.... Microdeal .... 16k
cassette .... 1/2 players ....
Reading the inlay card
reveals that this version has all the features of the 'official' version
and is commendable in that when two players are competing, you are
offered the choice of either using one shared or two joysticks. So, at a
glance, it would appear to be excellent value at £7.95. Do not be
deceived! When the game is loaded, the reason for the lower price
becomes apparent. The graphics are simple, but not bad. Willy (the
penguin) is actually quite good but the Snobees (sealions in this
version) are very crude blobs so poorly implemented that if two blocks
should pass, one will disappear! Also the appearance of the blobs is so sudden and random that you often lose a life before the
game has even started because a blob materialised on top of you!. The
musical accompaniment is interesting but plays rather too fast. The
general impression that I got was that Pengon was developed for the
Spectrum and then cross-assembled onto an Atari with no effort made to
make use of Atari's additional features.
Pengon is better than many
cheap Atari games but now that Atari's own Pengo is available at £9.95
the saving on this version is hardly worth considering.
_____________
You may have noticed that we seldom review any of the latest American
titles and sometimes, as in this issue, we do not have many reviews and
have to include programs that are quite well known. The reason is simple
- none of the major importers such as Centresoft or US. Gold send out
copies of their programs for review. You don't often see them in the
national magazines either. Most producers or distributors of Atari
software have an incredible lack of understanding of the power of a
review to sell a program. I suppose that that is their loss but in
another way readers of the magazine lose out and it is a problem that I
am well aware of.
A distributor or producer
directly benefits from sales generated by reviews. There is little
reason for a retailer to give away review copies as he will not
generally benefit from ALL of
the sales but if any retailer reading this would like to send in the
occasional (or regular) review copy of some of the American software, I
will ensure that they are given full credit as the source from which the
program may be obtained.
I am trying to broaden
the scope of The Software Reviews. To purchase programs myself would be
prohibitively expensive and even hiring programs has its problems. I
would like to set up a review panel of two or three readers who could be
sent software to review but at the moment so little is received that it
is not feasible. If you have any suggestions please let me know but in
the meantime how about sending in some reviews of software you have
bought? Ed.
top
