Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

Bre e ding Baldies will mean your e nergy Heigh-ho haigh-ho, it's off to work Traps a nd pe rils a bound- Selecting the ha nd icon will a llow
bar gets replenished more rapidly - but
beware ove rpopula tion Can be a proble m
we go! The Ba ldie s manufa cturing
weapons of mass de struction
you can even drown
galdies in the sea
players to pick up a nd place the
takties with point a nd click ck ease
system g
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his month seems to be one of extremes, with the ultra detailed sim accuracy
of IFX at one end of the pole and the pure adrenaline-kicking
action of Skidmarks at the other. Both are excellent, but it has to be said
that the first can seem so serious as to be po-faced,
while the other is fun but hardly involving enough
to tie you up gaming for days on end,
Fortunately, gameplayers looking for fun and a small
dose of mental stimulation won't have to hold their breath
for too long. Developed by newcomers Creative Edge,
Baldies is shaping up well to enter the exclusive top
drawer reserved for classic games like Populous and
Lemmings.
The Baldies may look completely harmless, but beneath
their placid exterior it turns out they're a right old bunch
of vicious, conniving creatures. The graphics are sweet and
bright, but this game is about nothing short of tribal
warfare.
Players will lead a band of Baldies through quirkilythemed
worlds, their object being to collect materials,
strategically invent devices and kill off the enemy tribes
The a tte ntion to de ta il is obviously highly
impre ssive with diffe re nt type s of Ba ldie s
exhibiting diffe mt cha ra cte ristics
Just some of those
pleasant little
Inventions you
can tinke r with -
traps, mine s a nd
firehead bombs
will give you a
good sta rt
Life is tough
when you've
got no ha ir -
here one
Rattly
disappears
into a hola
le ft by.. pla nt
pit trap, while
two others
are victims Of
the spring
they'll inevitably encounter, Needless to say, however, the opposition is not going
to take it lying down.
The game is controlled from a god-like position. To get started players will have
to build houses for their Baldies and then find the right balance between collecting,
inventing and breeding - yes, that's right, breeding, because no matter how
unsavoury the at of baidy procreation may be, the bigger the tribe the more
you'll be able to accomplish.
Our press release warns that this game is not to be compared to Lemmings or
Settlers, but Baldies is going to appeal to fans of strategy games with arcade
front-ends. There are also similarities to old favourites like Populous, Sim City and
particularly Megalomania, but thankfully Creative Edge have injected large
amounts of creativity and humour to give the title an original flavour,
Though Baldies will be a strategy game, the designers
have concentrated their efforts on making it easy to control
and get in to. In fact, any task that took more than two
clicks on the mouse was abandoned in order to make sure
the game was quick and easy to play.
There are going to be a number of different types of
Baldy to control, ranging from workers and soldiers to scientists
and giants. Each will have their own characteristics -
some will have a nap when they're bored, while others will
take shelter under trees when it rains.
Many actions taken by the player will be rewarded graphically.
Drop a firehead bomb on your enemy, for example,
and they'll run screaming and waving their arms in a torturous
blaze of flame. It all sounds very pleasant.
A huge range of weird and wonderful inventions have
been included in the game, though in the interests of playa•
bility they're introduced a few at a time as you progress