APPLE II

One of the oldest, but yet one of the most popular, sciencefiction games has made it to the IIGS. Reach for the Stars, an SSG game long available for the Apple II (and many other computer systems), now takes advantage of the IIGS'S windows, menus, and mouse.

Reach for the Stars has its roots in classic science fiction—the kind where vast fleets of dreadnoughts battle for control of the space lanes and the stars. Four empires laser-blast their way to galactic dominance; empires not played by a human are computer-controlled. Production plays a big part in Reach for the Stars. You don't need a degree in economics to succeed, but you will have to balance expenditures and decide how to best spend your sometimes scanty resources. Should you create clouds of scouts to scatter hither and yon, or mass an unstoppable fleet? And don't forget to allocate some production points to keep your people happy, or they'll not and generally cause trouble back on the home front.

Pull-down menus make it easy to select commands, and overlapping windows open to show you such information as your ships locations, the state of any planet the course of space battles, and more. Those windows, unfortunately, often cover much of the star map, forcing you to close the windows (a slow process on the IIGS) to see where your forces are and where they should be sent. (A nice printed map helps alleviate the problem.)

Reach for the Stars hasn't changed any in its move to the IIGS—it has just become better looking and casier to operate. You'll still need to spend a lot of time and thought if you want to be Emperor of the Known Universe.

Contact SSG at 1747 Orlcans Court, Walnut Creek. California 94598:(415) 932-3019 for more information. Reach for the Stars retails for $45.