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                             SUPERFLY by RESERVOIR GODS
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system ... ST, STe, Falcon, TT, STeem 2.4, 1 MB RAM, RGB, VGA

genre .... fast frantic action game

release .. 12/2k2

url ...... http://www.reservoir-gods.com

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It took a damn long time untill this game was released. Since several months the
rumour kitchen was cooking like a vulcano  short before eruption and so a lot of
people were sitting there with wet fingers, waiting to get hold of the new game,
me too...

At first, the  Reservoir Gods  are going straight  the way to  support any Atari
hardware (16/32 bit) with  at least one  MB of RAM, any  display and any kind of
control medium, to make their games available for the most Atarians around.

So what is "Superfly" all about? It's a  complete action game and you need quite
good reflexes to  play. As it says "fly" you can imagine what you  have to do...
You're the hero, Dr. Snuggles (where have I heard that before?!) and you have to
recover your girlfriend Kylie  that vanished as you  woke up one morning (what a
horror, eh?!).

As Dr.Snuggles is some kind of a mad inventor and  so you're  using some of your
self created vehicles to  start the hunt  after Kylie. You  have to control your
vehicles now  through soft  horizontal  scrolling levels  with several obstacles
staying around. The game  runs a bit like several other gravity games, just like
"Killing Impact" or "Utopos". You have just one possibility  to control, just to
press the fire button that gives your vehicle some drive so that it rises on the
screen  while it is  flying to the right. If you  take your  finger off from the
button your vehicle will sink on the screen.
Every contact  with the obstacles or  the borders of the screen will cost one of
your lifes.



That's your vehicle in world 2

"Superfly" offers several game modes then, 5 to be precise.
There is the "Freeflight" mode at  first, here you  can get some practice in the
game, esp. in successfull  flying as the aim  is just to fly as far as possible.
The farer you're flying the more points, esp. experience points, you'll get, but
later for this.
The  second one  is the "Starsearch" mode. Here  you have  to collect  a special
number of items on every stage. Here you start with more than just one life...
Here we go with mode 3, "Stage", here  you have to fly a defined lenght to enter
the next stage, as well.
"Hunter" is quite easy, too, as you have  to collect as  many items as possible,
with one screen life again.
And, at  last, the "Story" mode. This  one tells you  the story  of Dr.Snuggles'
quest. It  offers a range  of different  stages smashed  together, namely  it is
built of levels taken from "Starsearch" and "Stage" mode.

The first 4 game modes are splitted in 5 worlds with  different style, so you've
an underwater world, using  a  submarine, later  on you're  flying around on the
sky with your helicopter, followed  by a space world  where you're flying around
with a  little spaceship. Very  nice is world  number 4, where Dr.Snuggles slips
into a superman suit and has to fly through 2 tunnels. Ok, the last world offers
a little joke you have to find out by yourself :)

The problem is, that you  need to get experience points to unlock all those game
modes. You get  those experience  points just, with  your growing skills. In the
beginning  just the free  flight mode is  playable, the farer you're flying now,
the more experience points you get. They're starting to doubling up later on and
so on. If you  have collected  enough points the  game unlocks another game mode
for  you. And so  it goes on. The  tricky  thing is that  you, if  you don't get
enough skill in flying around, the game is going to hide itself from the player,
call it natural selection ;)

A little hint right here, if you match it to unlock the "Starsearch" mode try to
to  play it as much  as possible, as  esp. the "Starsearch" and later on overall
the "Hunter" mode, as you get in those modes the  most experience points and you
can unlock the most further parts some way easier.

As we speak  about unlocking items, there is  even more to  unlock the more exp.
points you collect  over the game, so there is a jukebox  included with  all the
tunes from  the game. Furthemore a  gallery with  several  artworks, that can be
unlocked  while  placing your  name on  all highscore  entries of  the different
stages. And IF you  have placed  your name  on all highscores  in the game (that
are over  2o...) and you have  unlocked the whole gallery  then, you unlock even
one more hidden feature... That's amazing... I have already  done it and it is a
quite crazy thing but I wont tell you now :) So the game holds up the motivation
untill the very last bit, for people that got firm with the  control and the how
to play, ofcourse.

And, for the ones who got bored to  fill out their own highscore tables only all
the time, you can also take the highscore file  and send it to  the Gods to take
part in the online competition hold at  their homepage and  see how good you are
in comparison with other hardcore gamers.

Lets take a look onto the technical side. The grafix are mostly quite ok and the
animations in the  game itself  are often really  nice. Unfortunately the screen
looks a bit sparse. You just have your heroes sprite and the collectables on the
screen, the "landscape" is just a bunch  of blocks. This was  used to create the
marvellous  speed and the soft  scrolling even on a simple ST. Btw... if you are
not that firm in playing the game you should try it on RGB 5o Hz mode as this is
the slowest while the playing on VGA monitors is only for the hardcore gamblers.
The story mode comes along with several  break pictures to  inform you about the
things going on. All those pictures are hold in a quite RG typical style.



One of the grafix in the story mode

The musix are very cool too, but there is a drawback as well. If you aren't such
a skilled player  it goes with the  time onto  the nerves just to listen  to the
first seconds of a tune everytime. You can switch off the music as well but then
you have to play in complete silence. I think  some FX would  have done a little
wonder here.

What about the  controls?! You can  use everything to control  your vehicle, the
keyboard, the mouse, the joystick or the  jaguar pad, all  things allowed as you
just need  one key/button  to press at  all. The rest  of the control belongs to
your reflexes and  your knowledge about  the use of the gravity to avoid a crash
into the obstacles.

So technical the  game isn't  bad even if  on some  points there could have been
done a bit more in my eyes.

And?... what is more to say as to go for the...

...Final words...

"Superfly" is without any doubt  a good game  again esp. as it  feeds the hungry
action game lovers very well. In contrary to the most other Reservoir Gods games
it is a single player game only but that  doesn't breaks up the fun. It is quite
amazing how  the Gods matched it  to create such an addictive game out of such a
simple idea, even if I think that the whole experience points idea was stretched
a bit too much  this time as so not that skilled players are kicked out right at
the beginning. The grafix are quite  ok and the  musix are  cool, but in the end
the game mainly lives  from the addiction to kill other highscores and to unlock
new game modes...

___ratings______________________________________________________________________

visuals .....  75 % - very nice animations, various level designs, break grafix
audio .......  85 % - a load of cool chip tunes! unfortunately no fx... :(
controls .... 1oo % - can't be solved better
idea ........  8o % - at the moment I can't remember such a game on the ST
motivation ..  7o % - for hardcore players a mess, not that skilled will give up

___overall_____82_%_____________________________________________________________

"Superfly" stands good in the row of Reservoir Gods releases but doesn't matches
it to top  especially "Godpey" as this was a bit  more "player friendly" and was
also for not that skilled people better playable.

_.tSCc.___________________________________________________________moondog_o4/o3_