kuan@iris.ucdavis.edu (Frank [Who me?] Kuan) (08/29/90)
I called around a few mail order places yesterday inquiring about SBII. Creative Computing had the best price (app. 35$). Everyone else was charging around 40$. I was just about to order it, but I remembered that SBII was made by the people who made the unfriendliest dos in the known universe. After reading about all the nightmares people had trying to make it run on their computer, it occured to me to ask the mail order places what kind of action I could take if it didn't run on my computer. By a unanimous conspiracy, every place I talked to said that there was absolutely no way I could return the game unless the game was defective. And even then, then would only replace it, not refund it. No company would do anything in the case that the game simply wouldn't run on my computer. I explained nicely that I wasn't interested in getting it to use both of my drives or using my accelerator, I just wanted the darn thing to run. I went on to explain that the game wouldn't run on some computers that it was guaranteed by Psygnosis to run on, and they simply said, "You'll have to talk to Psygnosis about it." As an interesting side note, Creative Computing did go as far as saying that if it wouldn't run on my computer, and I talked to their manager, there was the remote chance of a possibility of him thinking about contemplating giving me credit toward another game, minus a mere 20% restocking fee. I was so touched by this generous offer that I wept and wailed loudly on the phone. I don't blame the mail order companies at all. Psygnosis should be responsible for making sure that their game works. Unfortuneately, it's pretty expensive to call London to complain, and it sure takes a long time to ship a bad disk back. The bottom line is, I'd really like to see the game, but I'm not going to risk 40$ and lots of time to do it. Does anyone know of a mail order place who will refund or give credit back on SoBII? If I remember correctly, I saw a few copies of Shadow of the Beast I demos floating around when that came out. Does anyone know if a demo for SoBII is available to the interested public?
jimb@faatcrl.UUCP (Jim Burwell) (08/31/90)
kuan@iris.ucdavis.edu (Frank [Who me?] Kuan) writes: >I was just about to order it, but I remembered that SBII was made by >the people who made the unfriendliest dos in the known universe. Being a bit more adventurous, I actually bought the game at a retail store. I figured Psygnosis probably figured out how to write games that work on a 68010 by now, and even if they didn't, I could just chalk it up as an expensive T-shirt :-). Anyway, to my mild suprise, the thing actually booted up and ran on my Amiga 500 equiped with a Fatter Agnus with the 1MB CHIP RAM enabled, 68010 uP, GVP Hard Drive w/ 3MB of FAST RAM. It didn't even lock up until I got killed (about 3 seconds after the game started :-) and it tried to load up the groovy "end-of-game sequence". Pretty impressive for the average peice of software coming out of the Europe. Even more impressive considering it's from Psygnosis. And you can actually see the "end-of-game sequence" if you boot up with the "NTSC 512K CHIP w/ FAST RAM" option from the Palboot disk I got from abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov (boy. That really needs an alias!). But even using that, you can only see the end-sequence once. The next time it tries to load the sequnce, the machine locks up. So I usually turn off the end-sequence before starting the game. Of course, if it wasn't from Psygnosis, I'd expect it to do reasonable things like use both disk drives, take full advantage of the machine's resources (ie: load as much of the data into RAM as possible, minimizing repeated disk access. Detect whether the machine is running in NTSC or PAL instead of hard-coding it [which would make distribution easier too]), the ability to save the current position of the game to make playing the game practical for all us poor unfortunate people who don't have the time to complete the game in one sitting, etc. But that's probably asking for too much :-). I should be happy it even runs on a non-vanilla machine. C'ya, Jim -- UUCP: ...!rutgers!faatcrl!jimb Internet: jimb@faatcrl.UUCP Under brooding skys and watchful eyes On convulsive seas of false urgency We walk empty corridors in vain - "No Exit", Fate's Warning
mapjilg@gdr.bath.ac.uk (J I L Gold) (09/04/90)
Want some advice? Well, here it is anyway - it's a helluva expensive way to buy a T-shirt. The "improved" game play basically means what appears to be the crudest parser going, that allows you to "converse" with some of the locals. However, the basic idea's just the same: jump, punch, duck, punch, punchpunchpunchpunchurghhh.... and then a minute's worth of drive gronking before you can set off again, and that's not even with the end-of-game sequence enabled. The graphics aren't nearly as spectacular as the original. Gone is the stunning parallax scrolling, replaced with a 2-or-3 playfield multi- directional parallax scroll. The baddies and the main character animation is very good, though. The gameplay is very, very hard. It's bad enough getting past a couple of screens, and there are too many bottlenecks that just kill the enjoyment of being able to push that little bit further each time. Finally, the sound effects are fine, but the music is inferior to the original. Conclusion: Beast II looks and sounds rather plain in some respects compared to its predecessor. The gameplay is still too hard to be fun, and too monotonous and biff-bash-bang to interest roleplayer types, and there are still too many delays and pauses that break the flow of the game. Price: 34.95 UK pounds :-( Ratings (/10) Gameplay: 3 Graphics: 7 Sound: 7 Value: 3 Overall: 5 I can't close, however, without mentioning the EXCELLENT intro animation which sets the story...beautiful graphics and sound effects. If only you could skip it, though (where have I heard that before?). -- # J.Gold | mapjilg@uk.ac.bath.gdr # # University of Bath , UK | jilg@uk.ac.bath.maths # # The more improbable an event is, the more likely it is to happen :-) #
d6b@psuecl.bitnet (09/05/90)
In article <108@faatcrl.UUCP>, jimb@faatcrl.UUCP (Jim Burwell) writes: > Of course, if it wasn't from Psygnosis, I'd expect it to do reasonable > things like use both disk drives, take full advantage of the machine's > resources (ie: load as much of the data into RAM as possible, minimizing > repeated disk access. Detect whether the machine is running in NTSC or > PAL instead of hard-coding it [which would make distribution easier too]), > the ability to save the current position of the game to make playing the game > practical for all us poor unfortunate people who don't have the time to > complete the game in one sitting, etc. But that's probably asking for too > much :-). I should be happy it even runs on a non-vanilla machine. Oh, but it *does* detect NTSC/PAL; in fact, the version I have deliberately crashes itself if run in PAL mode. In fact, I have about a dozen games that insist on NTSC (I've modified most of them to work though). The instructions for Shadow of The Beast (and others like it) should read, "First, load up your favorite disassembler and try to fix as many of our stupid errors (that we knew about but didn't bother to fix) as possible, then, after a week of work, and some luck, you might be able to play the game." -- Dan Babcock