Newsgroups: bit.listserv.games-l
Date:         Wed, 15 Apr 1992 10:01:47 EDT
Reply-To:     Derek Burney <burney@TURING.SCS.CARLETON.CA>
From:         Derek Burney <burney@TURING.SCS.CARLETON.CA>
Subject:      2 Games Reviewed
X-To:         games-l@brownvm.brown.edu

Hi gang,

I just bought two new games a couple of days ago and since I haven't seen
any talk about them on the list, I thought I'd throw in a bit of a review.

The Games: Accolade's Mike Ditka Football
           Accolade's Winter Games

FOOTBALL:

Not a bad game at all considering the graphics are good!
It allows you to create your own team or even your own league made up of
all your own teams if you want.
It supports most of the real game's events such as substitutions and injuries
as well as the standard fair like penalties and such.

There are several levels of play available which is handy because it can be
relatively difficult to get going since so much is happening at once.

One of the really handy features is that you can use a chalkboard and design
your own plays. A couple of my own plays seem to do quite well!

The only thing I don't really like is the way the plays are selected. Player 1
selects from the top half of the screen and Player 2 from the bottom. The
plays are shown on the screen and you use some pointing device to select
them. The problem of course is that the other guy can easily see the play
that you are selecting! That would normally ruin the game, but since you
control all the players that count, you're not stuck with the selected play.
For instance, if you select a long pass play, you can still throw to anyone
you like or not throw at all so your options are still there.

The worst part is the silly off-disk copy protection wheel. I wish the
companies that use those things would find some better way. I paid for the
damn game and I get stuck farting around with a stupid wheel for a few
minutes every time I want to play the game. I hate it.

Rating: 8/10 if that means anything.


WINTER GAMES

Now here is a good game. The graphics are tremendous and very smooth!
There are 8 different winter olympic events like skiing and the luge and
they are all easy to control. There are only a couple of keys to use but it's
how they're used that provides the challenge.

Up to ten people can play at a time for a good healthy competition. All the
events offer some variety throughout the course of a tournament and the level
of realism really surprised me.

In particular, the slalom is terrific. If you go too fast, you end up spending
a fair amount of time in the air which makes turning difficult! The sounds of
the skis on the snow are pretty realistic and the crowd sounds are great.
So are the wipeout graphics.

The ski jumping is another good one. Actually, there are no bad events
although I can't seem to get the hang of the speed skating. I've beaten the
records at all the other events but I don't come close on the skating. The
best part is that even though I've beaten the artificial computer records,
you can always improve your skill so you never will actually "finish" the
game like you do with some.

It is apparently windows compatible but I hate windows so I haven't tried it.

Rating: 9/10

Oh yeah, it also has that stupid wheel so now I've got to have a special
sorting routine in my basement just to find the right wheel to use for all
of the damn games.

Someone on the list had a solution for avoiding that crap but I forget what
it was. It had something to do with resetting the clock to make the random
number generator use the same seed all the time. If anyone knows about this
I'd appreciate it if you could send me the info.

See ya,
Derek
burney@turing.scs.carleton.ca
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU