Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!oliveb!intelca!mipos3!omepd!intelob!griff
From: griff@intelob.intel.com (Richard Griffith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: AutoDuel: A Review
Message-ID: <4021@omepd.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jan 89 00:56:35 GMT
References: <6337@dayton.UUCP>
Sender: news@omepd.UUCP
Reply-To: griff@intelob.UUCP (Richard Griffith)
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon
Lines: 71

In article <6337@dayton.UUCP> joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) writes:
>
>Okay.  After a full Christmas weekend of playing AutoDuel every chance I
>got, it's time to Tell The Net what I think.  Hmm.  I wonder if the Net
>cares.
>
>Anyways -- AutoDuel was written by "Lord British and Chuckles".  Hmph.  It's
>based very strongly on the tabletop game "Car Wars" by Steve Jackson games.
>

[ description deleted ]

>Okay -- the hard points:
>
>Multitasks: No.

bleah!

>Copy Protected: Yes.  Maurader wouldn't copy it for me.  It also writes to
>	the disk with some frequency, so I suspect this is going to leave me with
>	hardaches at some point in the not-too-distant future.
>Uses memory wisely: No.  It goes to disk much more than I'd like, probably
>	loading map info and such.  Wish games would learn to check for extra
>	memory and at LEAST toss things into ram: when they can.
>Crashes: Not yet, and I have several hours of play.  But make sure you don't
>	have any I/O errors on the disk.  (These are recoverable if you reinsert
>	the disk and tell it to try again.)

but requires a re-boot to get rid of it...

>Port Quality: The machine doesn't appear to make as much use of the Amiga as
>	one might like -- the graphics are good, but not stunning.  All-in-all,
>	it's fairly well done.

not bad, considering that all they did was recompile their Apple II game
on an Amiga.  Yep, absolutely NO difference between the Apple II version
and the Amiga version.  Same crude graphics (yes, it's hires, but still
barely more than stick-figures...), no sound to speak of (after all, the
Apple only beeps) and as you have already pointed out - insufficent testing,
and useof, available memory. 

As far as I can tell, there is no discernable difference between the 
Amiga version and the Apple II version.   A Great game for the Apple,
but barely passable on Amy...

[ more bad stuff.... ]

>So -- is it a good game?
>
>Well, like I said: I spent every available moment (between my wife yelling
>at me to get off the computer and do something) playing over the weekend.
>You decide if I like it.  -Joe
>-- 
>          When you fall on your head do you land on your feet?
>UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe   (Feed my      Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
>ATT : (612) 375-3537       picture       Joe Larson/MIS 1060
>(standard disclaimer...)   collection)   700 on the Mall      Mpls, Mn. 55402

BTW - I played it for the better part of a day at a friends place, good
thing I didn't buy it....
You're right about the difficulty in copying it...

                               - griff

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* Richard E. Griffith      *    Cyrus Hammerhand                       *
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