Deluxe Pac-Man - Review
(Public Domain, Commodore Amiga Game, 1997)
Deluxe Pac-Man is a 1992 game released only in Norway for the Amiga by Edgar M. Vigdal and then released worldwide as a public domain game in 1997 (possibly to avoid legal action from Namco).
The game is a tribute to the 1980 original and remains pretty faithful to the format; your Pac-Man has to navigate a series of mazes, eating pills while avoiding four ghosts. Clear the maze and you move on to the next. Let a ghost catch you and you lose a life. Eating a power pill enables Pac-Man to eat the ghosts for a short period of time scoring the usual 200, 400, 800 and 1600 points (if you can catch all four on one power pill).
There are some changes to the original formula though, this isn’t a straight clone. The mazes are smaller than the original and the game is a little more zoomed in, making the protagonists appear a touch larger than we are used to. You collect the traditional fruit on each level but there are also a variety of bonuses and power-ups that can be picked up, giving your Pac-Man a speed boost, a shield or a gun enabling you to shoot the ghosts. Others allow you to slow down, freeze or blow up the ghosts, or turn the pills into diamonds, scoring more. There are score multipliers to collect and bonuses that take you to a random future level. You can also collect letters spelling ‘EXTRA’ which, when complete, transports you to an extra level with a chance to win big points where the majority of the maze walls have been removed but the ghosts remain, trickier than it sounds.
You can select a one or two player mode and there are three difficulty levels to choose from. You start with three lives and gain an extra every 50,000 points. The graphics are crisp and clean, the sound is minimal but absolutely perfect for the game and the gameplay is spot on. Your Pac-Man is easily controlled either by joystick or the keyboard arrow keys and the movement is pixel smooth. They may be smaller, but there is a great variety of maze layouts.
If I had to be critical, it is perhaps a touch easy. The smaller mazes mean that your power pills can cover you for the majority of the time you need to clear a level and games can easily last 15-30 minutes. That said, if you are finding things too easy you can always knock the difficulty level up a notch.
Regardless, I have played a fair few Pac-Man clones over the years and this is by far my favourite. Bearing in mind this was a public domain release it is significantly slicker and more fun than many full price releases I could name (it is frequently voted as one of the top ten public domain games released for the Amiga). It captures the feel of the original classic beautifully, but the added bells and whistles keep the payer thoroughly engaged. This isn’t a deep or clever game; it does exactly what it says on the tin. There is no story, no real form of progression and nothing to unlock, it is simply pure old-fashioned arcade high score chasing and I love it.
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Graphics - 80%
Bright, colourful, clean and tidy. Good animations on Pac-Man and the ghosts, all wrapped up with excellent presentation.
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Sounds - 82%
Very nice introduction music and the in game sounds are very reminiscent of the original. Simple but nothing to dislike.
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Grab-Factor - 85%
If you can't pick up and play a Pac-Man clone you have no place reading a retro-game review...
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Playability - 88%
Great classic gameplay with precise controls with a great variety of power-ups and mazes.
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Verdict - 84%
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AG 19/05/2021
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Featured in Amiga Addict magazine, issue 11.
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© Words and pictures copyright grapeswriting.com
The Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 - Review
(The Software Toolworks, Commodore Amiga Game, 1988)
Some games will appeal to many people; others by design have a more targeted market. The Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 sits very firmly in that ‘targeted market’ bracket. Specifically, to get the most from this title (or any enjoyment at all to be honest) you have to be able to play (or at the very least, want to be able to play) chess.
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Chess is, as I am sure we all know, a board game dating back to almost the beginning of time. If you can play chess you don’t need me to explain the ins and outs of the game, and if you can’t you won’t be able to learn simply by reading a review, so we may as well skip the explanation of the rules and move straight on to look at the software. Upon loading the game, things are fairly straightforward. There are no fancy front-end menus to negotiate; you are immediately presented with a chessboard, and before you can say "En-passant" you are playing. Alternatively, a right-click of the mouse brings up a series of dropdown menus offering a number of ways to personalise your game. You can select a two or three dimensional view and can choose from a range of chess sets (though unfortunately most except the basic ones display varying levels of unpleasantness). You can also customise the colours used on the board and pieces with a simple
interface. These tweaks are nice, but ultimately so long as a decent looking set with clearly defined colours can be chosen (and it can) then you probably won’t need to mess around too much. What really matters are the play options.
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Thankfully these are impressively comprehensive. You can choose to play a one or two player game, as black or white, and if you are taking on the ‘Chessmaster’ you can select a difficulty level through a variety of methods. There are easily selectable ‘newcomer’ and ‘intermediate’ levels which are designed to test the new or less experienced player. Then, when tackling the ‘advanced’ mode, you can set the opponent's strength by altering a number of parameters used by the computer. You can limit how many moves ahead it can calculate, or specify a limited game time or a maximum time allowed per move. The options are particularly thorough and allow the player plenty of flexibility to set the computer opponent up to be a worthy adversary.
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Other bells and whistles include a well designed tutorial mode, an option to set up and analyse board positions and the ability to set ‘solve the mate’ positions for the computer to mull over. The program can be set to rate your play and for the really dedicated scholar there are over a hundred classic chess games from 1834 up to 1988 to load up and play through. There is also an extremely comprehensive ‘openings book’ with the option to practice the various openings. One moan – I cannot think of a single good reason why the (really quite long) list of openings are not sorted alphabetically which makes finding one far harder than it should be, so 2% off for that then.
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Sound options are pretty minimal, with just some bleeps when moves are made, or alternatively there is a ‘voice’ mode whereby some quite pleasing voice samples are played to accompany the start of a game, pieces being taken, checks and checkmate. However, you don’t choose a title like this for the array of sound options or even graphics come to that. All the customisation and game options become meaningless if the level of chess that can be enjoyed does not hit the mark; I am happy to report that in this area it scores very well. I would consider myself to be a slightly better than average player and it didn’t take me long to find a level whereby the computer was giving me a very tough game.
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Overall this is a well rounded and very nicely presented chess game. It sounds ok, it looks good, it has real depth with more options than you can shake a Bishop at, and most importantly it plays a mean game of chess. It may not be for everyone but if chess is your thing it is hard to find anything to dislike.
Graphics – 75%
Basic but perfectly adequate with a lot of customisation options.
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Sound – 72%
Not much to report but sound is hardly a significant factor in a game of chess. The voice samples are nicely done.
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Grab factor – 84%
Easy to start a game of chess and most options can be negotiated quickly.
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Playability – 90%
The Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 is an excellent all-round chess program with a huge number of options.
Verdict 80%
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AG 03/05/2022
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Featured in Pixel Addict magazine, issue 16.
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© Words and pictures copyright grapeswriting.com
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