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                           "SPACE BATTLE" by PARADIZE
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system ... ST, STe, Falcon, TT, STEEM, RGB, VGA, Joystick if available

genre .... space shooter

release .. o2/o4

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Here we have the  second game release by  the little Paradize team, and also the
second  shot'em'up game  by  Simon Sunnyboy, who  has put  the SEUCK (Shot'em'up
Construction Kit) into  the corner to  torment GFA Basic  instead and the result
doesn't looks that bad.

SPACE BATTLE is originally nothing more than a two player shooter, where the two
opponents  are moving  around with their  ships on the  screen and have to blast
away each other. If you reach the border of the screen  you come in on the other
side of the screen again, as the shot  bullets do  to, so be prepared for a very
tricky fight, if you want to survive. The one who losts all energy on the shield
has lost, what else? As energy is needed to fly around, make the hyperjump or to
shot some bullets, you have to be carefull in using  those things, a little help
can be the possibility to exchange  some energy between  shield and ship energy,
to load up the shield or to gain some energy for shooting.

So the  game is quite simple and  to make it  possible to  be played by a lonely
gambler the computer can take over the  second player, even  though the AI seems
to be a bit limited, as he  always starts  in the  same way, but... the  game is
still hard enough.

The grafix are quite simple, some space pic in the background in the game itself
and some quite sparse fonts and stuff in  the main  menu screen. The space ships
are  little line  vector objects  in different  colors, so  all other  than that
spectacular :) The game  features  a nice chipmusic by The Viking of Mind Design
and offers some sampled sounds  in the game  itself, if your machine  offers DMA
sound. Unfortunately  you can  just chose one  option, msx  or sfx, a  mix isn't
possible.

The game offers a lot of options, can be played with keyboard or joystick, while
all the joystick  actions aren't  explained in the  instructions (how to use the
hyperjump and the energy exchange option?). Two players without joystick have to
torment one keyboard together  that could be a bit difficult and reminds me hard
to some old gambling times.
Furthermore you can put a planet (or better a yellow circle) into  the middle of
the screen that sucks away  your shield energy  if you get in  touch with it but
doesn't offers you the  possibility to save yourself  from the  enemies' bullets
behind it. You also can switch on the drag option, that  means you have to speed
up again and again as your ship loses constantly its speed if you don't do so.
So there are enough things around to make the game a bit harder.

So that's it. What about some final words?

"Space Battle" is just a small game for a break, nice to see that also the Atari
can be the opponent, the style is  quite simple but  does its  job, the music is
nice and the few sampled fx are ok. The handling  as well. Even if you can chose
some options to make the game a bit harder  it doesn't offers much motivation as
there are no goodies to get, no scores and no extra events included.
No bad game, but overall not the killer as well...

_________________________________________________________________moondog_o2/2k4_