Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!dcl-cs!gdt!pyppad From: pyppad@gdr.bath.ac.uk (P A Dale) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: Re: FAUG demo of Powermonger by E.A. -- long review Keywords: simply incredible Message-ID: <1990Dec10.141402.15081@gdr.bath.ac.uk> Date: 10 Dec 90 14:14:02 GMT References: <1990Dec5.110344.6364@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <5045@bwdls58.UUCP> <1990Dec6.035355.23149@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Organization: Bath University Computing Services, Bath, England Lines: 58 > >> Generally, how much does the game gronk the floppy disk? > >I was 20 rows of chairs back -- no idea. We watched the game via FAUG's >projection TV, and listened to the presenter over microphones. This is >a _big_ users group. Let me put your fears aside on the disk crunching. It does grind during saving and loading but during gametime you have no worries at all. Everything is quiet an wonderful :-) The good thing is you can backup with a commercial copier and the manual copy protection isn't going to interrupt things (Awesome screws my diskdrive :-(, Powermonger doesn't :-) I think the starting animation is not too hot. Good backdrops but lousy animation. Musics o.k. though. As for the game, it promises a hell of a lot. I've played the first few islands and enjoyed it tremendously. Check out catapults when you invent them ! Don't go crazy on a village with one of these or there won't be much left (2 swords on agression only :-) The cannons make one huge bang when they go off. Kent didn't mention the sound volume of on map activity depends on the zoom factor. If you watch up close things are much louder (useful when you're out hunting sheep in winter and there's a blizzard :-) I found the manual adequate but not very helpful. There is an included note mentioning, not only data disks, but a book on the hidden depths of Powermonger. The manual describes the icon's function but doesn't tell you how to use them (if you get what I mean :-). Some errors in labelling occur on the overview display in the manual. Some of the higher level design doesn't seem tremendous. The way you must island hop with no continuity is hard to justify (you do get a few extra men but have to leave your cannons behind (blub) :-(. It is understandable in terms of scale. You could quickly have unmanageable armies. Still, a minor gripe. Some icons are much too small, people without monitors will have problems (a friend of mine does, I've seen it too and definition is a problem). This is mainly on the overview map where some features are a mere pixel (e.g. a workshop in a village is a yellow dot). > >> Thanks for the effort you put into the review. > >I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed reading it and I've got the Game! Hope your letter gets to the Pole in time. > >>Keith Hanlan keithh@bnr.ca Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada 613-765-4645 > >Kent, the man from xanth. > Enquiries welcome :-) Paul Dale pyppad@uk.ac.bath or to get me when I'm working :-) ccspad@uk.ac.bath