Jaguar Cartridge, Zoop, $52 at Electronics Boutique in the La Jolla UTC mall San Diego county, California

Zoop! America's Biggest Killer .. of Time

Graphics:
Graphics are exactly what they should be for this time of game. No flashy SGI pre-rendered sprites or texture mapped polygons here, folks. I'm guessing that graphics could have been much much better, but it seems to look nearly the same on every platform. Does anyone know wether the Jag version uses Jag-only hardware tricks?

Sound:
This type of game doesn't need stereo sound. The sound effects were more than adequate for the task at hand. The zoops, pops, explosions, and sliding were just fine. The music was a corny kind of carnival music, nothing spectacular, but doesn't detract one bit from the game.

Gameplay:
This is where Zoop could be a GREAT game. What you do is you move a triangular pointer in a 3x3 box and you shoot at various shapes that pile up from 4 sides of the screen. When you shoot a shape that is the same color as you, it disappears off the screen. If you shoot a shape that is not, you get the color it had, and it gets the color you had. The game increases in speed and complexity. For example, on the first screen, you get lots of columns that are the same color, making it possible for you to eliminate them all at once. However, by the time you make it to the 4th level, you start getting lots of color combinations in the columns, making it harder for you to eliminate them. You also get 4 types of powerups, but it doesn't come to mind now what they are since I don't use them very often.

Overall:
This would have been quite addicting to me had I not had much sleep for the last few days. I think this weekend, I'll be busy Zooping along ..

Ratings --
Graphics: 7
Sound: 7
Gameplay: 8
Overall: 7.3

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Keith C. Estanol / [email protected]