From: Jarno Kokko Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Jason L. Tibbitts III Subject: REVIEW: Global Effect Keywords: game, strategy, war, simulation, commercial Path: karazm.math.uh.edu!amiga-reviews Distribution: world Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Reply-To: Jarno Kokko Global Effect is a Sim Earth/Sim City style strategy game. Another day, another review of a new Amiga game by Jarnis(TM). - - G L O B A L E F F E C T - - Publisher: MILLENIUM Formats: Amiga (Reviewed here) PC (Coming soon) ST (No info, should come) Price: No info at all. Out now. Requires: 1 MB ram. 3 disks. Fully HD installable. Global Effect follows the footsteps of Sim City and Sim Earth, combining features from both games. You have a whole planet to mess with, but you are building things bit like in Sim City. You have to manage power lines, waste management, water supplies, recycling centers, coal/oil/uranium mining and refining. All this looks very much like in Sim City, but the global scale information about temperature of the planet, atmosphere etc. is like in Sim Earth. Global Effect also has a bit of wargaming in it. You can play two player game either against a computer or another player using datalink cable. In two player game you will compete with the other player, trying to build bigger cities and military forces, and still keep the enviroment in good condition. There is also some scenarios where you can try healing a planet suffering from global warming, over-use of natural resources or similar bad condition. These add long-time interest to the product, but not much more. First Impressions: Good graphics, better than other similar games, but still nothing *really* impressive. Sound is good where it's used - main game itself is mainly silent. User interface is well coded, but the design side isn't perfect. Sim City-style menu where you could have picked the building blocks would have been better, now you have to cycle through the item list all the time. Game is also bit confusing at the beginning, but reading the manual will help a lot. This game isn't so simple to play as Sim City, so only strategy game fans should apply. Playing from HD with 3MB ram is very easy. No irritating delays at all, and I suspect floppy users should be able to play this quite well also. Protection is manual based, so no backup problems. Overall you will be pleased after first few minutes of playing. Good points: Good graphics for a strategy game, quite much doing. Wargaming side adds much for this kind of game. Playing is pretty easy, and user interface is well coded. Game is fast when compared to Sim Ant or similar S-L-O-W games. Most of the game is well designed, and this game has many good ideas in the user interface. Bad points: Some tiny bits of the user interface sucks, namely the building block selector. Also constant 'not enough power' message irritates. On a standard game you seem to run out of building power all the time. Also the game isn't so well designed, that you could virtually play it without the manual, and somehow the game doesn't -feel- easy. All the time you are bit 'lost', thinking 'how I can do this, how I can do that' and on-screen information without opening extra information windows is bit too limited. Faults are very minor, but I myself will hate a game that has even ONE fault, if it affects the gameplay too much. Wargaming section is also too limited, so don't expect a full scale planetary wars. Wargaming is there, but it could have been done MUCH better. Graphics: 8 Sound: 9 (When it's used) Value: 7 Playability: 8 Summary: A combination of Sim City, Sim Earth and some simple wargaming. Good idea, but the implementation of the user interface is not perfect, and the gameplay isn't THAT easy, so you'll need to dig up the damn manual... Strategy game fans should definitely check this out, but don't rush out and buy this without trying first. Someone might like this very much. I think it's good, but not good enough for me. - Jarno Kokko ____________ _| .signature |______________________________________________________ | | | -------- Jarno Kokko -------- | Borg: Prepare to be assimilated | | --- jarnis@mits.mdata.fi -- | by the Borg. | | ---- Vantaa, Finland ---- | Worf: Prepare to eat phasers. | |_____________________________________________________________________|