107 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
107 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
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ARACHNOPHOBIA
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ARACHNOPHOBIA is only the latest of many computer games based on hit
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movies. But few of these games have been very memorable. Weak
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connections with the film and poor game play have often produced
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nothing more than an obvious attempt to make a profit from the movie's
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reputation. This action game is no exception. (This review is based on
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the IBM version.)
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The object of ARACHNOPHOBIA is simple: Kill spiders. You are an
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exterminator (called "arachnid abatement technician") hired by the
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exterminator from the film. You start out in the own of Canaima (also from
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the movie), where you must destroy the queen spider. Of course, you
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have to search through the town to find her. Pick a house at random, use
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the cursor keys to drive your truck around, and then pull up and see what
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you can find.
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When you walk into the first house, you have a full canister of bug spray,
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full health, and two bug bombs. Spiders will be crawling around the floor,
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and if four bite you, you die. The manual claims that although one spider
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bite is normally enough to kill, your uniform protects you from the bites.
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But if these spiders are as deadly as the ones in the movie, this would
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have to be a _very_ special uniform.
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You can either use your bug spray, the bug bombs, your shoes, or a
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home-made flamethrower to kill the spiders. But to make the
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flamethrower, you have to find matches and an aerosol can, which are
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scattered around the houses in the town. And if you get bitten, you can
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always use the first aid kit in each house to heal yourself. Once you
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destroy the egg sac in a building, a bugometer is activated that will give
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you the direction in which the queen can be found. Then, after destroying
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the queen, you go into another, more difficult city, to fight more spiders.
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Later on, the game adds a second type of spider, one that hangs from
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the ceiling. However, it hangs too high for your spray to reach, so you
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have to wait for the spider to come closer to the ground. But the only way
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the spider will do this is if you walk under it. It falls fairly slowly, so you
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usually have time to react. But thanks to poor controls (either a joystick or
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the keyboard), it is almost impossible to kill the spider before it returns to
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the ceiling.
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With the joystick, you have to aim at a diagonal and fire in order to spray
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at the spider. If you aim straight up, you will only succeed in jumping. It is
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very difficult, almost impossible to turn around twice and then fire up to
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get rid of the bug. Often, you only end up jumping (which is what happens
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if you fire while pointing up), since the game is not forgiving in
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recognizing diagonal movements, missing the spider completely. And
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there is always the chance that the spider will bite if you don't position
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yourself exactly. (The range of the bug spray is obviously very limited,
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and you have to get extremely close to the hanging spiders.)
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Or you have the option of using the keyboard. But you must press a key
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on the numeric keypad once to aim and a second time to turn around.
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Tricking the spiders to come down is even more difficult; after running
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under one, you have to double-click on two different keys to turn around
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twice and then aim and fire. By the time you go through this long
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sequence, you will often be bitten by one of the spiders in the room.
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While one or two hanging spiders is no problem, in the higher levels,
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they completely destroy the game. Since you only have a limited amount
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of bug spray, and only a limited tolerance for spider bites, more than a
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few hanging spiders will make a level virtually impossible. I was never
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able to figure out a reliable technique for destroying them, so I was never
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able to get past a few of the earlier levels in the game.
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There are also other problems with ARACHNOPHOBIA, such as a pathetic
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(almost non-existent) save game routine. If you wish to load a game, you
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must do so at the title screen by pressing the "L" key. You will receive no
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message that your load request was found; you simply have to hope the
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game received the key press. You will begin the game at the start of the
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city where you last played. Once you die (or abort the game), you have
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the option of saving the current level or to replay the current level from the
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start. However, if you die in your first game after restoring, when you
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select "play again," you will simply start over from the beginning of the
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first level. You must first save the game again after restoring but before
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replaying.
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ARACHNOPHOBIA comes on both four 5-1/4" (360K) and two 3-1/2" (720K)
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disks. Hard drive owners must use the included install batch file which
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copies the files and decompresses them. To play from floppies, simply
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make a backup and run the program. Only CGA and 16-color (Tandy,
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EGA, or MCGA) graphics are supported (and the graphics are nothing
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more than fair), and only the Disney Sound Source or internal speaker
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can be used.
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There is off-disk copy-protection in a brown-on-red sheet with pictures
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of spiders. You must match a spider to its color on-screen representation.
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At least once there was no suitable match in the choices on screen, and
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on another occasion, several choices were presented that seemed
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acceptable. The manual is adequate.
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I would like to be able to pass ARACHNOPHOBIA off with a review saying
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that this was another Disney Software production intended for young
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children. But with very little variation in game play and poor controls, I
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doubt that more than a few players of any age would be able to enjoy the
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game. The difficult controls make it hard for extremely young players to
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enjoy, and older players, who might have more luck with the game than I
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did, will quickly be bored with the repetitiveness of the game. In addition,
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virtually every other product on the market offers better graphics and
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sound support. If you enjoyed the film ARACHNOPHOBIA, I would advise
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going to your local video store and renting it. But do not look to the
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computer game to provide the same entertainment.
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ARACHNOPHOBIA is published and distributed by Disney Software.
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