Prince - ARC RRP œ24.95                  
                       (Strategy/wargame)

                      Reviewed by P.J.Darke

Prince is a new release from Atari's own in-house software company 
ARC.  It  is a strategy/wargame in  which  you play the part of  a 
Prince commanding one of two opposing armies in a medieval setting 
on an island.

SCENARIO.

It  is the tenth century on an island somewhere off the  coast  of 
Europe.  An almost permanent state of warfare has existed  between
at least two of the island's many Princes for at  least  a century 
and  a half, as one envious monarch after another tried to  extend 
his power and influence.

At present,  although hostilities are temporarily  suspended,  the 
peace is an uneasy one.  The two Princes are stalemated. They hold 
roughly the same sized territories and have approximately the same 
number  of villages,  towns,  subjects and armies but each one  of 
them  has  the  ambition  to lead a  great  military  campaign  of 
conquest and put the whole island under his power.

Now was a time of great crisis. Vorgrim, the King, was  dying. His
last command to his  Lords was "Go  to the islands to  the  South, 
take  your tribal war bands and prove your worth one  final  time. 
Test  your hearts and steel for me once more and find the  one  to 
take my place. Find my Prince!"

The digitized music which plays as you load the game is excellent, 
as are the sound effects during play. The sounds of clashing steel 
and cries of the injured men are very  realistic.  Sadly,  however 
the  game has little more to commend it and I found that  after  a 
very  short  time I became bored and could not honestly  say  that 
this  is a game which I would spend a great deal of time  playing. 
Although, to be fair, strategy games are not my forte and in  this 
particular case strategy is the most important element of the game 

and  anyone who is heavily into strategy and wargaming might  well 
find this to be very much to their taste.

When  the game has loaded you are presented  with the game  set-up 
screen.  The  upper  two-thirds of the screen present  eight  maps 
showing a variety of different terrains varying from ice and  snow 
to deserts,  mountains or grassy plains.  The player has to select 
one of the maps as the battle area.

At the bottom of the screen are various other icons.  On the  left 
is  shown  the  banners of the two opposing armies  and  you  must 
select  to  play either RED or BLUE. Next are icons  for  the  two 
armies  by  means of which the strength and  disposition  of  both 
armies are selected and you are able to select the total number of 
cavalry  and  foot regiments and the total number of men  in  each 
army. Next come the icons to select other parameters. BLIND is  an 
option  which  allows you to select the visibility  of  the  enemy 
forces  and  can be used in three ways; firstly ENEMY  TROOPS  AND 
BANNERS ALWAYS VISIBLE, secondly ENEMY TROOPS AND BANNERS ARE ONLY 
VISIBLE  WHEN  YOUR  TROOPS ARE ON THE SCREEN  and  finally  ENEMY 
TROOPS ARE ONLY VISIBLE WHEN YOUR TROOPS ARE ON THE SCREEN.  ENEMY 
BANNERS ARE NEVER VISIBLE.

Next  is the  one- or two-player option. If a two-player  game  is 
selected, two  computers are required with a serial  link  between 
them.  The two machines may be any combination of ST, Amiga or PC.
Unfortunately as I have only one machine available I was unable to 
try  this option.  However I have no doubt that this would  add  a 
touch  of  realism to the game as playing against  another  person 
rather  than a computer would undoubtedly be far  more interesting 
than playing the computer.

The  load/save  option enables you to restore a  previously  saved 
game.

The  final icon on the set-up screen is START and  selecting  this 
takes  you into  the game proper. When this is  selected  you  are 
presented with the map which you have selected in the top part  of 
the  screen.  The lower left hand side of the screen provides  the 
pause  and save options while further to the right  are  direction 
arrows  which move a window on the large scale map or which scroll 
the map  at higher  magnification.  

Next is the  zoom control. The first  two  levels of magnification
have a frame showing the area  visible at the  highest  level. The
frame can be moved to any desired  area of  the map which can then
be  centred on  it.  By selecting  progressively  higher levels of
magnification  you  can see  the  position  of the troops.  At the
highest  level you  can obtain  a status display  by clicking on a
man.  The  information displayed  is the  colour of  the army  and
number  of  men   remaining, the  identity  of  the  regiment  and
strength. If you select  a  man from your own army, a command menu
is displayed. For cavalry this is TURN, WALK, TROT, GALLOP, CHARGE
or for infantry  TURN, WALK,  RUN, CHARGE,  WITHDRAW or for either
REFORM  and SCOUT.  The SCOUT command detaches a unit to scout for
the enemy.

The final option on this screen is REMOVE CORPSES which allows you 
to either remove all corpses on the battlefield or to remove  them 
as they fall.

There  are many options and many ways to win the battle  depending 
upon the  terrain  and the way you position your troops  and  many 
other factors which any commander will be well aware of,  but  for 
me  this game presents no great challenges and lacks the  one  all 
important quality of any computer game - "ADDICTIVENESS".