#g7000

Generation7000シリーズはビルトイン調理機器も大きく変わります。

まず、選べるデザインが2種類となります。

こちらはグレーのファサードが美しい「VitroLine」（ヴィトロライン）。

海外のサイト等をチェックされていた方からは「日本でも出た・・」というご意見が届くほど、G7000のイメージと言っても良い製品です。

印象的なガラスのに覆われた製品が作り出す一体感は、調理機器であることを超えて美しさを感じます。

ブラックのファサードにステンレスのハンドル周りが印象的な「PureLine」（ピュアライン）。

今までの製品が持っていた印象はそのままに、より洗練された表情に変わりました。

製品としては今まで同様の電気オーブン、電子レンジ付きオーブン、スチームオーブンやエスプレッソマシンなど、様々な製品をご用意しており、お客様のご希望に沿ってご提案をさせて頂けます。

食洗機と同時に12月3日発売となるのは

電気オーブン（3機種）と電子レンジ付きオーブン（２機種）となります。

PureLineは全機種に設定され、VitroLineが設定されているのは、それぞれのハイエンドモデルのみとなっております。

新機能についてもご紹介したいところではありますが、内容が多すぎて書ききれません。

ぜひ実機をご覧になって、新世代のミーレをご体験ください。

こちらの製品も11月下旬には弊社に展示機をご用意する予定となっております。

ついに発表です。

ミーレの新製品「Generation7000」シリーズがついに日本でも発売となります。

このG7000シリーズの食洗機では、主に以下の機能が追加となっております。

１・世界初の洗剤自動投入システム「AutoDos」搭載。（一部の製品を除く）

２・お椀やお箸のセットも簡単「アジア仕様バスケット」

３・Miele@mobileを使ってモバイルで管理「AutoStart」

４・循環システムなどを見直し使用水量をさらに削減「EcoPowerテクノロジー」

その他にも書ききれないほどの変更と変化を踏まえた製品となっております。

また選べる製品も増えて、お客様の意向に合わせた製品選定が可能となっております。

弊社での展示は11月24日頃を予定しております。

Philips (Magnavox) / 1982 / G7000 (Odyssey²) / Originally £19.95

Yes, the Christmas spirit has even managed to permeate AfG towers and in the last editorial meeting those memories of games from Christmas past came flooding back. The good, the bad, the ugly, the over-priced, the cheap and the ones purchased by Grandma because the nice man in the shop said it was the one that all the kids were playing. So naturally, the team were asked to find one game each to write about.

First up, Pop...

When we were asked to write a piece about a game which held strong Christmas memories it took me a while to decide on a single title to tackle. There are so many to choose from! As a kid, Christmas was often the best (sometimes only) chance to get something to play on our gaming machines, and even when I was earning a paycheck I still enjoyed the ritual of making my purchase of a newly released games console or computer during the festive season. 

As a terminal man-baby I still enjoy that ritual; when I finally cracked and bought a Nintendo Switch I needlessly made sure I was unwrapping it as a Christmas gift to myself.

There are a few standouts amongst the many. The year I got a SNES with Street Fighter 2, Pilotwings and the distilled awesomeness that was Zelda 3. The Christmas after I started my first job when I was happily unwrapping an N64 with Goldeneye and celebrating the peace on earth and goodwill to all men with festive long distance sniper head-shots on unfortunate guards.

I honestly wasn’t intending to review this, the last significant G7000 game of my childhood on AFG. That’s certainly not because it isn’t worth remembering; I just have a preference for writing about games that I can actually do justice to by playing them in something like their original form ...if not always on the original hardware. My G7000 is long gone, but I felt the reviews of system classics Satellite Attack and Pick Axe Pete were justifiable because they are simple enough games to get the measure of when played via emulation. Quest for the Rings is a very different story for reasons that will become apparent.

“ You are about to become a legend in your own time and enter an alternate world where dreams (and nightmares) come true with fire-breathing reality. Special microcomputer circuitry will generate the alternate time frequencies and dimension warps necessary for finite control and monitoring of your alter-presence via television - while you remain physically secure in the relative safety of your home dimension. ”

Billed as a part of the Phillips ‘Master Strategy’ series, Quest for the Rings is a very basic game by today’s standards. You and another player travel across the kingdom to try and gather up the 10 rings of power before time runs out and the evil ringmaster plunges the world into darkness (or some Tolkien inspired guff to that effect!). 

There was obviously no way the primitive G7000 was going to produce a credible role playing experience, so most of the richness of the game is generated with a printed game board, counters and a set of written rules. 

That’s right... this is basically one great big board / video game hybrid. That may sound awesomely crummy to you, the sophisticated gamer of 2019, but back in the early 80’s this was very clever stuff. It allowed the designers to deliver scale, complexity, tension and surprise, all while working within the restrictions of a machine that could draw you a few lines and stick people, and sound out with some tuneless beeps and burps.

A box of delights!

This was a game that required collaboration (2 to 5 players!), communication (working together to outwit the enemies!) and imagination (shite graphics!) to get you over the line. That, my friends, is why it’s one of my most fond Christmas retrogaming memories.

Ideally played with 3 people, one takes the part of the nefarious Ringmaster, while the other players choose one of the 4 hero classes:

Warrior: a stick man with a sword! The sword is useful, in that it can actually kill some of the enemies! It’s really short range though, and can only be slashed horizontally.

Wizard: a stick man that can fire asterisks! Not just any asterisks, these are magic asterisks! These confuse some of the enemies, making them spin for a while, and they travel horizontally across the screen for as long as the action button is held. The effect is only temporary.

Phantom: a stick man that can walk though most walls! But not walls of fire! When you’re in the wall enemies can't get you, but they’ll stand around waiting for you to come out, and when you do you’re toast…

Changeling: a stick man that can turn invisible! Invisible stick man cannot be seen by enemies, though he can still be killed by touching enemies. He’s invisible to you too, dear player, which is a pain.

Our bitter experience was that while all the hero classes had their moments you really needed at least 1 warrior on the crew to avoid getting mobbed by the smaller enemies.

The green warrior has a quick slash against the dungeon wall.

The Ringmaster has the important task of setting up the game board. This is done by hiding monster tokens and the 10 ring tokens under location pieces and placing them around the map.

Once this is complete, the players have a limited number of turns to move around the map, entering the locations to gather the rings. The contents of each location is hidden until turned over; the combination of dungeon type and monster type are entered using the G7000 keyboard (keyboard overlay included!). This is one of the few games on the machine that makes real use of that keyboard. Finally the 2 heroes attempting the dungeon are chosen and the next bit is played out in living colour on your TV screen.

There are 4 types of single screen locations the heroes will be met with;

Dungeons: some black blocks randomly spread around the screen! You can’t go through them unless you’re the Phantom. These places are a breeze compared to the rest.

Infernos: some red blocks randomly spread around the screen! Touch ‘em and you die! The phantom is almost entirely useless here. 

Crystal Caverns: some invisible blocks randomly spread around the screen! Like dungeons, but you can’t see the walls until you touch them. A real pain in the ass.

Shifting halls: some black blocks randomly spread around the screen! They shift to the right at regular intervals. You and the monsters can get trapped inside the walls until they move again. A REAL pain in the ass.

The locations are usually populated by the standard bad guys - orcs and firewraths; basically just white and red stick men that shuffle slowly toward you and will kill on touch. However… the crafty Ringmaster can protect his rings with one of two extra perils!

A location with spydroths and doomwinged bloodthirsts will come with a few spider and winged elephant things scattered about. These cannot be killed, can jump at you when in range and are all in all pretty deadly.

A location with a dragon will have a clear band running right across the middle of the screen where a nicely drawn (for the ‘7000 that is) dragon patrols from left to right. If you enter this band he will rush you, shooting deadly fireballs, and will gobble you up upon reaching your burning corpse. The dragon is a real headache; the further away he is when you start crossing open ground the better, and another player running distraction helps too.

The dragon will mess you up... again and again...

Your goal in any location is to reach a ring or an exit. Both players have 1 life per dungeon, and failure means you have to try the location again on the next turn.

There’s one extra twist if you’re playing the game with a third person as Ringmaster; they have a small number of possession tokens that can be played on any location. When that happens the Ringmaster takes over one of the players and can annoy the other player by blocking or attacking them. A simple idea, but great fun!

Having fairly slated the crummy graphics, I’ll just take a paragraph or two to wax lyrical about how good the rest of the presentation was for this game. It came in a sturdy cardboard case that opened out like a jewelry box. Inside sat a beautifully illustrated board and manual, and a plastic tray full of nice solid counters and tokens.

