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From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Long Persistence Monitor Question
Message-ID: <30730@sun.uucp>
Date: Mon, 12-Oct-87 19:40:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.30730
Posted: Mon Oct 12 19:40:09 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Oct-87 01:31:47 EDT
References: <15518@amdahl.amdahl.com> <1758@gryphon.CTS.COM> <2472@dciem.UUCP> <4281@zen.berkeley.edu>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 141
Keywords: Great Game
Summary: Firepower is a lot of fun

In article <4281@zen.berkeley.edu> (Bryce Nesbitt) writes:
>Chunk McManis has a old Sun color monitor at Hacker's V3.0.  Color
>was reasonable on a non interlace screen and low flicker for
>interlace.  (I guess you would call it a "medium" persitence monitor)
>The monitor spent two days playing "Front Line";  no smear problems
>as far as the game went.  Only real problems are the thing is as
>big as four 1080 monitors and you would probably need to purchase
>it used (not an easy find).

[Note my name is Chuck, not 'Chunk' :-)]
[The Sun-2 color monitor is big (19") and heavy (> 100 lbs)]

What Bryce said is correct, except the game was MicroIllusions 'FirePower'
which could easily be billed as the ultimate tank game. And since it was
played for 38 hrs straight by several people I think I can give it a fairly
good review here :

Overview :

    Firepower is the first in a series of 'One on One' series by 
MicroIllusions. The game can be played with two people on the same
machine (side by side graphics), one person against the computer, or
two people on two machines using modems to connect them. The object 
is to capture the 'flag' of the other player and return it to your
'garage'. The perspective is from overhead like Armor Attack and 
playfield is scrolled around as you move across it ala Faery Tale. A
joystick is used to control the tank you are driving (you have a choice
of three models when you start the game) and the fire button fires the 
cannon. 

The World :

Each player has a home base, one has green features, and the other has 
brown features. This base is surrounded by lots of walls that have
gun emplacements at the corners. Inside the base are buildings of several
varieties all but the hospital and garage can be blown up. Through out the
world there are roads that are generally easier to follow than to make your
way through the third type of are, forest. 

The buildings are fairly interesting in that they contain different types
that hold troops in various proportions. There are office buildings that
hold a few troops, warehouses that hold no troops, barracks that hold lots
of troops and jails that hold *your* troops. More on troops later in Scoring.

The Players :

There are actually two types of aggressive units in this game, tanks and
helicopters. You control your tank, it stays on the screen at all times.
The helicopters (up to five at a time) are 'automatic' and attack the
enemy pretty much randomly. One of the 'features' of this game is that
shells from any piece will blow up something that can be destroyed (so
you can blow up your own buildings if you want). Additionally, there are
troops that run around although they can't kill you.

Tank Specifics :

When you start the game you can choose between one of three tanks. The tanks
vary in speed, defensive capability, efficiency and number of mines and troops.
Tanks are fairly manuverable, however they do tend to get stuck in 'rubble'
sometimes fatally so [see bugs]. The status screen displays how many mines and
troops you are carrying and how much fuel you have left. There is also a radar
screen that shows your position relative to the enemy tank or helicopters.
When you are taking damage the current number of damage points remaining are
displayed in the radar screen. When that number goes to zero your tanks 
explodes. 

Game Play (or how to Score) :

Points are scored when ever you destroy something that belongs to the 
enemy. The most common way of destroying things is to blast it a number
of times with your cannon. The sound effects are quite good and include
explosions, tank sounds, and squishes. The latter comes into play with
one of the more morbid ways of scoring points, killing troops. When ever
a building or gun emplacement is destroyed there are often some troops
that try to run away from the destruction, driving over them with your
tank makes a 'squish' sound and leaves a red splotch on the ground. You
also score three points. However troops are useful too, if you save some
of your own and take them to the hospital, you get one mine for every 
five troops that make it. The goal in multiplayer mode is to capture the
opponents flag (stored in a bunker) and carry it back to your garage.
You have an unlimited number of tanks to do this with. In you vs the computer
mode, you have a limited number of tanks and simply try to score lots 
of points.

Bugs (or misfeatures) :

What review would be complete without some negative news. The good news is
that this game was played for 36 hours straight and never gurued. My machine
runs 1.2 with expanded memory so the two worst cases were taken into account.
One of the most annoying features, is the problem with stuck tanks. It is
possible to get a tank wedged in some rubble. Normally, holding the joystick
in one direction for > 10 seconds will unwedge it, sometimes the only way to 
get out is to have the other player come around and destroy you. 

Another feature of this game is mines. You can lay mines anywhere you chose
and when the enemy tank gets within range the mine blows up, destroying the
tank. Unfortunately the way to drop mines is to stop, press the fire button
and then pull down on the joystick. The mine drops and you have some time
to get away from it before it arms itself. Unfortunately, these same moves
are often used in battles with enemy units! If you are carrying a mine, and
while fighting drop it and fail to notice you did so (quite easy) then 
it blows you up. Most annoying.

It is also possible to drive into the other players 'garage' (where the 
tank always starts from.) If you do this, then when the enemy player 
gets destroyed the game will create a new tank right on top of you. 
The game won't let you move because your too close to the other tank,
you cant shoot it because it isn't in front of your gun, and the 
helicopters cant get it because the garage protects you. You guessed it,
reboot time. 

Another highly publicized but poorly implemented feature was multiplayer
through the serial port mode. At Hackers we had two Amigae connected 
together via a null modem cable. Unfortunately, FirePower wanted to see
a modem on the serial line. It refused to connect without some sort of
AT type handshake going on. This was a big disappointment. 

As a packaging flaw there were no instructions packages with the game.
It was sort of like a coin-op in that we figured things out by trying
them. There are some screens of instructions although they do not go
far enough in describing the game.

Finally, the game does not multitask, although with some forethought it
should be able to on large memory space machines. And if you try to start
it from the workbench it gives you a message to reboot the machine with 
the firepower disk in drive 0. 

Conclusions : 

Overall I would rate this game a high 7 or 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. The
multiplayer mode is definitely more fun than the single player mode and
the fact that you don't have to have two Amigae is a big win. The graphics
are very nice and are easily 'arcade quality.' I have no qualms about 
recommending this game to anyone who likes arcade 'action' games. For
a great time compare it to 'tank' on the Atari 2600 some time, what a
difference a decade can make no? 


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.