The Review:
Before you start reading, if you want to see a larger picture of the various snapshots on this page, just click on them! Also, if you see the little loudspeaker icon then you could be hearing the associated music of the described game! I hope you will enjoy those extra new features I am including for the first time in my reviews.

As you could already read in the introduction all Disc Stations are stuffed with many demos, playable games and files and Disc Station #7 is no exception. For the extent of this review I will describe and comment all items of this Disc Station on a very synthetic manner so it won't be something too long to read (sorry, I am already writing too much here!). So let's proceed disk by disk...

DISC ONE (Left: Intro Screen ; Right: Selection Menu )

The first good thing when you know you are going to run a Disc Station is that you know you will spend some good time playing around, listening, testing all the files (the good and the bad), an experience that is absolutely lost nowadays ... it's all about the magic of what could be put on just two small DD floppy disks and discover with amazement all the stuff. Hopefully you will try this Disc Station straightaway or another one after reading the review, and you will see what I mean - no Windows CD-Rom in the world packed with hundreds of demos, shareware, freeware or other stuff will give you such effect! Just start your MSX with floppy #1 and you will get the first thrills by seeing the intro screen and the accompanying music ... the best is then still to come. Let's go!

Upon passing the intro screen you get to see the contents page. Just select the item you want to test with your cursors and press the spacebar or SHIFT key. In most cases you can get back to this menu during a demo by pressing the ESC key, very useful when you do not want to waste 30 seconds of your time resetting your MSX and waiting for the disk to load.



Aleste 2 (Demo)
Quite a short demo announcing the game will be released in November 1989. Nothing really very special but nice to see once. This demo is in screen 5 and is accompanied by some good MSX Music / MSX Audio



BGV 'City'
This is quite cool, but you just watch and listen . You actually follow a 24 hour view on a city from dawn to dusk. While the sunlight slowly fades away, the lights of the skyscrapers light up while traffic on the highway goes in and out of the city. Doing the 24 hours cycle takes a couple of minutes and is worth watching and listening. Wait especially for the shooting star in the middle of the night and the helicopter passing above the buildings in the morning... two little extras I enjoyed. Do also not forget to plug in your FM-Pac or Music Module if you have one to have an even better atmosphere (this is valid for most demos & games on this Disc Station).



Rune Master (Demo)
Again a nice demo, not very long but you will surely enjoy the screen 5 graphics as well as the stunning music that accompanies it. The game is announced for 1989.



Fire Hawk 'Thexder' - The second contact (Auto Demo)
This is certainly the demo I prefer most as it is the only one who really shows what the action of the game is about. Again, you just watch but you see the in-play action for a couple of minutes (a bit in the fashion of the Konami demos after the introduction screens). For having played Thexder before in its full version, it's a great game. You control a robot that has to find the exit of a level full of enemies. This demo brings you in a maze of caves with loads of UFO's which Thexder destroys by using his full range of weapons... one thing that makes this game unique is the ability to transform your robot in a fighter so he can fly through the caves. This is a typical action game needing a lot of ability, some thought and luck as well. My only remark about the demo and the game is the annoying music , which is allright for a short period - but I can only recommend lowering the volume of your MSX after a while. But on a final note, this demo gives you enough motivation to try the full playable version!



Kids 4 - Mr.poc (Full playable game)
What a strange game this is! A combination of a battleship game and Star Wars. To be honest, it's not very entertaining and you wonder what you really need to do. You have 8 attempts to shoot on the board as well as three missiles that you can launch with the SHIFT key. I guess the aim is to hit an alien ship but, considering the matrix size, it's very hard or based on pure luck. All-in-all quite disappointing especially knowing it's a Compile production, which is known for better games. On the plus side, the music is acceptable .

DISC TWO (Intro Screen )

Introduction to contents of the Disk & Warnings
Skip this part, as it will only give a couple of warnings when you use the disk on certain MSX systems. It also describes how to run the Basic files on the disk. It's all in Japanese, so unless you are really curious there is not much to bite in!



Hong-Kong by TAI (Full playable game contributed by MSX-Fan)
Kind of Mah-jong in pyramid style that ran badly in my emulator. With the arrow keys you decide on which tile to position the cursor, and if possible you can remove the tile by hitting the CTRL key... I am not a Mah-jong expert so I can't tell you how good this game is but you will easily figure out. BTW, for the sake of this review I used fMSX 2.7 (Mac) for the screenshots and some testing, but mainly my Al-Alamiah MSX2 with FM-Pac.



