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Issue 30

Nov/Dec 87

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F-15 For ST!

Microprose have some great news for ST flight simulator fanatics with the conversion of F-15 STRIKE EAGLE to the ST in late September at a price of £24.95. F-15 has already been written about extensively in many publications and fully reviewed in PAGE 6 but it will be exciting to see it using the full power of the ST.

Mastertronic have begun to ship their ST games which all retail at £9.99. September releases were CHOPPER X and STRIKE. If the quality is good and they sell well, maybe it will persuade other manufacturers to offer games software at more reasonable prices.

Infocom have a most unusual offering of eight short stories that are not so much adventures as a series of wordplay puzzles. Even the title will get you thinking, NORD AND BERT COULDN'T MAKE HEAD OR TAIL OF IT! Written by Jeff O'Neill, author of Ballyhoo, it contains all the humour and intellectual challenge of Infocom's adventures but is designed for those who fancy solving a puzzle in an evening. Each of the eight tales will only take a few hours to solve but will challenge you to the full. Price is £29.99.

English Software, once well known for its support of Atari, is slowly coming back to the Atari fold with a new ST release, LEVIATHAN, which is not, as you might suspect, about whales, but is an arcade style shoot 'em up which looks from the screen shots to be quite similar to Zaxxon.

Metacomco have been busy upgrading various products and now have LATTICE C Version 3.04 which seems to have all features necessary to make it the leading C development system for the ST. The new version costs £99.95 but upgrades are available to existing owners for £30. Also released is PASCAL 2 which provides an ISO standard core but with a large range of extensions for programmers who wish to access the power of the ST. There are many enhancements to the program and a new manual of over 700 pages giving program developers another powerful tool for the ST. Price is £89.95.

A new budget range for the ST comes from ANCO who have a cross-licensing deal with Kingsoft of Germany. Kingsoft have a large number of games and utilities for various machines but at the time of writing it was not clear what would be available for the ST. If the quality is good, it looks like `budget' software for the ST has finally arrived.

ANTIC Software has released BASE TWO, a new database which is essentially a powerful extension of DB Master One which many owners received free with their ST. BASE TWO is entirely RAM based for speed and has many powerful features together with a flexible report generator that is compatible with all ST word processors.

Electronic Arts recently launched their U.K. subsidiary Company with a little party on the Thames at which they announced a new marketing strategy for the U.K. whereby the Company will distribute direct to retailers thus ensuring that there is a greater awareness of Electronic Arts products at the level where it is most important. Electronic Arts will be supporting the ST with titles such as BARDS TALE, CHESSMASTER 2000, MARBLE MADNESS and DEGAS ELITE which will all be repackaged and re-priced for the U.K. Electronic Arts will also distribute for affiliated labels and have agreements already with CRL and Nexus whose titles ACADEMY and SKULLDIGGERY for the ST are already in the shops.

Electric Distribution, who already handle Antic Software's products in the U.K. now have a special 'bundling' deal with Timeworks whose three business packages WORD WRITER ST, DATA MANAGER ST and SWIFTCALC ST can be had for only £149 for all three, a saving of £110! Also included in the deal is a subscription to Softline, a software support service for these products.

Infogrames have an enormous range of entertainment software lined up for the ST. Many of these have a typically French style and some unusual themes. Here we go. SIDEWALK is a mono program in which you have to retrieve you stolen motorbike and collect your girlfriend with some tickets for a concert! L'AFFAIRE is another in the successful Crime series where you travel seven European Cities trying to prove your innocence having been accused of a crime you didn't commit. THREE MUSKETEERS is based on the famous book and is an adventure set in eighty graphical locations. Off you go, D'artagnan! PASSENGERS ON THE WIND II, is naturally the sequel to the first graphic adventure and continues the tale to regain the birthright of a deposed noble lady. Following in October is CHAMPIONSHIP WATER SKI in which you can take part in three events in the World Championships. Phoenix is a shoot 'ern up game where you have to keep the space lanes open fighting pirates and hijackers. BIVOUAC promises to be one of the most unusual and interesting games being a mountain climbing simulation! Now you will be able to find out what Chris Bonnington does with his computer! There's more! In November you should see SPACE RENEGADE, PROHIBITION 2, THE GRAND VIZIR – IZNOGOOD, BUBBLE GHOST, STRYFE 2, CRASH GARRETT, CRAFTON 2, ANACONDA III, BOB MORANE I and CAPTAIN BLOOD. More details as they are released. Talk about prolific output!

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