From: Stephen Jonke <jonke@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: I'm trying to find a Turbo Duo....
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A73122D17B015C5D@joe.gsfc.nasa.gov>
X-Xxdate: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:54:09 GMT
Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:54:12 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.175430.1@rapnet.sanders.lockheed.com> ,
ostrouch@rapnet.sanders.lockheed.com writes:
>malls some electronic boutique's and babaages also have them.......
>see posting on 30 dollar off offer on turbo duo.....

One question -- I haven't seen this $30 off offer anywhere yet, but has anyone
asked TTI if these can be used retroactively so that those of us who payed
full price for the Duo can get a rebate?  I may give TTI a call on this if no
one else has -- If they believe in public relations they may very well do
this.  The wouldn't want to advertise this since what they would concerned
about is people concerned enough to enquire about it.

The local Babbages now has four Duos in stock.  I asked them how well it was
selling and they said "suprisingly well".  Shadow of the Beast for the Duo is
a must get -- I hated it on the Genesis, but the Duo version is impressive. 
It uses "cinema sequences" perfectly.  They are all short (so as not to become
tedious) and the animation is extremely good -- much better then the typical
Saturday morning fare, though not quite Disney caliber.  These are things like
a short sequence showing the Beast running down a spiral staircase when you
enter a particular doorway -- they neat thing about this is that the "camera"
is fixed on the Beast and the spiral staircase whirls around in a flurry of
color and motion.  Another simple example is when you get the gun you see a
short animated close up of the gun as the Beast reaches down to pick it up. 
There's also an opening cinema sequence which is supposed to explain the
story, but while again it has good animation, it doesn't make much sense to me.

More importantly, this game is more interesting in and of itself then I
realized when playing it on the Genesis -- this time I tried going left!  I
like the free form approach that the game takes and the need to figure out
what order you are supposed to get and do things.  The cinema sequences are
well used and as such really do enhance the game.  The music is genuiunely
good without being overdone or repetetive (one of the advantages of CD games
-- all the music tracks are well over 6 minutes in length instead of the usual
10 seconds of a repeated tune you get with cartridges -- most of the time you
get out of a level before the track even finishes.)  As a result I actually
enjoy listening to the music while playing the game (it's dependent on quality
of the music, of course, and how it's used -- The music in Splash Lake, for
example, is unbearable even though the tracks are lengthy -- fortunately you
can turn it off.)

It saves the top nine scores to the backup memory, but unfortunately scores
are still pretty irrelavant in this game because if you want a high score all
you have to do is find a place where you can move a little to the left and get
several creatures to charge after you and kill them and then go a little to
the right and kill the creatures that are triggered by that and then back to
the left, etc.  You could do this all day and easily get the max score of
999,999.  Of course it would be boring as hell, but you get the idea.

Steve
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jonke@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov
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Organization: Sophomore, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA