No Fragments Archive 10: Diskmags/nf_archive_10.iso/MAGS/ST_NEWS/STN_01_C.MSA/DATA_DOC32

Text File | 1994-03-14 | 14KB | 239 lines

üMICHTRON SOFTWARE - OLD BUT GOOD! Ç
by Frank Lemmen and Richard Karsmakers

Originally  published in üST NEWSÇ Volume 1 Issue  6,  launched  on
November 15th 1986.

Michtron  software has been supporting the Atari ST  series  right
from  the  very  beginning,  and we feel nobody  has  given  their
programs a good review yet.  Although it is not our purpose to  do
so,  we  hereby  hope to bring you into the world  of  Michtron  &
Microdeal  software,  by  letting you know something  about  their
large scala of software offerings.

TIME BANDIT

We  start  right  away with the very best arcade  game  they  have
published on the ST until now:  Time Bandit.  It is a  shoot-em-up
game with several adventure-like elements.  But most people  don't
arrive  at these adventure-like elements,  since they mainly  come
once you're advancing terribly in a certain level (or timegate, as
the authors prefer to call it).

There's  quite  a nice story attached to  Time  Bandit:  Since  we
wanted to offer our readers the best there is, we wanted to finish
the game, thus being able to publish the solution. But since it is
an arcade game, in which the rating depends on the player's skill,
we  later realized this was impossible.  But after an  evening  of
'hacking'  we have succeeded in de-protecting the program,  so  we
could make a so-called trainer version. In this version, it had to
be  possible  to walk against an 'evil object'  without  losing  a
life. We succeeded after having done some more hours of examining,
and  we started to play this trainer version  on  Friday,  October
24th  at 18.45 hours.  When we stopped (that was on  23.15  hours,
that same evening),  we had gained some quite useful tips for  our
readers  (and some busted trigger-fingers,  too).  This is how  we
achieved to get our highscore of 583480 points.  Our real  hiscore
had been somewhere around 80000 points. We succeeded in completing
the following levels:  Shadowland (our trainer didn't allow us  to
catch any shadows, though), Gridville, The Guardian (very annoying
level  in  which you have to walk very much at  the  end),  Castle
Greymoon (with quite a nice story with it),  Arena,  Bomb  Factory
and Omega Complex.  The next day, we finished Ghost Town, in which
you have to bury corpses and avoid dead gosts of outlaws.  So  all
this nonsence about walking over your own grave (in the grave yard
of  Ghost Town) should be forgotten.  The dead outlaws give you  a
nine-character  code,  that  you  have  to use  to  get  over  the
quicksand in level 4D.
In  Castle Greymoon,  you (the innocent player) get involved in  a
complete Dallas-and-Dynasty-like intrigue:  The country was  ruled
ina  right way by King Quark of Greymoon and Kelveshaan.  But  the
Evil Sorceress betrayed them and locked up poor Kelveshaan.  Later
on,  this Evil woman pinches one of the keys you need to finish  a
level,  that  you'll have to get in the Fourth  Tower,  for  which
you'll have to defy the Magic Labyrinth.  Once you've gone  though
that  (oh,  it's so nasty!),  you find the key  and....a  treasure
chest. In that chest you find four decaying items, of which you'll
have to pick one.  But which one?  You have to get the key 4 times
(from level 4A to 4D) there, so you have time enough to find out -
if you make it those other times.
But we wouldn't be the ACC™ if we hadn't written down some of  our
experiences there, for you to read.
Well,  these four items are:  Black Ashes,  Blue  Crystals,  Green
Paper  and  Iron Pellets.  When you fetch  them,  you'll  get  the
following  remarks respectively:  "Poison!" (you loose  7  lives),
"You  get a small diamond in your hand",  "The note unfolds  to  a
paper   worth  2500  Cubits!"  and  "You  feel  strong  -   almost
invulnerable!".  See you'll have to decide for yourself which  you
get. If you get there. And don't take the ashes!
Another  hazardous  thing that happened took place  when  we  were
conquering the level called Arena. You have to enter into the Lair
of the Mighty Marg Worm.  Once you've vanquished that monster, you
will be able to leave the Lair. Not any sooner. And the lair has a
very nice surprise (in which you can get many points, but in which
you will undoubtedly loose many lives if you don't make a  trainer
version).
Time Bandit is sold at a retail price of £29.95 in England.

