Amazons vs Aliens

          Demo available on demo compilation CD 21
                from Zenobi Software - œ2.99

Here we go with another Settlers clone! Though the full game
lets you play one of three different races, in the demo you have
to be a Pimmon which looks a bit like a giant blue lizard wielding
a hammer. Only one mission is available called No Money, No
Nothing.  The aim is to keep your tribe happy while collecting
taxes and to obtain 3000 coins with 25 taxpayers in your first
city.

The appearance of the game is cartoon-like (like Settlers) rather
than aiming for realism (like Age of Empires), and the figures and
houses look as though they have been made out of clay. You build
dwellings to increase your population. Three Pimmons live in each
and since they are the taxpayers who are going to fund your brave
new world, the more the merrier.

However, they need to be fed and given work to do, if they are not
to get disgruntled. You also need a supply of wood and stone to
build their homes. As with all games of this ilk, you start with a
certain amount of stock in your main building (a town hall in this
case) but this won't last long. So an important early task is to
build a laboratory where new skills and jobs are researched. This
is run by a scholar, and he is trained in a school from one of the
original transporters (the people who fetch and carry for you).
This is another reason for keeping your population high because
you lose a transporter every time you train one to a different
profession.

So, open a school, train a scholar and install him in the
laboratory which you've built. Train a stone cutter, and send him
off to collect blocks. Research and train a hunter to kill the
cute little alien animals that roam the forest. Research
agriculture which gives access to mushroom farms and lumberjacks.
It's a complicated business. Meanwhile, keep building houses to
increase the population and bring in more money.

But, your people get restless. They want taverns! They want
newspapers! Some of them put on black costumes and start beating
up innocent citizens who are going about their legitimate work.
Bring in the coppers!

And so the game progresses. It really is great fun! The characters
are even loveable, these great ponderous Pimmons who pick
mushrooms, tuck them carefully into their backpacks and transport
them back to the storehouse. I even found someone to rival the
geologist (yippee!) in Settlers. It's the mushroom farmer. This
little chap even looks as though he is wearing a mushroom shape
hat - he bends over his plot as he hoes the land, then sows and
tends his charges. He reminded me of the little mushroom in
Fantasia.

One important point which is worth pointing out - goodness knows
it eluded me for ages. You can't expand your territory in the same
way as Settlers. You can build lookout towers which illuminate
more of the land, but they don't actually push back the borders of
your land. What you have to do is create another city founder and
send him off, cross country, to found a new city. The clue was
there, of course, in the game objectives ... '3000 coins IN YOUR
FIRST CITY'. I didn't actually notice this until I copied this
review into SynTax; I'd discovered it by accident.

A bit of user-friendliness - you can destroy buildings and recoup
some of their stone. You can also un-train specialists and turn
them back into transporters, which can also be handy if you run
out and can't, for some reason, build more houses.  On the minus
side, I wish the transporters wouldn't do a strange vomit every so
often. I had no idea what it meant and it put me off a bit to see
these little clay figures doing strange up-chucks at regular
intervals. Odd.

Annoyances? There were a few though I reckon they are down to the
fact that this is a demo.  From time to time the inhabitants will
tell you if they need a specific new building so you have to
concentrate on researching / building that one to keep them happy.
If their happiness drops, so does their motivation. So, what do
you do when they whinge about wanting a temple and that option
doesn't appear anywhere?  And then they ask for a circus - and you
can't do anything about that either? The answer is, finish the
level as quickly as possible in case their motivation drops so low
that you can't finish the game. There is a voice-over for
outstanding tasks or problems such as shortage of food, and it's
very annoying to have some bloke saying "Your people are asking 
for a circus" at regular intervals while you throw your hands up 
in the air and say "So? What do you expect ME to do about it?!" 
and, later, "Oh, shut up, you stupid man!" or worse when he warns 
you for the umpteenth time.

But, as I said, I'm sure this is just down to those features not
being implemented. This is an excellent game. I don't know if
there is also a military aspect to the full game ... if not, I
will certainly buy it. If there is, and I would think there
probably is, since the title says 'vs' I expect I still will. Good
fun.

                                                 Sue
                              - o -