The artwork was top-notch throughout, and really helped our imaginations fill in the massive gaps left behind by the pitiful graphics.

...also, the cartridge had a GOLDEN LABEL! It was beautiful, and I will never forgive myself for selling off my pristine copy a few years back…

Excluding the board-game aspect to Quest for the Rings, I can’t honestly find enough to recommend playing it today. It’s slow paced, and can be in turn frustrating and confusing. What I can’t deny is that it brings back pure waves of nostalgia - much more so than the other games we owned for the G7000. I think this is due to the social nature of the gameplay; though you could mess about in a dungeon by yourself, it really came alive with the full complement of players. Having enough people to play properly was a special occasion in its own right.

So picture the scene: the tree is lit, you’re all stuffed with the first of many turkey dinners. Your cousins are visiting, and you’ve spent the day in a state of hyper-active near meltdown. 007 Moonraker has just finished on the television, and you’re still chuckling about that awesome bit where a pigeon does a double take when Bond takes to the Venetian streets in a hovercraft-gondola. What better way to end an 80’s Christmas evening than to set up a monster 5 player game of Quest for the Rings? 

Score card

Presentation 10/10

The game itself has as much detail as you could ever expect to find in a game for the Philips G7000. Where this really scores is in the packaging, manual and board-game elements, all of which are of the highest quality.  As far as I’m concerned, there are few games of any era that were better presented.

Originality 9/10

The machine was packed with games inspired by arcade hits of the day, but this is a wholly original effort. The bit you actually play on the console is really quite basic, but the way it’s blended with simple board game mechanics made it fairly unique for the time.

Graphics 4/10

It’s a G7000 game, so stick men and blocks abound. The generous 4 is all down to the the dragon, which is pretty spectacular given the general standard on the machine. 

Hookability 5/10

This isn’t a ‘hooky’ game. You have to read the manual and have enough players for a start! Once you had the hang of it the game became a very engrossing challenge, but still some way off a pick-up-and-play title.

Sound 2/10

Very sparse, with some some grating high pitched tones thrown in for things like the Wizards’ spell. No music, unless you count the atonal ear-bleeding loop that plays after you’ve selected your characters that is.

Lastability 8/10

Pretty damn deep for a game from 1982, especially because the unpredictable human factor is built in. If you had at least 3 willing participants this could very well be dusted off regularly for years.

Value for Money 8/10

More expensive than a standard G7000 game, but you could really see where that money went.

Overall 8/10

This score is doubtless tainted by nostalgia, and since I can’t actually play the game any more you should take it with a pinch of salt. One thing I can say for sure is that playing games with other people in the same room as you, either on a board or on a TV screen will never cease to be fun. That remains true no matter how good technology gets at allowing us to physically avoid each other.

Philips (Magnavox) / 1981 / G7000 (Odyssey²) / Originally £14.95

“I’ve been lost in this damned asteroid field for what seems like days. I snuck into the launch bay and climbed into a waiting mining cruiser… hoping to scoop enough precious space rocks into the hold to feed me, my wife and our 7 kids for the rest of our lives… but those flashing red lights on my nav-com were there for a reason. This sector is a death trap! Maybe if I keep flying toward galactic central I’ll find my precious ore and a way home…”

Many of the games for the G7000 were barely concealed copies of popular arcade titles of the era. There were a couple of licensed conversions by Parker Brothers late on in the machine’s lifetime, but almost everything else was an original work or an unlicensed facsimile of some kind. This tac eventually ended with Phillips being court ordered to withdraw their excellent Pac Man ‘homage’ KC Munchkin from sale.

What I really appreciate about these games is that they attempted to retain playability by re-working each game within the heavy limitations of the machine, leading to interesting and enjoyable twists on the copied game’s mechanics. 

Take Satellite attack for example. One of the best games for the G7000, on paper it’s a shameless copy of Asteroids. Worse, it’s Asteroids with the rotational controls and thrust-physics completely removed! Thankfully we get smart new mechanics to replace what was lost. 

There are, of course, floating asteroids. These come in two different flavours; the bog standard aimless ones and the fast spinning magnetic ones that get spawned when two of the basic ones collide. These are worth more points, and follow your ship around like an affectionate puppy. 

There are also vicious enemy saucers which periodically fly across the screen trying to tag you with their laser blasts.

Hovering just out of range, shield up!

