PURPLE SATURN DAY

 Epyx's PURPLE SATURN DAY is a tough series of arcade games wrapped in a cloak
of sci-fi weirdness. The graphics are lush, otherworldly, and thoroughly cool --
though you've got to _love_ purple, because nearly everything is rendered in
shades of blue and purple. The games themselves are quite difficult and should
keep most arcade fanatics well-occupied: You're playing against seven bizarre
opponents from all across the galaxy, in an elimination tournament. And the top
prize: the tender ministrations of the Queen of Saturn. (This review is based on
the IBM-PC version.)

 Basically, we're looking at another in Epyx's "GAMES" series here (SUMMER GAMES
I and II, WINTER GAMES, WINTER GAMES: SPECIAL EDITION, CALIFORNIA GAMES and so
on). This one's not all that far from CALIFORNIA GAMES (nah...just kidding). In
order to appreciate this game, you've got to be a dedicated action/arcade
player. Otherwise, you're bound to be frustrated, as the four separate games
that make up PSD are very unusual and take more than the average amount of time
to learn.

 The Gigeresque backgrounds and creatures are the cybernetic
bio-mechanical-skeletal graphics reminiscent of films like "Alien."
Unfortunately, although you're pitted against seven different races, you never
really have a chance to interact with them or watch them in action. Thus, their
individuality never really comes into play, something I definitely missed.

 It's a standard meet: The eight opponents are divided into four groups, and
each of those groups plays each of the four contests. The two winning teams are
rematched, and again, and then there's the final contest between the two top
scorers. So, you end up having to play a _lot_, and all at one sitting, because
there's no way to save a contest in progress. Thus, to win the grand prize,
you'll have to play each of the four games four times, and do better and better
each time (the competition is _fierce_ here). The payoff is high in satisfaction
but fairly low in visual excitement; while the Queen of Saturn is a lovely lady,
and clad a bit skimpily, she's not as demonstrative as you'd probably like.

 The four games are: Ring Pursuit, Tronic Slider, Brain Bowler, and Time Jump.
Ring Pursuit is a slalom around one of Saturn's rings, dodging buoys.
Dish-shaped buoys must be passed on the right, and cylindrical buoys must be
passed on the left. You can track your progress (as well as the progress of your
opponent) and adjust your speed. I found this game particularly wearing; despite
the moniker of a "race around Saturn's ring," it's not as stimulating as it
sounds.

 Tronic Slider is a race to pick up energy fragments on a square playing field
peppered with obstacles. You shoot a ball of energy and quickly pick up the
fragments before your opponent gets to them. The game is timed; you need to pick
up as many fragments as you can before the time runs out. Maneuvering on the
playing field is extremely strange and tough to get used to, as _turning_
requires a different sort of action than other movement. A 3-D environment a la
COLONY or TOTAL ECLIPSE would have been appropriate here; instead, you can only
face one direction as you move forward, reverse, left, and right. To turn
towards another direction, you need to hold in a button and roll in the
direction you want to face.

 Brain Bowler was one of the niftier of the four games. It reminded me of a trip
through a computer (though the game calls it a "brain wall"). You and your
opponent each have a wall, side-by-side, and the idea is to energize your brain
wall while deadening your opponent's. To do that, you hurl a ball of energy at
switches, condensers, chips, gates, resistors, and accelerators, each of which
has a different effect on the power grid. Your opponent hurls his/her energy
ball at the same time, so while you're frantically trying to make progress,
you're also trying to sabotage your opponent...who's trying to sabotage you.
This game requires more strategy than most, and has a wider variety of
possibilities. It's also the hardest to learn.

 The Time Jump is simpler and graphically captivating. It's a first-person race
to capture energy (in the form of sparks). As soon as you've grabbed three
"rounds" of sparks, your ship catapults through space at faster-than-light
speeds. The competitor who catapults farther (in other words, who captures more
sparks at the outset) wins.

 The documentation for this game is less than satisfactory. The main problem is
that the manual, which is admittedly clever, is so chock full of extraneous cute
outer-space anecdotes that it's tough to separate the useful information from
the silly stuff. When you've got your joystick in your hand and you're trying to
navigate in a totally alien environment, you don't want to have to search to
find the relevant information.

 Aside from the documentation, the only other problem I had with PSD was its
copy-protection scheme. You can install the game on a hard drive, but because
it's disk-protected, you have to boot with the master disk in drive A and _keep_
it there throughout the game. As if that weren't enough, the installation
procedure to use the hard drive writes the entire program to disk as unmovable
files. Thus, you can't use a disk defragmenter while you've got PSD on your hard
drive. Well, you can, but it will prevent the defragmenter from doing its job.

 The IBM version supports CGA, EGA, Tandy 16-color, and Hercules Monochrome
graphic adapters. 384K is required; mouse and joystick are supported as optional
interface devices (a joystick is the preferred choice, in my opinion). The game
comes on a single 5-1/4" disk.

 I got quite a bit of enjoyment out of PURPLE SATURN DAY, although I don't think
it's a game I'll return to very often. The reasons: the annoying copy protection
and the steep learning curve. However, game players who really get into a game
that requires a high degree of persistence and study, and who enjoy games with
outer-space themes, will definitely get a few thrills from PURPLE SATURN DAY.

 PURPLE SATURN DAY is published and distributed by Epyx.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253