96 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
96 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
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FACES (TRIS III)
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Well, the Russians did it. They dismantled their bombs and lulled us into a
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state of false confidence, and then, when we least expected it, unleased Alexey
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Pajitnov and won World War III without firing a single shot. Now, every computer
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jockey in the country is too busy playing TETRIS and WELLTRIS to be programming
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missile tracking systems.
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To insure their victory, we now have FACES (aka TRIS III), the final nail in
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the coffin of Western society: Just as we feared, FACES is every bit as
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addictive as Pajitnov's previous games. (This review is based on the IBM-PC
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version.)
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Once again, the concept is simple: Falling pieces are placed by the player in a
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certain arrangement. Place them correctly and a space is cleared off so that you
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may keep playing. Place them wrong, and the screen gradually fills up until the
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game is over. Only this time, instead of abstract geometric shapes, it's (you
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guessed it) faces.
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Imagine a playing field five "spaces" wide. Slowly dropping from the top of the
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screen are two pieces of faces, side by side, separated by a space. Faces are
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divided into five rectangles: chin, lips, nose, eyes and "top." You may move
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these pieces from side to side (but only to a limited extent), swap the two
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pieces, or see what's on the reverse side. That's because, although you get
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points for any face, the game comes with sixty faces, and when you make a
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"perfect" face, it's worth more points. Feel free to mix and match, though; you
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earn fewer points, but some of the faces you wind up with are worth it!
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Completing ten faces moves you up a level, or you may hit the "+" key at any
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time.
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Drop a piece into an incorrect spot, and it becomes a slab of marble. The slab
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is fixed until you complete a new face on top of it, at which point you again
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have access to the pieces underneath. A row across the top of the screen tells
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you which "piece" of a face is dropping, and displays a number that indicates
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whose face it belongs to.
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FACES has ten difficulty levels; each level brings a new set of faces. Level 0
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starts you off with anonymous "Universal Faces," but Level 1 adds World Leaders
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(Gorbachev, Thatcher, etc.). Other levels incorporate faces from art, science,
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music, history, and literature, as well as fun fantasy figures, like
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Frankenstein, Dracula, the Easter Bunny, and Uncle Sam. And in a delightful
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move, many of the parts of the faces are animated as they drop down: Gorbachev
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has shifty eyes. (Perhaps a wry bit of political commentary?) You can also
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choose between "regular" and "advanced" modes; in the latter, pieces drop even
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faster.
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Bored with those mugs? FACES will let you load in faces of your own creation.
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You must have your own graphics program to do so, and it must be one that
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accepts LBM format files, such as DELUXE PAINT II. FACES provides the needed
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templates for creating and editing faces.
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Tired of playing alone? Up to ten players can compete simultaneously, but only
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by swapping turns. However, if no one will come to your house, you and a friend
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can hook up via modem (a speed of at least 1200 baud is recommended), and play
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"head to head." An extra wrinkle is added to this mode for greater challenge:
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When you complete a perfect face, some or all of your "marble" pieces will be
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transferred to your opponent's screen.
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Spectrum HoloByte, the game's distributor, has chosen to ship the IBM version
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of FACES in a rather odd way that may prove problematic for some users. One
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5-1/4" floppy contains the VGA, EGA, and Tandy versions, but it's a high
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density, 1.2Mb diskette. The second 5-1/4" floppy is a 360K disk, but it only
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contains the CGA and Hercules versions of the game. The box also includes two
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3-1/2" diskettes (both 720K).
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In any case, the diskettes are not copy-protected, and can be installed on your
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hard drive (or copied onto another set of floppy diskettes). FACES relies on a
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manual copy-protection method. In a nice touch, you won't have to waste time
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matching up pictures from the screen to the printed page: When you're asked to
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answer a question about a character, you're also given the page on which the
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answer is found.
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As mentioned, graphics supported include VGA, EGA, CGA, Tandy, and Hercules.
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VGA graphics are terrific, with lots of detail and color. Besides the wonderful
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collection of faces (I love the purple alien with the glowing yellow eyes), the
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game's "board" changes with every level, displaying pictures of the classroom, a
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museum, a science lab, and so on. (These backgrounds are optional in CGA and
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Hercules modes.)
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If you have an AdLib sound board or the Tandy 1000, each level has its own
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theme song. If, like me, you're stuck with the PC's tiny internal speaker, all
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you'll get are sound effects as the faces are completed. The game can be played
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either from the keyboard or with a joystick. I found the keyboard to be just
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right. 512K of RAM is required.
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Well, that's it. I've already spent far too much time away from FACES while
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telling you about it. I definitely need another fix now. _Da svidanya_,
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comrades!
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FACES is published and distributed by Spectrum HoloByte.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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