Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: malbers@ns.ccsn.edu (Marcus Albers) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Act of War Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 13 Jun 1993 15:52:23 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 172 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <1vfifn$shd@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: malbers@ns.ccsn.edu (Marcus Albers) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, war, simulation, shareware PRODUCT NAME Act Of War, Version 1.1 [MODERATOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on June 20, 1993. The most recent game version as of this date is version 1.4. Reportedly, it adds "fire and ignitable materials, new weapons, and two new missions." Thanks to Thomas Baetzler for sending in this information. - Dan] BRIEF DESCRIPTION This is a game "in the tradition" of games like Laser Squad and Rebelstar, in which one player controls a squad of warriors and the other player (or the computer) tries to stop the first one from completing the selected mission. It can be found at all Aminet sites in the directory pub/aminet/game/misc. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Dave Smith Address: 4 Cleveland View South Bents Sunderland SR6 8AP England DISTRIBUTION METHOD/SUGGESTED DONATION This program is Shareware. If you wish to register it, you are asked to send a donation of 5 Pounds Sterling as a minimum donation. For it, you will receive "a nice letter", a mission editor (see below), and the latest update of the program, along with any new missions that have been developed. For a donation of 10 Pounds Sterling, you receive "a very nice letter", the above, as well as the 250K of AMOS source code on another diskette. For a donation of more than 10 Pounds Sterling, you will receive "an unspeakably nice letter", the above, as well as "Christmas cards for life." SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE One megabyte of memory in required to run Act Of War. It is fully compatible with OS 1.3 and 2.0. Runs in both NTSC Standard and PAL modes. Is compatible with faster processors. It is compatible with the A570 CD-ROM drive active. SOFTWARE None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 500 One megabyte memory Workbench/Kickstart 1.3 A570 CD-ROM drive REVIEW As af player of war simulations with figurines as well as the old SSI battle simulations on my Commodore 64, I have found a love for being able to control a squad of warriors completely. I can put them in situations that no sane person would do, and just see what happens. I can do more than just run and shoot. I can use a couple of warriors and put them in the heat of battle to act as decoys as the rest of my men go rushing into the complex and break the prisoners out. And there are usually a number of ways of accomplishing the given task. When I read the documentation for Act Of War, I knew that this was the game for me. Act Of War is a war simulation "in the tradition" of games like Laser Squad and Rebelstar. The player controls his/her squad of warriors, which are faced with a situation and an objective. In Act Of War, you are able to play against either a computer opponent or a human enemy. A lot of strategy goes into the execution of any scenario. It is not simply "fire and forget." Play for each character is split up into a number of actions or moves. Each separate character has a number of actions available such as movement, opening doors, or firing upon an enemy. The characters take turns making all of the moves. This simulates real-time action, and can be used to allow for things like injuries by decreasing the number of moves that the injured character has. Much realism can be figured into such a system, and it is a completely fair system. When firing takes place, both combatants get an equal chance to fire; i.e., if a character fires upon an enemy during his turn, the enemy gets to fire back, even though it is not technically his turn. Act Of War is a completely open-ended simulation. It could be said that the game is simply a play system, around which the actual simulation is built. When the game is registered, you are sent a mission designer that allows you to create graphics, types of characters, and types of weapons that are used. Everything can be changed. Another very nice thing about Act Of War is that all of the game functions can be accessed either either from menus or by keyboard. This is nice for people who do not have easy access to both the keyboard and the mouse do to their setup, or for people that have a bad mouse and would rather use the keyboard. Its also nice not to have to flip through menus to access a certain function quickly (like changing weapons). Graphics are excellent. The are very colourful and well drawn, even though there area lot of greys used with the science fiction basis of the included missions. The sound is also very well done. But this must be attributed to Team 17, for Dave got permission to uses the samples from Team 17's great arcade shoot'em up Alien Breed. The weapon reload sound is simply amazing. Because of total flexibility with sound, graphics, and character attributes, it is possible to make a scenario that utilizes tanks, planes, and even spaceships! Takes you back to the days of Wargames Construction Set for the C64. The artificial intelligence system that Dave designed is hard to beat, even on the "easy" level. The enemy characters don't just move randomly, nor do they simply follow and shoot (the smarter ones at least). Some even go so far as to set up barricades and wait for other characters. This allows for a fair amount of strategy to be used in taking care of the enemy. Will he stand and fight, or will he retreat when he gets too much damage? Of course, nothing is as challenging as playing against a good human opponent. The only thing that I dislike about this is that for two of the three scenarios included, it is very hard to have a two player game. The lack of the human factor is what makes these two scenarios possible. The third is very playable as a two player game, and of course there is the scenario designer. DOCUMENTATION The documentation is in the form of a soft-copy manual that may be printed. I haven't printed it out yet; but from the size of the documentation file, it looks fairly massive. It covers everything from basic play functions to explanations of each and every control mechanism. There are also separate files for each of the three scenarios, allowing the player to access the information on the current scenario quickly without having to page through the main document. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: There is now a LaTeX format manual available on the Aminet ftp sites called aow14texman.lha. Thanks to Thomas Baetzler for sending in this information. - Dan] LIKES AND DISLIKES What did I like: the graphics and sounds, the included scenarios, are very well done, the tried and true play system, and the AI system. What didn't I like: the fact that some scenarios cannot be well done by two players. On suggestion is the addition of a modem link for two player mode. CONCLUSSIONS I give this game a 9.5 out of a possible 10. COPYRIGHT NOTICE I impose no formal copyright on this review. I only ask that that I be informed if you find this review good enough to post on any on-line service such as GEnie or Compuserve. Marcus J. Albers, malbers@ns.ccsn.edu --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu