Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

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Programmed by: Graham Mackarel
Available from: Underground PD
A variation on another classic game of yesteryear, namely Breakout. Here,
instead of using a ball to demolish a wall, you use clowns hopping on a
seesaw to pop passing balloons.
The game is controlled by mouse and there is a definite knack to making
the flying clown land at just the right point on the seesaw to launch the other
clown as high as possible into the air.
There are also bonus objects which appear when certain balloons are burst
and can be collected to give your clowns special abilities. These include
Umbrellas which earn you an extra life and lots of points, Diddy Balloons
which allow you to control the flying clown's position with the mouse, and
Wings, with which the flying clown can gain extra height.
There's a second game on the disk called Drip, by a bloke called Art Skiles,
which bears something of a similarity to Pacman. The objective is to travel
around a screenful of pipes, rusting the pipes as you go. Along the way,
various enemies will be in pursuit, ranging from ice cubes to electric coils. If
they get too close, you can 'drip' yourself down the screen to another pipe.
With 15 levek to negotiate (none of them very easy), Drip presents a longterm
challenge. It's been knocking around the Public Domain for some time
but as one of two simple but addictive games on this disk, it should provide
plenty of entertainment.
LTI MATUM
Classy presentation, atmospheric music, and
some flashy introduction screens set the scene
beautifully for this futuristic 3D shoot-'em-up.
The year is 2030 and crime levels are at an
all-time high. A new breed of criminals, the
Transgressors, increasingly control every aspect
of city life. The law enforcement agencies have
poured all their resources into ending the violence
but until now, they've struggled to contain
it. Now they've come up with a new
weapon in the fight against crime: the
Vindicators.
you play one such Vindicator, Rick Murphy,
whose family has just been wiped out in a
cunning strike by the Transgressors. In an effort
to gain revenge you have challenged the
Transgressor gang members to a series of oneon-one
tank duels in special combat arenas.
Ultimatum is an enjoyable blaster, with
plenty to challenge even hardened garners. Its
not perfect; there's some irritating disk swapping
during loading, although thankfully the
game is hard drive installable, and whilst the
graphics are colourful, they are functional
rather than spectacular. The frame rate isn't
stunningly impressive either which can, at
times, make keeping track of your enemy's
position rather awkward. Still, 3D games frequently
suffer graphically due to their complexity,
and since Ultimatum was written in AMOS
3D, a lot of these problems aren't really the
author's fault. Besides, the most important
aspect of any game is the playability and in
that respect Ultimatum fares well, making it
definitely worth a look. It requires at least an
Al 200 to run, and is shareware, with the registration
fee being fifteen Australian or ten US
dollars.
Programmed by: Stuart Matthews
Available from: Underground PD
n U ltima tum: a shooty garnet, with ta nk§ a nd 'tuft
n D ie miste r tra nsgre ssor. Pa infully
AMIGA COMPUTING
MA Y 1996
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ci Owing a la rge , de bt to ga me s like Bre a kout, C ircus pa cks ple nty of pla ya bility
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IProgrammed
by: Andreas Gelhausen
Available from: Online PD
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COUT v2.3
Cl The ra the r ta sty M tn inte rfa ce of the
highly informa tive Scout
Scout allows you to monitor what's going
inside your Amiga. It can display lists of tas
resident commands, assigns, ports and
on. You can also mess around quite a b
freezing tasks or removing interrupts f
instance.
The program uses MUI and it's extrem
user-friendly el as a result. All the information
displayed in neat little windows and oper
tions can be performed at the click of a b
ton. However, if you're not an MUI fan, vi
ttul ally all of Scout's features can be accessed
via the shell.
Scout also has an ARexx port with an
impressive range of commands supported b
the program. Apparently, its even possible to
use Scout as a TCP/IP service through
AmiTCP v4.0 so that your machine is avail.
able to other machines in a network.
Whilst the information Scout can provide
you with isn't necessarily going to be incredi.
bly exciting, it should be extremely useful to
programmers, and control freaks will appre
ciate the numerous options available.