ST New Products
By Gregg Pearlman, Antic Assistant Editor
P'S AND Q'S
Plutos, Mindscape's new space shoot-em-up, combines smooth-scrolling, state-of-the-art graphics and sound into the ultimate arcade adventure as you try to destroy the enemy mother ship's defenses.
Q-Ball is unlike any pool or billiards simulation you've ever seen. Sure, you've got to sink the balls into the provided pockets--but it's not so easy when you'rell playing inside a cube instead of on a table. This 3-D-like game gives you a whopping 262,144 possible viewing angles. (If you use them all, how could you ever miss a shot?) Also, if the 3-D perspective is too confusing, you can choose the one-plane (flat table) mode until you become acclimated.
$29.95 each. Mindscape, Inc., 3444 Dvndee Road, Northbrook, IL 60062. (800) 221- 9884. In Illinois, (800) 942-7315. PRESS. PRESS. CIRCLE 251,252 ON READER SERVICE CARD
SOLID GOLD
Activision's popular Hacker and Little Computer People have gone gold--and the reward is great savings. Hacker simulates the accidental break-in of a private computer system as you search for classified information and shmooze with suspicious characters. Little Computer People lets you see inside a house just big enough to fit into your monitor as you communicate with and entertain the little critters therein.
$24.95 each. Activision, Inc., 2350 Bayshore Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043. (415) 960-0410. PRESS. CIRCLE 255,256 ON READER SERVICE CARD
MASTERCAD
Why build data matrices or struggle with strange user interfaces? Create exact 2-D and 3-D graphics quickly and easily with the mouse-driven MasterCAD. Generate spun objects from two dimensions and project them into 3-D; move, copy, rotate or flip any item horizontally or vertically; make rotational and multiple copies--and define your own relationship between each copy; observe your images from various viewpoints.
$199.95, monochrome monitor and one megabyte required. INDI C.A., Calle Madrid, Qta. El Pilar, Las Mercedes, Caracas, Venezuela. 58-2-92-5959 or 58-2-91-1375. PRESS. CIRCLE 224 ON READER SERVICE CARD
HAVE A NICE DAY
Up to 16 people, each with an ST and MIDI cable, can play MIDI Maze, written by the talented programmers at Xanth. MIDI Maze is a first-person perspective game, where you zip down corridors and try to blow away every enemy Happy Face you encounter -- either computer opponents or the other players. Each player has his or her own perspective, and you can play every man for himself, with teams or as a gang descending on a specific player. Pre-release demonstrations of this game have been the hit of many Atari computer shows, and everyone from Neil Harris (Atari) to Jerry Pournelle (Byte, Infoworld) has enjoyed it.
$39.95. Hybrid Arts, Inc., 11920 W. Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064. Voice: (213) 826-3777; BBS: (213) 826-4288. BETA. CIRCLE 257 ON READER SERVICE CARD
SCADS OF CAD
The GEM-based SCAD lets you work on 16 drawings at once and is accurate to .001 inch. SCAD works on either monochrome or color and lets you save DEGAS-compatible pictures of drawings at any location or magnification. Images are exactly the same size on paper as onscreen, and you can define your page size up to 32 inches square. View controls include Zoom In, Zoom Out, Absolute Move, Ieft, Right, Up and Down. SCAD has loadable font styles, 128 user-defined line styles and 256 user-defined fill patterns. You can rotate items in .1-degree increments and enlarge or reduce them in .1% increments.
$99.95. Xetec, Inc., 2804 Arnold Road, Salina, KS 67401. (913) 827-0485, PRESS. CIRCLE 245 ON READER SERVICE CARD
CAPTAIN, WE'RE BEING SCANNED
The DEGAS and NEOchrome-compatible IMG SCAN image scanner turns your ST and any graphics-capable printer into a high-resolution image scanner. A small light pipe attached to the print head captures 256 gray levels, works in all screen resolutions and allows nine levels of magnification or reduction. Scan any page, photo, copy, etc. that will fit into your printer.
$59.95. Seymor-Raidix, P.O. Box 166055, Irving, TX 75016. PRESS. CIRCLE 258 ON READER SERVICE CARD
LUCK BE A LADY
Vegas Gambler puts slot machines, blackjack, video poker and roulette on your ST. All four games feature fast action and colorful graphics, and they all hold true to actual blackjack bets, rules and payoffs in Las Vegas casinos.
Vegas Craps lets you toss your dice across the ST's felt table and watch with horror as the electronic croupier scoops up the money you lose. You can go with or against the shooter, and, again, the bets, the odds and the payoffs are just like you'd find in Las Vegas.
Backgammon should cost you less money (in theory), although the dice can be cruel. Nevertheless, Club Backgammon is identical to the board game and can be played with a friend or the computer.
$34.95 each. Logical Design Works, Inc. 780 Montague Expressway #403, San Jose, CA 95131. (408) 435-1445. PRESS. CIRCLE 248,249,255 ON READER SERVICE CARD
ATHENA II
Athena II lets you semi-automatically transform existing drawings into an isometric view, and create, save and reload "parts" from an existing drawing. Commands include Move, Copy, Rotate, Mirror and Trim--that is, adjust any line or circle so that it exactly intersects with another line or circle. You can zoom in or out, as well as rotate text of any size. Athena II also gives you 36 fill patterns and lets you work in 16 colors in 256 levels. And the 300-page manual will clear up whatever you don't understand.
$99.95, requires one megabyte RAM. Iliad Software, Inc. 495 West 920 North, Orem, UT 84057. (801) 226-3270. PRESS. CIRCLE 246 ON READER SERVICE CARD
New ST product notices are compiled from information provided by the products' manufacturers. Antic assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of these notices or the performance of the product. Each mention is followed by a code word indicating that, at press time, Antic had seen a FINAL marketable version, near-final BETA, earlier ALPHA, incomplete DEMO, or PRESS release.