Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!oddjob!gargoyle!ihnp4!rayssd!wjb
From: wjb@rayssd.RAY.COM (Bill Brogan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: C64 Game Review
Message-ID: <1747@rayssd.RAY.COM>
Date: 31 Dec 87 18:42:56 GMT
Sender: wjb@rayssd.RAY.COM (William J. Brogan @ Raytheon Company, Portsmouth RI)
Distribution: na
Organization: Raytheon Submarine Sandwich Division
Lines: 83
Keywords: Raid on Bungling Bay


		    REVIEW
		Raid on Bungling Bay
		by Broderbund Software
		Overall Rating: A-

	
If you're a fan of arcade action games, include this one in your list of
'must haves'.  You control an attack helicopter armed with a multipurpose
(air-to-air, air-to-ground) cannon, and high explosive bombs.  Your base
is an aircraft carrier which constantly sails around the toroid which makes
up (I assume) Bungling Bay.  Your mission is to knock out the six war factories
located on the islands scattered in Bungling Bay.

Sounds like the same old shoot-em-up kill-everything-in-sight garden variety
arcade game, right?  Wrong.  This game takes considerable skill, experience,
and strategy to win.  The enemy defences consist of mobile flak tanks, (wimpy)
fixed flak guns, (wimpy at first, becoming very nasty) gunboats, (I call them
Iranian gunboats) jet fighters, (they look like A-4 Skyhawks, not too tough 
but they travel in flights of three) jet bombers, (harmless to the chopper, but
they tend to sink your carrier if left unmolested)  and a battleship (which
is practically unstoppable once completed, and will sink your carrier).

You start off on your carrier with a fully operational chopper loaded with
bombs.  The only way to destroy an enemy factory is to drop bombs on it, the
cannon doesn't affect factories.  It takes anywhere from 7 to 18 bombs to
destroy a factory.  Unfortunately, your copter can only carry 9 at a time.
The civilians in this game play quite a prominent role.  They are constantly
repairing things that you damage.  You can hurt a factory bad with 9 bombs,
and while you fly back to your carrier to rearm, the factory (as well as the
gunsites around it) are being repaired.  If you take too long in returning,
it's like you never made the previous strike at all.  The civilians are also
busy constructing that monster battleship.  If they complete it, your
carrier will be history before too long.  You have to delay completion 
by bombing the dock, but don't forget that the object is to knock out the
factories. 

As your copter takes hits, your percentage damage is displayed at the bottom
of the screen.  As the percentage goes up, you lose speed and control 
sensitivity.  At 100 percent damage, you buy the farm (Hopefully crashing into
a factory, or the battleship, and taking it with you).  You get five copters
per game.  Landing on the carrier repairs your damage as well as reloading
your bombs.  Once your carrier is sunk, no more repairs, and no more additional
copters (if you have any of the five remaining).  You can steal more bombs
by landing at one of the enemy airbases.

Still sound too easy?  There's more.  Enemy technology somehow leaps forward
as soon as you destroy three of the six factories.  Instead of gun emplacements
just firing shells which do about 10 percent damage if they hit you, they
start launching heat seeking missiles which follow your every move until they
hit you or run out of fuel.  A heat seeker will cause 30 to 40 percent damage.
With 0 percent damage you can barely outrun one, anything more than that and
you have to outmanuever it.  It is very difficult to outwit a heat seeker,
avoid enemy jet fighters, and accurately bomb a factory.

The graphics in this game are fantastic.  The screen scrolls in all directions
in response to the choppers speed and direction.  The view is 'satellite'
top down with objects shown in only two dimensions, but like I said, the 
islands, carrier, and water graphics are all very detailed.  The bottom of the 
screen shows your percent damage, bombs remaining on board, factories remaining 
to destroy, lives remaining, score, and an arrow which constantly points at the
carrier so you can find your way back to rearm/repair.  You also get teletype
messages at the bottom of the screen telling you important things, such as
when the enemy battleship is nearing completion, and when your carrier is being
bombed.  You need a joystick to play this game.

The manual is small and not very detailed, but there isn't much to actually
learn in order to fly and shoot.  Experience shows you how much it takes to
kill a certain factory, or how to beat a flight of jet fighters, or which 
targets are worth blasting, and which are a waste of time.  The game is 
copy protected using a 'bang the drive head against the stop' technique.
Also, it takes a long time (more than 3 minutes) to load.

But, as I said at the beginning, if you like fast action games, which requires 
some amount of planning and strategy to achieve an object (as opposed to just
racking up points) buy this game.  I got mine about a year and a half ago,
and I think I paid about 28 bucks for it.

-- 
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(Bill Brogan--wjb@rayssd.RAY.COM){gatech,ihnp4,linus,mirror,uiucdcs}!rayssd!wjb 
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 "That's where you're wrong, wraith." - Captain America