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                              MOORHUHN MADNESS!
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MOORHUHN? What's that?! The  same question  was standing for me  before I got in
touch  with this  PC game... Now, some weeks after  I was  infected, I know what
MOORHUHN is and means for me...

For the  ones who don't have a clue about  it all there  is a short  story. Some
people on the PC invented the good old shot'em'up where you're sitting there and
killing  all that  appears on  your screen again and this time no  QUAKE or some
other 3d kill'em'up has the same effect as this simple game.

Those people  from the Phenomedia AG created at first "MOORHUHN", a simple shot'
the'chick. Some rendered swamp  chicks are flying  around on the  screen and you
have  around 1,5  minutes to  kill as much as possible. But it doesn't  went too
long after its follow up was released, "MOORHUHN 2"...

And with  MOORHUHN 2 every  single brain was burned out, every infected user was
nailed on his screen, the mouse in the right hand and the left hand on they keys
to be the MOORHUHN Master... and I was  one of those  burned out  people too for
longer time now.

The hype around  this game was completed through its design, the hidden features
and  gimmicks  and finally  because its  public release  on several  servers. It
features kewl animations, a full  drawn landscape  and over all a saveable score
table. Furthermore many web sites appeared giving tips and... showing highscores
of other players! Argh... that was the point!

I was sitting with wet fingers in front of my machine too with  just one tought:
I will  reach this  list! This  top25 was actualised  weekly and the  scores got
higher and higher, mny own scores too... but I didn't matched it... so  where is
the problem? Am I too  old? Is my mouse defect? My fingers  too slow? My machine
too slow? Or are those damn inet highscores just FAKED?!

And after a short thought I came to the last  point... because the maker of this
webpage  wanted saved highscore screens and where should be the  problem to fake
them?! I as grafician can't see any problem to do something like this... or wait
there is at  least one problem, my honour as gamer! Puhh... at least I feel much
better when I  know I reached a recent highscore just with my  reactions and own
brain, instead faking something...

About 1o years I'm using Atari machines now and I played a lot of games, I never
needed it to fake  some highscores! But that counts for me... what about all the
PC players  around? Dunno, I wont judge  before I know the  reality... but alone
the idea or knowledge to have  the possibility to fake  something or that others
could do so destroyed a lot of interest for this game!

Oki, I still like  it and play it again and again, but I see  it now from a very
different side... and I'm happy about the point I found out with  the eventually
faked highscores... just  because this game stole a lot of my time! I don't know
how many hours I was sitting in front of my PC just killing swamp chicks all the
time, but I know I lost a lot of time for doing more interesting stuff just like
writing some articles for UNDERCOVER.

And now? What  is left? A  nice little game or better  time consuming  fast food
entertainment I  sometimes miss on my ST or Falcon. I don't remember when I used
them really to play and play and play... But why? Maybe because the Atari gamers
scene lacks a lot of inspiration and ideas. We got hundreds  of Tetris, Columns,
Break Out, Pacman or Tron clones, games we played a  lot in the  past but  don't
have a big wow effect today...

Ok, MOORHUHN is  nothing other than  a very simple shot'em'up as well, but in my
eyes it makes the best  out of the theme, with gorgeous  grafix, funny elements,
rendered animations, cruel soundtrack and sounds in the game as well and so on.
It was even sold in several stores so far and reached some chartplaces too.

The german comic dumbass Wigald Boning did some music about the theme as well as
several  clones popped  up within shortest  time. But all this is  just hype and
kills with the time the interest in this game, but not at all.

I played several  other shooters of this kind but  I must say there  is a lot of
crap around too... Mentionable is a strange version of vampire hunt where you've
to shot with wooden stakes or burn a cross onto some appearing  vampire, killing
bats  and stuff... Therefore games like "SUMPFHUHN" are  of a very  mediocre and
bad quality, never  reaching "MOORHUHN 2" at  all... Even some  games  where you
have to kill the sucky Teletubbies appeared on the screen...

But with all the  crap released the MOORHUHN hype has reached the  zenith and is
going down  as well. Because of all those clones  it is just a  question of time
untill nobody is interested anymore in those  games... a point we reached on the
Atari scene with all those hundreds of  clones of PACMAN, TRON, TETRIS and so on
as well and since many years now.

But sometimes I have  the feeling  that the PC scene will find  new hypes in the
shortest  time, for example  some cruel  games about a  german prince, where you
have to drink beer, piss into corners and kick some journalists.
Unfortunately  there is a lack of originality  in the Atari scene  because we're
tormented with the next PONG or TRON clones again...

I know that  several people  will be  pissed now  but I just wrote  what I think
about the  todays gaming  scene on Atari. It  is no wonder  that nobody  is very
interested anymore  to play something on his Atari. Only  a few commercial games
of the late  times like "OBSESSION" are  able to infect  the users to  play some
rounds again but especially a lot of the stuff released in the last years wasn't
started anymore.

It seems  for me  atm that  especially Atari, the  platform that  invented video
gaming at all, today is lost for gamers. The few promising  projects are stopped
or will never see the light anymore. Therefore the last  joystick heroes on this
machines are tormented with games of the same kind again and again...

So if you're  going to create a new PONG clone  or something please  think twice
and  especially  think about the idea  behind your  game... don't bore  the last
gamers on this machines to death... or at  least try to do some clone of another
game that wasn't burned out completely...

www.sirlab.de                                                            moondog
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