patth@dasys1.UUCP (Patt Haring) (09/03/87)
A COUCH POTATO'S GUIDE TO SUMMER FUN
by Bob Lindstrom
Simulate your way through those strenuous leisure activities
Summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime. It's the best
time of year. Hot days, warm nights. Surfing, boating, camping,
golfing. Cutoffs and bathing suits. Girls on the beach. Soft
drinks and barbecues.
Sunburn and mosquito bites. Aching muscles and sand in you
teeth. Fast-foot meals. Weeding. Mowing the lawn. Long,
claustrophobic rides in the family car.
Who need it?
Simple logic indicates that there's something wrong here.
For nine long, lovely, vegetating months, you work to perfect
your best couch-potato technique. The fingers become nimble
from constant channel changing. The eyes grow strong and the
mind blissfully weak from reading junk novels. You spend
innumerable hours indenting the living-room sofa.
Then, for three hyperactive months, your friends and family
expect you to throw it all away. And why? So you can get in
shape, show off your tan, and brag about the wonderful time
you've been having in The Great Outdoors.
It's enough to put a couch potato off his Twinkies.
There is another way. If you are a computer-owning couch
potato (sometimes known as a computato) or if you happen to be a
gung-ho individual who wants to enjoy summer activities all year
'round, your computer can simulate the active fun of summer
without forcing you to stray strenuously from the comforts of
monitors and keyboards. Hiking, sailing, golfing, biking - it
can all happen on your computer monitor and in you imagination.
Equip yourself with a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, a little
self-tanning lotion, the right software, and a convincing story.
No one will know that you were never more than 20 paces from
the refrigerator.
Mother Nature on a Diskette
Camping is the ultimate outdoor adventure. Load the
four-wheel drive nd take off for a weekend.
How much easier it is to load the disk drive and boot up
for the evening. A few moments of data transfer and Electric
Transit's Wilderness for the Apple II series has transported
you o snow-capped mountains or steamy jungles.
Wilderness allows daring couch potatoes to indulge in
real-life role playing. You have crashed your plane deep in the
boonies or assumed the role of an archeologist in quest of a
lost city. You must defy weather, geography, ferocious beasts,
and your own human frailties in order to survive. It's brutally
realistic and as challenging as any demon-slaying fantasy.
Computato survivalists start out by filling their backpacks
with the appropriate items. Folks who have been camping in from
of the TV for nine months will have to attend to more than
packing soft drinks and cheese dip to come through Wilderness
unscathed. Hills can be tough to negotiate without climbing
gear. One false step and you can break a leg. Bring enough
supplies, or you'll have to forage for nuts and berries. Taste
before you eat, or a bad berry make take poisonous revenge. This
simulated trek is full of authentic outdoor dangers.
The graphic centerpiece of Wilderness is its simulated
three-dimensional landscape. You can get you bearings by
studying the compass and a topological map of the area. Then
you switch to a camper's-eye view of the surroundings - trees
and rivers, hills and wolves. Glance randomly around this
illustrated wilderness or command the computer to pan, and the
countryside visibly scrolls past as if you were slowly turning
your gaze.
Wilderness comes with one ready-made map of the Sierra
Nevadas to explore. When you've mastered this prefab region,
Wilderness generates an entirely new map in one of ten levels of
difficulty. Map creation can take up to three hours, a nice
chance to renew acquaintance with the couch and rest up for the
next journey.
Would-be world travelers can acquire the five Global
Explorer disks, which include wildernesses of Bolivia, British
Columbia, Burma, Chile, and New Guinea. Just don't try to
convince the Monday morning office gang that you went on a
weekend jaunt to Southeast Asia. They won't buy it.
Batten the Keyboard
They might buy a weekend on the waves, though. The
American Challenge: A Sailing Simulation from Mindscape gets
Apple II owners into a little competitive sailboating. Or, if
you don't know a mizzen from a mainsail, just putt around the
computer harbor in a motorboat.
Eight courses await your expert seamanship in this
simplified recreation of sailing. The American Challenge
doesn't befuddle comfy-chair captains with a wide variety of
sails or constantly shifting winds. This simulation has only
one sail that is either .in or out and a variable-speed wind
that always comes from the north. Still, you'll have enough to
do controlling the rudder, raising and lowering the centerboard,
avoiding collisions with opponents, and making the most of a
friendly current.
An on-screen instrument panel indicates wind speed, boat
speed, compass heading, race time, and the position of your
sails and centerboard. Above the instrument panel, a line
drawing shows the sailboat in your choice of several viewpoints.
