e first group fires forward, while
the second group can fire in six directions. Each time you destroy an Insectoid nerve centre (a giant head or eye), you gain an extra life.

Great loading graphics and music make way for a very interesting graphical game, basically a right to left shooter, but you have control of 4 ships.
Well, they all move at the same time and you can't move them individually
but you can shoot left, right, up, and down - and will need to. The
in-game music has been used by Richard a number of times, something more "stylised" and/or experimental would have been far better for the game, but hey! It is what it is. The game looks familiar as something that would
have been on a £2:99 label but I can't seem to place it in my mind.

Scores

Graphic: 7/10
mainly for the interesting style
Music: 6/10
the in-game music has been used
before
Gameplay: 6/10
it's a shoot-em-up
Overall: 6.5/10
mainly for the graphical look of
the game

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SUMMARY

An interesting collection of games for the SEUCK fan. If you are not a fan
of this game construction set then you won't really be interested and I
don't think it would convert you. All the games are better than average
SEUCK games, and stand out from a lot of the dross that's out there. Well-executed and customised front ends, with great music and graphics.
Easy to pick up game play gets you into the action quickly, and make this collection well worth the price!



*************************************
INTERVIEW WITH MICHAL PLEBAN
Co-Creator of the Commodore
MultiMax Cartridge
By Commodore Free
*************************************

www.multimax.co/

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Q. Please introduce yourself to our readers

My name in Michal Pleban and I am a startup entrepreneur from Poland.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. How were you first introduce to Commodore and Computing in general

I obtained my first computer in 1988, a year before the Iron Curtain fell.
I was 8 years old at that time.

It was not very easy to obtain computers in the then "Communist countries",
so my father smuggled the machines in for me from Germany, first I had a Commodore 64, then a Plus/4 and a 1570 disk drive. A lot of computers
arrived into Poland that way. There was also some official trade, but you needed dollars or other hard currency to buy them, and with the struggling economy of the Communist countries, our currencies were very weak so
computers were really expensive to purchase. The cost of the machines was
also the reason we still worked mostly on 8 bit computers at the time when
the Western world was already switching to 32 bit ones - they were simply
too expensive for us at that time.

It all started to change rapidly in 1989 when the borders were open, and
within few years the economy and currency exchange rates were stabilized
enough that we pretty much caught up with the rest of the developed world
with regard to computing.

Due to some political and historical reasons, the Polish market was
dominated by Atari 8 bit computers. Atari's were made with SECAM video
output, so we did not need to modify the television set to connect a
computer. I was the lone guy with a Commodore, but I did not complain - I
was happy to have a computer at all :-) Shortly after 1989 the country
switched to PAL broadcasting so this became a non-issue.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Some reader may not be aware of the Commodore Max can you explain what
the device was

Yes, The Commodore MAX was a game console. You can think of it as a half
of the C64. Everything that was not necessary was thrown away - BASIC and KERNAL ROM, IEC interface and the CIA chip that supported it, User Port
etc. You were just left with the VIC, SID, CPU, 2 kB of RAM, two joystick ports and a tape port, plus of course the expansion port where the game cartridges are inserted. This allowed Commodore to reduce the price dramatically, while still retaining the fabulous graphic and sound
capabilities needed for games.

Also Since a game console does not need a keyboard that much; Commodore replaced the standard C64 keyboard with a membrane type, this also helped
to cut the costs.

The machine was introduced in Japan shortly before the C64.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. So was it a big selling device for Commodore our would you consider the machine a flop

Sadly The machine did not sell well, mainly because it competed directly
with the VIC-20 at the same price point, the VIC-20 already had a
considerable software library and much better expansion capabilities. So
it was quickly pulled from the market in Japan and never introduced
elsewhere, that is why it is so rare today.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. So What were the benefits or negatives of the machine

The machine provided superior graphic and sound capabilities compared to
other computers at that time, and at a fraction of price of the C64 - that
was really a plus. But it was also hindered by very limited RAM and no expansion possibilities. the keyboard is absolutely awful to use as well.

A story goes that; the C64 was built with a compatibility mode with the Commodore MAX so that unsold game cartridges for the MAX could be reused in
the C64, saving some money for the company. Since the internal memory architectures of these computers are quite different, this mode changes the behavior of the C64 considerably, allowing for a variety of hacks including freezer and KERNAL replacement cartridges. I think this is a huge, though indirect, benefit for the Commodore community :-)

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. So the Multimax cartridge contains games that were released for the Max system, how are the games accessed from the cartridge?

There is a menu accessible at reset, where you can select the game you want
by pressing a key on the keyboard, or navigating with a joystick or paddle.
For each game, icons are shown indicating whether it is operated with a joystick, paddle, or keyboard, and a scroller with basic instructions for
the game. Once a game selection is confirmed, (by pressing the space or joystick button), the game starts to play.

We deiced to fit a reset switch so that you can start a new game without power-cycling the computer.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Who created the device and what was the process, for example how long
did the design take, and how do you test a cartridge like this, (can a soft cartridge be created)

The device was created by Rob Clarke, a Commodore fan living in
Switzerland, and myself. It started from a discussion on the
cbm-hackersailing list, where I posted some questions about the MAX I had recently obtained. Rob replied that he was a MAX owner too, and was
interested in having a cartridge with all the games released for that
machine (the original cartridges are even harder to find than the computers themselves).

So we started the cooperation, exchanging ideas via email. Rob built a prototype on a breadboard, showing that the design is feasible, and I
created the prototype PCB. From then on, I focused mostly on hardware and
Rob on software.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. How long from start to finish did the project take and who worked on it

It was a side project for both of us, so it took about half a year to
develop the cartridge. This included mailing the parts back and forth
between Switzerland and Poland, waiting for PCB manufacturing, and delays
due to our main job assignments.

Apart from Rob and myself, there was a music composer nicknamed "Yogi"
involved who wrote the music for the menu - we needed this help because
we're both quite bad at SID music. Several people from the cbm-hackers
mailing list supplied ideas, and Ruud Baltissen was kind enough to create
the Commodore cartridge PCB template we used. And of course all of this
would not be possible without the work of Pete Rittwage and Mat Allen who dumped and preserved all the MAX cartridge ROMs and made them available for download.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. So i

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