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From: cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: New Amiga games
Message-ID: <1889@vax135.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Sep-87 20:32:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: vax135.1889
Posted: Mon Sep 28 20:32:53 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Sep-87 05:04:58 EDT
References: <389@io.UUCP>
Reply-To: cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 34
Summary: Garrison review
Xref: mnetor rec.games.misc:932 comp.sys.amiga:8865

Garrison is a very nice Gauntlet-derived game.  It has all the characters
and effects from Gauntlet I, plus most of the new things from Gauntlet II,
plus maybe some new stuff.  Almost all of the screens are new.  There is
a "Dwarf" character as well as the original Wizard, Elf, Valkyrie, Warrior.
One or two can play at once; for each level, you may choose which of
your surviving characters gets to run on that level.  The game supposedly
goes up to level 128.

But, there's a problem.  I see from the first posting in this thread that
I'm not alone.  I have had the game go into a scrambled-screen mode from
which a boot is the only escape.  The game is still running, you just can't
see what's happening (I can tell because you can hear things reacting to
your controls).  The appearance of the screen is consistent with a loss
of vertical sync, I think.

I notice that the game is vertically overscanned.  My strong suspicion
is that we are seeing unmodified 256-scan-line-European-PAL-format
output.  I further suspect that this is eventually causing my monitor
to overheat, and then lose the tracking range of the local sync
oscillator.  The first crash (scramble, really, not crash) happens
after one or two hours; the next is maybe fifteen minutes, then three
minutes....  I am using a normal 1080 monitor, vintage Jan 1986, that
has been left on almost all the time.  And a stock A1000 + Alegra.

Sigh.  It's an excellent game, for as long as it works.  Even with only
one player, it is quite playable.  But this (presumed) overscan damage
has got to go.  I'm not sure whether I might hurt my monitor permanently
with this abuse.  Can anyone advise me on this last topic in particular?

	Thanks.
-- 
	Charles Poirier   (decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4,attmail)!vax135!cjp

   "Docking complete...       Docking complete...       Docking complete..."