You can race against the computer, but lonely computer
Popeyes don't have to sail in solitary waters. A modem option
in The American Challenge allows players to compete over
telephone lines or with two computers connected by a special
cable. Having a friend to corroborate your sailing experiences
adds tremendous credence to summertime deception.
Fairways, the Easy Way
Golfing - even the real thing - rates as the ideal
couch-potato sport. It looks like exercise. It sounds like
exercise. But how much muscle tone can you develop rolling over
the grass in an electric-powered cart? Tell the buddies that you
shot nine holes this afternoon, and even the most skeptical will
believe you were on the links grabbing your ration of summer
gusto.
Golf simulations tend to share the basics of the duffer's
favorite sport. Select your clubs. Aim the shot. Gauge the
power of your mighty arms. Hope for the best. These
simulations tend to differ in the way they display the course
and allow you to execute the mechanics of the swing.
Stuart Aronoff's Hi-Res Computer Golf III, now available
from Prime-Ware Creations, has been a classic since the early
days of Apple II games. This recent version boasts eight
built-in courses.
Blocks of solid color provide an abstract art view of the
course. Green geometric shapes represent trees, red locates sand
traps and roughs, and blue depicts water. During the swing, you
press a keyboard letter up to nine times to guide the club head
through a swing path of horizontal lines. A swift finger and a
keen sense of timing will help you hit the ball squarely,
avoiding any hook or slice.
It won't win any prizes for graphic realism, but Hi-Res
computer Golf II does imitate the sense of timing and physical
precision that it takes to play real golf.
World-Class Golf Graphics
World Class Leader Board Golf from Access Software, Inc.,
is a modern golf classic recently converted to work on the Apple
II family. When the guys press you to describe the courses, no
problem - you just tell them about shady trees, meandering
streams, threatening sand traps, and manicured greens. Leader
Board gives you both a schematic overhead perspective of each
hole and a stunning 3-D view of the course from a vantage point
just above and behind the golfer.
From that location, you'll be able to appreciate the
physical perfection of your fluidly animated swing. Power and
snap meters on the screen help calculate force and timing. Hit
the fire button to begin the stroke. Hit it again when the
power indicator has risen to the proper level. Hit once more,
precisely, as the lighted bar passes the wrist-snap line.
Accurate timing here guarantees a drive straight down the
fairway. The ball arches gracefully into the distance, and
you're well on your way to the Bob Hope Classic, a legend in
your own mind.
Leader Board putting requires the aid of a pole sticking
out of the green. The direction and length of the shadow the
pole casts indicate the incline of the ground. Compensate in
your aim to account for the lay of the land, and you'll
regularly be sinking those 52-footers.
Three simulations of world-famous courses come in the World
Class Leader Board package: St. Andrews in Scotland, Champions
Cypress Creek in Texas, and Florida's Doral Country Club. The
programmers at Access have also created their own course, a
challenging 18 holes called the Gauntlet Country Club. A course
editor allows you to recombine existing holes into a customized
course.
Create a Course You Can Beat
With Accolade's Mean 18 for the Apple IIGS, sofa spuds can
construct their own courses, down to the last detail of shrubs
and clubhouse. Or you can recreate the local course and compare
scores with your buddies who are really out there wandering the
fairways in their white pants and Arnold Palmer sweaters. You
can use a course-architect toolkit to design a map of each hole,
and the program automatically realizes it in full-dimensional
realism.
Mean 18 offers players four ready-made courses: simulations
of St. Andrews, Pebble Beach, and Augusta National, as well as
Accolade's fictional Bush Hill Country Club. Like Leader Board,
Mean 18 provides a golfer's eye view of the course and controls
swings with a rising and falling power/snap bar. Putting takes
place from an overhead perspective.
Accolade simulates the surroundings in slightly more
detail, however. You can, for example, glance around the
course, getting a full 360-degree gander at the lay out.
Greens, too, are more intricate, with a mixed bag of breaks and
inclines between you and the hole.
For rec-room duffers who've blown their bucks on cheese
puffs, taco chips, and diet soda, Thunder Mountain has published
the bargain-priced Maxi Golf. With abstract graphics, yet all
the play elements of golf accounted for, Maxi Golf is a good way
to do a quick 18 holes for less than $10.
The Temple of Summer
Camping, sailing golfing - all are outstanding warm-weather
activities and the kind of thing you can enjoy in your own
hometown or home computer. But to experience the ultimate in
summertime mindset, California here we come. Hooray for
Hollywood, the land of brown bodies and blond brains.
