Cockroach's Choicest Bits - RRP œ5.99

                      Reviewed by Sue

The Cockroach has been busy again on your behalf, this time
collecting up a massive stack of hints, tips, walkthroughs,
trainers and patches and plonking them all onto one CD. As we know,
some games need patches even before they can be played, and there's
nothing more frustrating then getting a new game home to find it is
fatally bugged.

So, what do you get for your six-quid-bar-a-penny? On the hints
side, the viewer program provided runs in a window to display the
four 'cheats' categories along the top - Tips, Trainers, Cheats,
Walkthroughs - and when you select one of these, the contents of
that section is listed in a window down the right side of the
screen. In the middle of the screen is the main window which
contains the text of whichever file you have selected. It's very
easy to use. You can also select any of the text, copy it to the
clipboard and from there to your favourite word processor so that
you can print it out.  Many of the games covered are recent ones -
Unreal, Warhammer, Grim Fandango, Sin, Populous 3, Rollercoaster
Tycoon and the like - but there is also a fair sprinkling of golden
oldies such as Bard's Tale 2, Maniac Mansion and Might and Magic 3.

The patches are simply collected by name. Usually it is easy to
work out which patch would be needed for each game - BaldurGa,
DeerHunt etc - but a few need thinking about - fb99208.exe and
rb3d1078.exe for instance. Some sort of listing would have been a
help but it certainly isn't essential.  There are 92 games covered
in this section, again they are mostly up to date titles.

All in all, then, a very useful collection to get games up and
running, to make them run better, to give you an edge when playing
or to help you complete them. The price is good and there's an
update service every 3 months ... all you need to do is return your
CD with œ2 to get the upgrade.  For more info or to order contact
Zenobi Software, 26 Spotland Tops, Cutgate, Rochdale, Lancs
OL12 7NX
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