must use to control 
lateral motion CHANGE.  Yech!  Why not just '4' for clockwise and '6' 
for counterclockwise, which would be a heck of a lot more consistent!)

The display itself, on my 8-bit-deep greyscale monitor, is also not
only confusing, but rather unattractive too.  Gone is the 3-dimensional
feel of the original Tetris blocks, replaced instead with a flat 2D
graphic (which is weird when you realize that we're talking about an
update of the game from 2D to 3D!).  Additionally, the display of 
"life in the Soviet Union" graphics on the right side of the screen
is rather tedious; it was amusing and cute in the first game, but 
surely Alexey could have come up with a *new* idea...[or the people
at SH who distribute the game could have...]

Anyway, I'd strongly suggest that people check the game out in the
store before they purchase it, and doubly so if you're a real Tetris
fan.  

Dave Taylor

------------------------------
 
From: Dave Taylor <taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Subject: Gameboy: Malibu Beach Volleyball
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 9:41:44 PDT

A month or so ago I had a chance to receive an evaluation cartridge of 
Malibu Beach Volleyball directly from Activision.  It was interesting 
and fun, but not particularly thrilling; as with many of the sports 
titles on the GameBoy I had particular difficulty keeping track of 
where the ball was on the playing field (of course the worst example 
of that is Alleyway, where the 1-pixel dot of a ball is virtually 
impossible to track when moving quickly!!).

The premise of the game is that you're in control of a two-player
beach volleyball team and that you have to compete against three
other teams of reasonably similar skills.  The "league" is divided
into men and women, and each league has four different countries
represented; USA, Japan, Brazil and Italy.  While the cartridge
may have been from an American developer (Activision is based in
the San Francisco area) the grapics in the game are nonetheless
very reminiscent of anime', the popular Japanese style of graphic
animation.  Most noticable is the bikini-clad woman who acts as 
the announcer between sets and matches (indeed, there are an awful
lot of little bikini clad women in this game!  I guess the GameGirl
version is the one with lots of buff dudes... ;-)

There are two traits that teams are rated on in MBV: speed and spiking 
ability.  Each team has a specific pair of ratings on these factors
(detailed in the instruction booklet) and there are eight total teams 
(four mens and four womens teams; representing different countries
is just a nice selection mechanism).  As I recall, USA has the overall
strongest teams, but Italy is often the easiest to start out as in the
interest of getting the hang of the gameplay.  Perhaps not surprisingly,
the men's teams tend to be tougher to beat as they're faster and much
better at spiking.

One thing I never quite got wired was the jumping spike serve.  To do
this you need to go through almost more hoops than a solid swing in Golf!
As I remember, you need to push the 'a' button to throw the serve up,
push the 'b' button to jump, then, at *just the right moment* push the
'b' button again to actually hit the ball.  Ha!  Instead, the serve
that I found most aggressive was simply to go to one of the sides and
run towards the center of the back court.  As you hit the center point
do a fast double 'b' serve down the midcourt line.  Most of the teams
dropped that serve about 50% of the time.

Generally, I would have to say that this isn't a sterling example of
what can be done with the GameBoy technology, though there are elements
of the game that I enjoyed quite a bit.

One feature that might well redeem Malibu Beach Volleyball quite a bit
is the VideoLink hookup; it supports two player games where you're
playing against them or where both of you are on the same side playing
against other teams.  The "both on the same side" option sounds like
a great idea and we were sorry that we couldn't try it out, but we
only had one game cartridge.

I would recommend that you check this game out in the store for a 
few minutes before making your purchase decision, and also remember
that perhaps too much of the game skills are learned, not automatic.
I had a pretty good game after a few hours of playing, and after a
week or so could consistently beat all the women's teams...

After all, any game that says "bummer!" when you lose a match can't
be all bad!

