Robert Morgan @Tempest X3
Reviews
SimCity Classic (Windows 3.x)
Okay translation of a fun but limited game.
The Good
The original SimCity is a classic, and this is but a translation of it to the Windows environment. The gameplay is familiar, system specs need not be powerful (unlike for the newer Sim installments), and gameplay is a bit smoother than on the standard DOS version.
Building a city from scratch is fun, and allows a person to experience the joys of being a ruler. Build cities "organically" like London, or build your city according to a larger over-all plan, like Washington DC.
The Bad
While the experience of playing SimCity is fun, the overall game is rather pointless. There is little to do once you find that happy middle ground of taxes and spending- wait for enough funds, tweak your city a bit, wait for some more funds.
Some have said that to "win" you must lay out your city for mass public transit (with no roads) which strikes me as a lopsided statistical modelling job. Granted, Will Wright could mold the game in any fashion that he desired, but SimCity seems a weird place to trumpet one's own ideological utopian vision.
The pre-planned scenarios aren't very fun- once a grasp of the basic concepts of the game are in hand, demolishing buildings to build police stations in hot spots or bulldozing districts to stop the spread of fire just feel like boring puzzle games.
The use of windows in this game, while allowing more flexibility than the DOS version, can get unwieldy.
The Bottom Line
It started and defined a genre that no other series has ever been able to touch- city planning games. In retrospect, the game is a lot like Balance of Power- the ideas are awe-inspiring, and the execution creative, but the game itself leaves a bit to be desired. The fun in this version of SC is akin to the fun one gets with a paint program, not necessarily a game program. Future SC entries improve on this, and are worthy as game and social experiment... but this one is just a very well-done curio.
By Robert Morgan on August 4, 2000
Druglord (DOS)
Amusing but shallow little game.
The Good
Druglord is- above all else- very tongue in cheek. While pious people may not find joking about drug dealing and other crimes funny or right, this is definitely a game with a sense of humor. The game's menu comes complete with a stereotypical thuggish accent, and the whole game plays like a comic version of a bad 70's exploitation B-grade film. This makes the otherwise leaden concept of a financial simulation game new and fun. (dunno about you, but selling lemonade kinda gets old.)
Gameplay, once it gets going, is amusing and somewhat addictive. It can be hard to start out, but once there's a little rhythm going, you can buy, sell, and bargain your way to millionaire status.
The Bad
It's bizarre that overcoats cost so much- you have to buy coats to increase your holding potential, but why in God's name would one cost $20,000?
Police are very annoying in this game- early levels are okay, when there's one or two cops; you can usually, unarmed, take them out. Armed, a few cops are okay, too. But later on, when your status is really high, you can get surrounded by gangs of 20 or more! You aren't apprised of the size of the police force when asked if you want to call a posse together- and even then, your posse shows up unarmed (!) and undermanned. If you're lucky, you may have a cache of 4 or 5 guns to distribute, but you'll still be facing an armed force 4 times the size of your group. Running away isn't an option, since the more cops there are, the lower the chances of a successful getaway. Your health drains pretty quickly when there's 20 cops shooting at you, and attempting to run away means you aren't allowed to fight at all. So, in other words, once you've hit about $1 million, if you're caught by cops, you're dead.
No matter how well armed you are, you are simply not allowed to confront muggers! Especially early on in the game, muggers are the bane of your being, because if your rep is below a certain level, they take all of the money you are carrying. If your rep is above a certain level, you can "spend" your reputation points to avoid losing your money- important if a loan shark is after you, but it seems odd that if I were armed with 4 automatic rifles that I couldn't fight back.
Finally, if you're carrying pot, your girlfriend will occasionally bake it into pot brownies and eat it. All of your pot. If you're carrying 60 kilos she eats 60 kilos. This is fairly amusing now that I think about it, but it is annoying when it happens in-game, and it's the only drug susceptible to theft/loss.
Starting a game usually involves resetting the game multiple times to get a good beginning. It's really hard to start out fresh and make it work, especially if you're initially dropped in an expensive-transportation city with high drug prices. (Hint: LA/San Diego are the only two cities you need.)
There also appears to be no end- or goal- to the game short of dying (which in a moralistic sense may be what they are trying to say). I usually set myself a goal of $1 million- I've been trying for $2 million, but can't quite get it yet. Without an actual goal, though, it can seem fairly pointless.
