+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ . . . . . + .+ + . ## ### ## . +-----------------------------------------+ + ## ### ## + PORTABLE ADDICTION ISSUE #15 OCTOBER 1992 . ## ### ## . +-----------------------------------------+ + ## ### ## . Editor ......... Tjerk Heymens Visser . ### ### ### + Co-Editor ........... Yiri Tjade Kohl #### ### #### + ####### ### ####### InterNet: tjerk@nikhef.nl ##### ### ##### + shintaro@utopia.hacktic.nl . . . Support: Burning Chrome BBS Holland For Lynx and Super Nintendo + Phone:..... +31-20-6969263 . . + . Fido node:...... 2:280/462 Thankx to: Andre "ALU" Luyer, Stefan de Droog, Dominator, Astro, Games 'R' Fun, Compendium, Bart Smit Toy Stores, FunTronics, Patrick Roelandt, Camelot and all the others made this issue of PA possible... Disclaimer: None of the sent in material is checked on originality by either the Editor or the Co-Editor of P.A. so we are not responsable for any material that has been copied from a copyrighted source. Thank you. You are free to copy P.A. as long as no changes are made to the contents. It is also allowed to use parts of P.A. in other publications only if it is an exact copy of the article used in P.A. and the author and issue number of P.A. are mentioned. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ And here's ye good ole "Crap Contentz"!!!! Yeah! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Ed Sezzz ...................... Editorial crap by CoEd Shintaro Y Hot News 'n' Gossip .................... [Latest news, all systems] Universal Soldier ............................... [SuperNES Review] Y Zelda III (*).................................... [SuperNES Review] Y Notes from Duesseldorf ....................... [Atari Messe report] T SuperNintendo Ratings ............................. [Rating report] Atari Lynx Ratings ................................ [Rating report] Rampart ............................................. [Lynx Review] T Shadow of the Beast ................................. [Lynx Review] Y Steel Talons ........................................ [Lynx Review] T The Last Bit ....................... [All about the next ish of PA] (*) = P.A. MegaGame (T) = Written by Tjerk (Y) = Written by Yiri +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Ed Sezzz .... Ah, what a nice month this has been. I finally got some vacation myself as I went sailing for a week. Just before my depart, I saw Shadow of the Beast at the local FunTronics store, so I bought it to have something to do during the nights. Read all about the graphical delights of that in the review in this issue. First, however, there are some MAJOR changes in this issue, which you will probably have noticed already. The GameGear and GameBoy departments have been scrapped, and the SuperNES has gotten a role in Portable Addiction. We know that a SuperNES is not a portable, and we know that there's many people around with GameBoys and GameGears, but we just didn't feel like doing those two anymore. And since this newsletter has always been our hobby, we want to keep it that way. If we'd continue doing 'Boy and 'Gear, our lack of in- terrest would probably have a negative effect on the quality of the reviews. We know that a lot of people won't like this change at all, but changes have always got a good side and a bad side. The good side is that from now on, everybody can read the latest news about the SNES here. And since we get our games almost directly from Japan upon release, we think that we can offer a reasonably up to date service. Anyway, Portable Addiction will continue with the SNES and the Lynx, and of course we might still change our name to something else (Total Addiction, perhaps?). For now, enjoy!..... Co-Ed Yiri "Shintaro" Kohl +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ########################################################### # . . + . . + # # + H o T N e W s 'N' G o S s I p + . # # + . + . + . . +# ########################################################### The CD-ROM Drive for the SuperNES will probably be released this christmas. The package will be bundled with Super Mario 5 (probably to increase the sales!). Zelda IV has just been finished and it's Japanese release is imminent. The game will be released in the west in about 4 months (we hope!). Bart Smit, one of the biggest toy store chains in Holland, is planning to stop selling Lynx games. But they have just closed a deal with Atari Benelux to sell the Lynx Batpack. It contains: the Pouch, Batman Returns, Lynx II, an Addapter and the Battery pack. It costs Hfl 299,- while the Lynx II costs Hfl 249,- in all other shops. The Batpack will only be sold at the Bart Smit toy stores. Games 'R' Fun stopped selling Lynx games a few months ago, but they mainly rely on their own import, that is not a big market for the Lynx. The only shop with up to date stuff seems to be FunTronics. Even the Virgin's MegaStore, which appeared to do the Lynx some good one month ago, doesn't get any recent games. Figures show that the game ratio Lynx-GameBoy is 1:30 in Holland! Argh! We were present at the Atari Messe in Dusseldorf. Read a full report later in this issue. At the Firato (a huge electronics event in Amsterdam) Atari showed of it's Falcon030 again. Although I still don't like that thing at all, a lot of other people seem to do. Nintendo had a small stand compared to last year, where they had the biggest stand on the Firato ever. Lots of SNES games were showed off, but most of them were still American versions. Nintendo still doesn't make or sell adapters themselves, but who cares? +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------+ UNIVERSAL SOLDIER SNES REVIEW +-----------------------------------------+ Two Vietnam veterans. Reincarnated as Cyborgs. One of them begins to re- member. The other one declares war on the first. That seems the be the va- gue storyline of the movie