THE ALEX TROWERS GUIDES --------------------------------------------------------- Alex Trowers is Bullfrog's Quality Control Manager. His job is to make sure that the games that we love to play all work correctly and are as playable as possible. To this end, he spends his days playing games (lucky or what?) and has built up the best knowledge base available for hints and tips on playing Bullfrog games. So here you'll find the definitive playing guides for Bullfrog games. Currently in focus are: * Hi-Octane * Theme Park --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ALEX TROWERS GUIDE TO HI-OCTANE THE COURSES There are six courses in total. Each one is vastly different to the one before it. The most important thing that you could possibly do is LEARN THE COURSE. I can't stress this enough. Look I'll even put it in italics: LEARN THE COURSE. There. I've said it. When you have learnt the course you should know when to start your turns and, most importantly, when to boost. All of the courses have secret sections. Usually they are off the beaten track although some are right along the roadside. Areas of walls will sometimes open up to reveal goodies for the taking whilst other areas may require a couple of missile strikes to open up. Examine the course in detail and keep you eyes peeled for areas that seem to activate other things. Most of the courses also have short cuts or alternative routes that allow quicker passage through certain sections. Hunt these out with a vengeance. Because the vehicles are not restricted to the roads, you may have to look at areas that are not much more than dusty tracks. DRIVING LESSONS Although all of the vehicles are different, they all share one important thing; they all hover above the ground. This means that they do not have much in the way of grip and they slide around a bit. Get used to turning into the corners earlier than you think you should. With any luck, the sideways momentum of the vehicle will carry you around the corner and allow you to gracefully power around and off down the straight. The turning of each vehicle also has momentum so you must practise the art of counter-steering; that is, turning the opposite direction when you emerge from a turn. This will come in time and hopefully you will find yourself gracefully cruising around the courses without a care in the world. Of course, all of this tends to go out of the window when someone is riddling the rear of your new bike with Mini Gun slugs. REASONABLE FORCE All of the vehicles in Hi-Octane are armed. Each vehicle carries a Mini Gun and a Missile Launcher as standard. Here is a brief guide to the effective use of both weapon systems. Mini Gun. The Mini Gun is a large, rapid firing, fully automatic, machine gun. Each individual bullet doesn't do much to the thick armour plating on the vehicles but it soon mounts up when you realise that there are several thousand in each burst. There are no ammo restrictions so you can blast away to your hearts content. The only thing to worry about here is the build up of heat caused by the barrel motor and the intense amount of bullets being fired. When a Mini Gun overheats, it shuts down for a time until the temperature reaches a safer level. While this happens you cannot fire. While you cannot fire the other person is safe. This is not a good thing. To avoid shut downs, control your bursts of fire. Use short taps on the Mini Gun key instead of holding it down for long periods. The Mini Gun comes in four levels of power, ranging from the standard single unit to the double, super cooled, twin cannon monstrosity. Missile Launcher. This is a pretty hefty piece of kit, capable of massive amounts of damage in the right hands. At later levels of power it only takes a couple of well placed missile strikes to destroy a vehicle even with full armour. Unlike the Mini Guns, the Missile Launcher uses up valuable Ammo. Try to time your strikes and try not to waste shots. Wait until the targeting cross hairs turn red to indicate a decent lock and unleash the missile when the pair of you are on a straight. This gives a smaller amount of room for the missile to get confused and will increase the chances of a good hit. UNDER FIRE When you are tearing along the track and suddenly the cockpit starts to shake, you are under attack. Other tell tale signs include a rapid loss of Armour and bullet holes appearing in the wind shield. When this happens you probably should consider doing something about it. The simplest manoeuvre is to apply gentle pressure to the brakes causing your vehicle to slow down and the attacker to overshoot. When this happens, open up with your own guns and turn the tables on him. This tactic works well against computer opponents although you may find yourself rapidly falling down the leaderboard as you keep letting everyone passed. Another tactic that works even against human opponents is to turn a quick and tight 360 degree turn. This usually degenerates into a turning battle which can chew up valuable time as well as Armour. GENERAL TIPS 1. Conserve your Ammo. Time your Missile strikes well to avoid wasting Ammo. Your Boosters also use Ammo but not to such a great degree. Always ensure that you have enough Ammo for your Boosters as a vehicle with no boost is a sitting duck. 2. As Boosters take a while to charge up you must learn to get the timing right. Be charging up as you slide into a turn so that just as the straight comes into view you can release the boost and tear off out of the bend. 3. Boosters should also be used to capitalise on the various jumps around a lot of the courses. 4. When in mid air, try turning the vehicle full circle before you land. Performing ace stunts in this fashion increase your overall rating and will have your peers trembling in fear at your divine handling skills. Behold the might of the 720! Turning 180 degrees in the air will also allow you to take pot shots at anyone else who happens to be following you. 5. When you are coming up from behind someone, don't just open fire straight away. Wait until you have a decent lock before letting them have it. This means that they won't have much of an opportunity to dodge and they won't know where you are until its too late. 6. If someone is chasing you and there is a jump in the road ahead, try slamming on the brakes just before you go over the edge. Your would be attacker will soar gracefully overhead and because he is in mid air, there is nothing he can do about it. Feel free to add a hail of Mini Gun fire into this equation at any moment. 7. If you hear the tell tale beeping noise of a Missile, try weaving from side to side. Because the Missiles travel at high speeds, they sometimes are unable to adjust their flight to cope with you sudden direction change and so they will miss... in theory. 8. If the road is particularly straight then you can get away with firing missiles at targets that you haven't locked onto properly yet. Ensure that you are lined up and hope that they don't turn a corner in the immediate future. 9. On track 1, the fastest laps involve jumping off the second hill after the start line and clearing the gate that opens and closes. Hard right through the short cut and a boost through the Shield straight should enable times under 300. Timing and decent boosters are essential. 10. Always keep an eye on your fuel level. This may seem obvious but you would be surprised about the number of people who get carried away in a firefight and so forget the necessary go juice. NETWORKS By far the best way to play Hi-Octane is over a network. It opens up a whole new can of worms as hard fought races turn into slugfests of the highest order. There is also a series of game variations that can be played although all of these require some form of co-operation by the players. Team Challenge. Divide the players into teams of at least two racers per team. Each team picks a different colour and the race commences. The scores of all players in the teams are added together and the team with the highest points or lowest race positions wins. This means that all members of a team should work together as individual goals take less of a meaning. Driving with 'wingmen' is great fun and ambushes can be planned to devastating effect. Help out your team mates and dust the opposition. Tag Race. Whoever crosses the line last is 'it'. Players may only shoot the player that is 'it' and only score kills for killing the 'it' player. Players who kill someone who isn't 'it' lose a point. When the person who is 'it' crosses the line next time, the next player to cross after him becomes 'it' and the race continues. When you are 'it' you score points for everyone that you kill. Follow The Leader. This game is easier if you have a good knowledge of the track [Image] layouts. It also establishes who the truly skilful drivers are and the people who are not fit to be smears on the tarmac. Designate one person as the leader and all of the other drivers must follow him. All those who follow must do as the leader does and follow the exact route. If they ever deviate from this route, they are out. When a lap is complete, the new leader is the person in second place. An alternative idea is to try and duplicate the leader's stunts as well as route. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ALEX TROWERS GUIDE TO THEME PARK The following is a short list of the most basic and fundamental hints and tips to playing Theme Park. As you become a more advanced player you will begin to develop your own style and method of play along with a few sure-fire strategies for creating the ultimate park. Everyone has different preferences and so everyone develops varied techniques for dealing with the problems that they encounter. GETTING STARTED. My first piece of advice is aimed at those who are new to the game and those who have dabbled occasionally without much success. The Tutorial is there to aid the first time player. It introduces the basic elements of paths, queues, rides and shops gradually before dropping you into the game with (hopefully) a fully functional Theme Park. The result of the tutorial park is actually a very competent place to start expanding your empire. BASIC ADVICE. The little people are very fickle in that they are not easily pleased yet the smallest thing will make them unhappy very quickly. To this end you must always listen to what they tell you. Keep an eye on the thought bubbles that appear above each little person's head and react accordingly. If several people get hungry in the same area you should consider building a food stall of some description nearby. Likewise if several people are upset about the cost or prizes of a stall then you should either lower the price or raise the prize. Don't try and build the most mammoth of parks on your first go. Start to build up from a small but well maintained base. That way you won't suddenly find yourself out of your depth with everything going wrong at once; it will happen gradually. Don't be afraid to remove rides that are placed incorrectly. It is far better to lose the money for buying this one ride than to distract your valuable Mechanics from repairing your star attraction so that it blows up with people on it (Yeah!! Great!! Burn baby, burn!- a Syndicate player.) RIDES. The park with the most rides tends to make the most money. More rides means more punters and more punters means more money which, as we all know, makes the world go round, allows you to research better stuff and subsidises shopping trips by the wife. The little people tend to prefer a large variety of rides as opposed to loads of identical ones. This doesn't mean that you should only have one of each ride in the park, you should just choose a different ride over an existing one. As rides get older so they don't last as long as they should before needing repair. When this starts to happen, you should consider selling the ride on and replacing it with an upgraded one. This will put less strain on your Mechanics and generally make everyone happier. SHOPS & STALLS. One of the greatest source of income can be achieved with a well placed shop or stall. They provide welcome instant cash returns and also serve to keep the little people happy. They do have two drawbacks however. Litter is the major problem as nobody likes a messy park. If there is too much litter then the little people will start to stay away from the park and you certainly won't win many awards at the end of the year. Certain shops such as the Coffee Shop have litter bins inside and so take care of their own litter although they are not quite as effective as Pokey Cola's for quenching thirst. Whenever you buy a shop that produces litter you must make sure that you have sufficient Handymen to combat the litter problem. The other main problem is that of keeping them well stocked. A shop that has run out of stock is no use to anyone. You should always keep an eye on your shops to ensure that they have sufficient stocks to last and if they haven't you should order some more immediately. Try to learn how often you need to restock certain shops and get into some form of rhythm so that you don't have to keep looking around the map at all of your shops. If the Advisor tells you that a certain shop is running low and you haven' t already sent off an order for that shop then you should immediately order some more to minimise the amount of time that the shop is closed. If you are playing in Sandbox mode then you don't have to worry about this. Stalls can be a very lucrative method of gaining some needed cash. They can also upset little people who feel that they are being conned in some way. Try to match the cost of each game with the chance of winning and the prize if they do so. Don't try to fleece the punters too much as they aren't daft and they will soon see through your attempts and stop coming. A small cost and prize coupled with a moderate chance of winning provides a more reliable income than a risky high cost high prize lower chance stall. Stalls have the added bonus in that they entertain the people (although not as much as rides) and don't produce litter. They are also smaller than rides and so can be slotted in several small places around the park. The little people tend not to have a go at the same type of stall so, as with rides, variety is the key. Of course to have this variety you must research it... FEATURES. Features such as trees, fences and lakes should never be underestimated. A featureless park is a bland one and is unlikely to win any awards. Features also impress the little people who are new to the park as well as making it look nice on the screen. In addition it is a lot more exciting to scream around on a roller coaster that dives and twists through a dense forest, narrowly missing the trees. STAFF. The amount and types of staff that you have employed at any one time can make or break your park. As soon as you start placing Shops that leave litter you should start employing a Handyman. Likewise as soon as your first ride starts to break down you should employ a Mechanic. Entertainers are very good especially in the times where most of your rides are being repaired or it is raining. A slightly more detailed look at all of the staff types follows. Handymen Handymen should be employed the instant litter starts appearing on the ground. Keep an eye on any new handymen that you employ as they might start getting confused by the layout of your paths and end up missing large areas of the park that need to be cleaned. If this is the case then you may want to control their movements using the waypoint navigation system on their icon bar. Mechanics should be hired as soon as your first ride starts to show signs of breaking down. They spend half of there life eating sandwiches and so you must keep a watchful eye on them. More often than not a Mechanic will get to a nearby damaged ride before it completely blows up but if there is more than one ride that is in trouble then you should direct the Mechanic to fix one immediately and either shut the other ride down or hire another Mechanic. A single Mechanic can usually maintain three to four rides successfully. This is just a rough guideline as it will vary with the quality of the rides, how often they are used and for how long. A slightly risky tactic is to slow the speed of a damaged ride right down while the Mechanic is fixing another ride. Hopefully the ride won't blow up (Hopefully!?! - the same Syndicate player) in the time it takes for the other ride to be fixed and the Mechanic can then fix the new one. The upside of all of this is that you only have one Mechanic employed and the little people always have at least one ride that they can go on as opposed to having two closed down ones to look at. If it works, it works well. If not then its disastrous. Entertainers Entertainers should be placed near queues that have a particularly long wait time to ease the stress caused by waiting to get on the ride. In addition, at least one Entertainer should be placed somewhere near the park entrance. This will allow him to hand out umbrellas to people entering the park if it starts to rain. Guards Guards only need to be hired if Thugs start appearing in the park. You will notice the Thugs when you start seeing beaten up Entertainers and rides start breaking down a lot faster than normal. When Thugs do appear you must deal with them immediately. Hire