Portable Addiction: 15-Mar-92 #011
From: Atari SIG (xx004@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Date: 07/15/92-06:04:24 PM Z
From: xx004@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Atari SIG)
Subject: Portable Addiction: 15-Mar-92 #011
Date: Wed Jul 15 18:04:24 1992
Contributed By: Andy Norman <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
PORTABLE ADDICTION ISSUE #11 MARCH 15th 1992
THE NEWSLETTER FOR THE ATARI LYNX, SEGA GAMEGEAR AND NINTENDO GAMEBOY
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Tjerk "MegaJerk" Heijmens Visser ......... (EDITOR)
Yiri "Neuromancer" Kohl .................. (EDITORIAL ASSISTANT)
Alex "Killer of Laura Palmer" Borburg .... (GAMEBOY STAFF WRITER)
Thanks to ... The Funtronics Computer Shop, The International
Lynx Club, Robert Jung, Andre "ALU" Luyer, The
Tom, Amsterdamned BBS, Alizera Malek, Mr. Doom
and all the others that made this most excellent
issue possible...
Please mail your comments, flames and/or suggestions to : tjerk@nikhef.nl
on Internet or bd831 on Cleveland Free-net.
You can also reach us now on THE DARKSIDE BBS. The telephone number is :
020-6969263. It is located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The Fido Node Number is: 2:280/403.16
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
CONTENTS:
Editorial .................................... by Mega Jerk
Hot News And Gossip .......................................
Indianna Jones III (Game Gear) ............... by Yiri Kohl
Talk with Atari .............................. by Mega Jerk
Waganland (Game Gear) ........................ by Yiri Kohl
Toki (Lynx) .................................. by Mega Jerk
Video Game Ratings Report .................................
NINTENDO: THE CREATION OF AN EMPIRE .......... by Yiri Kohl
Cattrap ...................................... by A"TKOLP"B
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Editorial:
Again we didn't see much new things this month, not even a new Game Gear
game in Holland. The Lynx II did arrive in the stores, and Xybots seems
to be on sale now everywhere but Atari has had it for allmost 2 month now!
So this month I talked with some Atari guys, and in this issue you can
all about it. As for the Game Gear things have been ultimately slow. I
thought slow imports were copywritten by Atari, but Sega can do that stuff
too I see. But we are all waiting for the spring..... Cause we will see a
bunch of new games then. And not only for the Lynx, but also games like
Streetfighter II and F-15 Strike Eagle for the Game Boy!!!!!
Though spring is in a few day's, I guess that we'll be waiting for this
much longer..... Hell, we can only hope......
That was a bit of News 'n Gossip in this section, but there is many more
elsewhere in this issue (Namely: The talk with Atari.....)
Tjerk "Mega Jerk" Heijmens Visser
Editor
(Hoping for a video game burst out
next month!)
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
. + . + . . . +
. H O T N E W S A N D G O S S I P + .
. + . + . .
Atari: Well, I went to the CeBit on saturday the 14th. And guess what,
NOTHING! What a surprise!
Lynx: Atari Corp. is now/has been selling a D-cell battery pack for the
Lynx. It's a large plastic case, into which you place 6 D-cell
batteries. You then plug a cable from the case into your Lynx, and
you get lots of game-playing time without interruption (no exact
"number of hours" were given).
The case has a clip so that you can wear it on your belt (or on the
edge of your pants pocket, or wherever), and a loop to carry it
with.
Price is $15. Batteries not included.
GameBoy: Last month we had the Hyperboy, by Konami. Now there is the Game
Plus. It also has a joystick, and most of the Hyperboy's gadgets.
Next month we'll have a full hardware review of it!
No other news about the Game*Mate sadly.......
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+--------------------REVIEW--------------------+
Machine : Sega GameGear
Title : Indiana Jones III
Review by : Yiri "Neuromancer" Kohl
Players : 1
+----------------------------------------------+
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on the GameGear follows exactly the
same storyline as all the other versions of the game. The game is played
over six 8-way scrolling levels, and your task is to discover the Holy
Grail. Your trip begins in America where you find yourself battling your
way through the caves of the Coronado and running the lenght of a moving
circus train. Then it's on to Germany where you must battle your way thru
the Castle of Brunwald. And so the game goes on and on till you reach the
final level, where you must find the Grail. This level is more of a race
against the clock where you have to run from left to right and jump over
chasms and traps and the like. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?
