News

Ernie Returns: Ernie Eaglebeak, the nerd-like hero of Spellcasting
-------------  101, will be back in the autumn in Spellcasting
               201, The Sorcerer's Appliance. Only Ernie can stop
a group of domineering young women, who are under the influence of
the Appliance, from taking over the world. PC only but will no
doubt run on the 1Meg ST using an emulator like the other Legend
games.

Ants in your......: I thought it was a late April Fool joke when I
------------------  first read about it, but it's true - Maxis are
               working on SimAnt where you run an ant colony.
Organise your fellow ants, avoid spiders and expand your territory
through some poor soul's back yard!

Battle Chess: Chess players who fancy a more lively game may have
------------  enjoyed Battle Chess with its animated pieces.
               Battle Chess II is a similar conversion of Chinese
chess featuring grids and a central river running across the board.

Maupiti Island: Remember Mortville Manor? Detective Jerome Lange
--------------  returns, as promised (though it's taken an awfully
               long time) in Maupiti Island where he is called
upon by the islanders to investigate the disappearance of a local
girl called Marie. Mouse and menu-controlled, the graphics look
excellent but evidently the audio effects are also great,
featuring sampled sounds, speech and music.

Blade Warrior: Also delayed for a long time, Blade Warrior is
-------------  an RPG where you gain spells by bartering with
               eight wizards, your final goal being to defeat the
evil demon Murk. Ten spells are available including "travele"
which enables you to use warp gates to get quickly from A to B.

Maddog Williams: Looking very like Sierra/Lucasfilm games, this is
---------------  the first animated adventure from Game Crafters
                and comes in eight "chapters" and has taken four
years to produce, three of which were used to design the system.

The full title is The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the
Dungeons of Duridian. The ST version has 5 double-sided disks and
over 100 screens but only needs 1/2 meg memory to run. The
follow-up, Escape from Solendria, is already in progress.

An Englishman's Home...: Build and run your own castle in this new
-----------------------  simulation from Electronic Arts, starting
               from easy peasant or harder king level of
difficulty. Peasants start off with a partly built castle but still
have to solve the subsequent problems which face any ruler, such
as shortage of money, invaders and inclement weather.

More Data Disks: These seem to be popular at the moment and they
---------------  certainly let you get the maximum value out of
               popular games such as Damocles, Captive and
Cadaver. Next on the cards are not one but two data disks for
Gremlin's Hero Quest, Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord,
costing œ14.99 each.


Leather Goddesses 2: Latest on this long-awaited sequel is that it
-------------------  will be developed on a PC and will need a
               hard disk to play. Screenshots seem to show a
graphics-orientated game, very unlike LGOP. The game starts when
an alien lands in Atom City, USA and you can play as one of three
characters, male, female or ..... monster. The game will use a
point and click interface, animated graphics and digitised voices.

Also coming: Elvira II - Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis -
-----------  Monkey Island II (LeChuck's Revenge) - Greyhawk.