Path: news.uh.edu!barrett From: steve_cutting@guru.apana.org.au (Steve Cutting) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Fury of the Furries, CD32 version Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 24 May 1994 20:46:34 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 180 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2rtp3a$39m@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: steve_cutting@guru.apana.org.au (Steve Cutting) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, platform, strategy, CD32, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Fury of the Furries, CD32 version BRIEF DESCRIPTION A single-player platform game with puzzles. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Mindscape International Address: Priority House, Charles Avenue Burgess Hill, West Sussex RH15 9PQ England Telephone: +44 (0) 444 239 600 Fax: +44 (0) 444 248 996 LIST PRICE I don't know the list price, but I paid 69.99 Australian dollars for it. In the UK, you can get it for 19.99 pounds from mail order companies. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE CD32 (PAL) Television or monitor Control pad (or Amiga joystick) SOFTWARE None COPY PROTECTION None that's noticeable to the user. REVIEW The manual tells the story of a race of small furball creatures called Tinies. Tinies look like tennis balls with eyes, and according to the manual, they have a horrid sense of humour. The Tiny King has apparently been taken prisoner and been imprisoned in his own castle by a Tiny with a particularly wicked sense of humour. Yes, this is where you come in. :-) When the game boots, you're shown a glitchy animated sequence portraying all this, accompanied by some decent CD audio. Once you're at the title screen, you can start a new game or restart one of four saved games. The object of the game is simple: take control of a Tiny and find your way to the exit of each level. Your Tiny can walk, run, and jump three different heights. As if that isn't enough, your Tiny is also able to transform into any of 4 colours, each one having a special ability: Red - eats through walls Yellow - shoots fireballs to kill nasties Green - swings and climbs on rope Blue - dives underwater Green is my favourite. It's great fun swinging the little critter back and forth on the rope, then letting go and watching him fly across the screen and do a couple of somersaults before landing on the ground! Not all of the abilities are available all the time. On some levels, you may only have one ability, and on others, you might get all 4. To make it harder, there are force-field type things which enable or disable an ability when you pass through them. You view the action from the standard platform perspective (side on), and the levels scroll in all directions. The game takes place over 8 areas, with each area having 10 levels based on the same theme. The levels are full of all sorts of obstacles designed to reduce your Tiny to an ex-furball before reaching the exit. There's trees, water, spikes and loads more, and of course the usual array of NASTIES. You must make use of the various abilities of your Tiny to negotiate these obstacles. As you progress into the game, the puzzle element starts rearing its head. As well as avoiding (or shooting) all the nasties, you also have to start solving problems in order to reach the exit. These puzzles range from simple things, like finding and using keys, to more complex ones, like moving blocks and finding secret entrances. The puzzles rely on the correct choice of abilities in most cases, and also require some pretty nifty joypad skills on some of the later levels. Every 5 levels, your position is saved in Non-Volatile RAM. DOCUMENTATION The booklet in the CD sleeve has instructions in English, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. It covers everything you need to know (not a lot, really) and has some nice black and white drawings. LIKES Great fun. It's playable, cute, and best of all: totally silly! There's something distinctly warped about a 10-pixel high ball of fluff letting fly with a Streetfighter-style fireball. :-) The game-saving feature means you can restart where you left off instead of playing through all the levels again. This adds a lot to the longevity of any game in my opinion; if I can restart where I left off, I'll keep coming back until I finish it (or go insane). The difficulty curve is just about right. There's plenty of easy levels before the brain mangling begins. The CD tracks on the intro and title screens are really good. In-game music is only Amiga based, but the tunes are great. Although he's very small and not very colourful, your Tiny is nicely animated and moves well. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS The in-game graphics are pretty dull; they'd look perfectly at home in a 512K A500 game 5 years ago. It doesn't look like any more than about 16 colours, definitely not 32bit CDROM stuff. Static title and between-level screens are more colourful though. The game doesn't use the full PAL screen. If you force it into NTSC using the boot-menu, it runs too fast. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS If you liked The Lost Vikings, you'll like this. BUGS I've found a couple of graphic glitches here and there, but they don't affect gameplay at all. VENDOR SUPPORT An address and phone/fax number are provided for support. I haven't needed to contact them as yet. WARRANTY Unknown. CONCLUSIONS If you're looking to be blown off your seat with stunning visuals and audio, don't buy this game, because there aren't any. But do buy it if you want a game to *PLAY*, because it's got more playability and lastability than a lot of other stuff around. An enjoyable blend of platforms, puzzles and general silliness. My rating : 80% This review is freely distributable. Just leave my name in :-) 24/5/1994 Steve Cutting e-mail: Steve_Cutting@guru.apana.org.au -- Via DLG Pro v1.0 --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews