Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!betelgeuse!carlson
From: carlson@betelgeuse (Richard L. Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Star Wars
Summary: not worth the money
Message-ID: <11749@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 1 Apr 89 00:12:54 GMT
References: <11764@louie.udel.EDU> <671@wsu-cs.uucp> <120@dg.dg.com>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: carlson@betelgeuse.berkeley.edu (Richard L. Carlson)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 37

In article <120@dg.dg.com> bosch@dg.UUCP (Derek Bosch) writes:
>In article <671@wsu-cs.uucp> jal@cs.wayne.edu (Jason Leigh) writes:
>>
>>I didn't know there was an Empire Strikes Back game already implemented
>>on the Amiga.  Is this true?
>Actually, Star Wars & Empire Strikes Back were written for the Amiga by an English
>software company Domark.  Both of these programs have been out in England since 
>last June!!!  Broderbund managed somehow to get the rights to the US release of
>Star Wars, but Domark still has the rights to the US release of E. S. B..

Well, just to add to the confusion here, I bought both Star Wars and
Empire Strikes Back last year from the Winners Circle here in Berkeley.
And they were both the Domark version.  And I don't think either is worth
the money.

(1) Star Wars has poor sound (the different channels of the main theme
don't even match (!), one gets ahead of the others; not all of the voices
were digitized, and those that were were done poorly, often being chopped
off too soon); the game play is relatively slow and jerky; and the
graphics are not faithful to the original (e.g., the way the tie fighters
blow up when shot).  All together, a very crude port.  Maybe Broderbund
has cleaned the thing up?  Maybe my version wasn't the "real" release
version? (wouldn't that be interesting; it certainly cost me enough)

(2) Empire Strikes Back is inherently a much inferior game to Star Wars,
in terms of game play.  Parts of it (i.e. the meteor screen) are just
plain boring.  What really pains me is that this seems to be a much better
*port* than they did for Star Wars --- the sound, graphics, and game play
all seem to be pretty good.  (But be warned that I haven't seen an arcade
ESB in action, so the port might not be as authentic as I think.)

So, in summary, neither game offers good game play in both concept and
implementation.  I guess you'll just have to buy the arcade version :-).

-- Richard
   {tektronix,dual,sun,decvax,...}!ucbvax!ernie!carlson
   carlson@ernie.berkeley.edu