a - - Vol. 4 No. 3 June 1984 Features SEVEN CITIES OF GOLD 9 The View from a Playtester Sandra Carlisle UNIVERSE 14 Dual Views Fitzsimmons & Battles MIG ALLEY ACE 17 Review David Patton QUESTRON 18 Review James McPherson TO MARKET, TO MARKET... 21 Two Games from Blue Chip Johnny Wilson BROADSIDES 24 A Replay Jay Selover CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER 28 Review Stewart MacKames Departments TAKING A PEEK 6 Screen Photos & Brief Comments INSIDE THE INDUSTRY 12 Participate in Our Survey SCORPION'S TALE 13 Enchanter Tips INDUSTRY NEWS 16 What's Going On? COMMODORE KEY 19 For the C-64 Gamer TELEGAMING 20 Exploring On-line Gaming ATARI PLAYFIELD 23 For the Atari Gamer THE LEARNING GAME 26 Shopping Guide for Children's Games MICRO-REVIEWS 30 (Under Southern Skies, Movie Maker, Bruce Lee, Chivalry, The Alpine Encounter, Planetmaster) READER INPUT DEVICE 46 You Rate the Games GAME RATINGS 47 Over 100 Games Rated Avalon Hill Game Co. outs (if you are in the field). You can ture game in which you a star 4517 Harford Rd. play against another person or freighter captain fulfilling a con- Baltimore, MD against the computer. Supplemen- tract to help establish a religious tal questions diskettes available. colony. The ZoomAction graphics COMPUTER TITLE BOUT: Apple. are outstanding and the game Avalon Hill's popular board game system presents many interesting is now on the Atari home com- challenges as you seek to fulfill the puter. A statistics based boxing Epyx Computer Software conditions of your contract. But simulation that contains stats for 1043 Kiel Court watch out! Pirates and muggers over 300 historical fighters. In- Sunnyvale, CA 94089 will seek to waylay you. A review is structions are included for creating coming but don't wait. At $40 this your own fighters. $30.00. DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN: is one of the best buys around. Ap- Fans of Anne McCaffrey's books ple II series (look for a Macintosh JUPITER MISSION 1999: A four will find much enjoyment in this version early in 1985). disk interactive space adventure computerized version of the PERN for the Atari home computer. The saga. The game centers around the game is made up of 11 programs diplomacy and negotiations that Funsoft which combine arcade segments, occur among the Weyrs and the 28611 Canwood St. puzzles, and adventure elements to people. The standard game also in- Agoura Hills, CA 91301 make a challenging game. Look for cludes thread fighting (in arcade a review in a future issue. $50.00. style of course). You need to do well FLAK: You fly your AGX fighter in negotiations to win the game, but over 28 continuous game screens failure to stop the thread invasions as you seek to penetrate past in- Davka Corp. can destroy your diplomatic ef- telligent flak batteries and destroy 845 North Michigan Ave. forts. One to four players. Atari. Computer Control (perhaps an ap- Chicago, IL peal to the computerphobia in each FTL Games of us?). One or two players and two I.Q. BASEBALL: Here is 7907 Ostrow St. Suite F levels of play. Apple, Atari, C-64 something different. Test your San Diego, CA 92111 and PCjr. $34.95. knowledge of baseball as you play the game. You can choose between SUNDOG: Even though Sundog 'Major League' or 'Minor League' was designed by one of our regular Infocom questions (although we know columnists (Bruce Webster's 55 Wheeler St. baseball fairly well, we found some Silicon Cerebrum covers artificial Cambridge, MA 02138 of the minor league questions quite intelligence in computer gaming); difficult. The questions will we feel we are unbiased and ac- SORCERER: This is the second challenge even baseball fanatics). curate when we say that this game release in Infocom's Enchanter Correctly answering questions gets is a real winner. Sundog:Frozen series of adventures in the mystic you hits (if you are 'up') or creates Legacy is a science fiction adven- arts. The Enchanter series goes beyond the Zorks and gives players ROME AND THE BAR- mance light aircraft up and down a new type of challenge, reaching BARIANS: An "Eastern Front" the California coast. In addition to goals through the use of magical style game in which you, as the practice landing field, six air- powers they acquire along the way. Emperor, attempt to preserve the ports between San Francisco and Many systems. $49.95. Empire by using loyal Roman San Diego are in the program and troops to defeat Barbarians and you can fly between any of them. traitorous Roman legions. Military, AIRSIM-3 includes the standard in- economic and diplomatic