In the carefree days of my youth - five years ago - I published a 'zine called the Amiga Games Guide. I had no problem with the text portion of the 'zine, being the uncanny wordsmith that I am, but I had a major problem obtaining screen shots. At first, I tried taking pictures of the monitor - an analog pain in the ass.
Then I discovered Action Replay, a cartridge from British company Datel Electronics, which plugged into the side of my Amiga 500 and gave me the ability to take screen shots with the touch of a button. It also had a second, even more useful, function: it let me hack into my games and endow myself with infinite lives, loads of cash, and other keen abilities. (Not that I needed to cheat at games, of course.)
Now that MS-DOS machines have become the UK's game-playing computers of choice, Datel has created Action Replay PC, a plug-in card with most of the features and functions that made the Amiga version so great: screen capturing, game hacking, adjustable slow-motion, virus detection, and the ability to modify and save the entire contents of RAM.
There are a few niggling flaws: Action Replay PC doesn't do Windows, which means no fooling around with the large number of Windows-only games; the Action Replay PC "remote control" has an extremely annoying blinking green light to show that the card is active; and the documentation is definitely on the skimpy side. At least Datel kindly included a sample game to help you fine-tune your hacking skills before moving on to the likes of Doom and SimCity .
The verdict: Action Replay PC is the keenest peripheral I've bought since my Sony double-speed CD-ROM drive. Well worth the dinero of any serious PC gamer.
Action Replay PC:US$89. Datel Electronics Ltd.: +44 (78) 274 4707, fax +44 (78) 274 4292.
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