Well, the game is less exciting than you might expect, and to be honest I
found it quite frustrating. The controls of your Indy aren't quite what
they could have been, and the game is rather slow and sluggish. This is
also due to the lack of animation frames, though the sprites are all drawn
quite well. The game looks and sounds good, but I think most people would
agree with me when I say that the game is actually a slow, frustrating,
sluggish and awfull attempt at bringing in BIG money using a name of a big
movie. The game is supposed to be a cross between platform and arcade-
adventure, but if you closely examine both these aspects, and then try to
find either of them back in THIS game, you will be disappointed. The part
of arcade-adventuring consists of finding certain objects like your whip,
and these objects are SO easy to be found 'cos there's only one way thru
each level. Then the platform-part is the most recognizable of the two,
but here it's obvious that the programmers failed here horribly. If you
want to have some good platform fun, buy Sonic... It's the direct opposite
of Indy, but that's what makes it so good! Sorry, but I can't recommend
Indy to anyone who's from this planet. Avoid!
+-->RATINGS<------------------------------------------------------------+
Graphics ..... 7.0 - All quite good, but there's a lack of animation.
Sound ........ 5.0 - Crunch, crunch when you walk and clap when you hit
someone. Pathetic music.
Playability .. 3.5 - Could've been some fun if it wasn't so frustrating
Lastability .. 4.0 - You want to see what's next, but you won't want to
play the game no more!!!
Overall ...... 4.0 - Though there are game worse than this, it isn't
very good! Actually it's a load a rubbish.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+--------------TALKS WITH ATARI----------------+
With : Paul Groen
By : Tjerk "MegaJerk" Heijmens Visser
+----------------------------------------------+
While I went to Atari Benelux with some guy's of the International Lynx
club to have a talk about Atari support for the club,we also talked about
other things....
So here is a list of facts given by Paul Groen:
- There will be a development system for the Lynx on the ST (We doubt it)
- There is another chip in the Lynx II, Mickey and Suzy are replaced by
the Ajax.... (We doubt that too, the Ajax is also the name for another
Atari Mega STe thingy.....A HD-Drive actually.....)
- The Jaguar will be a "Real" 64 Bit system (Not a parralel 32 bit) with
True Color for about the 400 to 600 Dutch Guilders (About $ 300,-).
Atari Germany said the same, but they kept their price fix safe, and
said that it would be cheaper than the Neo Geo.
- Atari sold thousands of 2600 systems in Holland while Atari does not
push it anymore. One of the reasons for these relatively high sales-
figures is the Dutch mentallity: Doesn't matter how bad it is, as long
as it doesn't hurt the wallet....:-)
Atari Germany did also sell a great bunch of 2600's, 40.000 to be
exact.
- The Lynx will be supported by big add campaign this summer.
- On the Atari Messe in Dusseldorf in august (21st till 23) the Lynx
will be in the spotlights, meaning : The Lynx will get a lot of
attention for it there.
- Paul Groen also said that Nintendo blows much of their profit on
commercials. Those commercials don't have the same effect as in other
countries.
- And the Sega has priced itself out of the market with the Game Gear so
he doesn't expect it to be al succesfull as commonly suggested.
- Thomas Huber had recieved a preproduction card of Rampart. He has send
it to a German Computer/Video magazine (we don't know which one......)
So Germans can expect to read a review of it in their local mags soon.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+--------------------REVIEW--------------------+
Machine : Sega GameGear
Title : WaganLand
Review by : Yiri "Neuromancer" Kohl
Players : 1
+----------------------------------------------+
Altough I'd never heard of this game before, it seems that it's already
available on a number of format. Yet the other version are said to be
educational, this version is a straight-forward platform extravaganza!
You play the role of a small baby dragon, whose land is being terrorized
by an evil magician. So you set out to find the evil wiz and kick him to
another world. There's only one problem though, as you're so young that
you haven't even learned how to breathe flames yet! Instead, our young
friend has a far more sadistic, fiendish and above all a very deadly
weapon! Japanese text symbols!!! AAARGH! Yes, it's true, our baby dragon
can spit Jap text symbols! By collecting power-ups you can get even more
bigger text symbols. And the bigger the symbol, the longer the nasties
are knocked out when hit by one! And while collecting these power-ups,
your madness meter will rise, too. (wot da heck is a madness meter, you
might ask!). When you have collected four power-ups the dragon goes hay-
wire and you can storm around and hit baddies without being killed for a
short time. And then there's more! Some objects in the scenery reveal,
when shot a few times, other power-ups which give you extra bounce-power,
free lives and even whole levels full of killable enemies for you to bump
up that score.
The object is to get to the wizards castle at the other side of your
island (the map section look a suspicious lot like SuperMario World 4!).
To do this you must survive numerous levels full of platform action. The
game doesn't have a name as big as Sonic the Hedgehog, but it's ten times
harder and millions of times bigger! There are massive levels and sub-
games for you to explore (yes, subgames! No end-of-level-guardians here
but jolly subgames where you play agains a creature that invites you to
play, say, pick-a-pair). The game has the playability of a mario-game,
so it's a definitive "must-buy". The graphics are great (altough not all
of the landscape is drawn with great care) and so is the sound. The only
slight drawback is that the game's in Japanese, but who cares!?!? It's
just plain great!
+-->RATINGS<------------------------------------------------------------+
Graphics ..... 9.5 - VERY cute, and above all very clear.
Sound ........ 8.5 - Excellent sound, lot's of jolly tunes.
Playability .. 9.7 - A cross between Wonderboy and Mario! GREAT!
Lastability .. 7.8 - It's huge and it's tremendous fun!
Overall ...... 9.2 - Rush out and buy it... NOW!!!!!!!
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+-------------------PREVIEW--------------------+
Machine : Atari Lynx
Title : Toki
Review by : Tjerk "MegaJerk" Heijmens Visser
Players : 1
+----------------------------------------------+
Due to lack of new games for the Lynx, we're going to give you a preview
of Toki. It will hit the stores any moment now (Well at least we hope so).
Of course the story line is all crap...Your girlfriend has been kidnapped
by some jerk, and you have got to save her (what a surprise.....). But if
you could stand this load of crap and have played the game on the Amiga,
or in the arcades you could see that it not only has very good graphics
and fine sound, but it wasn't the usual Shoot-Kill-Walk-Shoot-Kill-Walk
game. When it was released in the arcades, the jump/spit on your enemies
was a nice relief from the other stuff. But it doesn't have something
special, there is nothing in the game that makes it stick out far above
the crowd of all the other games in this genre, but then again it isn't a
total carbon copy either. The original designers did take a bit of effort
to give this game something else.
I can't see why you should buy Toki in stead of another game. But as
there are not many platform games on the Lynx (Only Pacland and maybe one
or two others) I would cetainly suggest you take a look at this game when
it will be released, judging on the Amiga version. But I've heard from
several people that this game looks quite good too on the Lynx. And it is
also very faithfull to the other versions of Toki. That means that this
game will not be one of the easiest to finnish.
Now, lets wait and see........
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-------------------------
+-----------VIDEO GAME RATINGS REPORT----------+
-------------------------
Atari Lynx:
Title Rating Votes cast
1) Checkered Flag 9.0 24
2) Robotron 2084 8.6 18
3) Klax 8.4 29
4) S.T.U.N. Runner 8.4 24
5) Warbirds 8.3 32
6) Chip's Challenge 8.3 27
7) Shanghai 8.1 9
8) Awesome Golf 8.0 12
9) Todd's Adventures In Slime World 7.8 26
10) Scrapyard Dog 7.8 12
11) Zarlor Mercenary 7.6 19
12) Xenophobe 7.5 20
13) Roadblasters 7.5 15
14) A.P.B. 7.4 18
15) Blue Lightning 7.2 23
16) Ms. Pac-Man 7.1 10
17) Xybots 7.0 6
18) Gates Of Zendocon 6.9 19
19) Rampage 6.9 17
20) Qix 6.7 7
21) Ishido: The way of the Stones 6.7 3
22) Blockout 6.5 11
23) Electrocop 6.4 20
24) Rygar 6.4 7
25) Ninja Gaiden 6.3 12
26) Fidelity Ultimate Chess Challenge 6.3 7
27) Pac-Land 6.3 6
28) Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 6.2 10
29) Viking Child 6.0 7
30) Paperboy 5.7 11
31) California Games 5.6 32
32) Gauntlet III 5.2 17
33) Hard Drivin' 4.7 7
34) Turbo Sub 4.5 6
35) Tournament Cyberball 4.0 8
36) Robo-Squash 3.4 9
Sega Game Gear:
1) Sonic the Hedgehog 9.0 5
2) Joe Montanna Football 8.0 2
3) Super Monaco G.P. 8.0 2
4) Berlin Wall 8.0 1
5) Junction 8.0 1
6) Dragon Crystal 8.0 1
7) Shinobi 7.5 2
8) Slider 7.5 2
9) G-Loc 7.3 3
10) Ninja Gaiden 7.0 2
11) Clutch Hitter 7.0 1
12) Space Harrier 7.0 1
13) Castle of Illusion 6.7 3
14) Devilish 6.5 2
15) Factory Panic 6.0 1
16) Gallaga '91 6.0 1
17) Woody Pop 6.0 1
18) Columns 5.4 7
Nintendo Game Boy:
1) Nemesis II 10.0 1
2) Pipe Dream 7.0 4
3) Super Mario Land 9.0 10
4) Final Fantasy Legend II 9.0 2
5) Boxxle 9.0 1
6) Matchmania 9.0 1
7) Parodius 9.0 1
8) Probotector 9.0 1
9) Scrabble 9.0 1
10) Sword of Hope 9.0 1
11) Yakuman 9.0 1