RGB by Hono (Full playable game contributed by BASIC Magazine)
Sometimes I do not feel testing games because I have not always the patience to stay too long in front of a game I will never play again (if it was not for writing reviews). Unfortunately this is one of those! Yes, that happens! LOL. Anyhow, all I can say is that RGB looks simple and is a sort of tile / reflection game. Up to you to sort out! And keep on reading. There is good interesting stuff still to come!



Art Gallery
Mr. Hex and Ryu tell a story, no clue what to do as I can't read Japanese! Using the CTRL, SHIFT and SPACEBAR generates an action with generally some new text showing as fell as a new drawing of a person showing in the upper-left corner of your screen. Keep hitting the keys for a while to see all graphics and reach the end... that's it. Not a must to play on this disc!



Synth Saurus (Bit2)
A program enabling you to create music. Need a joystick or mouse to move the pointer around the screen and select the menus. I'm more a game enthusiast so I will leave you test it out - and I am sure by looking at it, that it is probably great. Next item will be more entertaining to read, I promise



Blaster Burn - Budruga Episode III (Full playable game by Compile)
I like Blaster Burn, not only because it is a simple but nicely made vertical shoot'em up, but also because Compile had the great idea through its Disc Stations to limit the game to a few levels only - save it when finished - and continue the action on the following Disc Station with new extra levels! You don't see this often, and surely a great marketing tool for thousands who waited for the next one to come out, just to continue playing Blaster Burn (I believe there are 6 sequels - you could also play it starting at any sequel but would lose all credits you won previously). As I said it is a clean shoot'em up with good graphics and a great soundtrack although Compile kept the background limited to a simple grid. On start-up you have the choice to read the instructions (in Japanese of course), start the game, load data from a previous sequel or save the data. The whole concept is in destroying the enemies that come all over the place, buy weapons (they are great and powerful, double-triple beams to name just one) and to steal goods! Overall very good but quite hard to master at first.



C SO! (Full playable game by Ponyca, 1985)
A well-known game on the MSX1 - your aim is to move from level to level (single screen action) by collecting all fruits and killing the ghosts. Only when this is achieved you move on. Grabbing the fruit is not very difficult as you easily move via ladders, trampolines, use doors or jump gaps. The ghosts are the most difficult part; they are numerous and just seem to be all the time in your way. Killing them is easy once you've understood how to do ... you could squash them under a 'trap' that pivots when you walk over it and even, more fun, kick them against the wall with some expertise. It's a really nice little entertaining game that will make you keep going for hours!





I will briefly describe the Basic programs on this disc. They are not the most elaborate and are not masterpieces to my opinion. Up to you to try!

sumspr.bas : a graphic by Sum!
illusion.bas : a small vertical shoot'em up
356po.bas : sort of Sokoba-style game where you have to find your way
sumspr.bas : a graphic by Sum!
suisu.bas : a game?
otama.bas : I guess a game, but I really don't know!
gd.bas : could not get it to work
pettan.bas : Very nice super simple game where you have to spread out a liquid substance to make it the largest possible.
swim.bas : a swimming game, but really basic (in Basic :)
carrace.bas : waouuh! Try it, this is close to Virtual Grand Prix for X-Box!
puzzle2.bas : A combination of Tetris / plumbing game...
uoo10.bas : a drawing
uoo20.bas : probably a drawing but I could not load
message.bas : a message in Japanese!
taknset.bas : Game in Screen 1 called 'Take Flag'



Credits, Thank You to all contributors etc....
Worth looking at to see all the people who worked on this in 1989, quite a team!


Well, I am coming to an end to this long review - and do not forget there are 40 other Disc Stations I could test - but I leave this to you!


Pros:

• So much stuff on it to discover!
• Quite very good demos and playable games
• Great MSX-Music and MSX-Audio
• Nice box and to some extent the instructions as well
• When you're done with it, there are 40 more Disc Stations to try!
  

Cons:

•  It's almost all in Japanese!
• Some crap too, let's be honest.
• Some demos leave you a bit ...
  

Game Specifications:
MSX2 for most stuff, some require a MSX2+ or above.
FM-Pac, Moonsound or Music Module recommended.

Where to get if from:
Second hand only for an original copy - your best chance is on auction sites
But you can easily find the Disk files on the internet ...