Text File | 1989-12-16 | 6.0 KB | 76 lines | [50] Apple IIgs Word Processing (0x5445)
REVIEWS
BATTLE CHESS
Reviewed by Tom Hall
One of the programs that really impressed me on the Amiga was Battle Chess. Imagine╤chess pieces that actually look like kings, queens, bishops, and so on, fighting it out for every square. And the battles are hilarious, at least for those people who have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Wild Wild West. It sparks interest in the young in the game of chess, which is excellent.
When I found out they had it for the GS, I was ecstatic . . . and wary. Both the Amiga╒s and the GS╒s main processor run at about the same number of instructions per second (effectively 1 MIPS╤1 million instructions per second╤each), but the Amiga has a graphics co-processor, so the incredible overhead involved in putting graphics on the screen is tremendously lessened. However, I knew that the GS╒s sound and amazing graphics could make the program transfer well.
GETTING ROOKED
I ordered Battle Chess after reading a review in the magazine GS+ (see G-Essence for info). They eased my fears a bit with comments such as, ╥If you like chess, or just want a program that can show off your IIgs, then this game is for you.╙
So I bought it. I waited many weeks to get it in (not knowing my girlfriend had sneakily bought it and waited until Christmas to give it to me), and I was psyched to see it in action.
I booted it. Then came the first bad sign:
PRODOS v 1.8
It wasn╒t in GS/OS. This meant the title screen would appear quicker (GS/OS didn╒t have to load in), but the entire game would be slowed down for disk accesses. But well, I thought, Zany Golf was in 8-bit ProDOS and it was great . . . .
So the nifty title screen came up, and more loading took place. As it loaded, I thought, ╥I have a Meg and a quarter memory . . . it can load the whole DISK into memory╤it╒s only 800K╤and never have disk reads . . . .╙
Then the chess screen appeared and a window popped up:
14) Chekhover -- Botvinnik
Leningrad 1931
17. White:
The game has an off-disk protection scheme. I don╒t really like protection schemes, but at least you can copy the disk and don╒t have to wear down your only copy, nor annoying insert a ╥key disk,╙ so I guess it╒s the best of the schemes . . . unless you lose the book.
I typed in white╒s move and the game was ready to begin. I clicked on the square the king╒s pawn was standing on, then on the square two ahead.
A small icon of Rodin╒s The Thinker sitting on a computer replaced the hand cursor. The Amiga busy cursor (a cloudy bubble with ╥zzz╙ in it, like it╒s sleeping) appeared. ╥WHERE╒S THE LITTLE STOPWATCH?!╙ I thought. Ah, well. The graphics had been transferred without concern for the GS. I looked at the chessboard and pieces. Sixteen colors. Well, they do have to move all over the screen, I suppose. I looked at the Thinker cursor the next time it appeared. The Thinker was sitting atop an Amiga 1000, not a GS. Sigh.
It took about five seconds of disk access for the animation of the pawn walking to load in, then the pawn walked. About three times too slow. Oh, dear.
However, the joy of the animations still translated well. The battles were well thought out and creative. A joy to watch, even if they are rather slow.
I began to notice. Every battle was loaded off of disk. Even ones it had done before. The box had said 512K, and they meant it. They weren╒t taking advantage of the extra memory! Jim Sproul, who wrote the IIgs version deserves several slaps on the wrist for this one.
So, I figured, I╒ll put it in a RAM disk. A RAM disk is a portion of memory that you can treat just like a disk. The advantage is that it is REALLY fast. The disadvantages: turning off your system and losing the data, not being able to run GS/OS unless you have over 1.25 Meg of memory.
So I copied Battle Chess into the RAM disk, set the computer to boot from my RAM disk, and let ╘er fly.
ZOOM! The game loaded quickly, I entered the move code, and I was off! I moved a piece: over twice as fast loading! Wow! I made about ten moves, and then my drives lit up, one by one, and I see the message:
PLEASE INSERT GAME DISK
I pressed a key. It read the drives and printed the message again. Then I realized what happened. The program didn╒t check to see what memory was in use, and OVERWROTE the RAM disk. Jim Sproul deserves several slaps in the face for this one.
However, when put on a ROM disk on a 2 Megabyte system, it worked fine. (The ROM Disk--or Read Only Memory disk--is either protected or put in upper memory.) Jim apparently overwrites the lower 512K. Even a RAM disk on a 3 Meg system will not work. To have a ROM disk, you╒ll need something equivalent to Applied Engineering╒s RAMKeeper.
Here╒s a speed comparison:
Loading time in seconds
MOVE FIGHT
ROM disk 2 7
3.5╙ disk 5 16
SPEEDY QUEEN
The game needed speed, so I played it on a machine with a Transwarp GS card installed.
This made it playable. The animations took the right amount of time, which made the wait for the disk access bearable. Now the game was fun, watching what each piece fighting each other piece was like. The angels holding up the menus were cute. I laughed out loud at some of the fights. So now I need a Transwarp GS.
CONCLUSION
Battle Chess is a direct translation of the 512K Amiga version. Nothing was done to enhance the sound nor make it use the other qualities that make the GS special. Unless you get a 2 Meg (or more) RAM card with a RAMKeeper and/or a Transwarp GS, I╒d really look at it in the store to see if you can bear the speed. If you can, fine. Me, I need the speed the only Applied Engineering can provide.
So, if you have a Transwarp GS or don╒t mind long disk loads, then Battle Chess is just great. Go get it. It is a blast.
If you have 512K, well, there╒s virtually no other GS programs for you, so get it! To speed it up, you could play in the 2D mode, although it isn╒t Battle Chess.
However, if you have a Meg but no Transwarp GS card, then I don╒t think that Battle Chess performs well enough for the money. Not that it couldn╒t. It just doesn╒t.