elements strumentation (airspeed, turn in- KRENtek Software must be manipulated in the game. dicator, attitude indicator, compass P.O. BOX 3372 Atari. $35.00. heading, altimeter, climb-rate in- Kansas City, KA 66103 dicator, throttle setting, engine Mind Systems RPM) plus all instrumentation re- P.O. Box 506 NAPOLEON AT WATERLOO: A quired for navigation and Northhampton, MA 01061 simulation of Napoleon's final instrument-flying practice (ADF, climatic battle at Waterloo. Scroll- HSI/VOR, VOR, DEM, OM, and ing graphics cover the entire bat- AIRSIM-3: A detailed flight MM displays). The program allows tlefield. Each unit is rated for both simulator which was developed as a pilot to set up a customized instru- fire power and moral. Don't let the an aid to pilots who wish to use their ment approach anywhere in the low cost packaging fool you, this home computer as an aid for prac- world. Apple. game is better than average. Atari. ticing instrument flying. Airsim-3 $35.00. allows the user to fly a high perfor- Continued on page 42 Seven Cities of Gold by Sandra Carlisle NAME: Seven Cities of Gold TYPE: Strategy SYSTEM: Atari (C-64 coming) FORMAT: Disk AUTHOR: Ozark Softscape #PLAYERS: One PRICE: $40 PUBLISHER: Electronic Arts Menlo Park, CA The following article comes from a playtester of SEVEN We pause to look around. Excitedly, the word is passed CITIES OF GOLD. She combines a good overview of the to me that the natives have mentioned a gold mine located game with insights to the game from Dan Bunten of Ozark to the east of the village. Encouraged, we force march Softscape. Due, in part, to the length of this article, Dail through the swamp and find the mine. Gathering all the Bunten's regular column, DISPATCHES, will not appear in gold we can carry, I again turn toward the ships. this issue. After loading the gold and getting more goods, the ex- pedition returns to the village. Now that I know my way The month is March. The year 1492. I am triumphantly around, I head directly for the chief. This time he is greedy, standing before the Royal Palace. This time I have finally and will not trade until given four more gifts. I trade for convinced the King of Spain to finance my expedition. The the rest of the village's gold and leave. Since this is a small two thousand in gold has been used to purchase four ships, island with only the one village, I decide to set sail again. a full complement of sailors, 100 soldiers, food for 52 Sailing north around the island I locate more land to the weeks, and 300 lots of goods for trading. northwest. Heading that way, the lookout spots a native I pass the Outfitters Shop, but decide that for my first village, but I decide to continue sailing west off the coast. trip I had better go with my present equipment. Next, I Is this another island, or is it a continent? I see two more see my flag ship—an impressive three-master. With a push villages, then the coastline suddenly dips to the south and of the joystick button I leave Spain and head west into the eventually back to the east .... another island. There is yet unknown. Anxiously, the weeks pass by, with still no land one more island to the south of this one. A very small one sign of land. Suddenly, the long awaited cry is heard from with no villages. the crow's nest. Land Ho! There it is .... China! It is now July. I stop to check my maps and to take a bear- I eagerly give the command to anchor off the lush coast. ing. It shows me to be at latitude 20 degrees north, and With my men carrying as much food and goods as possi- in the middle of an island group. Somehow it looks ble, I lead them ashore. A fanfare sounds as I receive credit familiar. (I check an atlas and recognize Cuba, Jamaica, and for discovering the New World. (Well, perhaps this isn't Hispaniola. Ah ha, now I know where I am!) China after all.) Avoiding the swamps, the expedition After sailing back to where the two villages were located locates a native village. They are not hostile but curious, close together on Cuba, I disembark and head for the chief. and in their excitement crowd too close. One of my men, But, wait....these natives are hostile. I quickly drop a gift. out of fear, hurts one of the natives. To placate them, I of- Bought off, they eventually settle down. Now I can look fer a gift which they quickly take. I ask to trade, but am for the chief. Finding him, I try to amaze him, but only informed that I must speak to their chief. Carefully mov- manage to drive the others away. I trade for all of the gold ing through the village, the chief is finally located.