of the same name. Jean-Claude van Damme and Dolf Lundgren are the two cyborgs in question. Universal Soldier, the SNES game, is about the same movie (how coincidental!). Since the version I playtested wasn't supplied with a manual, I can't quite figure out which one you must control, but I bet it's good old Dolf! Your soldier must negotiate a number of platform-style levels while collec- ting power-ups and energy. By holding down the fire button you can also use a shooter which you can rotate 360 degrees. Your standard shooter can be up graded to full power lasers, triple shots or bouncers. You also have a limi- ted supply of energy walls (two vertical bars screen height which move from the player to the sides of the screen). Not only that, you can also change shape and transform to a spiked ball and roll thru the levels killing every- thing that's in your way! This adds up to a nice arsenal of destructive equipment! All this equipment is used for killing the many (and then I mean MANY) ene- mies that you'll encounter. You'll need a quick finger to fire fast enough to survive! Luckily, the previously mentioned power-ups are everywhere, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem to power up your weapon to the max. As there's plenty of hidden things in the game, such as extra lifes, you'll always be exploring more of it. The game is quite big and this adds to the lastability. Hidden blocks filled with power-ups are everywhere, but so are hidden corridors which are only accessible if you turn yourself into a ball. You'll be exploring for ages. The graphics are very good, although no special use of the SNES's abilities has been incorporated. The animation of the main character is excellent and everything moves at a good pace (not that much slow-down). The backgrounds could have done with a bit more color though, as I found them a bit on the dull side. Collision detection is good, and although the main character has the tendency to stand on one leg if you get close the edge of a platform the background collisions are very well executed too. I guess most people will like the backgrounds, but about why I don't like them, just read on.... Though normally I would place the graphics and sound criticism at the same place, you first need to know an important thing about the game before I can rate the sound. For those of you with an Amiga in the cupboard (NOT an Atari ST as then you won't be able to know anything about it!) you will absolutely remember Turrican and Turrican II. Well, the man that supplied the review- copy of this game (at Games 'R' Fun) introduced it to me as Turrican III and that's exactly what this is. Unfortunately the atmosphere of the original is lost. This doesn't mean that it's a crap game, but it just means that this is not the Turrican as I used to play it. The animation of the player is the same, the enemy graphics are the same, the power-ups are the same, and only the backgrounds are not the same. Turrican II used excellent copperbars on the Amiga and gave the game a feeling like: Yeah man! I'm having fun and I am losing all my lifes but I don't give a s**t since I'm having fun! It's that feeling that's missing. You're having fun, but it's not the colorfull fun it used to be. Of course all this doesn't count if you never played the original, as the whole atmosphere of this game is very good. It's only very different and that's the problem I'm having with it (but since I don't give low ratings if I find something crap while I know that something IS actually quite good, I didn't give the Feel a low rating....). The music is very good and changes throughout the game. I don't think that the music was done by Chris Huelsbeck (sorry if I misspelled your name bro!) but it still contains many of the tunes heard in the previous Turricans. The in-game sound effects are quite effective too, but I found them a bit flat. (Yeah, call me a tedious bore, but I just tend to be very critical at types of games of which already millions exist!!). The sound FX sound all a bit threatening (which is good, as together with the graphics this recreates the feeling of the movie a bit) and so is the music. Turrican was one of the most playable games on the Amiga, but as always the console world is used to better stuff. As a console game, Turrican's just a bit stiff. The controls are the only thing I didn't quickly get the hang of and I think that the controlmethod of a game is VERY important when it comes to playability. Fortunately the game is so enjoying that this small glitch is forgivable (once again it's more that I'm used to a bit different control method than the one found in this game). If you like to blast a lot, walk a lot, explore a lot and see a lot, Universal Soldier is for you. And, but you already got that, if you already know Turrican, just don't expect too much from it. +- RATINGS --------------+ ! Graphics ......... 8.0 ! ! Music/Sound FX ... 8.0 ! ! Feel ............. 7.0 ! ! Playability ...... 8.0 ! ! Addictiveness .... 7.0 ! ! Lastability ...... 7.3 ! ! Overall .......... 7.8 ! +------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------+ ZELDA III SNES REVIEW +-----------------------------------------+ Once again princess Zelda has been kidnapped. This time some evil Prince of Darkness took her with him to a place that isn't even in the same dimension as the land of Hyrule! Of course it's up to our Link to, once again, rescue the princess. Before Link can go to the Darkworld however, he must first find three crystals with which he can retrieve a some sort of magical sword which is stuck in a stone (Hmmm... sounds a bit like King Arthur eh?). Only then he can enter Darkworld and begin his search for Zelda! Zelda is an adventure game viewed from the top. The screen scrolls in eight directions while Link remains in the middle of the screen. Hitting brings up the inventory screen, and