News

I'm a pretty patient person (stop laughing, Alan!) but the delay
in the release of the promised Sierra games is getting very
frustrating, especially as several PC-owning friends have been
saying "Oh, aren't they out for the ST yet? What a shame, they're
really good" - or words to that effect. I rang Activision at
the end of April and was told that though no firm release dates
have been set for the forthcoming six packages, they are all
meant to be out during May so, if you're a Sierra fan, you'd
better dust off your credit cards!

In anticipation, I have included some 3-in-1 hints for the (as yet)
unreleased Larry 3, sent to me by a PC-owning friend. Don't let me
down, Activision, or I'll have to get a dunce's hat....

So what else is new or due out soon? First, there's Dragon's
Breath, an icon-driven RPG from Palace. Set in the land of Anrea,
three Dragonmasters have the same aim - to find the three parts of
a talisman which will enable the victor to gain immortality. You
play one of the three characters and must breed dragons with better
abilities than those of your rivals in order to win. The game
sounds a lot of fun as there is a pretty complicated spell-casting
system to get to grips with. There is also the odd arcade sequence
but I gather you can opt out of these if you wish (yes, please).

Hands up all of you who used to have a QL. Though I haven't had one
myself, I have updated QL mag details on Micronet and one game that
was frequently mentioned in very favourable terms was an adventure
called The Blag and each time I saw it mentioned I used to think
what a shame it was that it wasn't on the ST. Well, fret no more
because it is being rewritten for the ST using STAC. Hopefully it
will be available in a few months time and it is planned to be on
two or three disks. I've been privileged to see an early version
and it was looking good even then so I'm eagerly awaiting the
final product. 

Electronic Arts' Starflight is out and should appeal to anyone who'd 
like to save the world. You take the part of a trainee starship
commander and, with a limited starting budget, must boldly trade

where no man (or woman) has traded (trod?) before. It sounds a
combination of RPG, strategy and trading as you try to collect the
vital supplies needed to evacuate your planet Arth before it goes
<kaboom!> as its sun turns super-nova.

Castle Master is also out and is the fourth in the Freescape style
of games (Driller, Dark Side, Total Eclipse) and the first to be
developed on a 16-bit machine. I had never considered the other
three games as adventures but now that I've seen some details of
Castle Master I may have to change my mind.

Also on the shelves is Chronoquest 2, which is set in 13 time
zones (I guess that's what they mean by "13 levels over multiple
epochs"...) and coming on 3 double-sided disks. The game is
icon-driven like its predecessor.

Guess what? The PC version of Ultima VI is out already. That means
we should see it on the ST ...erm ... by the end of the year?

Have you seen the "curiouser and curiouser" Magnetic Scrolls ads?
Just to confirm what we thought they were hinting, Wonderland,
based on the Alice books, is due out at the beginning of June. 

Finally, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark should be released soon.
The graphics look even more lurid than those in Personal
Nightmare which is sure to please all horror fans. I can't say
it sounds my kind of game but I'm a bit squeamish! The game will
be totally icon-driven.