Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!bionet!apple!well!ewhac
From: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Miscellaneous Miscellany
Summary: Various babblings, including Starglider II, Virus, and Amy.
Message-ID: <7489@well.UUCP>
Date: 28 Oct 88 08:36:40 GMT
Reply-To: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
Distribution: na
Organization: Hole Earth 'Lectronic Loss (or words to that effect)
Lines: 61
Quote: "Data, don't babble."  -- Jean-Luc Picard

[ I wonder how hard Japan is laughing over OS/2? ]

	Yesterday, I visited our local Amiga dealer to pick up a copy of
1.3.  They didn't have it, so I bought Starglider II instead.

	This game kicks serious butt on a 14 MHz '020 machine.  Can you say
"smooth"?  Can you say "fast"?  Very nice.  The only thing about it that
doesn't work on my machine is the digitized music; it just refuses to play
it (this is true of Carrier Command also).

	I find that setting the option to lock the crosshair to the center
of the screen makes it easier to aim at things.  The guns always shoot
striaght forward, but the crosshair may not be pointing in that direction.
So I lock it.  Is this a problem?

	Also, could someone clue me in on how to scoop up energy from the
sun without frying myself?  When you get way out to the far planets, the
opportunities for replenishing energy supplies are few and far between.

	While I was at the store, I saw another game from the makers of
Starglider, called Virus.  The idea is that you have to destroy a bunch of
alien saucers that are infecting your green toroidal world with a virus.
You have this hovercraft-type thing which you fly around and attempt to kill
the bad guys.  The view is from the third person i.e. it's not an out-the-
window simulation.  Because the view is fixed, they can make assumptions
about what the image will look like.  Consequently, the animation is very
very fast.  The landscape even has rolling hills.  It's really kinda neat to
look at.

	Unfortunately, the hovercraft-thingy is almost impossible to
control.  They've developed a new control method utilizing the mouse.
Basically, you move the mouse in a direction, and the hovercraft-thingy will
point in that direction.  If you keep moving it in that direction, it will
start to tilt more and more in that direction, causing to move more quickly
in that direction when you apply thrust.  In theory, it sounds good; in
practice, it's the pits.  Some people may get used to it, but in the ten
minutes I played with it, I switched to keyboard controls and found those
preferable.

	Conclusion:  It looks *real neat*, but try before you buy.

	Also, while I was there, I noticed a couple of guys attempting
somewhat unsuccessfully to make the store's Amiga 500 do something
interesting.  So I sat down and started showing off a bunch of stuff.  I
showed NewTek Demo Reel #1, F/18 Interceptor, The Three Stooges, Deluxe
Paint II, some of last year's Killer Demos, and a whole bunch of other
stuff.

	They left thoroughly impressed.  The guy who is buying is currently
an IBM-PC owner, with "the works" (640K, EGA, hard drive, etc etc etc.).
He's gonna dump it for an Amiga.  The only question left in his mind was
whether to minimize short-term costs and get an A500, or go for
expandability and get an A2000.  But it seems certain that another Amiga
user will be joining us shortly.  One down, 250,000,000 to go...

	All in all, it wasn't a bad day.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape	INET: well!ewhac@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
 \_ -_		Recumbent Bikes:	UUCP: pacbell > !{well,unicom}!ewhac
O----^o	      The Only Way To Fly.	      hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack")
"Work FOR?  I don't work FOR anybody!  I'm just having fun."  -- The Doctor