plenty of Guards and try to move your Entertainers away from trouble areas. Guards will only escort Thugs out of the park if they see them doing something nasty like kicking in an Entertainer or breaking a ride so you may have to move the Guards around quite a bit. PARK LAYOUT. When designing your park always try to think about what the little people will want at any one time and place things accordingly. Place a Balloon Shop right near the entrance so that the people part with their money while they are still happy. This will put them in a good mood for the rest of their stay unless something bad happens. People get enjoyment out of going on rides and winning on stalls so try to cut down the amount of time that they spend walking between one attraction and the next. One method of doing this is to have a straight path with rides coming off either side of it. Each ride is butted up against the side of the path with the entrance around the back and the exit leading back onto the main path. A short queue should link the path to the entrance. Try to stagger the rides on either side so that anyone leaving one ride is pointed straight at the queue entrance to the next one. In this method the little people will zig zag between the rides and the amount of time they spend just walking and not being on a ride is minimal. The major disadvantage with this method is that it doesn't leave much room for decorative features which make the park look nice and this may put some people off. If you start making a complex path system with rides and stalls all over the place then you will have to place signposts down so that people know where they are heading. If a person comes across a sign pointing towards a ride that they quite want to visit then they will feel happier about walking towards it as opposed to just wandering around aimlessly. Also, signposts that point towards the exit allow annoyed people to leave quicker and not wander around for hours getting more upset. Unhappy people tend not to go on rides or buy things from shops and so just clutter up the park and reduce the average of the happy people in the park. As a result of this, your reputation and popularity suffer somewhat so they are best off out of the park and out of your hair. Another method of park design is the one way method. The park is organised in such a way that the people have no choice but to walk around the park in an organised and orderly manner. This has advantages in that you should be able to work out exactly what any person will be requiring at any one time and be ready for it. In addition, the need for signposts is greatly reduced as there are less junctions for people to start worrying about. The problem arises when too many people enter the park. Queues fill up and so people are unable to get a go on all of the rides. Due to the one way structure of the park, they are unable to return to rides that they may have missed so they are not getting the full enjoyment factor out of your park. AWARDS. At the end of each year you will be presented with various charts on how well you are doing. in addition there are also several awards that get handed out if you happen to be doing particularly well in certain areas of your park. These awards are great things to aim at as they not only improve your reputation but add a substantial sum of money to your bank account. They are also a measure of how well you are doing in relation to your opponents. If you are constantly winning the 'Good Technology' award then you must be more advanced than all of your competitors. Keep your park running smoothly and you should pick up a couple of neat awards. If a ride blows up then it is unlikely that you will win the 'Ride Safety' award and since there is no 'Most People Maimed Or Seriously Injured' award then you could be losing out. If you concentrate on winning a single award at a time then the money that you gain from this will enable to do better at winning the others. GENERAL TIPS. * Open your park immediately on starting the game. This allows one or two customers to appear even if most stay away. * Slow the game speed down when designing the park. This will allow you more time to place rides and give you a small amount of lee-way when playing the game. * New rides are very important and you should always have something in research for them. This will aid you in gaining the 'Most Advanced' park award. * When positioning rides allow for the fact that you may wish to move the entrances and exits. * Its always worthwhile buying up your own shares, not only to prevent yourself from being bought out but if you park does well, the value increases and can be used as extra cash later. * Whenever you add a new ride to the park you should immediately increase your ticket price. The more rides you have, the more you can charge. * Try to buy new rides as they become available. * If you notice a large amount of litter building up then it may be a good time to increase the price of your food stalls. Don't forget to clean it all up afterwards however. * Try to ensure that the queue lengths are long enough to support all of the people who may want to go on the ride. People won't join a full queue and so they will miss out on the ride. * Make spare Handymen work exclusively outside shops. * If you have more than one of the same type of ride you should try to position them quite far apart. * Always have stock for your shops on order. You can always delay its arrival by re-ordering. * Never leave your park unattended as there is always something you could be doing. This is especially true of the larger parks as they are harder to maintain. * Large capacity rides need larger queuing areas as they take more people to fill up. * To begin with, certainly try to have at least one of every ride in your park.