The Bottom Line
It's odd, and definitely not for all tastes. There's no graphics and little gameplay, but what is there is fun and mildly addictive.
When playing, the most important thing is to watch the fluctuations of drug prices; you'll notice each drug fluctuates around a standard point (pot, for example, usually wavers between 200 to 500 dollars). Once the median prices get ingrained in your head, it's a cinch to buy low and sell high.
Until the day EA/Maxis comes out with that long-anticipated "SimPusher" (and where's "SimPimp"?), though, this will probably be the best- and only- illicit drug business simulator around.
By Robert Morgan on July 21, 2000
Date Girl: Virtual Reality (DOS)
An excuse to extort money out of really desperate-for-sex guys.
The Good
The actress who plays Vida is pretty attractive.
That, and it only takes about 5 minutes to play from beginning to end...
The Bad
Oh, boy.
1) The gameplay is virtually nonexistant- if you make a mistake, it either lets you keep choosing until you hit the right one, or a wrong choice can completely ruin the game.
2) The gameplay consists of pointing and clicking on really obvious parts of a picture, or buttons. There's no mystery, fun, or guesswork involved.
3) The only sound in the game is on the CD-ROM version, and all that does is play some redbook audio when you stick a CD in the player in the game. (Not only that, but you're given a choice of 5 albums, but are only allowed to pick one!)
4) There are gross misspellings and errors in grammar throughout the game (like all IGC programs.)
5) The "pay-off" is incredibly lame. While "Vida" does get nekkid- in some instances quite graphically- the end where you finally seduce her is represented by a silhouette of two people embracing and disappearing from a window. Whee!
The Bottom Line
Really pathetic. It's funny to run through once, but there is no replay value. There's nothing interesting for the porno fans out there, either, since despite Vida's graphic displays o' flesh, IGC seemed incredibly squeamish about actually showing a hint of sexuality on-screen.
By Robert Morgan on July 15, 2000
Intellivision Lives! (Windows)
Great fun for children of the 80s.
The Good
Incredible package- this blows away other (similar) packages, like the Activision 2600 emulation packages, the Williams/Midway/Atari arcade packs, or Telegames' Coleco packs.
The sheer quantity of games, plus the sheer quantity of information about each game- even if (like me) you tend to play action-oriented console games just for a couple minutes apiece, you'll spend hours going through everything on here.
The additional, non-game-specific stuff is also a nice bonus.
Unreleased Intelly games are very cool to have access to.
The Bad
Although I know legally they couldn't, it's a shame that Intellivision's classic licensed titles (Bump 'N' Jump, Burgertime, Masters of the Universe, AD&D series, etc.) weren't included.
The control scheme leaves something to be desired (a 3rd party manufacturer makes an interface that allows use of Intellivision 2 controllers on the PC to remedy this). It's hard to emulate a 16-way joypad with 2 fire buttons and a numeric keypad all on a PC keyboard.
The music in the multimedia browser gets really repetitive.
The Bottom Line
If you lived through or remember the early 80s video game boom, you'll love this package. If you only played the 2600, Odyssey 2, ColecoVision, or something else, you can find out what you've missed.
This collection has no equal, and is a must for classic video game fans.
By Robert Morgan on July 14, 2000
The Ford Simulator (DOS)
An interesting concept and pretty good driving game for the time, too.
The Good
This was the first time a major American non-computer-related company considered computer users to be a desirable marketplace so much that an entire advertising campaign was created specifically for them. Getting a free game disk bound into a double-page ad spread in a magazine was pretty cool (a free disk period was novel- remember, this was before AOL.. :) The simulator was fairly accurate (it modelled the individual physics of each car in Ford's line-up) and included a number of different ways to try out each car.
The Bad
It made me realize the Commodore 64's days were numbered- the PC was being considered the standard. When I finally did get to try it, it was on a Hercules-graphics-based PC running a CGA emulator. Bleah!
The Bottom Line
Don't expect a Hard Drivin' or Test Drive 6. For the time-period, though, the Ford Simulator really rivalled commercial games in both depth and gameplay (and I'd put it up against the original Test Drive any day.)
This game really was a big deal back when it came out; it got rave reviews and write ups, and was a popular selection from PD game sources for years after. (Ford authorized the free copying and distribution of the simulator, so if you see it on an abandonware site, you can download it with a clear conscience!)
