| ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ BALL BEARING (c) RADICAL SOFTWARE ★ |
Amstrad Action |
Simon Forrester says, "Remember kids, unoriginal game ideas can be fun," (rather unconvincingly) and bears down on yet another game review... Don't think I'm getting soft or anything, but I always hate starting a game review with a gripe (actually, that's not exactly true, but cut me some slack here, will you?). Today Simon Forrester's hate mission is about public domain software. As well as getting some absolutely useless PD programmers writing disks full of utterly nob software, you'll see quite a lot of wonderfully programmed games and utilities, all with one flaw - the PD game scene is based almost solely on unimaginative people ripping off commercial ideas and thinking they're some kind of subversive movement against professional software (then they write letters to Amstrad Action complaining that the scene is dying).
But now we have Ball Bearing to prove that plagiarism can work both ways. Ball Bearing is modelled exactly on an older French PD game called Croco Magneto, one of those rare PD gems that was actually original (and actually quite good fun). And when I say exactly, I'm not talking about any 'what a massive coincidence' type of thing - they're virtually identical. Which rather seems to beg one important question - why should we be expected to pay money for something we can get for free (in the form of Croco Magneto)'! Anyway, the odds are you'll want to know what the game's about, so here goes. You control a ball bearing that bounces around a strange and hostile terrain, the aim being to get through various levels by collecting gold rings. Along your way, you'll come up against loads of different meanies, such as plants that sap your energy, vines that sap your energy, spikes that sap your energy and loads of other things that sap your energy. Energy sapping isn't all that goes on. There are also obstacles that punish you with things like reverse gravity, slow motion and other weird controls, plus a shield and an ice-pick-type thang, both of which you can pick up to make life easier. But that's your lot. Graphically, Ball Bearing is moderately impressive - everything is reasonably drawn, and scenery blends in nicely. The only slight problems come with the animation - the scrolling really isn't the smoothest I've seen, and quite frankly, what little movement there is doesn't exactly look all that convincing. Sonics next, and a tune that is one of the most simplistic, rattling little pieces of muzak I've ever had the misfortune to hear. The in-game effects don't really add much either, but they are a little less punishing on the ear. Grab factor and gameplay? The initial attraction of this kind of game is always pretty high, but the gameplay is just a little too shallow for my liking. I'm disappointed. Yes, it's a reasonable game, but it's based on a the same concept that made for a fairly decent PD game; and that's the problem. It just doesn't have enough meat to warrant being a full-sized commercial game. So while on the one hand ifs fairly well-programmed and moderately entertaining, once you learn the enthusiasm-draining truth about its predecessor - which is free and only very slightly inferior - you feel you're being ripped off. Sorry, Radical, this is not the way to help the CPC scene and frankly I feel like I'm being patronised. Simon, AA |
|  |
Page créée en 372 millisecondes et consultée 2386 fois L'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko. |
