lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Fish-Guts) (05/27/88)
[I haven't noticed a review of this game yet, but I have missed a few
days of articles. If this game has been reviewed before, please
forgive me.]
I. Introduction
At the recent meeting of Madison, WI's Amiga User Group (CAMEO) I
picked up a copy of ASDG's new game CubeMaster for $19.00. What
follows are my overall impressions of the game after playing it for
several hours.
ASDG has a very good reputation in the Amiga community for
producing well-built hardware and software at affordable prices, and
providing good services if you need help using their products. The
ASDG software that I have occasionally used seems to be very well
written, performs the specific function very well, and always seems to
get much praise from the NetNews community and magazine reviews alike.
Although I do not use their products much (I don't own FACC-II and
cannot use their recoverable RAM disk because of expansion memory
problems), my respect for them is high, based on many good reviews and
their continuing presence on the Net. It is with this in mind that I
purchased CubeMaster, written by Perry Kivolovitz (I hope I spelled
that right!). I had not played the game before, so when I booted the
game up for the first time I was going into it with a "fresh start."
II. Overall Impressions
First the good news: this game is very well documented, and
includes descriptions of all of the files on the disk as well as how
to put the game on the hard disk. In keeping with ASDG's philosophy,
the game is also without copy protection, which is very helpful.
Furthermore, it seems to be very well written from an "engineering
standpoint," with built in mechanisms for producing error messages
when it fails (indeed, the first time I ran it I had mistakenly *not*
booted with the game disk, and the game didn't run, but it told me WHY
it did not run: great feature!). The game also seems to multitask
well: it even stops the action if you move to a different screen to do
something else, which is a wonderful touch. As one can see above,
this game was well layed out in terms of working with the Amiga's OS.
Because I also am a software writer (for the State of WI), I really
appreciate the work that went into making this game robust.
Now the bad news: as one of my friends said after I bought the
game, "Just because they [ASDG] produce good hardware does not mean
they produce good games." Although I do not agree with him totally
about this product, he is correct in many respects (he used to write
games for the c64, which were sold in the "real world"). Although the
game is fun, it does seem to have some fatal flaws which keep it from
being "great." At this point I would rate it "mediocre."
III. Game Play
The game plays basically as follows: you are a man in a space
suit equipped with one of those Mobile-Man-Units (i.e. high-tech
jetpacks used to cruise around space). Your mission is to destroy the
evil "cubes" which float by on the screen. To do this you have a gun
with unlimited fire power, although only a finite amount of "bullets"
may appear on the screen at once. Besides the cubes, there are also
several different "enemies," each with a different style of attack.
Everything on the screen (besides yourself) can be (and should be!)
blown up; sometimes this requires several shots. For protection you
have a finite supply of "shield energy:" the shields are constantly
on, and when all of the energy is depleted, you die. Pretty
straight-forward.
The "arena" (i.e. screen) in which you move around is a void
without gravity or friction, and all objects on screen obey the "laws
of physics," according to the instruction manual. The edges of the
arena provide a "bounce-back" function, and you are restricted to the
area that you can see. You move by rotating clockwise and
counterclockwise and thrusting forward and backward; you also have a
brake at your disposal to slow you down (remember, there is no
friction!). All countrols are operated via the keyboard or a
combination of joystick and on-screen "gadgets." The other objects
which float around also seem to be of different masses, so when you
hit them you bounce back with more or less force, depending on what
object you hit. Also pretty straight-forward.
If this is beginning to sound a lot like Asteriods, you are
correct. In fact, the game is very similar to a particular
public-domain Asteroids (the one that uses the BOB's defined in an IFF
format) that has made its way around the many BBS's a while back.
Cubes come in two sizes: large and small. Each large cube, when hit
one or more times (depending on the type, which is explained below),
breaks into four or eight small cubes (again, depending on the type).
Each small cube, when hit, is completely destroyed. What makes
CubeMaster different is the fact that each cube is one of several
types. Which type it is depends on what color it appears as. Each
type has a certain behavior. For example, a Red Cube, when bumped
into, causes your shields to be depleted; however, when destroyed,
your shields actually increase. Yellow Cubes, when touched, cause
"confusion" in your joystick controls. On the bright side, Dark Grey
cubes provide a "halo of [protection]" when touched, so that you
cannot collide with any other object while the halo surrounds you
(something to do with your molecules shifting ;-). There are about
eight or nine different types of cubes in all. Another difference
from Asteroids is that if cubes are not destroyed soon enough, they
either give birth to another cube or mutate into a large cube
(depending on whether the cube is large or small, respectively). Yet
another difference is that there are also several enemy types, which
do everything from wander around the screen to home in on you; when
they hit you they can cause loss of controls or even send you flying
madly across the screen (among other things!). There are even more
aspects to the game play; this is only a general idea, and I don't
want to give away everything.
III. Comments/Praises/Criticisms
The ironic defficiency in this game is in the graphics. One
would think that with the video power available on the Amiga that this
game would look wonderful; even many of the PD or Shareware games on
the amiga look excellent (games such as Tripods, Cosmoroids, and
especially GravAttack come to mind). However, the graphics in this
game are of the quality of mediocre *c64* games. For example, all of
the cubes are one color each; although they rotate, there are no
outlines or filled shapes. The astronaut hero also rotates at your
command, but the rotation is not smooth, as in the PD version of
Asteroids (which uses 32 positions in the circle of rotation to
achieve nearly seemless effects); instead, it is rather "discrete,"
with few positions (8 or 16, I am not sure which) in the circle of
rotation. Each of the enemies is better looking, but missing are the
little animations that have become almost a standard in commercial
quality games. Graphics-wise this game is a real let-down. My
friends were producing better looking software for the c64 years ago!
