[Streak 5 Themes and Apps] Caramelslice:
Zarch!

One of my old time favourite pastimes as a teenager.. Basically defender in 3D..

I noticed someone has done a linux remake of it..

But how, if at all, can I install a .tar file to my Streak?? or how could it be modified to run??

Quoted as " maybe better known as "Virus" on the Commodore Amiga. Linux Zarch is one of the very few freely available 3D graphics games available for UNIX/Linux that offer a very decent performance without needing 3D hardware support. "

Hmm, NO 3D support required?? Sounds like a winner.... The archimedes was an ARM based Acorn machine..

Is there an emulator anywhere?? we could run frontier and tempest 2000 maybe too if there was...

Our massive screen would be a great home for this title!!

Does anyone have any constructive advice here please??

1987

"Zarch" was written in three months in 1987 by David Braben as a launch title on Acorn's Archimedes series of computers. Another game, "Lander" was bundled with the machine, which used a cut down version of the landscape from Zarch as a demonstration of the machine's power. It became synonymous with the Archimedes, since it was featured in almost every review of the machine, and is apparently still the best selling title of all time on the Archimedes. The game consisted of a weird craft flying over a rolling patchwork quilt landscape, and many other games since (Zeewolf etc) have copied this technique.

Zarch was exceedingly well reviewed at the time, as most other games were either 2D platformers, or wire-frame 3D - hence the now seemingly amazing tag line on the cover of ACE magazine (now Edge) SOLID 3D - the future of games? Zarch was reviewed with a score of 979 - the highest rating ACE had given at that time (and only subsequently bettered by Virus at 981)

1988

"Virus" built on Zarch and was published by British Telecom (under the Firebird name) for the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and IBM PC in 1988. It was an instant success as many people had seen "Zarch" on the Archimedes but had not been able to play it on the more popular computers of the time. "Virus" won "16 bit Game of the Year" at the Computer Industry's InDin awards of 1988 and was later (incredibly) ported to the Spectrum in the following year by Steve Dunn. Most magazines gave it their top rating, and it got the highest ever score of 981 in the industry's leading magazine "ACE".

Chris Sawyer (now of Rollercoaster Tycoon fame) did the PC port, and later went on to work on PC "Elite+" and PC "Frontier: Elite II".

Zarch and Virus very much raised the ante for games on the 16 bit platform. It was one of the first solid 3D games. It was the first to have 3D lighting effects and shadowing. In fact it generated the shadow silhouettes on the fly - also a first.

1998

"V2000" is the sequel to Virus. It was published by Grolier Interactive on PC and Playstation in October 1998 and was very well reviewed (PC Zone Classic 90%, and five full pages in Edge magazine). It then went on to be one of only three nominees for best game of the preceding few years in the first BAFTA Awards in 1998.

In V2000 the player has to save 30 worlds from a virus menace that has infected them, and from the creatures that brought this virus. The game very much shows it's traditional gaming heritage in that the later worlds are very difficult to complete, but contain a feast of novel game play features. There has been some criticism of the difficulty, but also huge praise from hard-core gamers.