STARBALL by Volume 11 software - Shareware

Pinball games on any Atari computer are few and far between, which is
why when a shareware release of this genere and quality is released,
you know something special has happened.

Special is just one of the many complementary words that could be
used to describe this game.  The first thing that grabs you about
Starball are the superb graphics, I am sure you have come across the
phrase 'commercial quality' before in other PD reviews, well forget
all that because these are some of the best graphics I have seen in a
game for a long time.  From the sickenly putrid Eggball screen with
its pulsating egg sacks and slimy tentacles to the superb combination
of high technology hardware and ghastly flesh and slime intermingled
in a fascinating way.  Even the highscore table has a superb picture
behind it.  This game reeks of class rarely seen in the shareware
world of the Atari.

However this is no ordinary pinball game, sure there are flippers,
rebounders, silver balls, bonuses, power-ups and death shutes.  But
where in a normal common-a-garden pinball game do you see multiple
aliens, purple cloaked ghouls, giant Xenon 2 like insects, skulls
wearing shades and llama's!  The whole game revolves around three
stages of a single huge table, at the bottom is the insect world area
where a large skull spits out nasties at you and a slip of the finger
means death.  In the middle you enter the alien world where you
attempt to build together a massive space ship in the centre of the
screen while destroying incoming missles and baddie vessels.  Then at
the top of the screen is the slime area with its revolting leaders
face in the middle, a beautiful woman to offset the disgusting nastys
that blinks her eyes and opens her mouth to let hundreds of ghouls
wander out and surround her in protection.  This where most the
action takes place for in each segment there are a number of tasks to
be completed and the completion of these tasks can take you into one
of the special bonus level screens.

So far I have found the revolting Eggball screen where you have to
destroy this pulsating egg-sack bit by bit and the flys that swarm
out, next is the Invaderball screen with a classic rendition of space
invaders and you must blast them all before they land!  Another is
the Arkanoidball screen where you must destroy all the bricks and the
only other I have found is the well hidden Llamaball screen with many
of the mutant furry beats ahoy.  There may well be more, with a game
like this who can tell?

In order to enter these bonus rooms and make some serious dents in
the highscore table, you need to assemble together various things. 
In the middle section you have to build a giant spaceship then launch
it by bouncing into the pieces that appear while fending off the
aliens and missles.  At the bottom you must power up the bumpers then
enter the insects mouth and at the top you must destroy all the
cloaked ghouls then enter the top of the woman's head or match up all
the colour balls on the other side of the screen.  Success in any one
of these departments leads you into a bonus section where fun and
mayhem is to be found!

The gameplay on the Falcon is perfect, the super smooth 50hz
scrolling, colourful graphics, superb sound and responsive ball
control are all the right ingrediants for this gaming experience. 
You can even configure the game so that for each table you can have a
soundtracker module of your choice playing in the background making 7
channels of sound at any one time.

For only five pounds registration you can't really go wrong and if
you beat my high score of 36,263,050 on your fifth attempt then I'll
eat my SHIFT keys  :-)  I have only one complaint with the game and
that is it doesn't allow you to exit to the desktop in anyway and it
doesn't save the highscores.  But these are minor niggles so you'll
just have to take my word for it that the score above was for real.

Overall rating: 95%
FALCON OWNERS GROUP GOLD HIT AWARD