Couch potatoes with beach blanket bingo on their minds owe
a debt of gratitude to Epyx for publishing the new California
Games, a freewheeling compendium of Southern California
diversions. Take your choice of the fun, fun, fun that Golden
Staters take for granted.
Half-Pipe Skateboarding has you wheeling through a cement
trough, soaring left and right, trying to complete as many
nifty, macho moves as possible within the time limit.
BMX Bicycle Race is a fast-pedaling excursion through the
city and out to the beach. Pull wheelies, swerve and jump over
road ruts, avoid open manhole covers, and bear down on an
occasional fool-hardy pedestrian.
Roller Skating proves that if God didn't want man to roll
he never would have invented Venice Beach. Enjoy the ocean view
while you cruise four sidewalk courses dodging beach balls,
grass, and sand.
Computatos may need a breather after a round of Frisbee
Toss. You control both the thrower and catcher. First, eye an
on-screen gauge to time the windup and release. Then bend that
joystick to get the receiver into position for his world-renowned
behind-the-back or under-the-leg catches.
A computer simulation is a wonderful way to play Hacky
Sack. In the privacy of your computer room, no decent person
will see you crazily bopping a little leather bag off your feet,
knees, chest, and head. The object is to keep that tiny
projectile airborne and to complete as many moves as possible
without using our hands.
Surf's up. Shoot the curl. Hang ten. No one will believe
you spent time on The Coast without waxing up the board and
paddling out to the breakers. California Games' Surfing segment
grades your performance on the style, length, and number of
rides you finish during a day in the Pacific.
Well, what a busy summer that one was, couch potatoes! We
did it all - surfing, biking, skateboarding, sailing. The folks
in the neighborhood and the colleagues at the office were
impressed with our go-for-it enthusiasm and envied our far-flung
travels. And we were never so far from the video recorder that
we missed taping a single rerun of "Leave It to Beaver." Three
cheers for the great outdoors, Apple computers and the endless
summer.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Lindstrom is an A+ contributing editor and author of our
monthly "GamePort" column.
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Wilderness with Global Explorer scenery disks
Spectrum Holobyte
(a division of Sphere, Inc.)
2061 Challenger Drive
Alameda, CA 94501
(415) 522-3584
List Price: Wilderness, $49.95; Global Explorer $34.95 for all
five disks or $19.95 per disk.
Requires: Apple II Plus, IIe, IIc, or IIGS; 48K RAM; one 5
1/4-inch disk drive. Copy-protected; does not work with mouse.
The American Challenge
Mindscape, Inc.
3444 Dundee Road
Northbrook IL 60062
(900)331-5046/In IL (800)654-3771
List Price: $39.95
Requires: Apple II Plus, IIe, IIc, or IIGS; 64K RAM; one 5
1/4-inch disk drive. Copy-protected; does not work with mouse.
Hi-Res Computer Golf III
Prime-Ware Creations
P. O. Box 1058
Philomath, OR 97370
(503)929-6221/(503)342-3030
List Price: $24.95
Requires: Apple II Plus, IIe, IIc, or IIGS; 48K RAM; one 5
1/4-inch disk drive; game paddle or proportional joystick
recommended. Copy-protected; does not work with mouse.
World Class Leader Board Golf
Access Software, Inc.
#A 2561 South 1560 West
Woods Cross, UT 84087
(801)298-9077
List Price $39.95
Requires: Apple II Plus, IIe, IIc, or IIGS; 64K RAM; one 5
1/4-inch disk drive; joystick. Copy-protected; does not work
with mouse.
Mean 18
Accolade
20833 Stevens Creek Blvd
San Jose, CA 95014
(408)446-5757
List Price: $39.95
Requires: Apple IIGS; 512K RAM; one 3.5-inch disk drive;
printer optional. Copy-protected; can work with mouse.
Maxi Golf
Thunder Mountain Software
(a division of Mindscape, Inc.)
P. O. Box 1167
Northbrook, IL 60065-1167
(800)331-5046/In IL (800)654-3771
List Price: $9.95
Requires: Apple II Plus, IIe, IIc, or IIGS; 48K RAM; one 5
1/4-inch disk drive. Copy-protected; does not work with mouse.
California Games
Epyx Computer Software
P. O. Box 8020
Redwood City, CA 94063
(415)366-0606
List Price: $39.95
Requires: Apple II Plus, IIe, IIc, or IIGS; 64K RAM; one 5
1/4-inch disk drive; joystick. Copy-protected; does not work
with mouse.
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