** 1 page review / 601 words **
Crown of Creation

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Not content with being our German Atari Computing distributor, Thorsten Butschke reckons he still has time to save humanity...

In the year 2060 Panamerica and Asia are embroiled in a ferocious space war. You're thrust into the role of a Panamerican space fighter pilot then suddenly both sides begin talking peace. Instead of joining the job queue you join a secret project and discover the peace negotiations have nothing to do with any new found understanding or mutual tolerance and everything to do with first contact with an alien race called Srinians - and the first encounter didn't go well - the Srinians destroyed a Panamerican and an Asian space station without warning.
Both sides decide to pool their resources to try to save humanity from total annihilation and you're given state of the art battleship, jointly developed by both sides, and sent off to discourage the Srinians. In further adventures, a second alien nation appears and they fight against both the Srinians and humans.
An important part of each mission is the selection and maintenance of both weapons and components. Before take-off you can load your LH 14 with a selection of weapons, components and tools. You can select between four difference turbolasers, target-seeking rockets, biological weapons, energy components, generators, shields, deflectors, target computers, repair drones, escape cells and so on.
Once strapped into your LH 14 Battleship you're assigned tasks - these start off simple enough, clear that minefield or destroy an enemy scout giving you just enough time to get used to the controls before the mission really gets tough! You could find yourself up against several alien battlecruisers or even entire space stations.

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During the mission you can monitor the status of each system component using this screen
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If shoot 'em ups is your favourite game genre you're probably yawning right now so it's probably a good time to mention the "Patrol flight" option - essentially this is a shoot 'em up mode where you can search and destroy everything in sight. However you do still need to exercise your cranium because attacking head on with all weapons blazing usually results in a fatal collision.

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After scoring a hit any bits which fly off can also be blasted to oblivion - very satisfying!
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COC really does push the Falcon to its limits, here's the techie details :
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* Runs in TrueColor mode at 320x240 resolution
* All spaceships and space stations are filled z shaded vector polygons
* The intro, outro and some sequences during missions have been raytraced.
* 24-bit surround sound stereo samples
* DSP used in parallel to perform the 3D calculations for spaceships and starships and process the sound (multitasking in action!)
* Realistic motion control
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** product boxout **
Crown of Creation
Developer: Rebelsoft
UK distribution: 16/32 Systems
Telephone: +49 (0)1634 710788
Email: 16/32@premier.co.uk
Cost: £24.99
System: Falcon RGB/VGA, accelerator recommended!
Pros:
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* Pushes Falcon to its limits
* Totally absorbing due to the excellent animation and plot
* Ever increasing difficulty
* Variety of landing and take off sequences
* Plenty straightforward tactical elements
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Cons:
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* On-screen text is too dark
* German on-screen text (although Spanish and French manuals are included on disk).
* No continue option after failing a mission - unless you installed an escape cell.
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** Darryl, I have had a number of requests to refine the score boxes
** particularly for games so let's give it a try: **
Graphics: 93%
Sound: 76%
Gameplay: 92%
Overall: 87%

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