12) Gargoyle's Quest 7.8 4
13) Final Fantasy Legend 8.3 9
14) Bill & Ted's Excellent Adv. 8.0 1
15) Castlevania II 8.0 1
16) Choplifter II 8.0 1
17) Dr. Mario 8.0 1
18) Puzznic 8.0 1
19) Side Pocket 8.0 1
20) Megaman 5.0 2
21) R-Type 5.5 2
22) Tetris 7.8 12
23) Metroid II 7.7 3
24) Tetris 7.5 16
25) Castlevania 7.5 2
26) Nemesis 7.5 2
27) Revenge Of The Gator 7.7 3
28) Skate Or Die 7.5 2
29) Golf 7.7 3
30) Chessmaster 7.0 1
31) Crystal Quest 7.0 1
32) Daedalus Opus 7.0 1
33) Dynamaster 7.0 1
34) Lock 'n Chase 7.0 1
35) Qix 7.0 1
36) Ishido 6.5 2
37) F-1 Race 5.8 4
38) Batman 6.0 1
39) Puzzle Road 6.0 1
40) Solar Striker 5.7 3
41) Kwirk 5.0 1
42) Shanghai 5.0 1
43) Bases Loaded 4.0 1
44) Bubble Ghost 4.0 1
45) Paperboy 4.0 1
46) Play Action Football 4.0 1
47) Quarth 4.0 1
48) Sneaky Snakes 3.0 1
49) Boulderdash 2.0 1
50) Robocop II 2.0 1
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+-----NINTENDO: THE CREATION OF AN EMPIRE-----+
By : Yiri "Neuromancer" Kohl
+----------------------------------------------+
Although Nintendo started out somewhere around 1870 as a small company
that produced playing cards, it's now the biggest and best-selling console
manufacturer in the world. How did they do this? Let's take a look at the
most obvious reasons first...
Nintendo has always been the first to develop something new and exciting.
They started out producing those small LCD handheld games, but soon a true
console followed.... the NES. Altough the GameBoy hasn't been around for
THAT long, in Japan the machine is now about 8-10 years old! Nintendo was
also the first to start the creation of a 16-Bit console (Yes, people, it
was even released in Japan before the Genesis was available in the west!).
Their Famicom (SNES) was a huge success, and during the production of the
new console there was already a shortage of it!!! Even before the official
release date, about one third of the Japanese population had ordered their
Famicom, which resulted in TREMENDOUS high prices for those models that
were to be exported.
Then there's Nintendo's marketing. It's by far the best in the world, as
even the most avid Lynx phreak would fall for a TV-ad for the monochrome
GameBoy. There's a lot of good service if you buy Nintendo products, AND
you are assured a certain level of support: There will never be the chance
that Nintendo will stop producing games for your newly bought console! To
maintain quality there are even special schools in Japan named.. you've
guessed it... Mario-schools! Here Nintendo is teaching groups of young
people how to produce games as addictive as Mario. (The staff at Nintendo
isn't that young anymore and there have to be game-developers when they
quit!).
But then there's probably their strongest and most fearfull weapon!......
Their Copyrights!!!
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+--------------------REVIEW--------------------+
Machine : Nintendo Game Boy
Title : Cattrap
Review by : Alex "The killer of Laura
Palmer" Borburg
Players : 1
+----------------------------------------------+
Yes, another puzzle on the Game Boy. This time you must solve a hundred
puzzles set in an underground labyrinth.
The story:
Catboy and his girlfriend Catgirl are trapped in the labyrinth because
they have awoken a monster during their picnic (?).
The monster has put an evil curse on them, and changed them into cats.
There is one way the curse can be removed. All they have to do is solve
the puzzles. But the problem is that the labyrinth is set right in the
heart of the monsters' den.
The game itself is very funny, and the puzzles are quite difficult. The
graphics are quite nice, but a bit simple. You can compare this game with
Boxxle, a golden oldie on the Game Boy.
The music is also ok. After you have finnished a puzzle catgirl or catboy
makes a jump.
Another good thing about this game is that when you're dead you don't have
to start all over again, because after every puzzle you've finished you'll
get a password.
It is addictive if you don't have any puzzle games, but if you do it's
nothing new.
+-->RATINGS<------------------------------------------------------------+
Graphics ..... 7.5 - Simple but okay.
Sound ........ 8.0 - Nice music and sound.
Playability .. 8.0 - Easy controles, nice puzzles.
Lastability .. 8.0 - Because of the passwords you'll go on.
Overall ...... 8.0 - Nice but nothing new.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
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