From: cokin@aludra.usc.edu (Darren Cokin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: first impressions on Spectre development copy
Date: 6 Oct 1992 23:03:48 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aludra.usc.edu

Hi again.  I'm the same guy that posted the info and screenshots from Leyte
Gulf.  Same deal as before.  I own the original Spectre, and will probably buy
any new version that is released.  No flames for pirating.  I have this well 
connected friend who just gave me Spectre1.1d16.  I'd post some screenshots
like I did with Leyte Gulf, but that system 7 feature is disabled while 
spectre is running.  I'll try and summarize all the new features I discovered
after playing for like an hour.  Not all the features below are in the all the
levels.  In fact, most are only in one or two I played so far.

Frame rate is not as good as the old game.  Original is perfectly fluid on my
LC.  This is a little jerky, but still playable.

More varied barriers on field.  Instead of just walls, towers, and windmills
there are like a dozen new obstacles of various shapes.  One is a polygon
sphere a la Epcot.  Several of the new ones move, like the windmills.

Green squares on field still recharge ammo and sheilds.  White squares do the 
same thing, but are more powerful.  There are also larger white squares,
usually with several next to each other.  When you're on top of them you can
just coast, you can't turn or change speed.  Orange octagons slow you down a
lot when you drive over them.  Red triangles are acid pools. If you drive over
them you die instanly.  One level I played had a roving acid pool, and a roving
wall that kept trying to push me into the pool.

When tanks blow up, instead of just fizzing out, they now fizz out and explode
with a lot of large filled polygons.  There are more tanks.  The traditional
red ones are gone and replaced by featurless red blobs.  I assume that will be
changed by the time of release.  Orange tanks are just as you remember.  There
are also thinner orange tanks called slicers that try and ram you.  Blue tanks 
are invisble except for a split second when they fire or are hit.  Fortuantly 
they show up on radar, map, and god view.  Also a warning tone goes off when
they get close.  There is one flying tank.  It looks cool.  It lands
occasionaly so you can kill it with normal shots.  You can also use missles on
them.  More on them below.  There is also this enourmous grey ball with a red
dot on it.  I only saw it on one level.  It fires missiles, like the ones you
get.

The grenades active message gives you a bit of helpfull advice on the tanks or
special weapon up to level 10, when it dissapears.  On every level up to ten
you get a special weapon to fire with the option key.  You only get one kind
per level, and I didn't see any after level 10.  You all know what grenades do.
Spinners stun the enemy so it just sits there spining, so you can kill it
easily. Missles are guided and go up over obstacles.  Seekers are also guided.
They don't do as much damage as missles (and cost less ammo), and can't go over
obsacles.  Scater shot fires 3 shots in a horizontal spread.  Good for crowds.
From listening to the sounds in resedit I think there are more weapons I
havn't seen yet.  In one level there were orange triangles around the field.
If you ran over it you picked it up and could use it as a battering ram 
against a tank.  It dissapears if you hit a wall or enemy, or after like 30
seconds or so.

One sound I found it resedit is called "enemy locked on".  That's a sound of
someone yelling "danger."  I havn't heard it in the game yet though, but I
assume this means some enemys have guided weapons.  The grey ball mentioned
earlier had guided missles just like the ones you get, but there was no special
sound.  There are 800K of sounds, including 200 k for the theme music, and 180 
k for high score music.  I liked the music untill I saw how much hard drive
space it's wasting.  The whole game is 1.4 megs.

Well thats all I've found so far.  If I find something else very signifigant
I guess I'll post it.  After my Leyte Gulf post I got several requests from
people wanting a copy.  Save your time.  I will not be distributing copies of
this or Leyte.

I hope the above post makes sense, and some people find it interesting.


                                              Darren