@~Something Different ... Abuse - Crack Dot Com (on SynTax Disks 937a&b) Reviewed by James Judge on a 486sx Aha, here's a games genre which we don't often see in SynTax - the humble platform game. But this is a platform game for the nineties. No more cuddly little cutesy blokes with red cheeks, collecting strawberries and jumping on nasty snails heads to make them jump off the screen. No more comical grimaces as our little pixelated hero jauntily strolls across some red-hot lava. No more plinky-plonk-plinketty-plink soundtracks playing in the background coupled with spring-like noises as our cheery chappy jumps from platforms mystically floating in the air. Oh no, this is a platform that acknowledges the fact that we're no longer playing games on a Megadrive with a 'gamepad'; it knows that we've braved the levels of Doom, killing every cacodemon in sight without a scratch; it knows the horror we go through as a nation every Saturday night with a mixture of Dale Winton, Cilla Black, Noel Edmonds and Anthea Turner gracing our TV screens. It is a platform game with guns. A platform game with blood. A platform game with ATTITUDE! Oh yes, and how I love it. We'll forgo the obligatory paragraph about what the game is about - to be honest I don't know. There's a screen of text at the start of the game, but I just don't get it. Still, no matter, what's a screen of text when there's a pulsating mass of pixels waiting to be maimed around the corner? The game has you controlling some form of robot-with-a-gun, and the idea is to progress through each level, finding a teleporter and teleporting to the next level. What the ultimate aim of the game is I don't know - maybe that will be revealed in the full version (yup, I'm reviewing the shareware version that was on a PCF cover disc in '95). You jump, run and duck killing everything that moves, picking up a variety of weapons and bonus bits (such as bionic legs that make you run super-fast) and trying to stay alive long enough to get just that little bit further. And that, as they say, is all there is to it. But it's how the game does it that sets it aside from everything I've seen before and makes it such as joy to play. Maybe this is to be expected as the lead programmer is a guy who was on the Doom project... From the start the game reeks class. People who have played games such as Doom may have had to use gamma correction - a little method whereby the game increases the contrast of the colours, making everything seem brighter. It's easier than fiddling around with your monitor but sometimes the preset levels of correction can lead to the screen looking far worse than it did in perpetual darkness. Abuse overcomes this problem in an intuitive way. It presents you with a scale of red, blue and green colours from the really bright 'pure' colours right down to black. the first time you load the game you must choose the darkest colour that you can see without selecting a black. Then from these choices the computer calculates the best palette for your graphics card and monitor. This method of colour selection is really great as there is no need to bother with a preset level of gamma correction and it still lets you have the moody, dark graphics with which this game excels. The graphics are, really, pretty simple. They're not 3D and not particularly big, but they're nicely detailed and have a dark, oppressive moody-manga feel about them, great! The main character is wonderfully animated, and so are the enemies and explosions. There is also a lovely light effect which seems to represent day and night and it really does look impressive and moody - especially when you get to see something amounting to a sunset over a skyline. Hand in hand with the graphics are some sumptuous sound effects. There's the noise of machinery working in the background, as well as murmurs from the alien creatures inhabiting the game, all of which go to make a nail-biting experience, especially when you're walking down a corridor and the sound of your enemies is becoming louder and louder... The control method for the game is slightly different to most games as it requires you to use both the mouse and the keyboard simultaneously. It sounds a bit strange, but it does work wonderfully well. You use the keyboard to move your character around the screen and the mouse to aim and select weapons. What this basically means is that the keyboard controls the legs and the mouse controls the torso of your character, allowing you to do a number of cool trick shots that just aren't viable with normal controls. The only failure is with the weapon selection. Throughout the game you pick up a variety of weapons and to select them you must bring the cursor down to the panel at the bottom of the screen and click on the relevant icon with the right mouse button. Fool me often tries to use the left mouse button, wasting valuable ammo. Maybe it's just me, but I'd've preferred to be able to select my weapons with a left click, or at least with the keyboard. Still, one small failing doesn't put down a good game. The action is frantic and Aliens fans will recognise the enemy which you face most of the time. Puzzles are relatively easy (shoot a few walls, kill all the enemies to open a door, activate big guns in the scenery to stop you from getting killed) and the game flows really well. I haven't found any bugs, as such (just a couple of times an alien decided to get stuck in a wall meaning I couldn't shoot it and open a nearby door), and with four difficulty levels the game should appeal to most skills, but not most tastes as there is a lot of gratuitous violence as pieces of alien arm go flying across the screen and, when you die, the way you blow up in a bloody mess is a really nice effect. Get the game if you've got a 486 or above, VGA graphics and a mouse. An SB card is advisable as the sonic channel is really good. For the full version (which includes newer artwork, weapons and 14 new levels) you can pay out $44.95 which is a bit steep for my liking, but it is as good as an iD or Epic game (if not better...). Oh, and let's not forget that included in the shareware version there is a level editor, so you can make levels for all you friends. I haven't had a proper look at this yet, but needless to say it looks comprehensive and has an 80K manual (including tutorials) along with it, so if the fancy takes you you have the tools to do the job. A really good game that is a joy to play. If you like frenetic action that'll have you on the edge of your chair then this is one of the best - no other platform can really stand up to it in terms of moodiness, nail-biting suspense and full-on action. Maybe if it were a little larger, the puzzles were harder and there was a lot more shooting moving at a pace akin to Jazz Jackrabbit then I'd say this was the best platform I'd ever seen. As it is it's damn good. - o -