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                                   FRUITS
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development ... TOMMYSOFT in 1998
status ........ freeware
type of game .. arcade
system ........ STfm only!, 1 MB RAM, RGB
contact ....... tlimbach@swin.baynet.de

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FRUITS? The title says not much, apples, bananas or what? All of them... Anyway,
you surely wonder why I'm testing a game  from 1998 in this  magazine. There are
a few reasons for this.

At first, I digged out "FRUITS" at least one year ago, but never  checked it out
in some  way. At second there  isn't much to check out on the  game front and as
you should know that misery creates some strange fruits... just as those here!

"FRUITS" is a very simple arcade game, created by TOMMYSOFT who got my attention
back in the early nineties, as I found a game by him on a PD disk, where you had
to jump on a tower's peak with a ball... that game was really nice done, but now
I even don't remember its name.

Anyway, while stepping through some web sites last  year, I checked out the name
TOMMYSOFT again and  remembered to that game and  so I wanted to  know what this
guy is doing nowadays. I leeched  his latest creation, this arcade type game but
I didn't knew what I did...

"FRUITS" is an extremely simple arcade game, where you see  your screen and some
fruits are falling down. Now you have to catch them with your  hand and when you
have got enough you will go to the next level... very easy, eh? Yes, it  is very
easy, too easy and a bit too modest at all... moreover it is extremely boring!

So "FRUITS" seems  to be some  kind of Breakout clone in  some way, but watching
the screen and catch the fruits is a very dull idea. The only thing happening is
a bee flying around on the  screen from time to time and you don't have to catch
it. You also have to  catch all falling  fruits, because if you  miss one or you
will catch the bee it means you collect mistakes and after 6 of them the game is
over...

Ok, that's  it for the  aim of the game... not  much sense  to see here. But the
most horrible thing is the  technical side. The grafix are the ugliest game grfx
I saw  for the  last years. Horrible colours, no antialiasing, no  dithering, no
animation or something, using  system font  too... Aaarg! The author of the game
wrote that he loves  old 8ostyle games, but even at this time such a shit wasn't
released at all... I don't know what he thought while creating the game... maybe
he just wanted to kick away the last survivors on Atari.

The sound  isn't brainblasting as well, some strange chip tunes and noises, that
is all. Nothing special to mention here.

What else? The game features an info screen too, bringing  some greetings with a
system font scroller and some rasterflashed  letters. The game itself features a
password option and a saveable highscore as well. Unfortunately  the game itself
doesn't counts the points in the level  itself, just your mistakes. You will see
your points only after finishing  a level. The game should feature 1oo levels at
all and so the guy behind it must be a sadist... I stopped even after the second
level to play the game... just to write...

THE FINAL WORDS...

"FRUITS" is a  senseless game, superfluous like a  goitre. Eeek! The  people who
had the encourage to download it will be  tormented by a game  styled like shit,
with no sense  behind and  no fun at all. In times where the  Atarians should be
happy about any game release and the few  people that  are creating games should
try to make the best of their ideas to  entertain the few  survivors in the best
possible way, TOMMYSOFT matched it to release  something that makes you angry to
have an Atari at all that runs that shit!

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video .......... o5 % - Why five? You can see something on the screen...
audio .......... 2o % - Oooould style chip musix...
controls ....... 8o % - Just move your mouse... nothing more...
motivation ..... o5 % - Even with highscore, passwords, the style destroys all!
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overall ........ 28 % - Still too much points...
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...and I'm happy  that I played it on STEW emulation... so at least  my good old
STFM mustn't suffer under that digital shit...

.tSCc.                                                                   moondog
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