Gaming World
The latest from the gaming scene with Andy Spence.
News
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There has been a little movement behind the scenes of the RISC OS gaming market. Although I can't bombard you with an avalanche of stunning new games reviews, there is a fair amount of news. With work steadily progressing at Artex, long-running TBA (producer of Brutal Horse Power), announced its closure. This issue we take a look at the common phenomena of budget releases, something which has caught on in every games market at the moment, and news from RCI. With TBA announcing the end of its reign, who better to pick up the pieces than RCI? RCI will be selling the entire TBA games collection on one CD and - assuming this will be a reasonable price - it should mean that these originally overpriced games should actually be worth the money. |
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Humour aside, Andrew Rawnsley has also said that the 3D flight sim F16 that we briefly previewed last issue has been put back until new hardware appears. In its place Chaos Engine is the new focus for release. Out probably before you read these words, the game is verging on Jurassic from 1993 and is a conversion of the Bitmap-Brothers top-down adventure game. Graphically reminiscent of Speedball 2, it's the usual drill of legging it round a map, picking up keys, collecting power-ups to trade in between levels and as Mr Rawnsley so gracefully puts it 'blasting bad guys'. There are two characters which you select from six possibilities and you can then choose either two human players or have the computer be your only friend. Whether or not this game will be worth the £20 price tag we'll have to see, but we'll let you know when we review it next time. However, if nobody buys this, there is no chance of Total Annihilation appearing.
Big news from RCI is the possible release of Cavedog's huge PC hit, Total Annihilation. This highly-addictive strategy C&C look-alike was received well in the PC world and you can read more about it in our initial look. Like all RISC OS-related things nothing is definite as although RCI have many coders willing to convert the game, they are still tracking down the original source code from the now dispersed Cavedog company. Mr Rawnsley has recently said that he is having major problems with this conversion, but that he also has two other games on the cards from the Bitmap Brothers: Z and Speedball 2000.
The biggest RISC OS event this year is fast approaching in the form of Wakefield 2000. Naturally RCI will be there, hopefully with new conversions and you'll be able to see Iron Dignity in action on the Artex stand. Strangely the recently stagnant Paradise will have a stand, even though we have not seen any signs of life from them in over a year.
Previews
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Brief previews of future games in the RISC OS market including Chaos Engine, Iron Dignity and Skirmish. Check it out here. |
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Total Annihilation, the PC smash hit could be heading for a conversion. If you don't know what its all about, read our initial look. |
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Budget Reviews
A new regular section to cover the popular trend of cheap software, this month we look at APDL's Public Domain CDs and Wizard Apprentice, see here.
Company Contacts
A compiled list of addresses, phone numbers, e-mail and URLs for all the developers and publishers on the RISC OS gaming scene.
Andy Spence