..
/|J  CNET HOCKEY V1.5
     ================
     By: Ray Morrell (The Editor@911:5177/0.0)


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TITLE:    "CNet Hockey v1.5"
FROM:     Everlast
NOTES:    CNet 2.63
RATING:   (out of four stars) ->   *


CNet hockey is positively, without a doubt, the lamest online game I have
had the "joy" of playtesting, for CNet Amiga BBSes.

     Don't get me wrong, the concept is very good.  An online hockey game
could prove both entertaining, and popular.  However, the users will have
to wait even longer for this mystical online sports cavalcade to appear,
'cuz this ain't it.

     First off, the docs are pitiful.  Everlast spent a good portion of the
space shouting out 'greetings' to his friends.  And then there is the BBS
ad for some board in Meaford, Ontario (well off the beaten track).

     Ok, I don't mind poor spelling if it's intentional, but if you are
going to put out an online game that people will take seriously, you should
check through once in a while, for errors.  If people think a programmer
hasn't even gone through remedial Grade 7 English, they are less likely to
believe the program is any good.

     In the case of CNet Hockey, they are right.

     Before I go on about what I didn't like with the game, I will
highlight some of it's beneficial features.  First of all, the idea is very
good.  I haven't seen many online sports games, particularly for CNet
Amiga, and hockey is fast growing in to a very popular sport, both here in
Canada, and in the United States (not to mention the UK, and Europe).  The
game has inventive intermission shows, including Don Cherry during the
second intermission.  It is unfortunate that during CBC's Hockey Night in
Canada, Don Cherry actually appears during the FIRST intermission, because
the game is still young, and non-important issues can be tackled by Mr.
Cherry, and made into important ones.

     Now for the bad points.  First of all, owners of accelerated systems
will find that most of the text scrolls off the screen hideously fast, due
to the use of many "do x=1 to xxx" loops.  The game was obviously meant for
a slower, 68000-based system.  This means that anyone with an accelerator,
such as yours truly, has to go through the program code and play with the
do loops to fix them.  Alternatively, you can replace them with DELAY
statements, which is what I think the programmer originally planned to do,
since there is already a statement to open the necessary
'rexxsupport.library.'  The game is written in ARexx, and all of this is
quite easy to accomlish, but tedious.

     The game itself has no form.  You create a team with six players (for
all of the starting positions in hockey).  Each player has a name.  No
skills, or anything like that, just a name and a position.  The game then
plays out completely randomly.  There is no strategy involved, no form, no
function.  You have three options at all times ("Move" "Pass" and "Shoot"),
and you have no sense of where you are on the ice.  Neither does the game,
several times I have performed two-line passes after a faceoff after the
other team's goalie has held the puck. In real hockey, that face-off would
occur in the other team's zone, and a two-line pass would therefore be
impossible.

     That brings to mind another bad point.  Anytime either goalie has a
hand on the puck, there is a new faceoff.  Might I ask WHY?  In real
hockey, we all know damn well most of the time the goalie gives the puck
to a teammate.  No faceoff, no wasted time.

     Back to the technical side, each random statement resets the random
seed.  This is a bad programming move in ARexx, especially where the random
function is used so much.  This creates a "bell curve" of random number
output, which means if the random statement asked for 1 to 10, the numbers
4,5,6 and 7 would have an exceptionally greater chance of coming up than
any other number, and 10 will come up less than 1% of the time.  This can
easily be fixed, but I am not about to write the program for the guy, now
am I?  [See AmiJournal 1.02's ARexx Tip for the low down on RANDOM() -Ed]

     More beefs:  In all the games I, and my assistant sysop, played, we
never once scored a goal against the computer.  This leads me to believe
that the chances of goal scoring are exceptionally low for the player, and
favor the computer.  There are only four teams available to play, Toronto,
Montreal, Detroit and Florida.  While this may sound ok, the game makes
absolutely no distinction between them.  While your team has players, the
other teams do not.  When you fight (and it's always the same player on
your team who gets into a fight), you fight a generic member of the other
team.  The fight sequences are ALWAYS the same, your player gets a game
misconduct, end of story.  The same text is displayed for every fight, and
this is extremely boring.

     The intermissions also display exactly the same 'analysis' each time
you play.  Don Cherry rants about 'pussies' and in the first intermission,
some guy named 'Howie' looks at the goal difference.  From this he can tell
you which team is motivated, which team 'can't seem to mount any great
offense' and which one has the better scoring opportunities.  Again, this
is boring, and leaves player unmotivated to play the game again after they
figure out it simply displays the same text every time.

     The huge lack of imagination abounds in the program.  As far as I'm
concerned, it's a half-assed job.  I have more on my list of problems with
this program, but this magazine has a size limit to stick with.

     In short, play it once, play it twice, but after that, it will seem
like punishment to play it at all.  I won't even get into the poor use of
grammar, but I will say the English language has been decimated by this
game.

     I really hope somebody, even Planet X's own team of ARexx programmers,
comes up with an update or a complete re-write of CNet Hockey v1.5.  Online
sports games are a niche without a doubt, and sadly this attempt at
satisfying that audience has failed miserably.


!ADDENDUM!
----------

     The programmer of CNet Hockey, Everlast, deserves credit for seeking
to fix problems quickly.  Just this week, a new version of the program was
uploaded to FutureWorld BBS, home of CNet Amiga.  The new version fixed the
"do" loop bug, and replaces it with the DELAY function, as was recommended
by several users, and in the above review.

     However, there is still a long way to go before the game can call
itself 'better' than the version we here at AmiJournal reviewed.

     Sorry, readers.  I call 'em like I see 'em.


[Next Week:    Geopolitik! Pre-release (v0.90)]



Issue 1.08 (Saturday, October 30, 1993)                         ©1993, PXP
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