Subject: REVIEW: Roketz
From: [email-masked] (Leon Woestenberg)
Date: 28 Jun 1995 18:50:43 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Roketz, full registered version 1.3

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	A "Shoot and Race through Space" game.  Race and/or fight against an
opponent with your custom-equipped space fighter.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		The Farm
	Address:	P.O. Box 410
			Tallinn EE0900
			Estonia
			Europe

	E-mail:		[email-masked] (Ott M. Aaloe of The Farm)

	Apart from The Farm's address, there are registration sites in
the UK and USA.  Their addresses can be found in the free demo version.

LIST PRICE

	$15 (US), DM 25 or UK 10.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		An Amiga 1200 or Amiga 4000 is needed.

		PAL capable television set or monitor.  I could not test
		this game under screenmode promotion.

		Fast RAM is recommended for hard disk owners, as they may
		need to boot without startup-sequence and Workbench to get
		the game running.

		At least one joystick is advisable, as playing this game
		with two players on one keyboard might be troublesome.

	SOFTWARE
        
		Nothing special really: the diskfont.library and
		mathtrans.library must be available.  These come default
		with the Workbench, and are present on the Roketz disks as
		well.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.  It is illegal to distribute the registered version,
and as your name is in the startup screen, you will be kept from just
doing that. :-)

	The limited demo version is meant to be copied, and is freely
available at Aminet FTP sites and other public domain sources.

	The program can be installed onto hard disk, and can be run from the
Workbench by it's icon.  After installation, you do not need the original
disks any more to start the game.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	An Amiga 4000/040 with 2 MB Chip RAM and 8 Mb Fast RAM.
	High density internal disk drive.
	540 MB Quantum IDE hard drive.
	Workbench under Kickstart 3.1.
	Philips Television/Monitor for PAL/NTSC.

INSTALLATION

	The game was shipped onto two double density disks that
contain a bootable, ready-to-run game that does not need disk swapping
during the game.

	The installation procedure is just as it should be; Start from your
Workbench, insert the first disk, click on the install icon and the
Commodore Installer program will ask you where to install Roketz.  There are
no assigns made, which is a definite plus.

	If you already had the demo installed onto hard disk, you can
optionally overwrite this with the registered version.  The high scores and
other statistics will remain.

	Easiest installation process I've ever seen for a game.  It works
just as it should work.

NOTE

	This review describes the full registered version version of
Roketz.  There's also a limited demo version that is freely distributable.
The full game differs only in the number of available levels, ships,
engines, weapons and equipment systems.

ROOKIE ROKETEER

	The freely distributable demo from Aminet got my attention and was
the beginning of my career as a "Roketeer"; that's what a spaceship pilot
in Roketz is called.  The demo features two levels whilst the full
registered version has six levels.  A level consists of large playfields,
with space, objects and rock.  Levels represent planet environments in a
futuristic world where men are Roketeerz, and Corvettes are Roketz.

	You choose your Roket from the available models, four in the full
version.  Each Roket has distinct flying characteristics and carries an
onboard cannon, as well as a specialized weapon.  These are different for
each model, giving a lot of combinations to choose from.  Personally, I like
the "HPD series homing pod" weapon which flaks a cloud of bullets which home
in on the enemy's Roket.  Cool or what?!

	But then, why would you need weapons?  You can also gain points by
racing the circuit that is set out in each level. (Sometimes knowledge of
the Estonian language seems handy when trying to race a circuit, as there's
graffiti all over the place :-) You would just choose the fastest Roket and
set record race times; no weapons needed.

THINK AGAIN

	Think again.  There's an opponent who wants to rock you, and who
wants to beat your record lap time.  Apart from the gravity field, this is
your worst enemy, and he or she (Yes, there are Miss Roketeerz as well :-))
is equipped with a load of weapons to bring you down, quick.  So, in order
to race, you need to fight.  In order to fight, you need to race; as often
the escape can be your only way out to return to your docking bay, where you
can quickly land to refuel and rearm, before the enemy finds you sitting
duck on your dock :-).

	As a Roketz pilot, there are a lot of things on your mind: Is my
fuel low? Do I have any XYZ weapons left? Who's on my six? What's that
plopping sound I here? I have to cut this corner here, then bypass or shoot
the enemy who's blocking the race circuit a split second in front of me.
What are those plasma sparks right ahead of me?!! Don't worry, it's just a
teleporter that will warp you to the other end of the level..!

BACK TO REALITY

	OK, back to reality for a moment.  The title screen that introduces
the game is very nicely raytraced.  The theme music guides you from the
title screens into the setup screens where you can enter yourself into the
pilot database, which at least has one "anonymous" player and one "CPU"
player.  Apart from those, every pilot's personal log will kept, along with
all your flight statistics, such as the number of kills, your win/lose
ratio, race lap records and much more.

	Also, you can setup your Roketz' configuration here: model, engine,
weapons, fuel, armament load, special equipment such as "life recharger",
"bumper field generator" or "Zion panic shield".  (Have a guess yourself
what these might be...)  For each Roket, your personal weapon setup will be
saved, to save you from the hassle to setup your preferred flight machine
again and again.  A very nice feature indeed.

	All those settings are defined using big, easy-to-understand icons.
Also, the controls can be chosen; either one of the joysticks, or keys on
your keyboard.  In case you don't like the default keys as controls, you can
define them yourself.  Everything is saved to your pilot file.  Hundred
percent comfort.

AT YOUR DISPOSAL

	To avoid there being one perfect Roket configuration, the game
offers you a number of credits that you can exchange for goodies, such as
fuel, weapons and add-on systems.  Each credit represents one life, i.e., one
Roket ship.  Therefore, a well equipped Roketeer has a small number of
lifes, and must use his (or her) goodies well to get out of the battle as a
winner.  There's a minimum of five lives, and a maximum of ten to start with.

GOAL OF THE GAME

	If you end the battle with zero lives, you are a loser.  If not, you
are a winner.  Simple as that.  Period.

ENTERING THE ENVIRONMENT

	After the setup, which is only needed after game startup, the level
selector appears, consisting of ray-traced imagery of the available levels.
After the selection of the battlezone or circuit, depending on your motives,
the level is loaded from (hard) disk.  During loading, a short description
of the environment is displayed, showing that the game authors have a good
fantasy, as well as a good sense for humor.  (Did you ever space-race in the
let-overs of the Fisney (tm) amusement park?  I bet you didn't :-)

GRAVITY'N'ROCK

	After loading, the splitscreen fades in, showing both Roketz in
vertical position at their landing platforms.  Roketz are vertical take-off
and landing craft, so you may need to get acquainted with the controls in
the beginning.  After vertical take-off, you notice that the gravity force
pulls you back to ear...eh... planet again.  Gravity is what keeps you from
flying straight as a rookie pilot, and rock walls is what keeps you from
living longer then 10 seconds. :-)

GETTING THE HANG

	After getting the hang of controls, you explore the space system
you're in.  It can be a rock cave, or a left-over from a large air cooling
plant, or... After you know what you should avoid doing (landing upside
down, flying into walls, etc.) you might want to push the trigger for a
while to get an idea of what you carry with you: big bangs or
whats-that-popping-sound-thingies?  Now you know how the handle your deadly
machine: go and haunt your enemy, or start your attempt for a new world lap
record time on this race circuit.

	The gameplay that follows now, is one that you must personally
experience, and that is hard to describe.  It involves smooth race flights,
with faaast space sprints and tight corners, avoiding missiles, distracting
the enemy, high speed pursuits in mid space, playing with the trigger and
quick refuel and re-arm landings.

	During the game, small bonus symbols appear in space; getting these
bonuses gives you extra lives, health, fuel or armament.  Also, there are
turbo's, which come in quite handy when you are racing, or not when you are
facing a rock wall :-)

	Personally, I like two player games, and I think this is one with
excellent gameplay. There are soundeffects all through the game, and
especially the sound of a faaast Roket is very thrilling.

EQUAL JUSTICE

	It may be just so, that your opponent is a "Senat" Roketeer, has 100
hours of flight experience, and has a 80% win/lose ratio.  For those
situations, the game somewhat supports you as a "nubie" pilot by giving away
"equalization points".  These points are given to the overall (race and
fight) loser of the latter few combats.  Although the points do not offer
total compensation (hey, that's not what points are for, ya know?! :-), they
give your opponent some handicap to get higher and higher in the rankings.

THE STATZ

	And that's where the statistics come in.  Right after you two
Roketeerz left the battle scene, a full blown screen loaded with numbers
fades in, presenting you with the stats for the battle you just had, but
also each pilot's up-to-date personal stats, such as flight hours.

	Apart from just winning and losing, you can keep track of your
overall results as a Roketeer. You can check whether you are still a
"Nubie", or whether you may call yourself "Elite".

