Blood Bath at Red Falls developed by American Laser Games published by American Laser Games for Macintosh CD-ROM November 9, 1995 You're not going to believe what you can do on your Mac. With Blood Bath at Red Falls firmly installed in your CD Rom drive, your Macintosh will essentially be handing you a license to kill. That peaceful little monitor of yours is going to be splattered with crimson and you know what? I think you're going to love it. Underworld Software is the crew that put this Mac masterpiece together and they must be congratulated. Blood Bath is a straight ahead shooting game with some of the cleanest, "in-synch-with-the-game-play" video footage in the history of gamin'. Bad guys spill left and right holding their chests and letting out their last gasps. Innocents spring up and out of the way and leave behind nice surprises if you spare them. Your heat can be a variety of weapons from the standard 9mm Automatic to a very effective Assault Rifle. The object of the game is simply to aim and shoot before you are shot - the motto of American Laser Games. What this game has, in order to raise it to the level of a new pedigree, is a very tight control system. I had an immensely enjoyable time working my way through this disc, using my mouse with deadly force, whereas other stand up and point a light gun at my TV set games haven't been able to capture my interest for too long ('course, as of this writing Virtua Cop hasn't stormed the Playground yet). The concept for the game (as if you need one) is that a bus load of psychotic prison inmates has escaped and you, acting as the Sheriff of Red Falls, a picturesque friendly small town, must use all your savvy to deal with this insidious criminal scum. In other words, you're gonna get real handy with your weapon, son. The criminals pop out from the most dastardly of places - far off in the distance, perched on a well armored platform, from in between holes in decrepit old structures, through long sewage tubes stacked in construction yards, from atop of cranes or the most vile of places, pouncing out directly in front of you. All of this sounds straight forward enough but the game really starts to heat up when you miss a perp. Suddenly you've got the guy you missed to deal with as well as a new baddie, who will no doubt whirl and shoot at you from the opposite end of the screen. The bad guys don't come out with pea shooters either. They strike with machine guns, automatic weapons, knives, grenades - lots of hurt. The thing about their firepower is that if someone streaks you with machine gun bullets, you get a life notch taken off for every hit. The game can be over very quickly if you don't aim well. Sound effects for the game are extremely gnarly. It even starts up with a bad ass in a touque popping up and shooting you point blank with a .45. A red splotch of blood across your monitor and you're off into the fray. Ricochets, broken boards, accurate weapon fire and of course the sounds of many, many painful deaths. This is not a game you would want to let your kids get into. So there it stands, Blood Bath at Red Falls is probably the most fun I've ever had playing games on my Mac. I should point out that I'm not a fan of Myst. This is as simple a diversion as you can pick up but sometimes the simple stuff just works the best. Again, I really want to stress, the game has a "17+" rating on the box and I think this is one guide line you should definitely follow. Blood Bath isn't suitable for children (that should be painfully obvious). However, If you're a fan of the Dirty Harry flicks or maybe a local Deputy in your own small town, I think you'll get a bang out of this one. I'm giving Blood Bath at Red Falls......................................................9 out of 10 Victor Lucas