@~This issue's "Something different..." is:

              RATS! - A game by Sean O'Connor

              Reviewed by Andrew Wielochowski

Rats is a simple, fun and addictive little windows game. You all
remember Tetris, Pacman, Space Invaders, Rodents Revenge. Rats! IS
nothing like 'em. In fact to my knowledge, no game is like Rats!

It ss fairly simple. You blow-up, gas-out, hunt, trap, poison a
number of Rats! running around a maze before they mate and over-
run the maze.

The Rats in the first few levels start out as grey little mites
and can move pretty quick. They turn to adults and will be either
blue or pink depending upon their sex. The males will roam around
looking for females and vice-versa. Then two will mate and have
little rats and the cycle continues. You must keep the number of
rats down and finally kill them off to progress to the next level.

The number of rats is on a bar on the side, and to aid you finding
them there is a rat-radar with a map of the maze. The weapons for
defence include:

BOMB: After 4 seconds these explode killing anything close by.

POISON: A rat who wanders over the skull sign will make a chucking
up sound and die.

RADIATION: To sterilize the rats close by.

PLAGUE RATS: Wander around the maze and any rats they meet they
kill.

GAS: Spreads and lingers for awhile and any rat in the gas long
enough dies.

SEX CHANGE: To change the sex of a rat.

STOP SIGNS: To stop rats going in a centre direction for a little
time before the sign breaks.

You start with a little defence icons and as time goes by you gain
some more until a max of 4 of each. If you kill the opposite sex
than automatically 4 of each weapon is given to you.

There are 4 different zones: Grass, Desert, Snow and Hell. Each
gets slightly harder. Hell is HARD! Especially the last level
which took me a while to master.

This very addictive and enjoyable. It has many weird sounds to
couple with the action on screen. It is one of the few games I
have registered, but well worth it.  Although a bit pricey, it is
probably best if you register jointly with a friend. Certainly a
strange and somewhat twisted game, but very enjoyable.

Just for the record. I do not despise rats. In fact I own two. One
black and the other white and ginger. Very tame and friendly too.

REGISTERING
Registering gets you; A level editor, all 40 levels, free updates.

The unregistered Win95/98 version has 11 levels, I think.  And no
editor.

The unregistered Win3.1 version has: 6 levels and no editor nor
plague rats.

Registration cost œ15.









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