87 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
87 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
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TREASURE TRAP
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TREASURE TRAP is a strategy/arcade game written by Brian Kelly and Paul
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McLaughlin, published by Emerald Software, and distributed by Electronic
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Zoo. This addictive, great-playing game offers excellent graphics,
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animation, and sound, a sunken ship, a fabulous treasure hidden in over 100
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rooms, keyboard control, save option, support for additional memory, and
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copy protection. To play the Atari ST version, the basis of this review,
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you'll need at least 512K, a color monitor, and a 360K disk drive.
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Electronic Zoo, a European developer that now has a US office, makes an
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auspicious debut with TREASURE TRAP. Graphics and animation are excellent
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throughout, and the game worked like a charm. There are all kinds of nasty
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underwater creatures, and the clever puzzles become ever more challenging
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as the game goes on. E-Zoo has at least 9 ST packages available -- Amiga
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and IBM machines, and in some cases the Commodore 64, are also supported
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-- and more are in the works.
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Many years ago, a boiler room exploded on the Esmeralda, a 210-foot
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luxury liner carrying $20 million in gold bars. The ship lies 300 feet
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beneath the Pacific Ocean, and, as famous salvage diver Howard Kelp, you
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are about to plunge into the drink to recover the treasure hoard, whose
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value has skyrocketed in the intervening years to $50 million. The gold
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bars are scattered throughout the Esmeralda's 100 rooms, but even worse is
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the site of the wreckage: it's a feeding ground for a menagerie of undersea
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creatures: crabs, eels, sharks, piranha, jellyfish, and stingrays, all of
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which are ravenous and deadly to the touch.
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The goal of TRAP is to enter a room, get the gold, and escape into the
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next room. You have six lives; the touch of an undersea creature will knock
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off a life, as will running out of air; collecting 200 gold bars earns an
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extra life, and when all lives are gone the game ends. Collect 50 gold bars
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and you can save the game.
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The ST screen display consists of the Esmeralda's current stateroom; it's
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placed diagonally onscreen, like the picture-platforms of NEVERMIND or the
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mansion rooms of DEVON AIRE. In the room is the helmeted Howard Kelp; there
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are also creatures, crates, air tanks, high-pressure bubbles that drip from
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the ceiling, keys, furniture, gold bars, and doors to other rooms; smart
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fish, when collected and later released in a room, will eat anything
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lethal. Along the bottom edges of the room are gold, smart fish, and lives
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counters; an indicator that'll flash until you've found all the gold in a
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room; and a bar gauge that keeps track of your air supply.
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When you first enter a room, you'll see a large "M" blinking in the upper
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left corner. Press the "M" key and you'll see a scrollable, overhead map
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view of the sunken Esmeralda, on which appears the rooms you've entered
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thus far.
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TRAP is controlled with the keyboard: the arrow keys direct Howard's
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diagonal movement; the Spacebar makes him jump. The joystick can be
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substituted for movement keystrokes (it helps to turn it); the button
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substitutes for a Spacebar jump. Keystroke D picks up and drops keys; S
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releases a smart fish; P pauses; F toggles sound; and R will let you
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redefine the keyboard.
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The TREASURE TRAP package comes with two 360K disks that are
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copy-protected, instruction manual, Reference Guide, and diver's log. For
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game saves, you'll need a blank disk, which TRAP will format. On booting,
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TRAP will detect additional memory beyond 512K -- in this instance, a 1040
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with a 512K Polydisk cartridge -- and will build a RAMdisk for speedy and
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noiseless decompression of graphics data and faster screen loads.
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The graphics of TREASURE TRAP on the ST are excellent throughout: the
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colors are bright and the details are recognizable. Animation is notable as
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well: eels slither, starfish crawl, fish breathe, and Howard's air bubbles
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are a most useful visual reference. Getting a stack of gold bars provides
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the strategic element, and it's so easy that it's not easy: some of the
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bars are on top of stacked crates, or hidden beneath them, or in full view
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but guarded by overzealous sea life. Some crates float; some rise and fall
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or move back and forth; and still others disappear or otherwise move at the
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slightest touch, thus releasing whatever sea beasts might have been trapped
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behind them. Objects can be pushed around and climbed on so that you can
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reach higher objects. The underwater creatures are everywhere, and while
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their movement seems patterned, it changes at the slightest disturbance,
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such as opening a door and walking into the room.
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Perfectly matched strategy and arcade actions make TREASURE TRAP a most
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excellent game, great fun to look at and great fun to play. I wouldn't
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exactly call it easy but it certainly is addictive and you ought to have
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it.
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TREASURE TRAP is published by Emerald Software and distributed by
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Electronic Zoo.
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