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From: mohr@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Gordon Mohr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: OIDS: The good, the bad, the ugly.
Message-ID: <11450@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 26 Feb 91 10:34:55 GMT
References: <148370@tiger.oxy.edu>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: mohr@cory.Berkeley.EDU
Lines: 80

In article <148370@tiger.oxy.edu> wirehead@oxy.edu (David J. Harr) writes:
>
>THE GOOD: This game sets new standards for smooth animation, seamless
>	  graphics and good sound. 

Certainly. The animation and graphics are excellent, even on my 9" SE
screen. The sounds are good, but not "wow" like when you first play Crystal
Quest. 

I feel I might be at a disadvantage playing on a small screen; being able to
see at a greater distance would be a great help.  It doesn't hurt my
enjoyment though.

Truly amazing is the precision of the collision detection. In this game,
a pixel can make a difference whether you live or die. Usually in such
games, you occasionally die even when the screen seems to show a narrow
escape. Yet OIDS seems amazingly consistent and accurate; no losses can
be attributed to game sloppiness.

>
>THE BAD:  While the game makes provision for use of a joystick, there is
>	  no provision for play with a mouse. At certain times, it becomes
>	  neccesary to thrust, use your shields, rotate your craft, and
>	  fire, all at the same time. I find it impossible to remember the
>	  keys for all of these maneuvers in a crunch, and so I usually die.

I don't think mouse control would work in this game. Those in which it
does (Crystal Quest, Armor Alley, Dark Castle) are unique. Even arcade
games which have similar ships (Asteroids, Lunar Lander, etc.) use
buttons, not joysticks, to get the necessary level of control.

Also, you can design your own key set and become EXTREMELY proficient
after suitable practice.(the keys I prefer: 'a' thrust, 'z' fire, ';' and
''' rotate, [CR] nova bomb, [space] shield, [shift] recharge) My only
complaint, and I don't know if it's OIDS' fault or my ADB keyboard, is that
you can only do 2 (or 3?) keys at once. Sometimes you want to thrust, fire,
shield, and rotate all at once...

>                                   Also, OIDS is copy protected :-(. I
>	  find this objectionable enought that I am still considering
>	  returning the game to the place where I bought it. I don't want
>	  FTL starting a new round of copy-protection schemes among games
>	  manufacturers. I'm very ambivalent about the game on this point.
>	  I like it, but I feel like telling my friends to call FTL and
>	  explain to them that they would buy the game, but thye object
>	  to copy protection and so they won't.

Silly objection. As others have also pointed out, the copy-protection is 
removed when you register.

>
>The UGLY: This directory structure and buttons for the game looks like they
>	  were taken from a cheap CGA clone of an inferior version of MS
>	  Windows. The fonts used are blocky and ugly, and they are colored
>	  an unhealthy shade of blue. When you actually select the file you
>	  want to play, the unhealthy blue changes to an unhealthy green.
>	  Come on folks, you had some preetty spiffy programming go into the
>	  animation, is it really that hard to get someone to put up a real
>	  dialog box?

I was at first worried about its cludgy, CGA appearance of the menu, fearing
it was a cheapo port (can you say "StarFlight" or "AutoDuel"?) BUT, it turns
out that the selection screen works just like a standard file dialog box
with a somewhat different layout. While the appearance and font are
non-standard, they fit well with the general flavor of the program (as a
self-contained arcade game) and cause no problems.

I haven't yet played with the editor, so I can't comment on it.

The game combines elements of Lunar Lander, Defender, Choplifter, and 
Continuum. I highly recommend it to people who like this type of game. But
don't take a chance; see and play the demo first. It's an accurate
representation of tha game (though the computer flies the ship better than
most people ever can...)

>
>David

Gordon Mohr
mohr@cory.berkeley.edu