Your ship can move in any direction on command within the bounds of the single screen asteroid field. Unlike Asteroids, you cannot ‘wrap’ your ship or your shots from one side of the screen to the other. You are surrounded by a rotating dot ‘shield’, and whilst it is active you cannot be destroyed. You temporarily lose shield cover by smashing into an asteroid, firing your lasers or being shot by an enemy saucer. Take a hit while the shields are down and it’s game over ...yeah, G7000 games are almost all single life score attacks for some reason. The shields will restore to full cover within a couple of seconds, but until then you’ll need to be careful. 

So you have 2 ways of destroying the asteroids for points; bash into them while your shield is up or shoot them with your laser. How you aim the laser feels highly original, though it does take some mastery. One of the dots which make up your shield is brighter than the rest, and this indicates what direction you’re aiming. When you move your ship in one direction, the bright dot begins to rotate that way too. It takes a little time to get there, and since you usually need to keep your ship on the move, this means that you have to carefully manage its position to nail those asteroids. Firing the laser brings your shield down too, so drawing a bead on the fast moving saucers without getting tagged by one of their shots is pretty difficult! You can always smash them with you shields up, but be sure to approach them from a cardinal direction as their diagonal shots are fast and deadly.

Zapped by a saucer. This looks better in motion, honest! 

There’s not too much more to the game than that, but this game retains a satisfying depth that still makes it an enjoyable game to play today. Note for example how when the asteroids are destroyed their debris can hit and destroy other rocks nearby (or even saucers) causing a satisfying chain reaction... or the balance of risk and reward, the ebb and flow of defence and attack caused by the shield recharge time. These are the small details which so many other contemporary games lacked. 

Buying it today

This was a ubiquitous title on the machine, and there are still plenty of copies floating around. There also isn’t a high collector demand for the G7000, so you should be able to pick up a nice boxed copy for under a tenner.

Commentariat

Tim : It’s like asteroids, but it’s not. That’s the best way I can describe Satellite Attack (or UFO! depending on your territory). I love that it’s colourful and crisp, even if it’s look is basic.

The game is sadistically hard and the way the controls are changed from those you'd expect from an asteroids homage doesn’t make life easy. Yes, we are into difficulty as a replacement for variety territory here. Oddly though, that did not put me off, instead drawing me further in, determined to do better with each attempt. It’s good fun and I could easily see Pop and I wasting a good afternoon trying to best each other with this title...

Pop: I feel like some kind of crazy apologist for the Philips G7000 sometimes, but I honestly think this is ‘good retro’. I often find more enjoyment in talking and reading about games on these second generation consoles than actually playing them, but found myself hooked in straight away, transported back to a Saturday morning 35 years ago trying desperately to best my brother’s high score. The only shame is that I can’t play this on the original hardware with the original joysticks anymore.

I’d also rather have this than Asteroids on the Atari 2600. That’s not a bad version per-se, but the concessions made to get it to work on much more basic hardware really knocked my enjoyment of it down a notch or two.

Meat: Are the graphics in all these G7000 games just a bunch of + and x signs flashing over each other? I’ve seen more detailed ASCII art! My first feelings were of pity for the kids playing this when they could have had Pitfall on the Atari, but after actually sitting down to play I can see how it could be fun once you get past how basic everything looks. I’d still have snatched your hand off for an Intellivision or Colecovision instead.

Score card

Presentation 8/10

A nice sturdy plastic box (these things will last forever!) with appealing cover artwork. No real in-game presentation, but that’s a given for games of this era. 

Originality 7/10

The premise is as unoriginal as it gets, but this plays like it was created by somebody who overheard someone else talking about Asteroids while drunk in a bar. The way the ship and shooting mechanics work make it feel like something quite distinct.

Graphics 4/10

As simple as G7000 games always are, but everything is clearly defined. You have to give some recognition to how much is done with a few colours and simple sprites here. You can clearly tell what the condition of your shield is and where you’re aiming with basic visual cues.

Hookability 7/10

A premise so simple anyone could grasp it, but there’s some subtlety to getting the best from the ship. If you try and play it like asteroids, only using the blasters you’ll soon come unstuck.

Sound 3/10

Very basic sound effects only, but at least not actively annoying!

Lastability 8/10

As a score attack game or for a quick occasional blast this does the trick, in much the same way as asteroids does.

Value for Money 8/10

Game cartridges were expensive back then so this is subjective, but this one had tonnes of re-playability.  

Overall 8/10

Philips (Magnavox) / 1982 / G7000 (Odyssey²)

“I’ve been lost in this damned mine for what seems like days. I pried off the rotting boards nailing the hillside entrance shut… hoping to fill my pack with enough shiny metal to feed me, my wife and our 7 kids for the rest of our lives… but those boards and warning signs were there for a reason. This place is a death trap! Maybe if I keep going deeper I’ll find my treasure and a way out…”

As miner Pete, you wander a single screen of platforms, connected by ladders and holes. You can only climb up the ladders, and only drop down the holes. You can safely drop any distance, but have no control over the character as you fall, leaving you vulnerable. As in all G7000 games, you only have 1 life. On every other level is a door. These doors can be different colours, and periodically spew out boulders which bounce around the levels. They’ll flatten you given half a chance, so you’ll have to jump, duck or otherwise avoid them. Under normal circumstances if you try and enter a door it will send you flying straight back the way you came.

Pete starts the level with (guess what!) a pickaxe, which is a clear duplicate of Mario’s barrel smashing hammer, and similarly runs out after a short time. You’re completely safe from all harm while toting the ‘axe and rack up points for every boulder smashed. Sometimes 2 boulders meet and smash together, and when this happens they form a single golden boulder that drops straight to the bottom of the screen. When it hits bottom it might drop a new pickaxe, or a key might fly up to the top of the screen. These items  will remain on the level for a short time to be picked up.

In COLOUR!

The pickaxe makes Pete invulnerable again, but the key gives him the ability to leave the current screen via any one of the coloured doors. A word to the wise - the doors are very dangerous, so jumping rather than walking into them is usually a good idea. Even if Pete gets thumped by a boulder mid jump as long as his flailing body hits the door you get to see the next level.

Once you’re through the door a brief close up animation plays of Pete … what is that, dancing? Yes, dancing and slamming the door like a nutter. Then its on to the next level, where a chunk is randomly removed from one of the platforms to make getting about trickier.

Little fish, big fish, cardboard box!

That’s almost all there is to it - the only other element is the colour of the doors. If you travel through a red door you get a screen with red platforms, a blue door has blue platforms etc. But a black door? That’ll send you to a screen where the platforms are the same colour as the background, and you have a real nightmare to deal with.

The G7000 (or Odyssey² for our american friends) is a little celebrated machine these days, and had way less support than its much more famous peer the Atari 2600. Almost no third party software was released in its lifetime. Most games use the same set of predefined characters to save memory, and all of them look impossibly primitive today. Despite these facts it is home to a handful of excellent titles, some of which retain their raw playability today.

Pickaxe Pete is one of the best games for the machine. On first inspection it seems to be a totally stripped down Donkey Kong clone, but it’s actually a really interesting twist on the same formula, where you can develop your own strategy to score points and stay alive. Do you hang around at the top of the level waiting for a key? Or at the bottom for new pickaxes? Do you take the points gained for moving on to the next level, knowing that there will be slightly less platform to stand on every time you do? Amazingly, most of the games on the machine were the work of one man, Ed Averett, and he certainly had a flair for making the most of basic hardware. This is one that deserves to be played and remembered.

Score card

Presentation 8/10

G7000 games came in a nice sturdy clam shell box. The manual sits inside the clear plastic box lid, and the artwork is usually well drawn and enticing, unlike the game graphics!

Originality 7/10

It’s clearly inspired by Donkey Kong, but plays nothing like it. The meat of the gameplay remains fairly unique to this title.

Graphics 3/10

I predict no G7000 game will ever score more than a 5 here! Second generation consoles were originally designed to handle very simple graphics, so what we get here is a stick man character running around on coloured lines avoiding asterisks. There are a few nice touches like the way the pickaxes and keys sparkle before they disappear. The door slamming intermission could potentially cause a seizure…

Hookability 7/10

Has a pretty simple premise, but can be tough and unforgiving.

Sound 2/10

I predict no G7000 game will ever score more than a 3 here! The sounds are etched into my brain from extended childhood play sessions, but they consist mostly of bleeps, bloops and explosion noises. Some of them, for example when you get stuck in a door without a key are actively annoying.

Lastability 8/10

Taken in the context of what was available at the time, this is a very replayable score attack game. 

Value for Money 8/10

I played this one endlessly, which is just as well because the cost of cartridges was such that we only ever got one a year max.

Overall 8/10