Download issue 9 - Total Amiga Magazine

REVIEWSREVIEWSable. These vary in their capabilities ofspeed versus armour, you pick the onethat’s suits (you sir!) your playing style,fast and furious or slow and stealthy.Throughout the game you receive helpfulhints and messages from your comrades,these are both audible and displayedon your screen. These messagesare an integral part of the game as theygive you new objectives as you progressthrough each level. To complimentthese, short cut scenes flesh out the plotand between each level there is a summaryof the next mission (there is plentyof time to read it as level loading takesquite a long time).Hard or Soft Sir!Your commrades often contact youas shown in this grab.As I have mentioned earlier there aretwo basic types of mission in Shogo,one with you in your MCA, the other onfoot with hand held weapons. These twotypes of mission styles are required tocomplete the game, and fit into the storyas it progresses.The MCA’s are absolutely huge withheavy body armour and can carry muchmore powerful weapons than when onfoot. When in your MCA you get a senseof it’s size when the enemy come runningout at you on foot, soldiers look likeants and tanks look like toys, the enemyMCA’s however are not so easy to crushunder foot as they are the same size asyou and armed to the teeth likewise!Despite their size the MCA’s are quitenimble and don’t feel cumbersome,which is pretty handy as battle conditionscan get quite frantic with enemiescoming at you from all angles. As thisgame has a true 3D environment (likeQuake and Heretic II) enemy fire oftencomes from above and below. With allthese enemies after your blood, there’sonly one thing for it, give em hell withwhole arsenal of arse kicking weapons(once you have collected them ofcourse). There are several types ofweapons ranging from a sniper rifle(complete with telescopic sights), lasercannon, juggernaut (rocket launcher)and spider which creates a whirlwind ofdestruction around the victim it hits. Allof these weapons are eye candy towatch being fired, so much so thatsometimes I forget to watch out forenemy incoming fire-power!On foot the world seems to be a muchmore dangerous place to live, the onlyprotection you have is light body armourand first aid packages that are sparselyscattered around the levels. You are initiallyarmed with a pair of pistols (akaLara Croft) and can collect shotguns,assault rifles and machine guns, but atthe end of the day nothing to comparewith what you can carry with the MCA.This means that your style of play nowhas to change to a more stealthy approach,creeping up on your enemy andusing objects for cover is the order ofthe day. It only takes a couple of hits toput you in a critical condition and makeyou start looking for those precious firstaid packs.In both these types of mission you areoften fighting alongside allies, which canbe “wingmen” who assist you or couldbe other troops in need of your support.In general these allies seem pretty dumbbut they add another dimension to thegame. If nothing else they help drawfire-power away from you which is agood plan in my book!Visit interesting Placesand Destroy Them!One of the outstanding aspects ofShogo is the varied locations that areincluded, there are indoor and outdoorlevels with terrains such as deserts,cities and snow covered mountainregions. The indoor levels see youeverywhere from factories to spaceships, which will have the usual lifts,doors and corridors. One level I reallyenjoyed had many vertical shafts withfans blowing air up them creating currentsyou could ride. Solving this levelinvolved finding switches to reverse theairflow and destroying red hot heatsources enabling you to navigate yourway through the shafts. This level is typicalof the problem solving in Shogo, itinvolves a bit of thought but doesn’tdetract from the action.Although Shogo has many varied andinteresting locations, overall I didn’t findthe graphics as impressive as in HereticII, maybe this is more down to the settingof the game than the quality of thegraphics themselves. For example inHeretic II you could turn a corner andfind a temple or other impressive building,Shogo’s post apocalyptic cities justdon’t have the same jaw dropping impact.Having said that the graphics stillevoke a good atmosphere and suit thestyle of the game. There are also someimpressive effects especially the smoketrails from some of the weapons, whichblend smoothly into the backgroundmaking them look very realistic indeed.With all the graphical options set to maximumquality Shogo runs at an acceptableframe rate on my Amiga, noticeablya bit faster than Heretic II. In commonwith all 3D games it slows down whenlots of activity is on screen, but you canobtain higher rates by reducing some ofthe quality options.The sound quality of the game is alsovery good, particularly the transmissionsyou get from your comrades giving youhelp and guidance. The usual soundeffects from the various weapons arethere too of course, but we expect thatdon’t we? A point of note that when theinteractive short cut scenes are playing,I noticed there were no timing glitchesthat Heretic II seemed to be buggedwith. In Heretic II there were severalshort cut scenes where the sound andmovement