============================ === THE ELECTRONIC GAMER === ============================ STUNT ISLAND One minor problem in the genre of flight simulation is that the whole endeavour is sometimes too deadly serious. Too much time is spent on expert assessment of performance, not enough on just having fun. What a delight, then, to encounter Disney's STUNT ISLAND, in which the emphasis is definitely on fun, served up with a delicious sense of humor. (This review is based on the IBM version.) Whereas most flight simulations these days focus on air combat details, STUNT ISLAND (as the title makes clear) is oriented around the metaphor of stunt flying. No battles, tactics, or strategy here; just a set of highly challenging stunt opportunities that will test the skills of even the best air combat sim player. The game provides an option to fly any of the 48 or so aircraft available without getting into the stunt flying shell. While this gives you a chance to see the varieties of aircraft included in the design (from Space Shuttle to Duck, with everything in between), it doesn't really do justice to the core of the game. The flight models are in fact quite good, and unlike some other recent releases (BIRDS OF PREY comes to mind), the distinctions in performance between the different aircraft are very clear. The Hang Glider, for instance, does turns like a hang glider; the F-16C flies like an F-16; the DC-10 feels like a heavy. But these are in some ways the least important features of STUNT ISLAND. Where STUNT ISLAND really shines is in the Stunt Pilot of the Year Contest. Included is a series of increasingly difficult stunts, which offer such activities as taking off over a burning airplane to shoot down a Mitsubishi Zero, landing on the Golden Gate bridge in a Cessna, picking up a convict on Alcatraz in a Sopwith Camel, and parking at a hamburger stand in a Piper Cherokee. Or, for something really different, try crashing into a hotel in a meteor. Many of these stunts are chock full of amusing details (for example, try accidentally clipping the con with your wings), and the after-results should you fail in a stunt are attractive as well (except for, maybe, the good doctor). The stunts are all cleverly designed to be a bit subtle; you'll have to do a certain amount of experimentation and replay just to figure out the basic parameters for doing a stunt right. For instance, in the Convict Pickup scenario, those who've never lived in the San Francisco Bay Area might easily be fooled into thinking they're flying over the right island with the convict nowhere in sight. This is not a bug. He's out there. The graphics in STUNT ISLAND are wonderfully balanced. Whereas some recent designs have opted for high-density air and ground graphics (to the detriment of frame rate and usability on lower-end machines), Disney has seen fit to combine basic solid-fill polygons for mountain and ground scenery with lovingly shaded and textured graphics for the aircraft. This provides the optimum in smooth frame rate with detail where it's needed most -- an effective compromise. Sound in STUNT ISLAND is also quite carefully considered. The various engine sounds are probably some of the best in flight simulatordom, and are specific for jets, prop planes, and other aircraft (no quacks for the ducks, unfortunately). Engines rev up and down with the throttle, and sputter when they're cut (on the appropriate planes). The game is replete with various sound effects, and includes extensive use of digitized voice for the pre- and post-flight aspects of the design. Good use is made of digitized voice and voice acting that really works to give you the sense of participating in a real contest. For example, the director, prior to the second, third, and fourth takes, has _just_ the right combination of encouraging cheeriness and hysteria to be believable. Voices throughout the game are equally convincing. The feature of STUNT ISLAND most deserving of comment (and the one that's likely to be least utilized by the majority of players) is the program's incredibly comprehensive Set Creation, Filming, and Event engine. Going far beyond anything provided in flight simulation, and rivaling systems included in games such as Origin's OMEGA or Ezra Sidran's UNIVERSAL MILITARY SIMULATOR II, STUNT ISLAND's editing, filming, and set construction utilities provide a complete creation kit for producing almost any kind of stunt event imaginable. With enough work, you can produce stunts as effective and as subtle as the 32 included with the game. The amount of involvement with set and event construction required to fully design a scenario is significant. The system is easy to use, but as with any game design engine, fine-tuning placement of objects, co-ordination of aircraft, arrangement of scenery, setting up camera locations, and so on takes lots of time and patience. Add to this a BASIC-like programming language that is implemented to sequence and organize events (such as rewarding the pilot with cheers should s/he pass within 100 feet of a boat), and the task ahead of the eager event designer looks rather daunting. As there are 32 events already in STUNT ISLAND, it seems logical for the manual to get to the design system as the last part of its clear explanation; scenario design is likely to become appealing only after much time is invested in the other aspects of the program. After managing to produce a set and event, you can then go even further, and edit filmed takes of any of the events played, either from the original 32 included in the game, or from constructed sets and events. The editing system is as comprehensive as the other production aspects of STUNT ISLAND, and provides options to edit either on the fly or in frame-by-frame mode. Footage can be deleted, visual and aural effects and music that weren't there in the original performance can be incorporated, and even user-designed .VOC sound files can be brought into an edited performance. The editing system provides a source deck and a destination deck, so that the original is preserved along with the edited copy. STUNT ISLAND comes on seven 5.25" 1.2Mb high-density disks (3.5" disks are also available), and requires 14 megabytes of hard disk space free for installation. Only 12 megabytes or so are used after installation, but the design features will need at least another megabyte or two of hard disk space beyond that to save files. The game auto-detects and calibrates a wide range of joysticks, from single digital joysticks to dual joysticks to Thrustmaster's FCS. The program is compatible with QEMM 5.0 and 6.0, EMM386.SYS and HIMEM.SYS, 386MAX and BlueMAX, and Helix Software's Netroom memory management utilities. As much extended or expanded memory as you have will be used automatically by the program to cache itself and speed up operations (extended and/or expanded memory are not necessary to play the game, however). PC Speaker, Sound Blaster, Thunder Board, Tandy Sound, AdLib, Roland MT- 32/LAPC-I, PS/1 Audio Card, and The Sound Source are all supported for sound effects (only those cards with DAC chips will do the digitized voices, however). A mouse with a 100%-compatible Microsoft driver is supported as well. VGA 256-color graphics card and monitor, PC or MS DOS 3.3, a high- density floppy drive, 570K of 640K of base RAM, and a 386/16SX or faster is required (386/33DX or faster highly recommended). Suffice it to say that STUNT ISLAND's set construction, event set-up, and filming and editing features make it a mini film-studio simulation more than anything else. Nevertheless, a viable flight simulator is at its core. Learning and mastering all the different aspects of the STUNT ISLAND design system could give you a useful understanding of what's involved in the successful creation and filming of a movie stunt -- a subject covered nowhere else in computer gaming. STUNT ISLAND is published and distributed by Disney Software. This review is copyright (c) 1993 by FT Reviews. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without permission.