Dave Taylor

------------------------------
 
From: leo@tds.lcs.mit.edu (John Leo)
Subject: GameBoy: Penguin Wars VS, and The Great Warrior SAGA
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 12:41:43 -0400

Makaitoushi SAGA [The Great Warrior Saga] (Square) 3500 yen

SAGA is the first role-playing game for the Gameboy.  It's not out in
the US yet, and I'm not sure when it's due (hopefully soon), but it
came out last December in Japan to rave reviews and was the best
selling game there in the weeks before DragonQuest IV's release.  So I
asked a friend visiting Tokyo to get me a copy, and he found one in
Akihabara for 3000 yen (about $21).  Now after about 3 weeks and 100
hours of playing it I finally reached the end and want to write a
review.

In short, this game is fantastic, and in my opinion along with Super
Mario Land is the best game yet available for the Gameboy.  If you
like RPGs and have a Gameboy you should really look forward to this
one.  Square is no novice at RPGs; they make for the Nintendo Famicom
the second most popular (after DragonQuest, called Dragon Warrior in
the US) series of RPGs in Japan, Final Fantasy (and in fact FF1 is due
out for the NES this month).  And Square has obviously spent a great
deal of effort on this one, producing an extremely fun and exciting
game.

The game is huge--it's one meg, and as they didn't need to waste
memory on detailed color graphics that means the world to explore is
enormous and very rich.  And in fact the graphics are really beautiful;
stylized and taking full advantage of black-and-white.  I'd say
they're the best yet for the Gameboy.  The music is also excellent,
using stereo to good effect.  Although some of the music repeats quite
often and gets tiresome after a while, the main music changes as you
progress and all the pieces are great.

The original name "Makaitoushi SAGA" is a pun in Japanese, meaning
roughly "Evil-world Fighter Saga," but the characters for "toushi"
(fighter) are different, using the character for "tower."  And indeed
a tower is the centerpiece of the game.  There are legends that a
Garden of Paradise is at the top, so you and your fellow adventures
decide to find out what's really there.  So most of the game involves
trying to go up this tower.  On the way you visit interesting worlds
in which you need to solve puzzles, discover things, and so on in
order to proceed.  There are also smaller areas along the way often
added for humorous effect (and there's a lot of good humor in the
game) such as places where people think they've already found
paradise, or perhaps its opposite.  There are literally hundreds of
monsters and objects in the game, and much of the fun comes from
exploring the world.  At each of a major areas, a sort of mini-saga
takes place, and it's very much like you're participating in a
good story.  In a sense then you're sort of prodded along a certain
path, and one might wonder about free will.  And it turns out free
will itself is an important part of the overall story.  There are also
in this game more surprising moments than I can count...all very
effective.

This is the first RPG for the Gameboy, so there aren't any others to
compare it to (although SELECTION (Kemco), a first-person perspective
RPG, is out in Japan and due to come here soon), but I can compare it
to a couple RPGs for the NES, one that I consider to be well-made
(Dragon Warrior) and one not (Ultima).  You may disagree, but this
should still give an idea of where Saga lies.  Basically it has a lot
more in common with Dragon Warrior, and even surpasses that game in a
sense.  There are similar towns to visit where you can rest at inns,
buy things, get information and so forth as in both DW and Ultima, and
the graphics are closer to DW in their use of barriers and limited
scrolling to prevent you from seeing things, rather than the ugly
blacking-out done by Ultima.

Ultima for me was an extremely tedious game, where you have
to worry about four characters, their food, and whether they get
poisoned or catch cold or whatever.  Saga also has four characters, so
I was worried about this, but tedium in this game has been reduced to
the minimum.  You choose one main character, and then get three others
by visiting the Adventurer's Guild.  In fact if these minor characters
die you can just go back and get someone else instead of resurrecting
them (although you can do that too).  This is also good if you don't
like the composition of your party and want to change it later.  You
can choose from humans, ESPers and monsters.  Humans are your basic
character; they can carry up to 8 items and use any weapons or armor.
Strangely there is no experience point system, and money does indeed
buy everything: you can increase your strength, agility and hit points
by buying certain potions.  Espers are perhaps the most interesting
characters.  They can only carry four items, but have up to four
powers such as Telepathy or Psycho Blast, and although they can't wear
armor or use certain weapons they are the only ones who can use magic
books which tend to be the most powerful weapons (especially "Break"
(turn to stone) and "Death," both of which kill monsters instantly
unless they're resistant).  Instead of using items to increase their
strength, they get stronger by mutating randomly in the middle of
combat, which is usually good but can be distressing when your
favorite ability suddenly disappears.

