Subject: REVIEW: MegaBall AGA
From: [email-masked] (Keith Christopher)
Date: 3 Jan 1994 18:36:09 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	MegaBall AGA

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	MegaBall AGA is a game like Arkanoid or Brickout:  using a paddle
and a bouncing ball, you clear away rows of bricks.  The game has splendid
graphics on an AGA Amiga.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Ed Mackey
	Address:	PO Box 475
			Wayne, PA  19087
			USA

	Telephone:	not given
	FAX:		not given

	E-mail:		[email-masked]

SHAREWARE FEE

	$15.00 (US) gets you the registered version of the game plus a
board editor.  An additional $5.00 gets you a music disk.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Requires a mouse.

		Megaball AGA does not require any special hardware because
		its default mode is 640X400 in 16 colors.  If the machine is
		an AGA machine however, it will default to 640X480 256color.

		MegaBall does not require a hard drive.

		It worked fine on my A4000 !

	SOFTWARE

		None.

		Will work under all AmigaDOS versions 1.3 or greater.
		It worked fine under AmigaDOS 3.0.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

	Megaball is hard drive installable and does not require the
original disk.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	A4000 (AGA graphics)
	4MB Fast RAM, 2MB Chip RAM
	Workbench 3.0

INSTALLATION

	After obtaining the demo version of the game from an ftp site, I
unpacked it onto my hard drive. The icons are AmigaDOS 2.0-ish and look
nice.  This game ranks among the easiest I have installed on my hard drive.

	The installation of MegaBall AGA is a simple as they come.  Just
drag and drop!  Once the game is installed, you'll see that there are two
graphics modules.  If you have an AGA Amiga, you can remove the non-AGA
module, and vice-versa.

	NOTE: if you leave both graphics libraries in the drawer you can
tell if one is running in AGA mode by looking at the title screen.  If it
says "MegaBall AGA", then the game is in is AGA mode; if just MegaBall, then
it is in ECS (old chip set) mode.

	After installing from the floppy (or just unarchiving it to hard
disk), all users should copy the fonts to the FONTS: drawer.  AmigaDOS 2.x
and 1.x users need to copy some libraries to the LIBS: drawer.

REVIEW

	Needless to say after installing on my AGA machine I was eager to see
the game up and running.  I double clicked the MegaBall icon and was off!
You are first greeted with a title screen that has pretty good sound in the
background.  It displays some options like SHIFT-Q to exit and '2' for a two
player game.  It also displays all the falling "icons" you can grab while
playing that will do things during the game:  "Diet", which shortens your
"paddle", "+1" which gives one an extra life, etc.  I should have spent more
time here because I failed to notice a "Kill" icon.  After hitting a block, I
managed to catch one of these and lose a life.

	For those who haven't figured it out by now, MegaBall AGA is an
Arkanoid-type game.  However, the sound and graphics are much better than
those of Amiga Arkanoid, and the registered version contains a board editor
to create your own boards!

	This game multitasks very well!  I was downloading about 3MB worth of
ftp'd files while playing and still achieved 1650 cps with my 14.4Kbaud
modem.  I noticed an interesting feature while doing this, however.  While
finding no mention of it in the documentation, I was in the process of
chasing down a single block when the download I was also doing finished.
Well Term3.4(tm) jumped to the foreground and MegaBall AGA dropped out of
site along with my jaw. Well I thought, I'll have to start screen 5 all over
again. NOT SO!  After shutting Term3.4 (TM) down, I flipped through the
screens... and lo and behold, when the MegaBall AGA screen came to front, it
was paused!  Upon entering the screen again, the game resumed right away,
but hey, I'm not complaining!

	A couple of nice features include:

	o	Typing "B" during play pauses the game and causes it to drop
		behind all other screens.

	o	SHIFT-Q kills all lives and takes one back to the highscore
		and title screens.  Another SHIFT-Q exits. A cute voice
		thanks you for "using the self destruct mode" when hitting
		SHIFT-Q during play.

	o	The game can be modified using icon tooltypes, and this
		feature is clearly covered in the AmigaGuide-format
		documentation.

	The game is loads of fun if you enjoy a "blockout" type game to test
your reflexes.  All in all, I really enjoy MegaBall AGA.  If you have an AGA
machine, I do suggest you at least get the demo version to check it out.
You'll be back for more.

DOCUMENTATION

	Documentation is in AmigaGuide format.  It covers everything one
would need to know.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

	 I think I most like the graphics.  They are smooth and look awesome
on my AGA machine!  The sound support is also excellent and modifiable.

	I don't think there was any part I disliked; however, I would like
to see an "iconify" option.  (But then, I think it's necessary in almost all
software!)

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	In comparison to Arkanoid II (PC) I have to go with MegaBall AGA.
The graphics and sound are MUCH MUCH better.  While play style is much the
same, in my opinion, MegaBall AGA performed much smoother.

BUGS

	There were no bugs I could find.  The game ran even if I didn't have
the Megaball.font in FONTS:!

VENDOR SUPPORT

	I have had no need for this.

WARRANTY

	I saw no mention of a warranty.

CONCLUSIONS

	This is definitely an excellent product, and I hope to see more games
from Ed Mackey.

	MY RATING: **** (4 out of 5 stars)

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1994 Keith Christopher.  All rights reserved.

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