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This is a copy of our email newsletter from two weeks ago.  If you'd like to 
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We hope to make these postings regularly, but they'll always be two weeks 
behind the email version.  For the latest, you'll just have to subscribe!  



AllAbout Games Newsletter volume 1, issue 1
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### Hello comma and welcome to issue 1 of the AllAbout Games
Newsletter exclamation point.  If you don't know what this is,
and/or don't want it, see the bottom of the message for
instructions on how to stop this crazy thing, Jane, help, Jane.

### All New!  Now with 26, no, 31 subscribers!  No Cyclamates!

### Warning: This newsletter, as promised, contains several
servings of attitude.  A bit irreverent, a bit smirky, a bit
purient, a bit doofy, but hey, aren't the best games just the
same way, too?  You don't like it?  See line no. 209.


Technical Duhpartment
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### On our preliminary release last week, hosted by Pegasus
email, we discovered that our complete member list was going out
with the header of the newsletter. And, in the text of the
newsletter itself, I tried to impress you with how careful we are
with the list of newsletter members. Boy, good thing that was a
TEST, huh.  Now we're running with a different mass mailer, and
that'll never happen again!  Your membership in the AAG
newsletter is between you and our auto-responder.


Last Week's Dept.
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### SirTech's new Fable finale'?  I promised that last week.
Well, the CD works, but the save game they provided won't load,
and I'll be durned if I play the game all the way through just to
see the closing sequence.  I'll whine and gripe to the nice PR
lady and they'll help us out.


Tidbits Dept.
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### Maxis' SimGolf looks and sounds like just about every other
modern 3D you-are-there golf game released in the past couple of
years.  The interesting parts here are internet multi-player
play, a comprehensive course designer, a walk mode that lets you
explore the course, and a clever new way of stroking the ball
with your mouse that should put that tiresome "powerbar" method
in the 19th hole drinking warm beer with its buddies forever.
Other than that, though, looks mid-board.  Redraws were slow.
Look for a word on Accolade's Jack Nicklaus 4 next week, that one
should be a leader.  WIN95/MAC

### More Maxis: SimCopter.  This one will be a hit, you heard it
here first.  Take to the skies in your helicopter in a fully 3D
rendered world straight out of SimCity 2000--literally.  In fact,
you can load your old SimCity 2000 cities into this baby and flit
around your metropolitan masterpiece.  The plot? Earn bucks
dispersing riots, rescuing civilians, dousing fires and directing
traffic to upgrade your copter into the latest in rotary wing
technology. Big, big wins here are the fast, fully textured
graphics and the wiseacre sense of humor featured throughout.
Look for the levitating cows (I _think_ that's a bug, ...).
WIN95/MAC

### Apogee: Stargunner.  Doesn't seem exciting enough, although
saying that is like saying Cindy Crawford just isn't cute enough.
Even so, this side-scrolling arcade mega-shooter is really
nothing more than a retread of the same "the screen scrolls ever,
ever on" theme perfected in Midway's 1942 a decade ago.  The
graphics, though, are beautiful, the sound outstanding.  I had
some annoying lag during mouse control, however, and died lots
due to it. Clever innovations include earning money in addition
to points so you can outfit your ship with your choice of
weapons, and cutscenes in the registered version to give it a
"plot" but honestly.... if you need a plot to play a shooter, you
probably need a road map when driving the Daytona 500.  PCDOS

### Baldies, from Panasonic Interactive Media.  Take the
"Lemmings" idea, but with short, pudgy bald dudes and transplant
them to a tactical combat situation where you fight against the
Hairies, Beardies and Goatees for control of the map.  Give them
wacky weapons and the capability to breed, and you've just
described what some really twisted Irish guys worked on for a
year or two. I really don't know what to say here, except, "God,
this game is wierd."  Anyway, multi-player on the network is
screamingly fun once you've all figured out the intricacies of
playing, and the detailed animation makes this one a treat to
watch over the shoulder.  Probably won't be a big seller, but if
you enjoy tactical combat, look for the red/orange box with the
rear-view of a skinhead on it.  PCDOS/WIN95

### ArtData's ChessWars.  Doesn't bloody work on our systems.
Supposedly a very strong chess AI combined with a huge variety of
boards, pieces, and hundreds of megs of live action combat video.
Sounds interesting, if we could only get it to run.  Maybe next
week, we've got a note in. PCDOS


Where's the CONSOLE STUFF Dept.
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### You caught us.  We didn't get any in this week.


New Stuff Online Dept.
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### We're stumping through our present listings of game companies
and refreshing the listings with all of their new games.  It'll
take a few weeks to complete, but by the release of the March
issue, we should be completely current on every company in the
database. And since we'll be requesting reviews and demos of
everything interesting, the following months should be chock full
of great new reviews.

### Updated: 2AM Games.  These internet-only game developers are
still looking for a publisher/venue for their pretty cool Windows
95 game client.  Meantime all their online multiplayer games are
free.  Our listing describes all six.

  http://www.allaboutgames.com/2aminc


### Updated: 3D Realms.  Did you know their Blood product has
been sold off?  It's true.  And surprise, neither Prey nor Shadow
Warrior are done yet.  Look for Prey in 1998, but I expect Shadow
Warrior to hit around April-May.  Just to make it worthwhile, we
added some cheat codes for Terminal Velocity (one of my old
favorites).  They also just recently posted a two-year old demo
of Duke Nukem 3D just for laughs, but we're not linking to it.
See their website for details.

  http://www.allaboutgames.com/3drealms


### Updated: 7th Level.  The procession of never-quite-cutting-
edge-but-otherwise-pretty-solid titles proceeds, with the
addition of HeliCOPS, a 3D shooter with an Anime flavor.  Seems
like there's a plot to it, but you never can tell...  My comment
to the artist?  Make the girls sexier--long, green hair rules.

  http://www.allaboutgames.com/7thlevel


### Updated: APTE, Inc.  These university campus moles have two
more kid-oriented "Internet Coach" games due in a couple of
months.  The idea is to combine the flavor of the World Wide Web
(while staying offline) with a kid-friendly quest to meld the
ideas of logical thinking, research, and home page creation. The
new titles are Search for the Black Rhino, and Liftoff to Lizard
Island.

  http://www.allaboutgames.com/apteinc


### Updated: Accolade.  The one-time market leaders continue
their backstage hovering by not having anything dramatic planned
for the next six months.  Test Drive: Off Road is still
incomplete, and I can't quite figure out if NFL Football Legends
'98 is just a re-named '97 version because the single set of web
pages use both numbers. At least Super Bubsy for PC is out.

  http://www.allaboutgames.com/accolade


### Added: Monolith Productions.  These guys, the developers
behind the Microsoft Windows 95 Game Sampler CD-ROMS, are the
lucky guys who bought the rights to 3D Realms' BLOOD (see, the
other shoe DID drop). Their other game, Claw, not quite ready
yet, is a side-scrolling action adventure of the anthropomorphic
animals nature.  20 minutes of cell-animated cutscenes certainly
sounds impressive, but gameplay rules.  We'll keep you up to
date.

  http://www.allaboutgames.com/monolithprod


UH OH Dept.
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### WE'RE LAGGED AGAIN!  We're two screens (about a week) behind
on the email except for subscription requests, and we're really,
really sorry about it.  Here's some underscores so you can make
up a good excuse for us: _____________________________________


Misc. Dept.
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### We're still working on increasing AAG's hit count, so we'd
appreciate it if you'd spread the word about is as much as you
can. Add a link to us on your home page, put us in your Usenet
signature, or simply stand on a street corner and holler out the
URL, every extra visitor means AAG gets a little more popular.

### This week's fun stat:  AAG gets 1,100 different readers a
day.

### Get your friends to join the newsletter, too!  Hey, five more
people signed up while I was writing this thing.  Coool.

### Let us know if the newsletter is working for you.  If there's
stuff you'd like to see, or stuff that's just making you tear up
out of boredom, speak up or suffer!  in...@allaboutgames.com


Next Week's Dept.
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### A much longer newsletter as we go over lots more of the
companies we're updating in alphabetical order, new tidbits,
and some reader questions from both this week and next week.


Go Away Dept.
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### If you don't want to receive this weekly newsletter anymore,
here's how you cancel it.  Send e-mail to in...@allaboutgames.com
and make the subject "unsubscribe" without the quote marks.


Back-Of-The-Bus Dept.
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The AllAbout Games Newsletter is copyright 1997 by AFS, Inc, All
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