Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: cs922097@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca (David Zvekic) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Body Blows Galactic - AGA Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 9 Mar 1994 16:06:10 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 288 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2lks5i$dst@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: cs922097@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca (David Zvekic) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, beat-em-up, AGA, commercial PRODUCT NAME Body Blows Galactic - AGA BRIEF DESCRIPTION A beat-em-up game which pits 12 different fighters from 6 different worlds against one another. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Team17 Software Ltd Address: Marwood House, Garden St, Wakefield, West Yorkshire WF1 1DX England Telephone: (0)924 201846 LIST PRICE #29.99 (that's Pounds) I paid $22 Canadian for it, but I bought a special copy that used to be given away for free as a promotion for A1200's. My copy didn't have a box, just a plastic bag with 2 disks and a manual. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE The AGA chipset is required. An old chipset (OCS) version exists however. 1 MB RAM required. Any additional memory will be used to store data during play. SOFTWARE None for PAL Amigas. On my NTSC Amiga, I had to use Chris Hames' Degrader 1.30 to get it to work in PAL. The early startup control doesn't help. Body Blows Galactic works on all versions of the OS. COPY PROTECTION Disk-based (the disk itself cannot be copied with DiskCopy). I couldn't get DMS to copy it either. NOT hard drive installable. The original disks are required for use; however, no data is ever saved to disk, so you can leave them write-protected (and are encouraged to do so in the manual). I rate the copy protection as somewhere between acceptable and annoying. People who are used to such things would not be bothered; however, I'm worried that my original disks might get damaged. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING A4000/030 - NTSC. 2 MB Chip RAM + 2MB Fast RAM. 1 external 880 k floppy + the standard A4000 disk drives etc. Commodore 1942 monitor. Kickstart 3.0, Workbench 3.0. Also used Chris Hames' Degrader 1.30 to switch to PAL mode. Also tried it on: A1200 - NTSC. 2 MB Chip RAM + 4 MB Fast RAM. GVP SCSI+Fast Ram /w FPU option. Internal Clock. Commodore 1942 monitor. Kickstart 3.0, Workbench 3.0 INSTALLATION None required. Just DO IT! REVIEW When I first arrived at one of my friendly neighborhood Amiga dealers (YES, there are several in my town), I wasn't planning on buying anything in particular. One of my friends was picking up an A4000 which he had on layaway (for almost a year, I believe). Anyways, I'm not that big on video games in general (anymore), especially the variety that take over your machine and don't let you multitask, or heaven forbid don't install on your hard drive. I did decide to pick up the first issue of Amiga Game Zone magazine (which was damn good -- I'll do a review on that later). When we were about to leave, I saw a few games in the discount bin without boxes at significantly reduced prices. Body Blows Galactic was among them. At $22 Canadian, I figured I couldn't lose, even if it was non-compliant with the operating system. I remember paying (happily I might add) over $50 for Intellivision games, and upwards of $80 for Nintendo games. This copy was originally part of a special A1200 promotion, which explained the low price and lack of a box. Anyway, when we returned from the dealership, I immediately tried the disk on my friend's A1200. To my surprise, it worked! What didn't surprise me was that the bottom 50 or so scan lines were missing from the screen. This is typical of PAL games brought over to North America. I wish developers would show more consideration for North American Amiga owners. But I digress. I tried rebooting with the Early Startup Control set to PAL, but that didn't work (nor surprise me) either. So without having a copy of Degrader handy we tried out the game sans the bottom 10% of the screen. The first thing you'll notice when after the game boots is the amazing intro music! I'm talking real cool! Sort of a Techno-House dance tune, with digitized effects and a chorus that occasionally chants the phrase "Body Blows" in time with the beat. Anime-style portraits of the characters then appear one at a time, while flying pixels make neat patterns in the backdrop. The title screen itself consists of beautifully rendered characters which are reflected below as if on water. This rippling water effect is used later on in one of the scenes where the characters actually fight in an ankle deep rippling pond next to several animated waterfalls. Pressing the fire button brings you to a main menu which displays your typical playing options. You can play against the computer or against a friend. In Tournament Mode, you can have either 4 or 8 players using any of the 12 characters (yes, you can all pick the same character if you like). There are several game options also. Matches can either be determined in a single round, or by playing a best 2 out of 3. A match can have a time limit of 60 or 90 seconds per round or have unlimited time. There are 3 difficulty levels when playing against the computer. There is also a special Mercy Mode, which prevents the other character from being able to hit you immediately after you stand up (after being knocked down). Now the fun part: playing the game. The central theme/plot/concept (such as it is) of the game is that 2 characters from Body Blows, after defeating the evil Max, "decide to take on the universe and challenge the meanest and toughest in an Intergalactic Competition, to become the ultimate Galactic Warrior." Yes it sounds hokey, but it's an excuse to have a fight. Playability is extremely high. My little 11 year old Nintendo-raised brother is bugging me all the time to play Body Blows Galactic. According to him, it is better than the SNES Street Fighter II. It's been a while since I've played SNES Street Fighter II, so I don't remember. The graphics are certainly better than SNES SFII -- *THAT* I can remember. Several of the worlds in Body Blows Galactic AGA sport full screen parallax. Objects in the scenery scroll not only left and right but also up and down when a character jumps. There are also objects which scroll in front of the action as well as behind. One of them is a waist-high, wire mesh fence or divider which you can actually see through. The paralax is about as good as I've seen in a beat-em-up on a home computer or video game console. It certainly puts SFII or Mortal Kombat for Amiga to shame. (Of course I'm comparing an AGA game to 2 ECS games there). All of the scenery in Body Blows Galactic is very nice to look at, and lend themselves well to the mood of the game. The joystick control is very responsive, and the moves are easy to learn. There are 20 to 21 moves for each character and Body Blows Galactic gets all of those using only a 1-fire-button joystick. There is no keyboard support, so you need at least one joystick, or two for multiple players. Each of the 6 worlds has unique background music which stays comfortably in the background. All of the songs are very well done, and the music doesn't steal audio channels from the sound effects (nor vice versa, it seems). All of the characters make different sounds when they punch, kick or whatnot, and this adds greatly to the game. One character, Lazer, makes sounds like "hik!" "hook" , "uk" and things along those lines. A friend got very frustrated when I kept catching him with the "hik!" move. This led to a joke that went along the lines of "all you need is a 'hik!' and everything will be ok!" It was funny at the time! :) I should mention that the AGA version sports more colours, better quality sound, more sound effects and tweaked music over the old chipset (OCS) version. So I can't vouch for the OCS sound. All of the characters have very distinct personalities with all the flavour and atmosphere of any of the other more well known beat-em-ups, without resorting to look-a-likes: for example, Sub-Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. You get 12 UNIQUE characters with Body Blows Galactic! DOCUMENTATION The documentation is adequate. It comes in 4 languages and explains how to do the moves and a little history on each of the worlds. It also includes a price list for other Team17 games. It was easy to read and mildly interesting for all of the 10 or 15 minutes it took to read. LIKES AND DISLIKES What can I say. The game should be hard drive installable. And it should be mode-promotable to DBLPAL. At least it should provide a means for switching to PAL from NTSC. I know many pirate copies of games include PAL booters. What kind of a message does this send when pirate games are more playable than store bought versions? If there isn't an NTSC version of this game, and your Amiga is connected to your TV in North America, then you won't be able to play it. The music is superb. The graphics are superb. The feel and playability are excellent. This is a game I will be proud to show my PC loving, SNES loving and Genesis loving friends (along with Alien Breed II AGA). Someone I know (who has never owned an Amiga) appears to be thinking about getting a CD32 contingent on an NTSC version of this game and Alien Breed 2. Go TEAM17!! Get some North American Support happening! I liked that I didn't need to get a 2 button joystick to use all the moves; but at the same time, I sort of wish I did, because I'd really like more moves. Only 1 button is used in this game. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS There is no Comparison. Body Blows Galactic is the best beat-em-up on the Amiga I've ever seen. I've played SFII (which I couldn't stand and is completely unplayable and WAY too fast and jerky on my A4000, not to mention lame sound effects), Mortal Kombat (which I could stand if I had an A500, but I can't stand on an AGA machine even if it had parallax scrolling, which it doesn't!), and some other game whose name eludes me but, rest assured, is the worst of the 4. BUGS If you could call the lack of PAL booting a bug, then it has a bug. VENDOR SUPPORT I haven't had any need to call the vendor, although Team17 does encourage you to call them if you experience problems. WARRANTY I don't think there is a warranty. Although I expect Team17 will replace damage disked at a small cost. But don't quote me on that. CONCLUSIONS Overall I rate Body Blows Galactic a **** (4 out of 5 stars). If it had been hard drive installable, mode promotable and multitasked, I'd have given it 5 out of 5. If you are looking for a beat-em-up for your Amiga, BUY THIS! This is a damn good game, and if you are a fan of this genre you should definitely buy Body Blows Galactic. Final impressions? I've rubbed my left thumb raw from playing Body Blows Galactic! I haven't done that since Double Dribble for the original NES. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 David Zvekic. All rights reserved. Permission is explicitly granted to distribute freely in any manner as long as no modifications apart from spelling or grammatical corrections are made. --- 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