Napalm

Title		Napalm
Game Type	Management Sim
Players		1-2
Compatibility	68020, 16MB Fast RAM, CD
HD Installable	Obligatory (see review)
Submission	Scott Konowal

Review
One thing the Amiga platform seemed to be missing is a good contemporary
real-time strategy war game. Not to dismiss Dune II, an excellent game
that has yet to show it's age, but the Amiga deserves something on par
with Command & Conquer (C&C), a game that could be considered the top of
it's genre. Unfortunately, C&C has only been ported to the "major"
platforms.

Enter Napalm: The Crimson Crisis. Not only does it meet the challenge set
forth by C&C, it transcends it. This entry by ClickBOOM is essential for
any serious real-time strategy gamer.

The game is tough. It requires a level head, lots of patience, and, on
occasion, quick reflexes. When you accomplish each mission, you feel as
though you earned it. The computer opponent is a worthy one. This game
also allows for a human opponent, through a serial network (like null
modem) and a yet to be released TCP/IP driver.

The games graphics are absolutely stunning and complements the game play
to an astounding level. The games is viewed from an almost overhead
viewpoint with a column of icons on the side of the screen for controlling
the various functions.  All of the objects are rendered to a high level of
detail, the backgrounds are very realistic, and you can almost feel the
heat and concussion from an explosion.

Of course, what good is an exploding building without sound? Napalm covers
this with high quality samples driven through the Amiga's own custom sound
chip, Paula. It's amazing what can be done with only four channels. AHI
support is a selection in the preferences but not yet implemented. To
lighten the load on the CPU and Paula, the 20 background music tracks are
piped directly from the CD-ROM to the speakers.

To complete each level, a specific task must be accomplished. In order to
accomplish the task, there are several things that need to be planned. You
can't just build as many tanks as possible, send them deep into enemy
territory and expect to win. You need a diverse army including various
types of units. You also need money, in the form of oil, to fund your war
machine. Naturally, the bad guys also need oil to wreak their havoc, so
you need to protect your income as well as your command center.

With all of these features, one must expect the game to require a beefy
system. The absolute minimum is a 68020 CPU, 16MB Fast RAM, 20MB hard
drive space, and a 2X CD-ROM drive. This will only get you a
low-resolution play screen and a very slow game.

I've tested Napalm on my 68060 in a PAL hires-laced screen. The game runs
very smoothly and at a very comfortable speed. I can only imagine how fast
the game could be with a graphics card, an issue ClickBOOM has taken care
of with a speed setting on the in- game options.

There are, of course, weak points to this game that need to be addressed.
The first and major one you will notice is that the preferences program is
done awkwardly; an Installer script is used. This really isn't all that
bad, but it not really what I would expect from a game of such high
quality.

Another point also deals with the prefs program; there's nothing really to
choose from. The graphics settings seems completely redundant as RTGMaster
takes care of it. Sound and network are useless at this point as the
options are severely limited. The CD prefs are needed if you want the
background music, though I have heard of some trouble with this on some
systems. Chat macros can also be set here, but since multiplayer over a
serial network is a rarity (nonexistent in my case), they have remained
untouched.

I've tried very hard to find something wrong with this game but it seems
only a few quirks were to be found. One particular item is keypresses seem
not to be buffered, so you have to press longer than usual to have it
register. It's not that huge an issue but it does make typing save names a
bit of a chore.

Napalm is a game I am sure will make top five lists for years to come.
It's even caught the attention of a few of my Windows using friends. From
the graphics, to the sound, to the game play, this game is pure quality.

As of this writing, ClickBOOM has announced an upcoming Missions Disk for
Napalm.

Alphabetical list.