68 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
68 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
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TUNNELS OF ARMAGEDDON
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You'll need patience and determination to grasp what's happening in TUNNELS OF
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ARMAGEDDON, a futuristic arcade game/spaceship simulation from California
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Dreams. (This review is based on the Amiga version).
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Your patience is tried from the start, where you have to pass the copy
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protection by lining up a color-coded wheel. All you have to do is align the
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colors according to the onscreen instructions, and use the mouse to touch the
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color that you end up with. That seems easy enough, but I somehow had trouble
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figuring out whether the color I was looking at was dark purple or light blue.
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And while _you_ need patience, the _game_ doesn't seem to have much. Unless
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you're quick to type the code, the game will enter a demo mode. This seems
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aggravating, and it is at first, but you get the hang of the codewheel after a
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few tries, and the learning curve becomes much flatter after that.
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TUNNELS is aptly named. The United States, after drilling under ice in
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Antarctica, has discovered a mysterious door made of material not found on
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earth. The door-opening is broadcast on national televison, and cameras peer in
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at what appears to be an endless connection of tunnels.
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Then, an alien voice speaks, describing a collection of peoples who live deep
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in the tunnels and benefit from faster-than-light travel. The aliens are willing
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to give the U.S. the secret of their speedy travel, but to gain this, America
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must send its most skilled pilot to navigate the tunnel. Eventually the pilot
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will reach a point of no return. If he makes it past that point and reaches the
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end, the U.S. wins; if he fails, an explosion will occur and America will be
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zapped.
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Of course, you are the pilot, and the game begins with you at the control of
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your spaceship, looking out of your windshield into the tunnels. You can see
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various gadgets on your control panel, and the cockpit and out-the-windshield
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views are quite nice, though not out of the ordinary.
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There is quite a sensation of speed as you hurtle through the narrow tunnels,
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making split-second decisions on whether to veer left or right, and taking care
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to pick up objects that suddenly appear. Bear in mind that the game isn't a
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serious spacecraft simulator. The emphasis is on arcade action.
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To be great at this game, you'll have to develop terrific hand-eye
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coordination, and you'll really have to be able to think on the fly. You'll have
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to learn how to review your cockpit gauges, and at the same time, keep your
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attention fixed out the windshield. You guide your craft using the mouse, and
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the left mouse button fires the laser that allows your base station to track
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your progress.
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Along the way, you will have to keep a sharp lookout for objects such as bombs,
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ammunition, more energy, an autopilot, and a superbooster. You won't be able to
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finish without them, and you have to pick them up by zapping them with the
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laser.
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TUNNELS runs on A500s, A1000s, and A2000s with at least 512K of RAM, and a
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mouse. There isn't any on-disk copy protection, so backup copies can be made.
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The game comes on one disk, and can be installed on a hard drive, but it also
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runs fine from the floppy.
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TUNNELS, full of splashy color and decent sound effects, is well-designed. It
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encourages newcomers to continue by allowing them to pick up where they left off
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during the first few missions. While TUNNELS appears to lack broad enough appeal
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to attract large numbers of gamers, it's a nice "sleeper" of a game that should
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be considered, especially if the price has been discounted a few dollars.
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TUNNELS OF ARMAGEDDON is published by California Dreams and distributed by
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Electronic Arts.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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