ll out.

* (L) Large On/Off. Expand paddle.

* (T) Time. 1 minutes extra playing time.

To play the game you use a joystick plugged into port 2, or a paddle and
the Fire button to release the ball.

The game can also be played with a Paddle. To use the paddle you must have
it plugged into port 1, too. You can use WinVICE with Alt Q to capture the mouse from your computer and emulating a paddle (I never tested this but
did play on a real machine).

The music is quite cool, very retro classical, if that's a proper phrasing
to use. It reminds me of how really big music in classic games used to be, where you spent more time listening to the music than the game. The music would better suit a Tetris-style game rather than this but ...

Some very nice synth-style lead lines and a cool feel. Quite excellent.

The game itself is responsive and I like the scrolling down of the
background behind the blocks, and just adds a touch of class. Also, when
you start the game or after losing a life the music fades out and in again, just adding something to the game. It's nothing much, but each of these
small details adds up, making the game stand out.

What would have been really good... if you picked up a bonus like faster
and the music sped up, or a bonus of slower and the music slowed down, but
I suppose we can't have everything, can we?

The in-game graphics look rather plain. A static ball glides around,
bouncing into rather bleak rectangular blocks. Some sort of animation is really needed with some lighting effects - you know - like "Arkanoid:
Revenge of DOH" the game as is seems more reminiscent of the original "Arkanoid".

It's a decent enough version, but I personally think it needs a bit more graphical Pizazz, and sonically it's very sound.

csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/135384/BrickBuster2015.zip

SCORES

Graphics: 6/10
Sounds: 8/10
way cool tunes
Gameplay: 7/10
it's an ok version
Overall: 7/10

SUMMARY

A decent enough version just needing
a little more detail on the graphics
side.


*************************************
REVIEW: PENULTIMATE FANTASY V1.1
By Commodore Free
*************************************

Code: Endurion of Avatar, RGCD Music: Twoflower of TRIAD Graphics: David Eriksson

www.georg-rottensteiner.de/files/Penultimate Fantasy RGCD.zip

Quite interesting this one ...

So you control what looked like a small yellow bird was my first thought!

This is A Final Fantasy clone.

THE STORY GOES LIKE THIS

Evil ravages the land and has stolen the four elemental crystals. Fight,
level up, find your comrades and fight the four bosses to free your land.
Use your technics, find where and what to steal, learn techs (there's only
two though) and gather magic spells. If you get defeated, you continue.
All your stats, items, and deeds are still there so you don't lose
everything.

You walk about with the joystick. Pushing the Fire button to enter a menu, where you can use items or magic from your inventory, change equipment,
examine surroundings (and toggle switches), or return to the game. Every
few steps you'll have what seem to be random encounters.

Using EXAM on a bed or a spring will revive and fully heal the complete
party during a battle the time bars slowly fill. Once a time bar is full
the character can choose an action to perform. FIGHT attacks with your
weapon, SPECIAL depends on the character, MAGIC lets you use spells and
ITEM lets you use an item. In battle, during target selection for spells, pushing right on a player will select the whole player party, pushing left
on a single enemy selects all enemies. This only works where the spells
allow this (attack magic and cure spells).

SPECIAL COMMANDS:

STEAL - tries to steal an item from an enemy. Not every enemy has an item,
and not every steal attempt is successful. Some rare items can only be
gotten by stealing

TECH - use STUDY to learn a tech from an enemy. There are only two
technics, but they are quite powerful. Not every enemy has a technic to
study, and not every study attempt is successful.

JUMP - Lets the character perform a long jump. The jump keeps the
character out of the battle for three turns and attacks the targeted enemy afterwards. This can be useful to avoid being hit.

MIMIC - Uses randomly one of the chosen enemies attack against himself

ITEMS:

* HERBS replenishes 50 HP
* ETHER replenishes 50 MP
* FENIX DOWN revives a character
* ANTIDOTE cures poisoning

GAME TIPS:

Try to get all magic spells and equipment. Also, gather your comrades as
soon as possible. Bosses appear when stepping on a certain tile in the
map. They have certain elemental resistances and weaknesses. Your
characters will be killed, so keep RAISE handy! Once you have all four crystals you need to return them

The game is played viewed from that strange top down side pseudo type style that's neither one thing nor the other, however for this game it seems to
work well (even if it doesn't make everything look flat).

Pressing Fire brings up this menu:

Here you can look at Items or your equipment, examine an item or return to
the game. Move the joystick to move the hand over the "thing" you want to
do and press Fire, then further information (if any) will be given. I have found that if you approach an item from a different angle and then examine
it again, you may find it does actually have something hidden within it!
And let's just say that fighting with a knife is more enjoyable than
fighting without one (in this game).

When you start to fight the music changes to a more racy pace. It's not a
game I would actually go out and look for, but this one works quite well
and the control system seems very intuitive, so all I think that's left is
to give some scores.

As I said it's not a game I would actively go out and hunt out to play, and
the 16k limitation means that the map isn't going to be as large as you
would think. Still, I found the game playable, although didn't feel any
urge to actually stick with it and finish. I just kept dabbling then
looking for something else to try .

SCORES

Graphics: 6/10
Music: 6.5/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Overall: 7/10


*************************************
REVIEW: TUTTI FRUTTI 64
By Commodore Free
*************************************

Released by: Mayday!

DOWNLOAD

csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/135346/TuttiFrutti64_MYD.zip csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/135363/TuttiFrutti64.crt

The zip file contains a read me and the source code.

THE DOCUMENTATION ON THE PLUS 4 TAPE VERSION SAYS:

You are super strawberry, king of the orchard, in this fast moving
all-action arcade game. Your job is to collect all the cherries from the orchard, as they are now ripe and it's fruit-picking time. But beware, not
all the fruit is good fruit, and there are bad apples in the orchard which
can fall on you and make you very ill, so try not to get underneath them.
Also in the orchard are the acid apple gang who are determined to stop a
good harvest by fair means or foul.

The programmer has written:

FLAWS/BUGS OF THE C16/PLUS4 ORIGINAL THAT WERE LEFT OUT:

Apple fall slowdown when having 2 or more apples fall and running from left
to right

On player death half-tiles stayed on screen, Cherry score was already
counted when "collecting" half of the cherry

Add points to Score as level reward failing most of the time (at least from
the disassembly I assume scoring was planned like I implemented it in this version)

FLAWS/BUGS OF THE C16/PLUS4 ORIGINAL THAT WERE REPRODUCED:

Moving chests/boxes in Game type 3 will disappear from map on player death,
but still be visible on screen. Fixing here would have influenced the gameplay. While it would have been nice to avoid that the solid apple
tiles can get erased, allowing the moving boxes to finish their moves on
player death would also have meant they could kill enemies. This seems logical, but it would influence the enemy counter and create a big
difference to the original.

Enemies are allowed to walk over tiles blocking the enemy base. Because of hard sprites this looks a bit weird in the C64 version, but overall it's
still more logical than in the original where those tiles get erased from screen, but not from the map.

REVIEW

Based on the Commodore 16/plus4 version that was released by Mr. Chip
Software back in 1985, retro gamer lists Tutti Frutti for the Commodore 16
as one of the machine's top ten games, which in its case was a clone of the arcade Mr Doo! (well clone is a bit strong, more like an artistic,
unlicensed version of) to be fair, after about level 3 its similarities
WITH Mr Doo seem to start fading.

Anyway, moving on from that intro you can see the plus 4/16 version here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKupkpi9oXY

The conversion to the c64 looks very close indeed, although the plus 4/16
seems to be faster, so In this version of the game you are a Strawberry!
You must collect the cherries while avoiding the green apples. You can go
over the landscape in a sort of mining-style, excavating away the soil to
get to the cherries. The green things can only walk along the mined areas,
so as you dig more away... so they can move more?! Is anyone still
following this?

You have the ability to throw a small ball; this kills the green things on contact. It also bounces all around the mined areas like a random bouncing thing that bounces around mined areas; however, more often than not it will bounce around and come back to you without killing any green things. Phew! ...that's simple then.

Later levels expand on this idea, where you have to push blocks of cherries
to squash green things and then break the blocks to get the cherries. It's
all very odd and could possibly be a dream and not a real game at all.
Still, having never played it on the plus4/16 I downloaded a copy, and it
does indeed run faster and look almost identical, even down to the music (albeit with the SID on the C64, Ted on the plus4) it's an accurate
conversion.

Let's score it before I wake up then:

SCORES

Graphics: 6/10
looks like the original but...
Sounds: 6/10
original sound track reproduced
but...
Gameplay: 6/10
starts to get rather weird
Overall: 6/10

SUMMARY

Too late! I woke up

=====================================

*************************************
REVIEW: BATTLE KHAOS II
By Commodore Free
*************************************

csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/135321/Tinnitus-BattleKhaos2.rar

Code & Music: Asterion
GFX & Add. Code: Trompkins
Flavour Text: Tinnitus

As the game loads and the music kicks in, I sat and I was going to
criticize the music for not following what you would class as authentic druid-style sounds, as these are more synth-like. I felt it would be, you know, like a flute and drum-style intro with maybe some fanfare trumpets,
but listening to the music for some time, what the heck do I know! It
actually goes really well with the game, especially when the pipes come in
and the thunder sound effect pumping out like a drum is really very atmospheric, very unusual and interesting music indeed. However, it can
get a bit monotonous, but heck - I had to play this at night with
headphones on, as I had no other reviewing time other than nights. The
game took some reviewing as well, as you know this isn't my style of game,
I prefer just to move and shoot things.

Having to crack open the text file manual that came with the game, I
started to read and transport myself into another realm! Yep, you do need
to read the text file. I don't think you can just pick it up and play it,
so you will have to set some time aside before playing. I also think you really need more than one player, so maybe it's a good time to Google up
some friends, as you can have a maximum of 4 (in the game).

So, Battle Khaos II is a multiplayer strategic war game that is inspired by
the games like MAGIC: THE GATHERING, DARK LEGIONS, and also Julian
Gollop's CHAOS - The Battle of Wizards. The goal is to kill the enemy
wizards. This is done mainly by casting sorceries and also by summoning various creatures and sending them off to fight.

You will know yourself if this is your type of game. It's quite absorbing
and seems to have been well-written.

SCORES

Graphics: 6/10
they don't need to be special
Sounds: 7/10
interesting music
Gamepay: 7/10
absorbing
Overall: 7/10




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