Strangely enough, the sounds in this game are excellent!
Although there is no music, each sound in this game appears to be
digitally sampled, and it really shows! They range from the beeps and
boops of objects hitting the walls of the arenas to the "ouch"'s and
"oohhhh"'s of you hitting the objects. There are explosion sounds,
collision sounds, timer sounds, and many others. In fact, when I
played this game for the first night my girlfriend walked in (coming
home from work) as I was on a roll, to be treated to a virtual
symphony of "booms," "kapows," and (best of all) "yippeeeeeeeeees",
all jumping back and forth on the sound channels. She broke into
hysterical laughter (a response that computers rarely invoke in her).
Even though the sounds are "basic" ones, they are *very* well done and
get a high mark, in my opinion. "Bravo!" on wonderful sounds.
Now, the game play takes on sort of a "split-personality:" on one
hand it is very strategic, and much of one's success depends on what
you hit as well as when you hit it; on the other hand it can be very
reflex and control oriented, and sometimes this aspect can almost
completely overwhelm the strategy. The strategic aspect of the game
is well-done, with many things that need to be considered (although
there are not too many so that it is overkill). This is not just a
shoot-em-up game that one can learn in an instant. Instead, it will
take about an hour to get the swing of things, and then many more
hours to get good. If it were not for some other critical flaws, I'm
sure this game would give enjoyment for a much longer time than most
arcade-type games. The reflex/control aspect of this game is the part
that is frustrating. Although the controls are not all that strange,
when you start bouncing back and forth at high speeds it is very hard
to stop (although the brake really helps here). There are times when
you lose *all* control of your character because there are too many
"bad" objects on the board, and you are suddenly propelled at high
speeds, hitting each one multiple times, with no recourse but to just
sit and watch as your character dies because your controls won't
respond. This has happened many times to me on the second level (!),
is rather annoying, and gets in the way of the strategy.
IV. Areas that Need Improvement
What is most annoying about this game is that it could be much
better if certain areas were improved. For instance, the rotation is
not "fine" enough, and this affects one's ability to shoot with any
great accuracy. It would appear that one rotates at about 30 degree
"slices;" this is not accurate enough when trying to hit an object.
Games like the PD Asteroids (as well as the new Atari arcade-game
Blasteroids) have rotation that is so fine that it seems continuos
(especially in the latter-mentioned game). Since this game is heavily
dependent on the ability to accurately hit enemy objects, and since
this is (probably) not all that hard to fix, I believe it would be a
reasonable improvement.
Another problem is that there is too much randomness in this
game. The instruction manual states that there are 100 "levels," but
the differences in the levels are fairly minor. I played the 99th
level (which can be played by specifying a starting level other than
1), and it seemed to be almost the same as levels 2 and 3 in terms of
skills needed to pass it. Furthermore, how well one does on any level
seems to depend almost completely on what cubes and enemies are
present on that level. The selection of what cube or enemy type appears
next seems to be almost completely random. There are times when I
have passed level 2 in about 7 seconds; there are also times when I
have watched for 30 seconds as my man ricocheted around until he died
because my controls were frozen. The amount of randomness on each
level is so great that the concept of having different levels is all
but lost. I think that this needs to be changed to make the game more
"fun" (and not as frustrating!) to play.
Finally, I think the graphics need to be improved. For a $19.00
game, the graphics are acceptable. However, the person selling it to me
said it was a "deal" because the game normally goes for $35.00. For
that amount of money the graphics ought to be better.
V. Conclusions
In all fairness, a lot of work appears to have gone into CubeMaster.
However, even though it is a very robust product that deals well with
the OS, the game play and appearance is not quite up to par. The
author states in the documentation that the game concentrates more on
the strategic aspects than how well it looks. However, I find that
even the strategy and game play needs to be improved.
I wrote a long review here because I like much about this game,
and I think that if it were improved it would be a good combination
between strategy and arcade action. Furthermore, ASDG is known for
listening to critical assessments from their customers. I don't want
to be too hard on this product, but as it stands I cannot recommend
it; there is currently better software to spend your money on. If you
are thinking about buying this game, see it first, and then make your
decision.
I hope that I have provided a reasonable review. Please remember
that all that is written above is my view only (although there are
rumors that my cockatiels control my thoughts!). If anyone wants to
contact me further (especially the author) about this product, I am
happy to discuss it over email or snail mail. My snail-mail address
is:
Chris Lishka
1124 Emerald St. Apt. #1
Madison, WI 53715
My email address is listed below.
-Chris
[Height: 5'9"]
[Weight: 130lbs]
[Sex: err, umm, oh, you mean which type. Uhhh, male...]
[Occup: Comp Sci Student at Univ. of WI, Confuser Programmer/Engineer]
[What I want to be when I grow up: a silly person]
--
Chris Lishka /{seismo|harvard|topaz|...}!uwvax!uwslh!lishka
Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene { lishka%uwslh.uucp@rsch.wisc.edu
"My cockatiels control my mind!" \lishka@uwslh.uucp