were totally out of synch, thatdoes not seem to be the case in thisgame however. There is also quite a bitof music (Japanese pop style tracks)that plays between levels and whilst inthe menus, however you can turn theseof if they irritate you, having said thatthey are suited to the game unlike thesoundtracks found on Earth 2140!Meet interesting Peopleand Kill Them!Like Heretic II and Quake before it, thisgame also supports networking. In multiplayermode up to 128 (!) players canfight it out deathmatch style. Shogo onlysupports TCP/IP networking so you’llneed a stack like Miami or Genesis runningon each machine, the physical connectioncan be anything your TCP/IPstacks support so you could use asimple null modem cable, Ethernetcards or even the Internet.Once the TCP/IP connection is establishedyou can enter Multi-playermode from either the launcher or thegame menus, Shogo then starts itsMulti-player Wizard which guides youthough the setup step by step. First youchoose whether to host a new game orjoin an existing one, then you choose aname for your player, which MCA youwish to use and its colour scheme. Ifyou’re hosting a game the next fewscreens let you set parameters such asthe number of Frags (kills) or minutesafter which the level will change, howmany players will be allowed to connectand so on, finally you choose whichlevels you want to play on. There areabout 20 levels to choose from, someyou will recognise from the single playergame and others are specially designedfor death matches. As in the game someof the levels you fight in an MCA andothers are on foot.If you’re connecting to an existing serverthe Wizard lists any games available, ifPay by credit card andget a free CD-ROM.(call for details)State Amiga modelwhen ordering.CDROM GAMESAdventurers Lair .........................£20Amiga Classix .............................£15Amiga Classix 2..........................£20Aminet Games ............................£15Aqua............................................£15Arcade Classix + ........................£10Arcade Classix Mk 2...................£15Blade ...........................................£10Bubba n Stix CD32.....................£10Bubble Heroes ............................£15CDS Collection ...........................£15Cedric..........................................£15Chess 2k .....................................£15Civilization AGA/ECS .................£10D-1000 doom data......................£10Eat The Whistle ..........................£10European Superleague ..............£10Exodus ..........................................35Fears CD32.................................£10Fields of Glory ............................£15Final Odyssey .............................£10Fightin Spirit................................£15Flyin High....................................£15Foundation Gold .........................£25Foundation Und.Land.................£15you want to join an Internet game youneed the IP address of the server. Tofind the addresses of currently activeInternet servers visit the Servers pageon http://www.shogo-mad.com/. I testedlocal networking using a null modemconnection running at 57600bps withgood results although there did seem tobe some slow-down when the actionwas particularly frantic. I was only ableto briefly try Internet play however itseemed to be rather slow, again especiallywhen there was lots going on. Asusual with Internet speed issues It’shard to say whether Shogo needs a particularlyfast connection or if I just had aslow connection to the server.That was FunAll in all I think this is another top qualitygame release from our gaming heroesHyperion, this sort of game, like HereticII pushes our current hardware to thelimit. Those of you who have Voodoo 3graphics cards will get an even betterperformance out of the game, as Ibelieve the weakest link in the Amigagaming hardware isn’t the CPU but thelimitations of the Permidia 2 basedgraphics cards (BVision), so I can’t waitto see it on an Amiga One. But you doget an acceptable frame rate out of it tobe able to enjoy the game, particularly ifyou fiddle with the settings to obtainmore speed. This game is really enjoyableand quite addictive, playing to theearly hours of the morning is quite oftenthe case!FORE-MATT Home Computing(08700) 112234 • Dept. C, PO Box 835, Wootton Bassett, Swindon, SN4 8RXHeretic 2 £40 Shogo £35Napalm £28 Myst £25Simon Sorcerer 2 £30CDROM GAMESGenetic Species ......................... £10Goal! 2000.................................. £10Gremlin Classix .......................... £15Imperator CD.............................. £15Islona Collection......................... £20Labyrinth Of Time ...................... £10Land of Genesis ......................... £20Mad About Mahjong................... £10Megaball Deluxe ........................ £15Moonbases................................. £10Naughty Ones CD32.................. £10Nightlong/Quake ........................ £45Pacman Attack ........................... £10Payback...................................... £35Phoenix Fighters ........................ £10Pictris.......................................... £15Pinball Illusions CD32................ £10Pure Doom ................................. £10Red Mars .................................... £15Retro Gold .................................. £10Seaside....................................... £20Shadow of 3rd Moon................. £20Simon the Sorcerer .................... £10Sixth Sense Invest’ns ................ £15Skeleton Krew CD32.................. £10CDROM GAMESSpherical Worlds.........................£10Sports Mad..................................£20Star Fighter .................................£15Street Racer CD .........................£10Superfrog ....................................£10Super Methane Bros. .................£10Tales From Heaven.....................£20Testament CD .............................£10Theme Park CD .......................£10The Games Room ......................£15The Prophet ................................£15Trivial Pursuit ................................ 15Turbo Racer 3D...........................£10T-Zero..........................................£25Ultimate Gloom ...........................£10Ult. Super Skidmarks..................£10Uropa 2 ................................£10Virtual Ball Fighters ....................£15Virtual Karting 2 ..........................£10Vital Light ....................................£10Wasted Dreams ..........................£20Whales Voyage 2........................£15Wipeout 2097 PPC .....................£30Word Games ...............................£10Zombie Massacre{18} ................£15UTILITIES17 Bit Level 6 ..............................£10100%AMIGA CD Magazine ..........£5100%AMIGA Annual UK Sub .....£48A-Z of Amiga Games ..................£20Amiga Desktop Video2 ...............£10Amiga Developer 2.1 ..................£20Amiga Repair Kit.........................£35Amiga Tools 8..............................£15Amiga Web Offline ........................£5Aminet Set 4 - 11 ea ...................£30Aminet Set Subscribe .................£20Aminet Singles ............................£13Aminet Subscription....................£10Amos PDCD2..............................£20Animatic.........................................£5Art Studio Pro..............................£35Asim CDFS v3.x..........................£30Aweb II v3.3 ................................£40Aweb II v3.3 OS3.5upg...............£30Beauty of Chaos ...........................£5Best of Airsoft..............................£10Best of Mecomp v1 .......................£5Blitz Basic 2.1 (ult.).....................£10Candy Factory Pro......................£35CybergraphX ...............................£25ResultsProsExcellent gameplayVaried missionsEngrossing storyConsVery high hardware requirementsUTILITIESCross Dos 7 Gold....................... £40Darkage Developer .................... £10Diavolo 2000 .............................. £50Digibooster Pro .......................... £20Digital Almanac 2 ....................... £25Digital Makeup............................ £15Dopus 5 Magellon 2 ................... £50EASys! Enhancer ....................... £20Emulators Unlimited................... £10Euro CD v2................................. £10Extreme CD................................ £10Extreme Visual FX2 ................... £10Faces of Mars 2001 ................... £15fxPaint v1.5................................. £60fxScan v3.0................................. £25Gateway v1 (netBSD) ................ £10Giga Graphics ............................ £10Giga PD v3 (3Cdset).................... £5GlowIcons..................................... 15Graphic Sensations.................... £10Guinness Records v2................. £10HD Patchez ................................ £10Hidden Truth ............................... £10Ibrowse 2.x ................................. £35In To The Net (2CD) ..................... £3Send 3x first classstamps for cataloguepacked with details onour vast range of titlesand PD from only 70p.MooVid Pro 2 £20 CyberGraphX £25Hell Squad £30 Amiga Classix 3 £20 Earth 2140 £30 NcodeR £25PFS 3 £35UTILITIESLearning Curve ...........................£20Lightrom 8 or 9 ea. .....................£30LSD 1 or 2 ea..............................£15Make CD DAO ............................£50Midi Files.....................................£10Multimedia Backdrop ..................£15Net News Offline v1......................£5Network CD.................................£10Network CD 2..............................£15Octamed Soundstudio ................£10OS 3.9 .........................................£30Photo CD Manager.....................£15Photofolio v2 ...............................£25Photogenics 5 .............................£70Red Hat Linux .............................£20Screen Savers 2 .........................£10Sounds Terrific 2 .........................£10Studio Professional 2.2 ..............£20System Booster ..........................£10Texture Heaven 1&2 ...................£10Turbo Calc 5................................£60Turbo Print 7.x.............................£40VHI Studio 5.2.............................£30Workbench 3.0 Set .....................£10Workbench Addon CD ................£10“The Amiga Online Superstore” - Visit our new 128 bit secure online shop at www.forematt.co.ukAmiga Retro Classics Site: www.forematt.free-online.co.ukEMail: sales@forematt.co.uk30CLUBBED - Issue 9Winter 200131