You can also choose a monster to be one of the characters, and these
are exactly like the ones that you fight.  They can't carry any items
but have a combination of up to eight ways to attack, along with
certain strengths and weaknesses (for example birds are unaffected by
earthquakes).  Monsters become stronger by eating the meat of enemies
you defeat--they suddenly might change into another monster!  This is
a lot of fun, and you can learn about your enemies this way, but I
found the monster to be almost always (unless they have some really
nice ability like blood-sucking) the weakest member of the party.  But
as only the first member of the four is displayed when you walk it's
fun to put the monster first as some of them have some interesting
ways of moving (there are other reasons to put the monster first, but
I won't discuss strategy here).  I'd say a good choice for a party
would be two espers, a human and a monster; perhaps exchanging the
monster for another character later.

Combat was perhaps the most tedious and painful aspect of Ultima,
since most attacks affect only one monster, you can't change weapons,
and you can't run away.  Fortunately combat in Saga is closer to DW
and very pleasant.  You can attempt to run away at any point, change
weapons at any point (you can even back up if you make a mistake), and
everything goes by quickly and enjoyably.  There are 8 different
scrolling speeds for the text; you can choose a slower speed when you
want to examine the kinds of attacks monsters have, and the faster
speeds when you just want to get it over with.  It's possible to get
poisoned, blinded, put to sleep, turned to stone, and other terrible
fates, but this happens infrequently and cures are easily purchased
and can be brought with you.  My favorite is the frying pan: if a
character gets confused, for example due to a monster singing, just
have someone hit him on the head and he'll be back to normal in no
time.  Combat is semi-animated, so you can see the result of your
attack on the monsters.  This isn't too exciting for things like
swords and bullets, but later when you start using lightening or
chainsaws it gets more interesting.  Sound effects are really good.

There is a battery back-up, and you can save the game at any point,
not just at one place like in DW and Ultima.  Unfortunately only one
game can be saved at a time.  Be careful when you save the game as
well or you might get stuck.  I found a sort of bug at the whirlpool
where the machine somehow let me leave my boat in the middle of it,
and I was stuck and had to start over again.  It didn't take long to
get back to the same point and it was still surprisingly fun, but
despressing at first.  Another problem is that occasionally text will
scroll by without stopping, which seems to have been done on purpose
at some of the more dramatic scenes.  I suppose this would be less of
a problem if the text were in English, though.

There's so much more to be said about this game, but much of the fun
is in exploring it yourself.  I will say that the last boss is really
really terrifying, and that the ending is excellent and well worth
getting to.  And as I mentioned before playing Saga is like
participating in a well-written story, and just as one reads a good
book many times this game can be played again even after you win.
There's so much to it that there's a lot I didn't have time to explore
carefully, and some things I didn't figure out the first time, so I'm
really looking forward to playing again.

One last thing I'd like to mention is that if you've had at least two
years or so of Japanese I'd highly recommend getting the Japanese
version.  I learned quite a lot of the language just by playing it,
although there were a few scenes I didn't fully understand.  On the
other hand if you don't know Japanese definitely wait until the US
version comes out--this is one game where reading the rulebook
carefully and understanding the text in the game itself is essential.

Without a doubt, this game gets a 10 on the 1-10 scale.