MAJOR MOTION

The second-best game from this company is Major Motion, that's for
sure.  In  this game,  the objective is to get as far as  possible
onward the ever becoming more dangerous road.  While you're  doing
that,  you  must launch missiles in order to destroy  helicopters,
you must annihilate cars by bumping them off the road and you must
avoid  oil stains and bomb holes in the road.  While you're  doing
this,  you'll have to fight powerful racing-cars (which come  with
two-at-a-time further on in the game),  you must dodge the gunfire
from the Mafia vehicle (as it is commonly called in the society of
Major  Motion addicts) and you must avoid hitting too many  'good'
cars.  If  you destroy these (the ones that usually don't  try  to
push  YOU  from  the road),  you get a missile  after  you  that's
indodgable (to say it in uncorrect English).
In  the  course  of the game,  you racing car even  turns  into  a
speedboat,  and  then you'll have to be very careful for  concrete
blocks in the water, mines and loony captains on your way!
The  game is supported by nice musics,  that vary all through  the
game. Especially the water-level music sounds very nice. But don't
do  anything  you  do in this game  when  you're  taking  driver's
lessons (or when you're on the road at any time and when there are
other people within 10 miles of you)!  Not as good as Time Bandit,
but  altogether very entertaining.  And we haven't met anyone  who
has been able to play it all the way!
It is a shame that it only works with the mouse.  The retail price
in England is £39.95.

MUDPIES

One  of the very oldest games on the ST (together with  Brataccas)
is definately this game called Mudpies.  The object of the game is
to  throw  Pies of Mud to clowns,  that also throw these  at  you.
Every time you hit one,  you get points. At first, the game has to
be  gotten used to,  since even the joystick movements  are  quite
difficult to handle.  But once,  you're used to it,  it is a  very
nice game to play.
The  musical pieces are very nice to hear at the  background,  and
they  vary when you're playing.  Mudpies isn't one of these  games
that you play, and play, and play, but it can be enjoyable to play
it for a while.  The price is according to the hookability:  It is
sold  at a retail price of £19.95 in England.  It can  works  with
mouse, joystick or keys.

LANDS OF HAVOC

This  must be the worst game ever to have been launched  by  these
people.  It actually is a quite lousy 8-bit conversion,  that uses
perhaps 4 or 5 colours at one time on the screen, and that is very
dull  to  play.  The plot might be  somewhat  thrilling,  but  the
packaging  of that plot is extremely lousy.  Definately not  worth
buying!  It's  one of those games (like Super Huey,  of  which  we
published a review in the previous issue of üST NEWSÇ) that  hackers
and  crackers  won't bother to touch.  Even at a retail  price  of
£19.95 in England, this really is a bad bargain. Don't buy it!
ANIMATOR

Now,  we  get  to  one of the non-entertaining  programs  of  this
company.  Not directly entertaining, anyway. Animator is a program
that  makes  it  possible to create  animation  over  a  Degas  or
Neochrome background.  You simply draw that background (or you use
an empty background, which can also be done) and after that you'll
draw e.g.  a walking man in every position on another picture. You
just  have to take care that the program 'knows' which  parts  are
these frames.  It is even possible to include several 32K pictures
with frames.
After  having defined an animation file,  it is possible  to  turn
these  frames on and off on varioyus position in  various  orders,
thus simulating animation. It looks very much like "Film Director"
(which was to be seen at the Dutch Efficiency Beurs in  Amsterdam,
read more about that elsewhere in this issue of üST NEWSÇ).
The  program  is a bit difficult to use,  but the results  can  be
impressive.  One  warning:  Read  the user manual  before  you  do
anything,  and  DON'T  UNPROTECT  THE DISK before  you've  made  a
backup!  It is very possible that you loose the "WALKING.AN"  file
in the process, and that's very important to learn from!

For more information about The Animator,  contact Commedia (Eerste
Looiers Dwarsstraat 12,  Amsterdam, Holland, Telphone 020-380103).
They also sell it.  It is definately worth buying for people  that
either   like  animation  ar  that  want  to  use  their  ST   for
advertisement pursposes.

DISK UTILITIES

Michtron  offers  one of the very best disk  utility  programs  in
their  software offerings:  Michtron Disk Utilities.  We've had  a
look at version 1.0,  which is sold at a retail price of £39.95 in
England.  The  program offers advanced file-and disk  options,  as
well as attribute-handling,  date-and time manipulating and  more.
We will publish an article on diskmonitors in an upcoming issue of
üST  NEWSÇ,  so we won't get into this any deeper.  But if you  were
already thinking of buying it: Please do! You won't regret it!

M-DISK

What's  there  to  say  about  yet  another  RAM-disk?   It  isn't
removable,  it offers less space for RAM-disk usage with the  same
memory capacity as that Kuma's K-RAM does,  and it isn't resident.
This  is  definately  one of the most  stupendous  programs  these
people  ever launched.  Nowadays,  people have the  Public  Domain
Intersect  RAM-Disk V3.0 (to be ordered through our  PD  service),
which  is removable,  and people can also buy G-RAMDISK of  G-DATA
software,  which isn't only removable but also resident.  And that
one includes an integrated spooler as well!
Even at a retail price of £12.95,  M-DISK is a miss!  In the field
of  utilities it is as useless as Lands of Havoc is lousy  in  the
field of games.

PINBALL FACTORY

But  let's talk about a really nice product of this  company  once
again:  Pinball Factory.  This is one of the more recent  launches
made,  and I must say it's a very good concept,  very well  worked
out and very user-friendly.
As  you might already have noticed,  it's a pinball  machine  plus
pinball  game  designer.  So  you cannot only play  on  a  pinball
machine,  but you can also design your own!  Once the pinball game
machines are designed,  the layout can be SAVEd to disk. Later on,
they can of course be LOADed back into the computer.
The  main  screen offers several options at the  starting  of  the
program (or is it a game?): Edit game, play game, erase file, load
game,  save  game and catalog (this can display the  directory  of
either drive A,B or C - harddisk ?!).  The first thing most people
do  is  choose the Play option (a sample game -  designed  by  the
designer  of  Time Bandit,  Hary Lafnear - is built  in  from  the
beginning).  After that, they can play using the arrow down key to
pull  back the ball,  space to release it and the left  and  right
mouse  buttons  to hit the ball.  F10 quits and moving  the  mouse
causes the pinball machine to Tilt!
But  the Edit Game option is much more interesting - here you  are
able  to  design  your own boards using your  own  creativity  and
imagination.  This option lets you enter into a submenu, which has
as sub-options:  Edit board, alter rules, edit logo and test game.
The  Alter  Rules  option  lets you  change  the  scores  made  by
individual attributes,  as well as the power with which balls  are
kicked back once they hit them.  Further on, you can determine the
number of balls each player gets (it's a game for 1-4 players) and
the  speed  with which the balls move.  You can  also  change  the
gravity, elasticity and you can turn dampers on/off.
The Edit Board option looks a bit like a regular drawing  program,
but  it  lets you place predefined objects - the  pinball  machine
attributes.  Options in this sub-option are:  Line, Frame, Circle,
Disk,  Ray,  Box, Detail (zoom) and Fill. The Fill option lets you
use  23  predefined fille patterns.  And you can  change  all  the
colors that you use using the well known RGB setup.
The  Edit  Logo option lets you change the little picture  at  the
right hand side of the screen; the pinball machine logo. This is a
complete drawing program,  with as options: Line, Ray, Frame, Rnd.
Frame,  Box,  Rnd.  Box,  Circle,  Disk,  Detail,  Fill,  Bigtype,
Smalltype,  Airbrush  and Shadow.  Of course,  both  Airbrush  and
Shadow can be set and changed. The airbrush, by the way, is of the
same type as the one found in "Degas" - so very  good.  Here,  you
can also use the 23 predefined fill-options.
The Test Game option doesn't need explanation, I suppose.
Michtron's  Pinball  Factory is a very good  product  indeed  and,
together with Time Bandit and - but a bit less - Major Motion, one
of the best releases of this company.  I definately hope that they
will continue making these excellent programs on the ST!