THE INTRO

	The intro is a separate program and is shown each time you start the
game from floppy disk.  Hard disk users have separate icons for the intro
and game, but floppy disk users have to edit the startup-sequence (of their
copy) in order to skip the intro sequence.

	The intro consists of a fancy cartoon-style demo that introduces
you to Roketz.  It provides need-to-know information on what makes a
Roketeer a cool dude.  It is fun to watch, but as most intro's, you may want
to leave it as it is, and go for the game at once.

DOCUMENTATION

	The Farm is very environment-conscious: There is no printed
documentation.  It would be overkill to have it, as the in-game information
pages guide you through everything you wish to know.  (About Roketz, that is
:-)

	It explains the goal of the game, the setup screens, flight
controls, and gives away some hints for rookie Roketeerz, as well as
registration sites, credits etc.

LIKEZ

	The ultimate game to beat your worst enemy, or best friend, in a
futuristic environment.  Excellent gameplay.  The game sports splendid,
realistic and colorful grafix in smooth scrolling splitscreens, which is a
beauty for the eye.  Most of the grafix are raytraced, resulting in
outstanding backgrounds and realistic motion of your Roket.

	The sound effects give an extra boost to the game, and the Roketz
music theme is cool.  It adds the right atmosphere to the game, and keeps
your heartbeat high during the title and options screens.  (Those screens
that appear in between battles, ya know? :-))

	The game is complete, there's nothing missing (except some
multiplayer support:  see SUGGESTIONZ).

	Very good support.

DISLIKEZ

	I don't find this game attractive to play on my own.  The computer
cyberplayer is no match for a Roketeer, neither when racing nor when
fighting.  There is no option to enter a level alone.

SUGGESTIONZ

	A null modem cable link would be a nice plus for this two player
game. This would allow full screen action and, maybe more important, makes it
impossible to have your opponent watch your actions by simply peeking at
your splitscreen.

	Even a bigger plus would be network support.  Why? Because this is a
two player game, and you cannot always find a Roketeer virtually near you.
Internet support would be cool, but this may be impossible due to the
"connectionless" nature of Internet data streams, which is packet oriented.

	A tournament mode, where multiple players fight and race in
one-to-one combats, would make a Roketeer party more fun. :-)

	I should note that The Farm is looking into some things mentioned
above.  The readme says a free update is in the making that will include
more ships, levels and improved gameplay, and maybe a serial link option.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTZ

	First of all, Roketz is the first game I bought in years.  Although
I don't have the latest commercial games, I know what's hot and what's not.
Roketz is hot.

	Compared to a commercial game, Roketz stands out through artistical
perfection in music, soundeffects, graphics and gameplay.  It's low price
makes it have an exceptional high quality/price ratio.

	The are numerous older games that are based around the classic idea
where you have to fight an opponent, in a gravity forcefield.  Things I've
played are "Thrust" on the Commodore 64, "Gravity Force II" and "Fly Harder"
on the Amiga and a few others of which I have forgotten the name.  This
successful, classic idea is implemented in a very nice way in Roketz.

	The shareware nature of the game, makes it have more dynamic support
than a commercial game would have.  Very often, there is no way to get a
free bugfix for commercial games.  With Roketz, the bugfixes were all free,
and even a free (extended) update is announced.

	The nice thing is that I knew what I bought (well, almost :-)
because the demo version showed me what the game was really about.  I know I
got value for money, a thing that is often not true when buying a commercial
game just by it's first impressions.

BUGS

	There is a small bug in the control selections which you encounter
when selecting a nonconnected joystick.  When in this situation, one needs
to temporarily swap joystick connectors to get on.

	To be honest, I haven't reported this bug yet. (Blush...)

VENDOR SUPPORT

	I've reported earlier bugs via E-mail and I can say that my report
was handled very well.  All mentioned bugs were removed in the next release,
and I got a friendly response back.

	I was kept up-to-date when a bugfix was ready, and I was sent an
update by E-mail.  Also, when a World Wide Web page was introduced I was
informed on this via E-mail.

WARRANTY

	There is no warranty involved.  This is software; bits and bytes
cannot wear out after years of usage.  Floppy disks can.  You are instructed
to make backups of the original disks as soon as you receive them.

CONCLUSIONS

	Roketz rocks.

	Therefore I would rate this game 9 rocks out of 10. ;-)

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1995 by Leon Woestenberg.  This review may be copied as a
whole for non-commercial reasons only.  For partial or commercial copies or
publications you must have written permission from the author.

	E-mail: [email-masked]

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