 * * *

Pengin-kun WARS VS. [Penguin Wars Vs.] (ASCII) 3090 yen (about $21)

I was in NYC last weekend, and my friend and I visited Yaohan Plaza in
nearby Edgewater, NJ (there's a shuttle bus that goes there from Port
Authority).  One of the stores there is Pony Toy Go Round, which
happens to carry Famicom and Gameboy games at steep prices, as well as
the units themselves.  Although the prices were high I decided since
I'd come all the way there I might as well get a game, and it came
down to Yakuman (Mah Jong by Nintendo) or Penguin Wars Vs. (not to be
confused with Sega's Penguin Land, which is also coming out for the
Gameboy).  My girlfriend had thought the latter looked fun from an ad
in Famicom Tsushin (which is incidentally published by ASCII, the
maker of the game), so I decided to get that one.  It was $33, and
luckily a great game, worth the price.

This is actually an old game.  Here's the history according the rule
book (slightly edited): "In 1984 the game debuted in arcades.  With
its cute characters and simple rules, it was also popular with girls.
After that, it appeared on the Famicom, MSX personal computer, and
others.  In the Spring of 1989, "Pengin-kun WARS 2" appeared.  Now,
the Gameboy version...."  And the Gameboy is the perfect format for
this game.  As mentioned the rules are very simple.  The two players
are at opposite ends of a table, and each starts with five balls.  You
throw balls to the other end and when 60 seconds are up whoever has
the least number of balls at his end wins.  If you can get all 10
balls on your opponent's side before time is up you immediately win
and get lots of points for time remaining.

The game is sort of like dodgeball in that you want to hit your enemy
with a ball, which gives you points and knocks him out for a while.
Of course you want to avoid getting hit as well.  You can only move
left to right behind the table, and only the A button is used:  Hit it
once to grab a ball, and a second time to release.  You can also hold
the button the second time to build up strength (your character will
begin to squeal) and then release a power shot which travels quickly
and knocks out the enemy for a long time if it hits him.  However if
you hold the button too long you'll collapse from the effort.

You can choose from among five characters to play with: Penguin,
Rabbit, Cow, Bat and Mouse; you have to fight against the other
four to win.  Each has his own strengths.  The penguin is your average
guy.  The rabbit is fairly quick but not too strong.  The cow is the
opposite.  Each has his own way of moving as well as celebrating or
crying, depending upon the outcome of a set.  My favorite is the
mouse, who moves very fast but is extremely weak (and his balls roll
very slowly, so you may find a whole wall of them rolling toward
you!).  If you're playing against him you can only see his tail except
when he throws a ball, and if you knock him out he disappears
completely, his location being given way by the alternating words
"HELP" and "GIVE UP".  There are also four "obstacle" characters, one
of whom appears when the time remaining is 20 seconds.  These guys
move around in the middle and can bounce your shots back if you're not
careful.  They can also be a big help when you're knocked out.

Once someone wins two sets they win the match, and if you win the
match you get to go on to the next opponent; if you lose the game is
over.  If you win both sets "perfectly," getting 10 balls on the
opponent's side, you get a bonus round with just you and an obstacle
character, and you can rack up lots of points.  Once you defeat all
the characters you win the round and the game progresses to the next
one where the opponents are more skillful.  I haven't made it past the
second round yet; these guys have some nasty tricks in that one!  In
any case this doesn't appear to be a game with an ending--you keep
going until you finally lose.

Just like two-player Tetris, there's much more to the strategy of this
game than you'd guess at first, or even after several hours of
playing.  You need to throw balls not only to get them to the other
side and knock your opponent out, but also to make him have to move a
lot and cross your line of fire.  Of course if balls hit other balls
they start moving in more interesting ways, and balls moving mostly
side-to-side are the most dangerous as they can also roll around
behind the table and knock you out.  You can be really vicious and
keep throwing power shots at your enemy when he's knocked out, and
believe me your enemies will do it to you if they get the chance.  The
game can be played with 2 to 10 people via the game link; you use two
units so you have to take turns, but the machine sets up a tournament.
I hope to get a chance to try this as it promises to be even more
fun--lots of psyching out possible.

