101 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
101 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
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SKY SHARK
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SKY SHARK from Taito Corporation offers good graphics, five missions, "V-Max!
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Fastloader," a "Continue" option, a two-player option, joystick control, and
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copy protection. This review is based on the Commodore 64/128 version of the
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game; IBM-PC version notes follow.
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As home arcade games go, we've seen better; we've also seen worse, which puts
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SKY SHARK somewhere in the middle. There is plenty of on-screen activity: enemy
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tanks, planes, ships, flak, and explosions. With the Continue option, completing
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the game's five missions in one sitting is a major possibility.
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The goal of SHARK is to pilot a P-40 aircraft over jungle, ocean, and desert
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terrain, and withstand the assaults of the enemy. You begin with four P-40s,
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each of which is armed with machine guns and three bombs. The action starts and
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ends at airfields. A P-40 is lost when it's hit by flak or if it runs into
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another aircraft.
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Enemies include groups of tanks, gun emplacements, squadrons of flying
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fortresses and bandit fighters, gunboats, and battleships. Each has to be hit
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more than once, and you should expect flak even as enemies are disappearing
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off-screen.
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The C64 screen display consists of the current terrain, which scrolls
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vertically. Enemies appear from the top and sides of the terrain; tanks like to
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hide beneath the trees. In order to avoid flak and survive until you reach the
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airfield, you must guide your P-40 back and forth and up and down the terrain.
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An extra P-40 is awarded for every 50,000 points; a completed mission earns
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30,000 points beyond what you've already earned. Destroying a ground target
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sometimes displays a "B" which, when flown over, adds a bomb; any bomb remaining
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at the end of a mission earns 1,000 points. The machine gun fires two bullets.
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Should you shoot down all eight planes in a red formation, an "S" appears; when
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you capture it, your machine gun power is increased. This can be done six times,
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and the second and sixth upgrades allow, respectively, four and seven shots to
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be spread in wide patterns.
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Shoot down all eight planes in the white formation and the "1P" symbol appears;
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capturing it adds a P-40. Shooting down all planes in the yellow formation is
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worth 1,000 extra points.
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If you lose all your P-40s, the Continue option will let you pick up where you
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left off, assuming you press the joystick button before the timer runs out.
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Although the instruction manual says this option is available only three times,
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it's really available five times.
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SHARK is controlled with a joystick, which moves your craft in any direction;
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the button fires the machine guns. The spacebar drops bombs, and the Commodore
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key pauses the action.
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The program disk is copy-protected. The V-Max! Fastloader (from Alien
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Technology Group) loads the game and new missions with blazing speed.
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SKY SHARK looks good on the C64. Terrains and enemy attackers are clear and
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understandable. The joystick worked fine, and the game played easily. Like other
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Taito arcade games (ARKANOID, ALCON), SKY SHARK's goal is to destroy you
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instantly, which creates frustration the first few times you play. Still, the
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patterns of the attackers are always the same, and the game can be conquered
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without getting a migraine.
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The Continue option is good because you can keep playing; it's bad because it
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provides the opportunity to complete all five missions in one sitting, thus
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transforming SKY SHARK into a shelf curio. Do you really need another
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knickknack?
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IBM-PC VERSION NOTES
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SKY SHARK will run on the IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2, Tandy 1000, and 100% IBM
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compatibles. To run the program you will need at least DOS 2.1 or higher. SKY
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SHARK supports many graphics modes: CGA, EGA, VGA, Hercules monochrome (512K),
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and Tandy 16-color (640K). SKY SHARK also takes advantage of the Ad Lib sound
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card. The program comes on two 5-1/4" disks and one 3-1/2" disk, and it is
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copy-protected. The program uses the familiar key-disk method of copy
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protection, so you can install it on your hard drive.
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The game comes with two manuals. One manual describes how to load the game and
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how to install it on your hard disk. The other manual gives you all of the game
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options. I would expect many of the options to be the same as in the main
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review. As with most IBM games, SKY SHARK comes with an setup program that will
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install the game on your hard disk. SKY SHARK also will let you use a joystick,
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mouse, keyboard, or switched joystick. I used a joystick to play this version.
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Controlling the plane is very easy. The plane moves swiftly across the screen
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and responds infallibly to every joystick movement. Playing SKY SHARK isn't very
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enjoyable when using a keyboard.
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I played SKY SHARK in CGA and EGA/VGA modes. CGA is bland; you can't really
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tell what's going on when you're running SKY SHARK in CGA mode. EGA/VGA mode
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(VGA runs in EGA mode only) looks great. Everything is clearly defined, and the
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program seems to handle well. Being able to tell the difference between a tree
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and your plane really helps things! The graphics did seem slightly choppy, but
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this could be due to my current hardware setup.
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SKY SHARK is a nice arcade game. Nothing fancy, but it works. Unfortunately, I
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don't have an AdLib or Tandy 3-voice sound, so I couldn't take advantage of the
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superior sound quality.
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SKY SHARK is published and distributed by Taito Corporation.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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