95 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
95 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
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BLOOD MONEY
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BLOOD MONEY is an arcade game from David Jones and Psygnosis. It
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offers excellent graphics, fabulous animation, tough gameplay, four
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planetary environments, two-player mode, two difficulty levels,
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joystick control, and copy protection.
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Despite an initial resemblance to MENACE (also written by David
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Jones), BLOOD MONEY pushes arcade action well beyond its
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predecessors. A purposely languid pace belies great difficulty.
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While the Psygnosis press release is a masterpiece of
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over-exaggeration, BLOOD MONEY is definitely one of the best games
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to be released.
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The plot is this: After your parents give you a $200 gift, you
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decide to blow it on an Alien Safari, a dangerous sojourn that'll
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take you to four planets: Gibba ($100), Grone ($200), Shreek
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($300), and Snuff ($400). Each planet has a unique environment:
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Gibba has a heavy-metal landscape, Grone is underwater, and I have
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no idea about either Shreek or Snuff. The difficulty levels are
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Patient and Impatient, which mean (in layperson's terms)
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Unbelievably Tough and Why Bother?
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The goal of BLOOD MONEY is to battle the inhabitants of each planet
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and confront the Guardians. Shooting an inhabitant causes it to
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explode and excrete a coin worth a certain amount of credits.
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Collecting the coins adds money to your account, which can (and
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must) be spent at any of the equipment stations scattered around the
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planet.
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MENACE did not offer money. It had six planets and six Guardians,
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and hitting the scenery on Expert level depleted your ship's
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shield. In BM, everything is deadly: The slightest brush with
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scenery or inhabitant means instant annihilation -- and you have
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only three lives.
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On Gibba, you'll pilot a helicopter; on Grone, you'll steer a
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submarine; on Shreek, you'll be in a jetpak; and on Snuff, you'll be
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in a spaceship. Weapon enhancements range in price from $100 to
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$250, and include: skybound, earthbound, rear-fire, and long range
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missiles; neuron bombs; ship speedup; extra life; and something
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called a "Norton Thunder-Thru."
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The ST screen display consists of upper and lower walls, between
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which you guide your craft. The screen scrolls horizontally and
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vertically. Tracking guns cling to the walls. The inhabitants can
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come from anywhere, and they do. On Gibba, you'll see combat
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machinery out of "Return of the Jedi," spinning buzzsaws, floating
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faces, rockets, and pulsing bubbles.
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Underwater on Planet Grone, there are schools of wonderfully
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animated sea anemones, monsters with gaping maws, mines, squirmy
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little tubes that track you from the walls, and more weird pulsing
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bubbles.
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BM is controlled completely with a joystick: The stick moves your
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craft around the screen in all directions; the button fires the
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current weapon. Landing on the equipment platform brings up the
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consumer weapons screen: Move the arrow to the weapon of your choice
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and select it with the button. Assuming you have enough blood money
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in your account, it'll be automatically added to your craft, where
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it will remain until your craft is destroyed. Then it's back to
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single shots.
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The program comes on two copy-protected disks. After booting, there
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is disk access when loading a new planet. Neither hard disk nor
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second drive is supported. The documentation includes BM programming
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information, as explained by David Jones.
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Without going into lengthy detail, BLOOD MONEY is a stunning
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program. The excellent graphics are overshadowed only by the
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zillions of wildly-animated sprites. However, the scads of sound
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effects promised by the manual, the package, and the press release
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never materialized; all I've heard so far are basic explosions and
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the clink of coins. Also, from reading David Jones's comments, I got
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the impression that the ST version is somewhat less than the
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original Amiga program (although Wayne Smithson, the translator,
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should not be blamed).
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With its great difficulty, BM is reminiscent of Taito games such as
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ARKANOID and A.L.C.O.N., two really good time-wasters designed for
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instant frustration. I hasten to point out that BLOOD MONEY is so
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far beyond most home computer arcade games that it has the potential
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to become a personal favorite. Even it doesn't become your
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favorite, your money will have been well spent.
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BLOOD MONEY is published and distributed by Psygnosis.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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