The game, as with many Japanese products, comes with a reply card, and
this is the first I've sent in.  They asked what I thought of the
theme, graphics and music (the choices were: very satisfactory,
satisfactory, okay, and not satisfactory) and I gave all of them the
highest marks.  The game is really fun to play and the graphics are of
the cute, stylized variety for which the Gameboy may be the last
bastion.  The music and sounds are very good, and I especially like
the sound of the points being counted--very solid.  However the sound
at the end of a set when someone wins is a bit too high-pitched for
me.  The feel is for the most part really good, especially the
movement of the characters and balls, but I had some trouble with the
A button.  It didn't always seem to work when I pressed it, and
repeatedly pressing it, which supposedly makes you get up faster when
you're knocked out, doesn't seem to have much of an effect.

This game might come out in the US soon, as although the instruction
book is in Japanese, everything in the game itself is in English (with
only some minor errors).  You even have to enter names for the
two-player tournament in roman letters!  But even if it doesn't come
out here for a while this would be a good Japanese game to get.  I was
able to figure out most of it before even reading the rulebook (except
the power shots, which came as a big surprise when the opponents
started using them).  And this is definitely a game you can play many
times, always figuring out new things to try.  I recommend it, and
give it 8/10.

John Leo

------------------------------
 
From: grady@scam.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Grady)
Subject: Lynx: Gauntlet III
Date: 24 Apr 90 16:48:04 GMT

Here's a general GauntletIII review, not of specific features,
but of the game in general.  Caveat: I never really liked Gauntlet
in the arcade, so those of you who enjoyed the arcade game may enjoy
the Lynx version just as much.

In my opinion, the game doesn't hold enough interest.  It's fairly easy
to play (you're not likely to die as long as you are careful and keep
a Revive scroll handy if you get low on life points), but there are only
40 levels, so I suspect if you had the patience, you could win pretty
quickly.  I played about an hour the day I got it (with friends), then
the next morning, I figured I'd play one game before going to work.
Well, I finally died 2 hours later, on level 26, with a couple revive
scrolls and 360,000 pts.  Basically, I was getting bored and tired,
or I could have survived much longer, I believe.  Frankly, I wasn't
too disappointed when I died (partly because I was missing lunch at
work).

On the good side, the levels are similar to Chips Challenge in that
some are puzzles to solve (find your way through a maze, figure out
how to escape without overloading your inventory with gold, etc).
Others are pure arcade action.  There continue to be surprises as you
go down the levels.

I think the main positive aspect of the game is that it's a true
multi-player game.  As someone mentioned, multiple players can't
explore different levels, but other than that everyone is independent.
There are some levels in which each player starts in a different place
(I believe there are specific places on which each player may start --
it's not completely random).  If one player is doing something unusual,
like using the Farsee spell, it's interesting to see as another player.
Players can work together to defeat obstacles, or split up and each
grab lots of loot.

Unfortunately, I don't think that completely redeems the game.  If
the game were more complex (in terms of number of levels, or difficulty
of levels), I would probably enjoy it more.  I suspect that you're
supposed to provide greater challenge to yourself by choosing a
wimpier character (like the nerd)..  I also am disappointed in the
fact that it seems other players interfere with each other more than
help each other.  As I understand it, the arcade game was just the
opposite -- you _had_ to work together to survive.

Finally, I should say that I've only had it for four days, and I haven't
played it a whole lot during that time.  But I guess I've been spoiled
by Chip's Challenge, which is a LOT of fun, and I've had it for
almost two months and I still haven't played all the levels (admittedly,
I sometimes let it sit for a week to give it a rest).  Maybe there
will be some surprise, like when you complete level 40 it sends you
to another dungeon, but I don't think that's too likely.

I'll probably give it some more time, but if it continues to unimpress
me, I'll probably sell it to someone and wait impatiently for the next
Lynx game.

Steven
 
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