Charr

Title           Charr
Game Type       Combat Sim
Players         1-8
Compatibility   All Amigas
Available       Aminet game/shoot/Charr100.lha 241K
Submission      Steven Pearson PG221902@stmail.staffs.ac.uk


Review
You may think that Worms is the king of artillery clones. It expanded the genre
so much allowing you to move over the entire landscape and giving you loads of
bizarre weapons. Charr made some unique extensions to the artillery genre and
they really do add something to the game that Worms doesn't have.

Charr's single most inovative feature is the ability to combine weapon payloads
and select a delivery method. In every other respect it's a bog standard
artillery game.

For those who haven't followed so far I'll explain the general format of the
game.

You control a tank, You can aim the turret and fire with a specific power. A
projectile leaves your turret and hopefully hits an enemy tank.

In Charr your tank may have a shield several varieties are available.

Absorb - Simply absorbs the damage a shot would have delivered
Bounce - Bullets bounce of it.
Invert - Bullets return back where they came from.
Repel  - Acts like a magnet and forces shots away.

The more powerful the sheild the more cash it costs. You have a limited amount
of cash with which to buy shields and put together your weapon playloads. To get
more cash you must win the round.

Now we get into the innovation. Weapon Payloads.

You can put up to 8 separate weapons into one payload (watch the cost though)

an individual weapon could be something like:

A Dud         - Costs ZERO and simply fills space and time in the payload
Standard Shell - Costs 5 creds and does about the same damage.
Big Shell      - Costs 10 Creds and does more damage

Various Dirt weapons that upon impact create new landscape.

Some Lava weapons and the incredibly destructive,if it gets thoough your
opponents sheild, Nuclear Blast.

You can combine this weapons in any order so you could launch a standard shell
to blow a hole in your opponents shield followed by several duds to wait for the
explosion to clear followed by a lava that will now run straight though the hole
you mad in his shield.

Weapons don't even have to fire one after another you could deliver them in an
airburst, a bombing run or my personal favourite the jack-hammer. The weapons
are delivered in one bullet upon impact the weapons separate and fly vertically
upwards landing one by one on their target in sequence.

With a little but of thought you can come up with some fiendish ways to overcome
your enemies defenses but watch the cost of your payload cash is a very tight
asset, unless of course you win.

The computer opponents come in varoius intelligences but they do have a tendancy
to gang up on the first human player, and when he's dead they all start pounding
the second human player. Unless they get sidetracked by an accidental hit. I've
often died before my second turn because every computer player has ganged up on
me. And once your shields have been destroyed you don't get to deploy new
defences until your next turn.

The twist this game adds is brilliant, building new powerful weapons is great
fun. I like to think of new ways of killing my opponents. Burying their shield
in dirt then sending a tunnelling missle straight through the dirt into the
heart of their tank. Getting two nuclear blast directly into the centre of a
tank using a dirt shot as a cup (I'm not revealing the secret "recipe" for this
it's my best weapon ever!) and of course when you're nearly dead with no aim set
up on any players the old desperate full strength airbust delivering shots to
any one and everyone on the map.

Great fun in multiplayer a little unfair if you have too many computer opponents
the graphics and sound are basic but what do you expect from a shareware game?

Alphabetical list.