nad@tegra.COM (Nancy Durgin) (01/01/91)
In article <2441@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: >In <403.277c79d5@vger.nsu.edu>, cs170703644@vger.nsu.edu writes: > >>There is an Amiga version of a pinball construction set. It is called >>Power Pinball, and is put out by KarmaSoft. It offers a lot of >>features, including the capability to import and use your own pre- >>digitized IFF and sound files. It is still a far cry from the real thing, >however; I have yet to get so caught up that I try to tilt the keyboard. > >Awright! (but I hate to have to ask the following question) Is it copy >protected? > Power Pinball has manual-based copy protection, is HD-installable, and runs on my 3000 (the latest version v1.06 even runs under 2.0 on my 3000). As pinball games go, this one is okay, but not awesome. I just bought another pinball simulator, "Quiksilver Pinball Simulator", from Actionworks. This seems to be a much better pinball game. They took the unique approach of using the entire screen for the pinball machine, and actually using two screens (so the "pinball machine" is 2 full screens in height). The game swaps between the upper and lower portions, depending on where the ball is. I thought this was odd at first, but it turns out to be quite playable, and it gives a much larger, and more realistic pinball machine. Power Pinball, by comparison, uses just the left-hand side of one screen, so their machine is effectively 1/4 the size. Anyway, this one is not a construction set. It comes with 4 pre-built machines, and promises of future data disks. It runs on my 3000, but only under 1.3. The bad news? It has a stupid color-pattern based copy-protection (which is fairly easy to screw up), and *also* appears to have a copy-protected disk. A backup copy appears to work, until you actually try to play the game, whereupon it launches the ball so that it can't actually be brought into play. I really hate subtle protection like this -- after trying it in the store, I *thought* I was buying a game that was going to be HD installable, or at least would be able to backup (their high-score saving is useless to me if I must run off the master disk, and leave it write-protected). So, for a good pinball simulator, Quiksilver Pinball is a winner, but if you have a thing about disk-based copy protection and HD-installing, then this one loses, and you should check out Power Pinball. Nancy -- ============================================================================== Nancy Durgin | (Usual disclaimers | Tegra-Varityper, Inc. uunet!tegra!nad | apply...) | Billerica, Massachusetts ==============================================================================
cs170703644@vger.nsu.edu (01/01/91)
> As pinball games go, this one is okay, but not awesome. I just bought > another pinball simulator, "Quiksilver Pinball Simulator", from Actionworks. > > It runs on my 3000, but only under 1.3. The bad news? It has a stupid > color-pattern based copy-protection (which is fairly easy to > screw up), and *also* appears to have a copy-protected disk. A backup copy > appears to work, until you actually try to play the game, whereupon it > launches the ball so that it can't actually be brought into play. I > really hate subtle protection like this -- after trying it in the store, I > *thought* I was buying a game that was going to be HD installable, or at > least would be able to backup (their high-score saving is useless to me if > I must run off the master disk, and leave it write-protected). > > So, for a good pinball simulator, Quiksilver Pinball is a winner, but if > you have a thing about disk-based copy protection and HD-installing, then > this one loses, and you should check out Power Pinball. Future Wars also has that stupid color-match-to the manual type copy protection; it stinks! The color blotches are not in the same place, and the colors definitely don't match. More than half the time, you guess wrong and you have to start over.