Path: news.uh.edu!barrett From: marcel@dutw30.tudelft.nl (Marcel Offermans) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: CyberSphere Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 14 Oct 1994 20:29:03 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 218 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <37mpmf$n9t@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: marcel@dutw30.tudelft.nl (Marcel Offermans) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, arcade, BreakOut, Arkanoid, shareware Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME CyberSphere BRIEF DESCRIPTION A "BreakOut" style action game that can be played by one or two players. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Psycon Software Address: Box #73067 206 - 2525 Woodview Dr. S.W. Calgary, AB T2W 6E4 Canada E-mail: arsenic@foul.cuug.ab.ca (Clay Hellman) LIST PRICE The shareware fee is $12.49 (US). SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE 1 MB RAM required. Mouse (or joystick) for each player. SOFTWARE None. COPY PROTECTION None. The program can be installed on a hard drive. It doesn't require you to boot from the original disk. The program saves its high scores in the current directory. MACHINES USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000/25, 8 MB Fast RAM, 2 MB Chip RAM 1 internal 880K floppy, 1 external 880K floppy Quantum LPS 120 MB hard drive Maxtor 120 MB hard drive Samtron SVGA monitor Bausch 2400 baud modem AmigaDOS 3.1 Amiga 2000C, 1 MB Chip RAM 1 internal 880K floppy XT-Bridgeboard AmigaDOS 1.3 Amiga 1200, 4 MB Fast RAM, 2 MB Chip RAM 1 internal 880K floppy 40 MB hard drive (formatted with MuFS) Blizzard 1220 board AmigaDOS 3.0 INSTALLATION If you want to install CyberSphere on your hard drive, all you have to do is copy the executable onto the hard drive. If you have an AGA machine, you should copy the included AGARun utility too. The whole process is very easy and doesn't need nor use the Commodore Installer program. One thing that isn't mentioned in the manual is that you MUST run CyberSphere from a Shell. It will crash ungracefully if you attempt to start it from the Workbench. Keep in mind is that the high scores are saved in the current directory. REVIEW After trying the Cybersphere demo that appeared on the Aminet ftp sites, I was hooked on this game immediately. The idea behind the game is a very simple one. The game is played in an arena that consists of several walls, bricks and your paddle. You control the paddle by moving it left and right. With the paddle, you bounce a ball against the bricks and walls, which deflect the ball. Each brick disappears after being hit, though some bricks must be hit several times before they disappear. The bottom of the screen is open, and you must prevent the ball from slipping past your paddle and disappearing. This becomes more and more difficult because the speed of the ball increases as you keep it in play longer. The object of the game is to remove all the bricks. When you achieve this, you go to the next stage. You control the paddle with a mouse. Although it is possible to do it with a joystick, this is strongly discouraged because it is a lot more difficult. When the ball hits your paddle, it bounces back up at an angle relative to the spot where the ball contacts the paddle. This is how you can aim at targets. Your paddle can be enhanced in several ways by picking up special "items." Special items and gems appear when you destroy a brick. They fall down the screen and can be picked up by your paddle. Some items are "width" which makes your paddle wider, "hold" which allows you to hold and aim the ball, and "fire" which adds two guns to your paddle that can be used to smash bricks. Other special items influence your score, make the ball slow down, add an extra ball (up to three balls can be in play at once), install a guard shield at the bottom of the screen so the ball can't leave the screen, add an extra life, or enter a bonus stage. When you're in a bonus stage, you can't lose a life. If you lose the ball, you will simply return to the stage you were in before you entered the bonus level. If you want to go head to head with a friend and have two mice, there is an excellent two-player option. In two-player mode, the game is slightly different. The bonus stages disappear, and the maximum number of balls is two. Player one starts at the bottom of the screen with a blue paddle and a blue ball, and player two at the top with a green paddle and a green ball. The principle is still the same, except that each player can score points only when the ball is his color. Each time the player hits a ball with his paddle, the ball changes to his color. The player who loses the last ball loses a life. In addition to achieving a high score, it is also important to get a higher score than your opponent. At the start of each two-player game, you must enter the names of the players. Cybersphere remembers the number of wins that each pair of opponents have scored against each other. This information is saved together with the high scores. Cybersphere's main menu lets you start a one or two player game, set several game options, and quit (which saves the high scores). The options include selecting either mouse or joystick, turning music and sound effects on and off, listening to them, and most important, setting the difficulty level to either Novice, Normal or Expert. In the Novice level, the last of the five "sectors" isn't available. Each sector consists of 7, 8 or 9 stages. DOCUMENTATION The registered version comes with an 8 page printed manual that explains everything you need to know clearly. LIKES The game plays like a dream. The controls are very responsive, and after some practice, it is easy to aim the ball precisely. The nicely drawn and animated graphics complement this very well. The sound effects and music are nice and can be turned on and off individually, which is a good thing. The two player option is also very neat. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS I found the game a bit too easy. Adding more difficulty levels would solve that. Furthermore, I'd like to see a high score list for each individual difficulty level because, in my opinion, you can't compare scores you reach at Novice level with ones you reach at Expert level. Of course I'd like to see a level editor too so everybody can make new sectors. Furthermore, it would be nice if you could save the options. Finally, I'd like to see a fully multitasking version of Cybersphere. Especially on computers with a faster processor, it would be nice if you could run some background processes while playing. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS Obviously, this is not the first game of this type. Games like Arkanoid or BreakOut come to mind. Personally, I have played Poing and Poing 2 a lot. I don't know if any of you have ever heard of them, but they play like Cybersphere, only everything's rotated 90 degrees. Poing does multitask, but has much simpler graphics. Poing is a lot more difficult and that's perhaps why I found Cybersphere a bit easy. When you take everything into account however, Cybersphere is the better game of the two (and the author of Poing was the first to admit that :-)). BUGS Cybersphere crashes when you try to start it from the Workbench. This should be fixed. Furthermore, it locks up if DSound is playing a large sample from disk when you start Cybersphere. I haven't discussed these bugs with the author because they can easily be avoided. VENDOR SUPPORT There has been no need for me to contact the vendor, but Clay Hellman appears on comp.sys.amiga.games every now and then, so he seems to be supporting Cybersphere rather well. WARRANTY There is no warranty. CONCLUSIONS This is a very good product. It looks and plays like a commercial game, but it's much cheaper. I'd give it 9 stars out of 10. COPYRIGHT NOTICE I'm placing this review in the public domain. - Marcel Offermans marcel@dutw30.tudelft.nl --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews