85 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
85 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
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SUPER HANG-ON
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SUPER HANG-ON is a single-player motorcycle race simulation from Data East. A
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conversion of the arcade hit from Sega, HANG-ON offers excellent graphics and
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high-speed animation, four continents with multiple stages, mouse or joystick
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control, and copy protection. (This review is based on the Atari ST version;
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IBM-PC version notes follow.)
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The four continents (Africa, Asia, America, and Europe) do double-duty as
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difficulty levels: Beginner, Junior, Senior, and Expert. Each level contains
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multiple stages (as few as six, as many as 18); each stage must be completed
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before the timer runs out, and an additional 30 seconds will be added to the
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time you didn't use on the previous stage. If you run out of time before passing
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the checkpoint marking the end of any stage, the game is over.
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The race itself is preceded by Menu Options, Continent Selection, and Music
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Selection screens. The Menu screen lets you choose mouse or joystick control, as
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well as adjust the controller's sensitivity, which governs touchiness and speed
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(Low, Medium, or High) at which the bike enters a lean during a turn. The Music
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screen features "four racey tunes" and the ever-popular "no racey tunes."
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The ST race display consists of a scrolling road -- appropriately lined with
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light poles, billboards, trees, rocks, signs, barrels, whatever -- along which
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you guide your bike. Scenery indigenous to the continent lies on the horizon,
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and other racers zip along the road with you. At the top of the screen you'll
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find high score, current score, elapsed time, speed, and continent indicators,
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as well as a horizontal bar that is filled incrementally as stages are
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completed.
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Either mouse or joystick controls HANG-ON. Move the stick left or right and the
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bike will lean in that direction; forward accelerates and backward brakes. At
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280 kph, the speed display turns red, at which point a button-press will invoke
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Nitro for even greater speeds. When using the mouse, the left button
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accelerates, the right button invokes Nitro, and the Spacebar brakes.
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Directional lean is determined by the position of the mouse on your computer
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desk -- which is another way of saying that the mouse might as well be on the
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road. The joystick works best.
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The SUPER HANG-ON package comes with two copy-protected disks, an IBM
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instruction guide, and an ST/Amiga reference card. To play the game, you'll need
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512K of RAM, and a color monitor.
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Graphics on the ST are clear and bright, colorful and detailed. The
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smooth-scrolling roads twist and turn and rise and dip as well as (or better
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than) most road-race simulations, and the animation moves like lightning, even
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at high speeds. On curves, the bike leans over so far you'd think it has
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sidewheels. Hit an obstacle or otherwise lose control and both bike and rider
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take what should be a fatal fall. Fortunately, it isn't, although precious time
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will be lost.
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If high-speed arcade action is your thing, SUPER HANG-ON delivers.
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IBM-PC VERSION NOTES
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The IBM-PC version of SUPER HANG-ON is distributed on both 5-1/4" and 3-1/2"
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diskettes. You may install the game only once on your hard drive, after which
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you'll need to follow an uninstall procedure in order to reformat the drive or
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move the program to a different computer.
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SUPER HANG-ON supports the Hercules Mono Adapter, CGA, EGA, and Tandy 1000
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graphics modes. The EGA graphics are quite nice -- from the finely detailed
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trees to the variety of billboards lining the highway. (When looking at the
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package, note that only the illustration on the right of the rear cover
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represents an IBM-PC screen.)
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You can play the game using either a joystick or the keyboard, although both
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Data East and I recommend the joystick. Nevertheless, joystick control is rather
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annoying: You have to push the stick forward when pressing the "fire" button for
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a bit of Nitro injection, but that cuts down on the already minimal steering
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response. The temptation is to leave the stick dead-center and just steer (you
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don't need to keep the stick forward in order to maintain speed), but that means
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you'll remain the slowest bike on the road at a mere 244 kph.
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Those who've encountered the arcade version already know whether they'll like
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SUPER HANG-ON. For those who haven't, my only warning is that this game doesn't
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offer anything resembling the "feel" of riding a motorcycle. SUPER HANG-ON is
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easy to master -- possibly too easy. However, as someone who has always enjoyed
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POLE POSITION and its various descendants, I found this game fairly addictive
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for a short period of time.
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SUPER HANG-ON is published and distributed by Data East.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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