Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!ucla-cs!moby!michael From: michael@moby.cs.ucla.edu (michael gersten) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: Re: Comment on Psygnosis playablilty (Awesome) Message-ID: Date: 15 Nov 90 08:31:20 GMT Sender: news@cs.ucla.edu (Mr. News) Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department Lines: 75 Nntp-Posting-Host: moby.cs.ucla.edu Well, here's a different opinion of Awesome. First, I want to congradulate Reflections. They're the people who wrote the game. And I'd like to ***KILL*** Psygnosis for ruining it. Tech points: Awesome is large. So large that Reflections knew that it would make sense to use the ram disk on the machine to cache files to reduce disk loads. And I'm sure it does work on their version (without the copy protection, runnable from dos). But Psygnosis put it on their own dos, with their own boot block. So AmigaDos never gets started. So RAM: is *NEVER LOADED* from dos. So there is no RAM: disk for the program to use. ***ARRGH***. Reflections: Keep up the good work, but please, CHANGE distribution companies. The game: The game is supposed to be a semi-realistic model of you and your ship after your crew convinced you (at gun point) that they needed a vacation/time off after a bad trade run. So far, so good. But... Its not semi-realistic. It has no realism in it. It is a game, pure and simple. This is not in itself bad, but if the goal was a simulation, than a little more work would have really made the difference. Consider this: Your ship has an energy supply which can be put into either the shields or the weapon. But you have to make that decision before you find out what caused you to drop out of hyperspace. And you can't move it (if, for example, your shields are getting low). Manuvering in space should turn you around your center of mass (center of ship). Instead it turns around your nose, so you swing very wide. Thats physics. In space, you have to fight things, manuver, etc. But your computer will wisk control away from you and re-engage hyperspace drives the instant it thinks the area is clear. Never mind that you're chasing an energy disk that the last guy disintegrated into. Never mind that you're going after a fuel capsule and there are 5 more fuel cargo pods just off screen. And never mind that you CAN'T fly away from things normally, but if you intercept a fuel convoy you can easily lose a stationary fuel pod. You are going to a system that does a fair amount of space business. You get fuel by running interplanetary deliveries. Every plannet sells space ship weapons. And **NO ONE** repairs space ships. None. Ok, at least the first two plannets do not (haven't made it to the door of the third one yet). And how welcome are you to do these deliveries? Not very. Everyone on the surface of the plannet is out to get you. You`ve got to watch your oxygen supply (after all, you can't breath the air out there, but there are lots of creatures on the surface, lots of local ships flying through the atmosphere which you have to (have, not can) shoot, etc). And you get more oxygen by blasting ships to smithereens. But the instant you make it to the entrace (which is unlocked), everyone is happy with you. No assasins to finish the job. And all the guards are instantly replaced (of course). Finally, the fuel. A Fuel shortage is the heart of the game. Its what keeps you going. I can almost believe that your crew would force you to go to a system when there was just barely enough fuel to make it there. But you don't get enough fuel in any mission to go more than one or two plannets out at a time, yet you somehow must gain enough fuel to make it to another solar system light years away. Right. As a game, I found it to be fun and enjoyable. As a simulation I found it pathetic (there is no real economics as you can't resell anything you buy). And as an example of psygnosis's distribution, I wasn't suprised at all.