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Spaceway 2000 : for affordable action



Author: Scott Ohman
Date: June, 1994
Keywords: Casady & Greene review game program software review arcade
Text: Spaceway 2000, by Jeff Robbin and John Calhoun, is an exciting game in the tradition of an old Arcade shoot-em' up, such as Asteroids or Defender. The game play is simple and exciting. This is not a game which will appeal to those whose interest is in deep characters and thick plots. On the other hand, fans of the old arcade games will rejoice in the simple, afternoon wasting action, and this is the sort of game which people would not feel to guilty sharing with younger gamers. The plot is simple enough. You have been trapped on the intergalactic spaceway 2000. Your only hope for survival is to fly down route after route picking up weapons, hoping your shields will protect you to the end of the course. You begin with three lives, although you can gain more by picking up the ''mystical'' crystals which are found upon each route. You begin the game with only a single, forward shooting ''laser'' type weapon. The game is viewed from an overhead perspective, with walls along each side. You must dodge or destroy the great numbers of enemy ships, cannons, mines and other goodies, while watching out for street sweepers and police cars, which pop up from time to time. I found the graphics and sound to be adequate for the game play. While they cannot compete with the power of some of the CD-ROM's on the market today, the graphics run exceptionally fast on my LCIII. The sound and music accompanies the game play nicely, although like many arcade style games, there are times when you grow tired of their repetitious sounds. When I sat down for a long session of play, I was thankful for the ease with which it was possible to change the volume. All of the keys which you use to control your ship can be easily configured from the menu bar. The game did include a decent, short manual, although I doubt that any but the most inexperienced users will ever need to consult it. When I did need a little bit of advice on how to proceed, the on screen instructions were quite useful. The exact amount of hard drive space and RAM you will need to devote to this game depends on how you decide to configure it. When you install the program, you are able to decide which of the graphics options you want to include: 2 (black & white), 16, 256, or thousands of colors. The entire game took up about two and a half megs of hard drive space. The game also includes a handy ''adjust memory'' option, which recommends an amount of memory for your chosen configuration and allows you to change the allotted memory from within the program. For black and white, it demanded 1159K. In 256 color mode, the ''standard'' for games today, it asked me for 2311K. I found this feature to be very useful, since I didn't have to close the program if I wanted to free up some memory for another application. If found this program to be a engaging action game with a very quick learning curve. And with a street price you can actually afford, this may be just the game for all you ''I finished my last arcade game in three days and now I'm bored'' types. Spaceway 2000 retails for $49.95, (about $30.00 mail order) and is published by: Casady & Greene 22734 Portola Drive Salinas, CA 93908-111 800/359-4920

Copyright © june, 1994 by Scott Ohman


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