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Reviewer's
Corner
With the nir-PAL upgrade, a lot of good software is now available to North American users. In the interest of generating demand for European products, AC will reprint software reviews and/or screenshots of some of the better looking programs. Some of these may run on an NTSC machine, some may not. The plan is for users to contact our European advertisers or US dealers who may carry overseas products and request software catalogs. You'll like what you see! |
RUFF & REDDY
by HI TEC (Tape) 2.99
by HI TEC (Tape) 2.99
Ruff and Reddy's Space Adventure is the first in a series of games based on famous Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters. Judging by this first release, HI TEC are onto a winner with this series! This game is set on an alien planet, and you control the character Reddy (a nicely animated cat!), who must look around different areas of the planet to find the little aliens (Lilli-Punies; who thinks up these names) which will help to set free your canine buddy Ruff. The graphics are excellent; level one's screens are drawn in different shades of blue, although the cassette inlay card shows much more colourful screen shots from the Commodore 64 version. Of Course, the Atari doesn't have a colour memory map like the C64, so blame the Atari hardware, not the programmer. (Are you listening, Paul Rixon!) Having said that, a little more colour could have been added, but generally the graphics are superbly designed. The movement of the various characters is excellent, with good animation and no characters rubbing each other out. Unlike many other budget priced games, this one has a good quality piece of music accompanying the action, and the ganeplay matches the high quality of the graphics and sound. This game is definitely 'just one more go' material! Although based on a children's cartoon,Ruff and Reddy is probably not really suitable for very young gamesters, as the difficulty rating is pretty high! Some of Reddy's jumps have to be timed to purr-fection (groan!), but the game's characters don't jerk around in 'Jetset Willy' fashion, so it isn't half as frustrating as that game. Your three available lives don't tend to last long! With superb graphics, sound and playability, Ruff and Reddy's Space Adventure is the best platform game to be released on the Atari for some considerable time. Congratulations are in order to programmer Russell Knight and to HI TEC for supporting the Atari.
YOGI'S GREAT
ESCAPE
by HI TEC (Tape) 2.99
ESCAPE
by HI TEC (Tape) 2.99
This is the second in HI TEC's series of cartoon based games, and the first of two games starring Yogi Bear. The story behind this escapade is that Jellystone Park is to be closed down, and rather than stay in a zoo for the rest of his natural, Yogi decides to make a quick getaway before Ranger Smith comes along and takes him for an even quicker getaway in the back of a transit van. The game is of the horizontally scrolling platform variety not too different from Super Mario Brothers in the arcades. There are six different levels to get through as Yogi makes his way through a forest, the wild west, a fairground, a marsh and New York City. The first level is Jellystone Park, which is shaded in murky browns. The graphics are not bad, but the chosen colours are awful. I had to turn the brightness up on my TV as the colours are all too dark. The main character of Yogi Bear is very well drawn and is also nicely animated. The scrolling is a tad jerky but doesn't really interfere with gameplay. Unfortunately, there is not a single note of music in the game, but there are some decent spot effects. During his escape, Yogi can collect the various edible items (he just can't resist those picnic baskets!) which are scattered around for extra points. Collecting all of the various parts of Yogi's car brings a huge points bonus but getting at them involves taking a few extra risks! There are also some invisible items lying around if you can find them! Yogi's Great Escape is very addictive indeed, but like Ruff and Reddy, requires almost pixel-perfect jumping skills. I expect the game will provide many weeks (months) of enjoyment. The playability is marred only by the multi- load cassette system; each level has to he loaded individually from the tape! The six levels are on side two of the cassette. Overall this is another excellent new game from HI TEC Software.
 T-34
This is the game that Ben Poehland has been raving about on the networks. As soon as we can get it away from him, maybe someone could do a nice review for us? Judging by this screen and Ben's comments, I'd like to try this one myself. It DOES require the nir-PAL upgrade. |