By Robert Morgan on July 11, 2000
Williams Arcade Classics (DOS)
Fun and tight emulator package.
The Good
Contains the cream-of-the-Williams-crop; Joust, Robotron, Defender, Stargate, and Sinistar are all classics that have stood the test of time. Bubbles, while not really considered a classic, is a fun game that few people got to play in the arcades.
The emulation is done very well; people used to needing a high-spec system to run a C64 emu or MAME will be surprised. As mentioned in the trivia section, the games run fine on a mid-speed 386- I myself first used it on a 486sx, hardly a speed demon. (The higher specs are apparently for the FMV/multimedia section, but even those ran fine on my below-spec system.)
Upon installation, the individual games are available thru the Start/Programs menu, without having to go through a frontend or long FMV openings.
The controls are very nice- an analogue joystick is the perfect replacement for the odd 49-way joystick Sinistar had in the arcades. No other system's version of Sinistar comes close to mimicking the feel of the machine. Defender and Stargate have their controls mapped logically to the joystick. Robotron is problematic, since it was originally a 2-joystick game, but that's hard to overcome on any system.
The Bad
The Sinistar's voice scares the hell out of me every time. Sure, I'm used to "Beware, I Live!" and "Run, Coward, Run!"... but when it starts screaming and saying "Run! Run! Run!" my blood runs cold.
(Okay, that's a good thing... but still...)
The bleeping of cussing in the FMV with Defender sfx seems unnecessary- since mostly older players are interested in these packages, I'd say we're old enough to withstand a little naughty language.
I hate the whole Defender II thing... it's Stargate! I wish there had been a cheat to restore the original name to the game.
The Bottom Line
While the rest of the world was playing Pac-Man, Williams was creating games for the hardcore gamer. Nearly 20 years later, the games are still viable, and still fun. None of these games are easy (although Joust and Bubbles might appeal to a less-experienced player) but they're certainly rewarding. It's rare to find action games nowadays that send you into the "zone"- where you become one with the machine and become oblivious to everything else. (Come to think of it, that's what used to scare adults about video games back in the 80s...) If you've never been in the "zone", it's time to find out what it's like. And if you miss that "zone", it's here.
By Robert Morgan on June 2, 2000
Wolfenstein 3D (DOS)
A classic of PC gaming- a revolution in game marketing.
The Good
Blockbuster game- this was a really good, fun game, that was way ahead of what could be done on consoles. Amazing how far PC action games had progressed in just a couple of years.
The Bad
I hate how Wolfenstein's success obscured the game's origins in the old Muse Software Castle Wolfenstein series! I'm also not too thrilled with the huge number of rip-offs and clones that flooded the market.
The Bottom Line
Considering my view of Commander Keen (and my similar views for most other PC software from the late 80's/early 90's), I didn't think much of the PC as a gaming platform. Sure, I had fun with the big bloated simulators and adventures around then, but for pure action gaming, I didn't bother.
I started hearing about Wolfenstein 3d, and having been a player of the original 2D games on the Apple ][ and C64, I tried it out at a friend's house. My jaw hit the floor and I hit the keyboard- I didn't come up for air for hours.
Compared with corridor shooters (or FPSes if you will) of today, Wolf seems a little bit dated. Doom really swept the market shortly afterwards, and it's been a steady progression upwards in quality and gameplay since. With the deluge of corridor shooters, though, the gameplay of todays' games just doesn't seem as fresh or as exciting as it did when I first beheld the twisting, turning 3D mazes in Wolfenstein. Since I'd never been pleased with the home adaptations of Atari's arcade game Xybots, this game really made do.
One other thing- Wolfenstein really changed the way software is looked at and dealt with. Shareware was an uncommon sight on the computers I'd used before- it existed, but for the most part, authors either released their works as freeware and public domain or maybe sold copies through small ads in the back of computer magazines. Shareware was more of a force in the PC world, but it was the ugly mutated sibling to real commercial software. You just didn't expect quality, or support in shareware titles. Apogee started out with what comes across today as crummy BASIC-like adventure games- it really is kind of mindboggling to see the progression that occurred in quality over the years.
From the Kroz games, to Captain Comic and Commander Keen, to Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, the games' quality increased exponentially. It also drove from the market (both shareware and standard commercial) substandard software, and changed the face of computer games. Shareware became a legitimate place for large and talented groups of people to release commercial quality games...
By Robert Morgan on June 1, 2000