mitchell@janus.berkeley.edu (Evan Mitchell) (08/22/89)
Since every discussion of piracy seems to inevitably mention the high cost of game software, does anyone know of ANY games that were worth the price. I'll start: Summer Challege by Tynesoft $12.96. Dungeon Master $25.00 (perhaps discounted) Menace $17.00 (on sale) Zoom $16.00 All of these games are playable, with good graphics and sound, and at very reasonable prices. If more games were produced at these prices, I'm almost certain more people would buy them. There are plenty of good games out there but most of them IMHO are VERY overpriced... -Evan _______________________________________________________________________________ | Evan Jay Mitchell EECS/ERL Industrial Liaison Program | | mitchell@janus.berkeley.edu University of California at Berkeley | | Phone: (415) 643-6687 | | "Think, it ain't illegal...yet!" - George Clinton | |_____________________________________________________________________________|
alj@bilver.UUCP (alj) (08/23/89)
I would also recommend "The Story So Far" by Elite. This two-disk package includes four of their previous games: Beyond the Ice Palace, Battleships, Ikari Warriors, and Buggy Boy. The documentation is pretty sparse (they seemed to have expected you to know how to play the games in the first place, perhaps from all that pirating?), but they are all pretty good (Battleships and Ikari are the best in my opinion, Buggy is diverting, Ice Palace plays fast, but you die a lot of times in the same places). Anyway, the point is I got this package for $34 from a local STORE! Imagine the prices you could get mail order. At about $8 a game, it's a most excellent buy. Copy-protected, but that's its only flaw (besides the docs). -Arthur By the way, this was "Volume 1". Volume 2 has Space Harrier and other goodies on it. I'm on the look-out for it. -- ****************************************************************************** * (uiucuxc, hoptoad, petsd)!peora!tarpit!bilver!alj PLink: DUNG * * alj@bilver.UUCP <FEH> GEnie: A.JOHNSONJR * ******************************************************************************
nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) (08/25/89)
In article <30794@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, mitchell@janus.berkeley.edu (Evan Mitchell) writes: > Since every discussion of piracy seems to inevitably mention the high cost of > game software, does anyone know of ANY games that were worth the price. > I don't play many games but for the price (approx. $16.00) 'Emerald Mine' is a good buy. The graphics and sound aren't fantastic but it is challenging at many levels (100 of them) and takes some strategy at times. I think there is a new version II out that is more like $35.00 and offers 200 levels plus an editor to create you own levels. Haven't seen this one though. -- "Hot Damn! Groat Cakes Again Michael Figg Heavy on the thirty weight!" DLA Systems Automation Center Columbus, Oh. (614)-238-2446 (Temporarily)
swarren@eugene.uucp (Steve Warren) (08/29/89)
In article <725@dsacg2.UUCP> nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) writes: >I don't play many games but for the price (approx. $16.00) 'Emerald Mine' >is a good buy. The graphics and sound aren't fantastic but it is >challenging at many levels (100 of them) and takes some strategy at times. >I think there is a new version II out that is more like $35.00 and offers >200 levels plus an editor to create you own levels. Haven't seen this one >though. I went out & picked up Emerald Mine II Saturday, and I have a couple of things about it I don't appreciate. The combination of disk-based copy- protection and a master disk that writes to itself is a recipe for disaster. It also disables dos and then doesn't provide any system requestors, so "bad things" can happen, for example, my 1000 has only the internal drive. The game uses 2 disks at a time, so I have to do some extensive (~5 min) disk churning while the master disk reconfigures itself to use one drive for both disks (since the system isn't there to handle this situation). When you start the game it does a warm boot under program control. Obviously there is a virus-like piece of code in there that survives the reboot and supervises the loading of the game instead of workbench (the game disk is also a workbench disk). For a one-drive system like mine there is a certain point where you must swap disks. That point is not documented and there is no requestor or prompt of any kind. If you fail to swap disks the system does not crash. It brings up the same menu it does when everything is working. But when you go into the menu, the next screen that comes up is strangely scrambled, like tiling gone amok. I wasted an entire evening trying to figure out what was wrong. If you have one drive, the place to swap disks is after the title screen (with the graphic of the emerald miner) goes away and a blank red screen comes up. Disk activity stops. Swap disks and hit the fire button. I only just found this out, and in the slight time I had left I couldn't get through screen zero. So no review of the game itself. --Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------- {uunet,sun}!convex!swarren; swarren@convex.COM
nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) (09/01/89)
In article <1614@convex.UUCP>, swarren@eugene.uucp (Steve Warren) writes: > In article <725@dsacg2.UUCP> nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) writes: > >I don't play many games but for the price (approx. $16.00) 'Emerald Mine' > >is a good buy. The graphics and sound aren't fantastic but it is . . . > the internal drive. The game uses 2 disks at a time, so I have to do some > extensive (~5 min) disk churning while the master disk reconfigures > itself to use one drive for both disks (since the system isn't there to This might be 'Emerald Mine II' which is more like $34.95. The version I have ( 'I' not 'II') is strictly a one disk game and doesn't seem to take any longer to load than the others, but they all seem to take along time to load. Regardless of whether this game is two disks or not, if you're thinking about buying anything for your Amiga and you don't have a second drive, then go for that first. Unless you've got a hard drive and maybe 4meg. -- "Hot Damn! Groat Cakes Again Michael Figg Heavy on the thirty weight!" DLA Systems Automation Center Columbus, Oh. (614)-238-2446 (Temporarily)
swarren@eugene.uucp (Steve Warren) (09/06/89)
In article <734@dsacg2.UUCP> nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) writes: >In article <1614@convex.UUCP>, swarren@eugene.uucp (Steve Warren) writes: >> In article <725@dsacg2.UUCP> nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) writes: >> >I don't play many games but for the price (approx. $16.00) 'Emerald Mine' >> >is a good buy. The graphics and sound aren't fantastic but it is > . > . > . >> the internal drive. The game uses 2 disks at a time, so I have to do some >> extensive (~5 min) disk churning while the master disk reconfigures >> itself to use one drive for both disks (since the system isn't there to > > >This might be 'Emerald Mine II' which is more like $34.95. The version I ... It was indeed 'II' that I was referring to. I thought I made that clear but I must have erased the reference when I posted it, since you were confused about it. Sorry. I have managed to get through the first 7 levels, I am stuck right now at level 7 (it starts at 0). This is a very challenging "Dig-Dug" like game (only you don't have a harpoon). I can see it will take some effort to get through all 80 single-player levels (there are 20 levels that require two players to cooperate to get through the level). Sometimes I have to load the level into the screen editor and reconnoiter before I am able to conquer it. I like the editor feature. This means that this game will always have the potential for new surprises. Hopefully new levels will show up on the 'boards eventually (I plan on making some, once I've conquered all these). ... >to load. Regardless of whether this game is two disks or not, if you're >thinking about buying anything for your Amiga and you don't have a second >drive, then go for that first. Unless you've got a hard drive and maybe >4meg. Well, I've done OK for some time now with my 1000 on one drive (I've been very poor you see...), but I'll be moving up to something with room for two internal drives soon (I'm not poor any longer). So why buy an external drive now? The max floppy drives I'll buy is two, and I plan on keeping them both inside the box (I hate having expansion peripherals all over my desk :-). No, I've survived till now, and I think I'll make it another few months. BTW, lots of people have only one drive. My concern with Emerald Mine II is that the instructions tell you how to set up for one drive, but it doesn't tell you how to use the game in that mode (ie when do you swap disks). There are no disk requestors. So it is really trial and error to figure out when to swap. And "error" in this case *may* mean a corrupted master disk. My first master disk got corrupted while I was trying to figure out this problem. Fortunately for me my copy was purchased at a local dealer and they replaced it no questions asked. And no, there was no disk activity when this happened. The machine had hung because I wasn't swapping at the right time, and evidently it left something undone on the master disk right before hanging. --Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------- {uunet,sun}!convex!swarren; swarren@convex.COM