newsbytes@clarinet.com (02/04/90)
Runs on: Macintosh From: Broderbund, 17 Paul Drive, San Rafael, CA 94903 Price: US $24 PUMA rating: 3 (on a scale of 1=lowest to 4=highest) Reviewed for Newsbytes by: Naor Wallach, 2/1/90 Summary: A simple shoot-em-up game that follows the final scenes from the movie Star Wars. ====== REVIEW ====== In Star Wars you get to try and play as Luke Skywalker in those final memorable scenes from the Star Wars movie. You pilot a fighter in battles against the empire's tie fighters (and Darth Vader!), destroy fortifications along the surface of the Death Star, and finally, fight your way through the armed trench with the goal of dropping your bombs down the chute that will cause the Death Star to blow up. Should you succeed, you get to try and do it over again with more and better adversaries. Controlling the game is very simple. You do not need to steer your craft or perform any other function than aim your laser guns and fire. This is done quite effectively with the mouse. In the middle of your screen appear four small triangles whose apexes denote the point at which your laser guns aim. Moving the mouse moves these triangles. Pressing the mouse button fires the guns. That's all there is to it. There are three scenes (or combat zones) in the game. The first is the approach to the Death Star. In this scene you fly your craft towards the Death Star while Imperial tie fighters come from behind you and engage you in a fight. If you manage to hit them, you are awarded a thousand points. Should they get a shot off at you, you may hit those and receive 33 points for hitting them and as a bonus, they do not affect you in any way. Occasionally, you will encounter Darth Vader out there. His fighter is shaped differently and does not fall apart when you hit it. Instead, you get a 2000 point bonus and the chance to shoot at him again. Eventually, you work your way through the screen of tie fighters and are placed on the surface of the Death Star. Here, you must navigate along the surface and shoot enemy fortification towers that are placed randomly on the surface. Needless to say, these towers shoot back. At higher levels, you are presented with more towers and some that cannot be destroyed and that you should not crash into either. After shooting your way through a bunch of these towers, you are finally placed in the trench. Here you hurtle along it and attempt to shoot these fire balls that appear form nowhere and are aimed at you. Hit one and it disintegrates. If one hits you, you lose one of your shields. At the end of the trench appears the target hole. You must aim at it and shoot it. This time, you will see two bombs go down in addition to your Laser Gun fire. If successful, you will be whisked out of range of the exploding Death Star and will be treated to a display of its blowing up. Then, a bonus may be earned and new shield added and you are off again to try and destroy it again. The idea behind the game is a simple shoot-em-up and once you destroy the Death Star you are simply awarded the opportunity to try it again. You are protected by nine shields that get destroyed one by one as fire balls, towers, and other stuff hits your ship. Once you lose all your shields, the next object to hit you causes the game to end. Like most arcade style games, there is a high score screen that allows you to enter your initials next to your score where they will be saved. The graphics seem crude in this day and age. All the objects are depicted as wire-frame drawings so that you can see right through them. Although the renditions of the tie fighters and Darth Vader's ship are accurate to the movie version, it still is disconcerting to have a big tie fighter in your view and see, through its body!, the Death Star and other stars beyond it. The explosions sequence is a very primitive collection of circles drawn around the Death Start with a teeny bang to accompany it. This is especially disappointing as throughout the game are interspersed digitized sound clips from the movie itself. I almost jumped out of my chair the first time that Obi-Wan-Kenobee addressed me and told me to trust in the force! Star Wars is copy protected via the key disk routine in which you must have the original floppy inserted into a disk drive to get the program to load. Although once that's done, you can play off of your hard disk with no problems. There is a one page poster/manual that covers what you need to know (which ain't much!) and gets you going. ============ PUMA RATINGS ============ PERFORMANCE: 3. The game moves along. Although on a Mac with a color screen, I would recommend going into the Control Panel and changing your monitor to display in black and white only to speed up the action. All the graphics are in Black and White anyway. USEFULNESS: 3. As a shoot-em-up game it is relatively entertaining, although boredom did set in quite quickly. MANUAL: 2. The one page poster/manual is adequate but could be written in a less confusing manner. AVAILABILITY: 4. Available from mail order and software stores. (Naor Wallach/19900123)