--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"PEKING v2.ob" by Gunnar Gröbel
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
system... ST, STe, TT, Falcon, Emulation (STeem), RGB, VGA, 512 KB RAM
release.. dunno? the game itself says 1993 (!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's a bit tricky, as if the things announced in the game are right, I really
wouldn't review it in here. Strange enough I stumbled over a link that announced
an updated version and so I leeched it... The first horror came up, as I started
the game and must read "1988" in the intro picture, can it be?!
Anyway, now I have it leeched and played and ripped screenshots, so who cares...
"PEKING" is nothing more and nothing less than a complete Mah Jong clone, the
puzzle game with the stones mixed on the desk, also in several layers, where you
have to remove the whole bunch of stones while searching the counterparts of
every stone but with the problem that only stones on the left and right outer
borders can be removed and also only if they aren't overlayed by another stone.
And since all stones are included in very limited numbers, it is quite tricky,
the smaller the heap is going.
But hell, what I'm trying to tell you here?! I guess you already played one of
those many clones before. The best conversions of this game idea so far where
the version by DELTA FORCE in the "Punish Your Machine" megademo on ST, yawn
what I had played that game! Furthermore the creations of the RESERVOIR GODS on
Falcon, "Tautology 1 & 2", as well as the commercial version on Falcon called
"Let's Play Shanghai". There are many different versions available in the PD/SW.
While the first mentioned used an own surrounding, "Peking" follows the way of
"Let's Play Shanghai", but why following? It obviously was present before this
one... anyway, it is offering a GEM shell, arf! That it is still quite nice
looking you can see here...
Let's start to kill this heap!
But under GEM it runs only in the LOW and HI RES ST resolutions. Btw, that this
games was originally created for ST and TT shows the fact that the Falcon kicks
out a few bombs, surely caused by the included chip music routines. Happily the
author has done a version for ST emulations without sound and this one runs well
on Falcon, too. But don't try other resolutions, the game surely will fuck up.
Since you have to play in complete silence on the Falcon then, I thought back to
the good old DSP Background Player, done by my old group mate, Apache. I quickly
installed it and, it runs... unfortunately with the problem that, if you call
the player in the game menu, the screen will be deleted and not restored, so you
have to restart the game, but in a new mix.
While playing I didn't got any breakdowns...
Ok, this problem is solved... so let's take a closer look... At first and surely
the biggest drawback, the game is completely in german, all menus and readme's.
But since the idea of the game is quite old and I guess known to everybody, this
is a thing, we can step over here.
The stones of the original set are well done and hard on the original set, known
from all the other versions. It includes a few special stones, that are surely
own creations of the author, those are special ones that can be mixed in some
way together to be deleted. Btw, the is a table included, listing all stones
that are availble in the game and showing too with which stones they can mixed
up to be deleted.
The game runs as long as you're able to delete pairs of stones, it starts with
144 stones in several layers in the middle of the heap. In the upper right
corner is a counter showing how many stones are still on the board... In fact it
is better to get informed about the available stones to know how many of each
sort are on the board to know what pairs you can delete and what you have to
save to avoid later problems. In fact, the game isn't that easy! So far I didn't
matched it to delete all stones, damn.
You can ofcourse ask the computer to take over a next move and he does if it is
still possible, if not it is on to you to restart the level.
Apart from this help the game offers a few more features such as different stone
designs (but I prefer the original one since the flaggs or traffic signs are
quite confusing to watch at), the possibility to play against another player, on
the same playfield and to set a time counter for the single moves in the two
player game. There is also a highscore included, but somehow I didn't matched it
to step into it, even if it doesn't contains any entries, hu?
Another option is the delete one, you can delete some stones while using this
option, but then the stone counter is switched off and there is no possibility
to enter the highscore at all then, better in this case is the move backwards
option and so you can rebuild up the whole heap again, move by move and see what
you've done wrong... Last but not least the actions of the menu can be called
via the Function keys too but it isn't that easy to remember the different
functions there, so the mouse driven way to play is surely better for the
player that just plays now and then a round...
What's left? The visuals aren't brainblasting but doing their job quite well,
the intro picture, showing a dragon seems to be ripped from somewhere, dunno,
but I have the feeling that I have seen it before somewhere.
On the sound/fx side isn't much to mention, the "intro" features a little chip
music of quite old style, maybe ripped from some old game too and in the game
itself there is just... silence. The only fx is a ping that sounds when you're
clicking onto tiles you can't use.
So what else is to mention here? Not much, so let's run down the final words...
...final words... PEKING is surely a nice little game, featuring a quite old but
still very captivating idea. It has a mediocre set of features
and is in its visual/audio creation not that brainblasting as
well. The controls are ok, a thing that is rising or maybe
also lowering the motivation is the fact that the game is damn
hard. After 1o or more tries I didn't matched it to solve this
heap of tiles. This can be a bit frustrating and a slowly
rising difficulty via levels would have been a better solution
since you can fastly loose your interest in that game. The
realisation in GEM offers a few possibilities as background
music players and so on, but I doubt it will run under multi
tasking systems very well as it will run only in ST LOW and
HIGH resolution and will bug in others for sure, even if you
are using the same colour depth, but I haven't checked this.
What is left? A quite ok little brain teaser, for ST users
surely worth a look, Falcon users have better alternatives...
___ratings______________________________________________________________________
visuals ..... 65 % - they're ok for ST low, but wont reach the DF version
audio ....... 1o % - far from being state of the art, fx = mouse ping, arf!
controls .... 8o % - mouse controlled, but the menu's are all in german only
idea ........ 5o % - not original but always nice to play
motivation .. 5o % - far too hard, no rising difficulty
___overall_____51_%_____________________________________________________________
Not a real burner, nice to play but the competition is far to hard!
_.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_11/2k2_
|
UCM24
