{fh470F070WaveLength
{fb1000000Having seen the screenshots in Gamesware's adverts for WaveLength, I was pleased when they sent it to me for review. Unfortunately, what I wasn't so pleased with was the 'manual'. It was a third of a yellow A4 sheet printed very badly, and didn't look well designed at all. Despite this, it did tell you what to do, and how to do it (concerning WaveLength that is).
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As the filer display appeared, my first impression of the software itself was that the desktop icon looked like Dougal's (the dog from Magic Roundabout - you know the tripped out children's program) face at a slight angle. When run, it installed nicely on the iconbar. I opened the info window, and had a look at all the people connected with the project. Amongst these was the name 'Loretta'; now I'm sure she's the famous one from Arcade BBS, who attends the Acorn User shows with the huge 'Hi, I'm Loretta' badge.

Anyway, when the game had finally loaded, I was able to play. The graphics are pretty good, the best I've seen for a while in fact, and everything ran nice and smooth on my ARM3, but I doubt it would run so fast on ARM2 machines (although there is an option to turn the in-game music off). This first time I played, I wasn't able to complete the first level. So, putting down any first time user nerves, I tried again, but *still* couldn't do the first level; 'this Tom Cooper bloke (the author) must be fairly good at playing shoot- em- ups' I remember thinking to myself.
Let's face it now, the gameplay here is very poor. If I can't even get the first level sorted out, then why bother at all? I know, you're all thinking that I'm crap at shoot- em- ups, but I rang Russ, and he told me that Richard Goodwin, editor of _Illusions_"Features.DiscMags" magazine, had made very similar comments. For instance, you have to blow up installations on the surface, but to do this all you have to do is fly over whatever it is you are trying to destroy, and simply fly round in circles shooting at it for about ten seconds before it blows up. Also, when you shoot something, you are given credits to 'boost' your ships fire power. This can only be done if you get the right tokens though, because otherwise you change weapon, and it is downgraded. It's very hard to tell which tokens are which, especially, when after shooting something, you usually just run over the tokens anyway, and pick the lot up, regardless of what they do!

The music - we recommend that you turn it off during play; a rock track for a space game, it just doesn't work! I'm not saying that the music is bad or anything, in fact the bouncy platform-ish music between levels is great, but you would be well advised to turn it off, and put a CD on (see our _music section_"NonComp.Intro" for some ideas).

I sent WaveLength to Russ, and he created a CheatMod using Doggysoft's _Desktop Hacker_"Features.HackerTut" for it. This enabled me to add extra lives and skip levels. The later levels are much better, and I was able to improve my playing skills enough to complete the first level without the CheatMod. I actually found a few bugs in the game, such as once, on level seven, I completed the level, but nothing happened. I flew around for about ten minutes, but found nothing left to shoot.

In summary, this game looks good, but lacks gameplay. It *is* playable with the CheatMod but you will soon bore of it. If Gameware release this as a budget title in the future (on one of their Zodiac compilations) then get it, but don't forget to use our _CheatMod_"Regulars.Education2".

You could always enter our _competition_"Regulars.700Comp" which includes WaveLength in the prizes, and that is worth it (if only for the level intro music).
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