Computer + Video Games - Commodore Is Awesome

KEEP OUT OF THE BLACK
As with all good game shows,
the object of Smash TV is sheer.
unadulterated greed. Every now
and then a big pile of money appears
- or it could be travel vouchers.
or luggage, or even a car.
Your score rises with every object
you collect, but good players
will soon realise that this stuff is
even more valuable at the end of
a section. All your stuff gets
toned up by the computer after
the defeat of a boss and you receive
a massive bonus. If you're
skill and groovy enough to reach
the end of the game though, you
get a bonus for every single item
collected! Scores amassed in
this fashion can get quite unfeasibly
huge, and it's a laugh to
watch your score pile up while
your sad mates cash pile is left
way behind!
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6
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A Kill that let 1 bloke, he's
more than 1 just a pretty
face you 1know!
LISTEN TO TONY...
The extra weapons in Smash TV are not only useful, they're essential.
They appear in the arena from time to time, but you
only have a few seconds to pick them up before they vanish.
The goodies on offer include spreading machine gun fire, grenades,
rockets, swirling razor blades and a very rare bombs -
which only appear on screens with end of level baddies present.
The bosses will not even wince when faced with ordinary
machine gun fire and you can only destroy them with a special
weapon. Speed ups and shields can also be found and make
life a bit easier for the Smash TV contestant, but at the end of
the day it's instincts and reactions that really count!
alt e e I S - a l
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Ste
This map lets you know where points are! V
A MILLION WAYS TO WIN!
The first thing you'll notice when you're playing Smash TV is
the sheer number of sprites on screen at once. Surely the
Super Nintendo should slow down when there are a lot of
sprites on screen. Well, it does if you're a lazy programmer and
you use the hardware alone. Not here though! The Super Nintendo
is supposedly dead slow and as far as clock speed goes,
but the main processor does all it's maths in hardware to make
up and clever coding such as that used in this game makes
Super Nintendo sprites zoom about like nobody's business.
Smash TV is superfast and features squillions of sprites on
screen at once - it's a fine feat which bodes well for the future of
Super Nintendo gaming as a whole.
OH DEAR, LADS...
The best thing about Super Nintendo
Smash TV is the brilliant
control method. The SNES con-
4 Aarght Totally tried! t r o l pad has four fire buttons and
these are used as a second direction pad. You simply press the
top button to fire up, the bottom to fire down and so on. Obviously
you use combinations of these buttons to fire diagonally.
II seems a bit weird at first, but once you get the hang of it control
of the characters becomes a dream. This mimics the control
method of the coin-op perfectly and arcade fans will flip when
they try it!
r._
sass M S S -
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LET'S HAVE A LOOK AT WHAT YOU WOULD 'A WON...
The plot of Smash TV sounds a
bit familiar, and so it should. The
idea of a violent futuristic gameshow
has been around since the
classic seventies movie Rollerball,
The theme was taken to the
extreme a little more recently in
the Arnie smash hit, the Running
Man, which in turn was
based very loosely on a Stephen
King book about a man who's
-
s
e
n
by armed killers. The movie of
course was totally different and it
was directed by Paul Michael
Giesler out of Starsky and
Hutch and a lot of the CVG boys
thought it was crap. The most notorious
of the future game show
themes was the movie Death
Race 2000, which featured a car
race in which you score points by
knocking down pedestrians,
which is not very wise.
Remember, the mines are just as
dangerous as the big guy! 11'
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REVIEW )
1 Smash TV was an arcade
blast and a half,
and I never really expected
the home console
versions to come
up to the mark - but Acclaim
1-
have done themselves
proud and turned
In a conversion which
almost lops the coin-op
for sheer speed and excitement! All the
best features of everyone's favourite
pocket change guzzler have been faithfully
captured, right down to crystal clear sampled
speech, grunts, groans and yells! The
sheer number of sprites the Super Nintendo
manages to cram on screen is truly
awesome - and sometimes you don't ever
think the onslaught is going to end!
There's a real sense of urgency about the
game - you'll find yourself hanging on until
the bitter end when your boy gives up with
a groan and finally sinkys into the dust as
the commentator burbles on. The NES version
was the best game of its type on that
machine, and Acclaim have done it again
on the Super Nintendo to provide the most
awesome home arcade blaster yet seen, II
you own a Super Nintendo and you like
your action fast and furious, you'd have to
be a dribbling loony to pass up Smash TV,
Buy this cart and tell all your jealous mates
you've got the arcade machine in your bedroom,
because that's basically what this is.
Buy it!
TIM BOONE
GRAPHICS 9 0
SOUNDS 8 8
PLAYABILITY 93
LASTABILITY 8 3
OVERALL 92
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