will (09/18/82)
I recently paid a visit to the arcade and found two great new games: TRON, which I assume everyone knows is a game now, is excellent. Difficult, yes, but not nearly so as the first time I played Zaxxon or Tempest. It is played 1 round at a time, each round containing 4 scenes. You pick an area each round and play that particular scene, but each area is a different scene in each game. The scenes in the first round are the tanks (1 on 1), the light cycles (1 on 1), and 2 others. In one of them, you shoot the bug creatures we got a 30- second look at in the movie and move into a transporter-like thing to get away. In the other, you shoot away blocks rotating around a cone to get into the cone. All of these scenes were rather easy to master, except the light cycles. After 6 games, I still wasn't able to do away with the computer's cycle. I have heard that the rounds get unbearably difficult, and there's even a scene looking like 'Space Paranoids'. Not as difficult as you may have heard, TRON is an easy 8. The next game, I'm not sure of it's name. I do know it's a 3-D something or other by SEGA.(no, not Zaxxon.) it's a sit- down game, and you stare into a block much like Battlezone. The viewer is equipped with little lenses to give the effect of 3-D, and it actually does a good job. It seems as if your in a tower, rotating around and moving up and down. When down, you can pick off boats with torpedoes, but this is not advisable for extended periods of time. Inveders come at you from the distance, and shoot large missles which must be shot or avoided. The spaceships come in different shapes and some are harder to kill than others. at the end of each round ( a round lasts quite a while) a large ship comes and bounces up and down and across. You only need to shoot him once, but there is something of a force field that appears in the middle. All in all, a very entertaining game. One word of advice: Ships out of space usually come in threes. Do not shoot until they begin to move upwards; they will always swoop over you from the bottom. When they are rather close and in the middle, go crazy with your shots...you should be able to get atleast two of them. This 3-D thing is a definite 9, and worth looking for. Oh, yes...both controls on the above games are easy to get used to. Sorry I took so much space, Will D. ...sdcsvax!sdchema!will
ARPAVAX:UNKNOWN:conde (09/18/82)
Here is a question for all the TRON fans. At the bottom of the TRON "world" map, there is a computer language listed, which changes everytime you emerge victorious over all 4 "lands". For example, there's COBOL, FORTRAN, and then PASCAL (I forgot the order). Does anyone know how far it gets, and what languages appear? (ada at level 43?) Dan Conde ucbvax.conde@berkeley
wa125 (09/22/82)
Report from a local tron expert: The languages are, in order (i hope) RPG COBOL BASIC FORTRAN SNOBOL PL1 PASCAL ASSEMBLY ALGOL USER USER USER . . . The language following USER (if any) is not known to me. END OF LINE steve