All AGA Amiga's (040 recommended)
Tested on '040/'060
Olofight, by (remarkably enough) The Real Ologram of Italy, kindly sent
us a review copy of their beat-em-up. It arrived at SEAL central all
resplendant in a very nice box, containing posters, registration card,
manual, a sticker, and 10 disks of blue fury (don`t worry, the final
release is to be on cd apparently).
I mugged Robert (he liked that) and rushed home to install this latest foray into pixelly violence. The quality of the packaging and blurb promised much....umpteen fighters, umpteen moves, special powers, umpteen modes of play, and a couple of innovative idea`s......your fighters powers grow with experience, and you can upload your high scores to the Olofight webserver to see how you fare against the other would-be alien Van-Damme`s.
Installing Olofight is easy....all you need is an aga Amiga, and 10 megs of hard drive space. I have an `040/25 with PPC. BOSH !! We`re away !
A slightly jerky but nice 3d intro appears which introduces your fighters, and takes up only a small part of the screen (for speed, I guess). You're then thrust into a demo mode if you don`t choose to play yet. The demo mode in this is great in one respect, in that the computer opponents complete a full bout, none of this cutting away from the action just when it`s getting hot rubbish. Unfortunately, the demo fight is a bit jerky too on my `040, but hey, let`s see what the it`s like to play.
I won`t bother you with the storyline, which is, as usual, superfluous,
and get straight into picking one of the available characters and having
a fistycuffs. And it looks pretty good! The backgrounds are very
detailed and colourful without taking your eye away from the action and
the music is suitably typical euro-pop (give it a few minutes and you`re
tapping away as you fight). The moves are easy enough to achieve (all
joystick with one-button type stuff), and the special moves are easier
(and still nice looking).... but oh no ! It plays like a geriatric in
the supermarket with a trolley the size of SealZilla. OK, nothings that
bad, but as good as the graphics are, as tolerable as the music is (and
the `End Game` music is great, and very well suited by the way...believe
me, I heard it often enough), Olofight suffers from frames that end up
in the N`th Dimension (it`s jerky, ok ?).
On the collision detection and variety of moves front, Ologram claim
that their system has many moves, and that different area`s have
different damage when hit (another good idea). The moves seem ok,
though not all that many, and I'm afraid to say the collision detection is as
dodgy as a hermaphrodite giving you a 'special' massage.
Olofight differs slightly from the formula set down by Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat etc, in that you don`t have a `best of three fights` system. You only have the one fight to prove your worth (which I personally like). As mentioned previously, you have special moves, but are initially limited to only one each, of four types of move. It`s a tad unfair, methinks, that the opponents have more amounts of special moves and more health than your fighter, to whoop your ass good. And boy is it hard ! I like the idea of your fighter gaining experience, leading to better health and more special moves, but I played for hours and only once managed to win once. I`m not that bad at beat-em-ups........honest. Practice makes perfect, and I`m sure I could win a few more, but the jerkiness of the animation doesn`t make it an enjoyable experience to want to keep trying. You have to be psychic to defend yourself in this game alot of the time.
I don`t believe the Amiga is a good machine for this type of game, due
in part to it`s joystick limitations. Softco`s would be better advised
to team up with a hardware developer like Power Computing, for instance,
and design a new, multiple button joypad (if possible), for use with
these and any other game that wanted to take advantage of it.
Sorry Ologram, I really wanted to like this game, given the effort you`ve put into it`s appearance. Unfortunately, a beat-em-up relies first and foremost on it`s smoothness and speed, then control system, variety of moves, and finally graphics. Look at 'IK+' on the C=64 or 'Way of the Exploding Fist' on the Speccy for an example of gameplay balanced with graphics. Without smooth animations, it`s a chore to play. Olofight is still loads better than Rise of the Robots, and due to it`s interesting new idea`s, a step in the right direction, but it`s just not fun to play. But hey, if you like a stiff challenge, Olofight is calling you out to meet behind the bike sheds......
