March 26th

Many readers wrote me recently to explain the differences between Unreal and Unreal tournament. So here is what Epic press release says :

"Unreal Tournament is a stand-alone game that uses the Unreal engine as its technological base. YOU DO NOT NEED a copy of Unreal to play Unreal Tournament; Unreal Tournament is its own game. But what makes it different from Unreal? How about this:

5 brand new gameplay modes (Last Man Standing, Capture the Flag, Assault, Domination, and Deathmatch / Team Deathmatch)

32 unbelievably addictive levels masterfully designed to maximize on the fun of Unreal Tournament's different game modes.

Gripping single player experience that casts you in the role of a team leader tasked with beating the most vicious criminal scum in the galaxy. Your goal? To be victorious on 32 different play fields and emerge the Unreal Grand Master.

Unparalleled user friendliness. Whether Unreal Tournament is the first game you've ever purchased or whether you're a grizzled veteran of the first person shooter scene, you'll find setting up a game (single or multiplayer) and jumping in to be a snap.

In-game server-querying tool makes finding and joining games online easier than fragging a camper with a Sniper Rifle.

Eerily life-like Bot (computer-controlled teammates and/or opponents) AI makes the single player game just as knuckle-whitening and intense as the multiplayer

All new weapons, including the dreaded IMPACT Hammer and the world-shaking Redeemer

Boatloads of new features and options like Jump Mode, Hardcore Mode, and radio chatter "
Voila! I can't wait!

I found this info provided by Randy Geurts quite interesting . On PC Data, you can get a lot of infos regarding software sales onMac or PC. I think those numbers below will make you understand why there are still so few games on Mac compare to PC.

1998 Units sold: (numbers in parenthesis represents tha ammount of units sold)

So you yan understand now why PC game developpers are reticent many times to port their games for the Mac. I checked also PC data for the best selling games right now this month on the Mac. I must admit I was a little surprised...(Where is Myth I and II, the Untouchable, Future Cop, Dark Vengeance !!!) If PC game developpers are looking at those stats, they must think that Mac gamers like a lot of (I won't say it ! )..old games. Unreal, Civilization II and TR2 are there but all the others...hmmm...Hopefully, the new hot new titles like Alien Vs Predator, Quake II, Quake III , Unreal Tournament, Wheel of Time, Nightfall etc. will make Mac users realize that there is more out there than Solitaire and tetris..

MGL reports that GT2K.COM is proud to announce the MacANVIL show! " MacANVIL is an Internet radio show dedicated EXCLUSIVELY to Macintosh gamers and entertainment seekers. Every week, MacANVIL will bring you the latest in Macintosh game related news on their WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE. Be sure to tune in once a month for the hour long M audio magazine hosted by James Gray and Mark Leaman. Each month they'll feature guests, reviews, and LIVE call-ins from listeners. MGL's own Mike Dixon will also be part of the team Be sure to tune this Saturday, March 27 at 10pm ET for the first edition of MacANVIL AUDIO MAGAZINE! Brought to you by the good folks at GT2K.COM and Planet Broadcasting.

Imperialism II for Mac has been released. In this sequel to the critcially acclaimed game Imperialism, you take on the role of one of the European Great Powers. Your goal is to dominate Europe, your tools are conquest and diplomacy. Sounds fun!

LucasArts' SW: Episode 1 Racer will be available for Mac later this fall. Interestingly, it will offer spectacular 3D environments (3D hardware required for Mac and PC versions).


Starship Titanic Ships . This game won the "Best New Adventure / Role Playing Software Game" category award last year. . Estimated street is $39.95 and will include a free strategy guide).

Lane Roathe, CEO of Logicware mentionned in an IMG chat last night:

On rumors of Logicware porting Half-Life to the Mac?"Half-life...no comment :) I rather like the rumors. Look for more information on the web site next week."
If Logicware were to do a port of Half-Life, how long would it take?"5 months if we're nasty and 8 if we're just ok."
On Aliens vs Predator?"AvP is just starting, so not much interesting to report. Mainly code review, building the PC files, etc."
On a port of Sin? "Still in discussion"
On the status of Quake II? "Quake 2 is going beta the end of the week. We expect to easily make the May 1 final date."

This means Microconversions and Villagetronic have 2 months to cook us Open GL drivers.. I think Logicware is developping Quake II using ATI 128 's open GL drivers

I heard that Reality Bytes Dark Vengeance Patch will be out very soon . I tried to access their server but it was down when writing these lines. They apparently fixed the camera view problems and added a timedemo utility..InputSprocket support and better networking are also expected in this patch

Looking for CHEAP games ? Check the place called 999software and everything there is $9.99!!!!!!
here are a few titles (the list is growing every day)

• Absolute Zero
• Alley 19
• Myst
• Riven
• The Journeyman Project 3 - Legacy of Time
• WarCraft
• You Don't Know Jack
• Zork Nemesis
• The Journeyman Project
• Abuse
• etc..

There is another Alien VS Predator preview posted at CDMAG

Vicious comments on 3DFX-STB by Tom Pabst of Toms Hardware. Tom is a well respected figure in PC hardware testing. His reviews are most of the time very well documented and accurate. Sometimes though some people may think Tom is almost in bed with nVidia, the maker of the newly released TNT 2 graphic accelerator card. Tom is famous to show Quake II demos that will favor the TNT cards for example. Here are some crispy comments by Tom on 3DFX new Voodoo 3 cards :

" The most interesting story is hidden behind 3Dfx's acquisition of STB though. 3Dfx has pissed off a lot of 3D-card makers after buying STB and logically not supplying any other 3D-card maker with their chips anymore. Companies like Diamond and Creative, but also Elsa, Guillemot and even Asus felt as if 3Dfx was trying to put them out of the 3D-business. Those companies were waiting for their chance to kick 3Dfx's butt and thus they all teamed up with NVIDIA. Now the disaster has happened to 3Dfx. NVIDIA has indeed produced a chip that's superior to their new and not even yet released Voodoo3 and Creative, Diamond and the likes can't wait to screw up the sales of Voodoo3. NVIDIA is in a lucky situation, almost everybody in the business is on their side against 3Dfx. I wonder what is going to happen to poor and soon 'bullied' 3Dfx in the next few months.

The old King lies on his death bed, long live the new King from a different and more progressive tribe". Let's hope that the new king won't get as lazy as the old king did ."-tom Pabst Read all the article here.

[I agree 100% with Tom - and he could have been harsher. If you look at the specs on the Voodoo3 - only 16MB ram addressing, still limited to 256x256 texture size, no AGP direct memory execution, no 32-bit rendering mode, no stencil buffer, etc. the Voodoo3 is not as advanced as the TNT2, Matrox G400, Savage S4, etc. And in some ways 3Dfx with their proprietary Glide limits customer choices - Direct3D and OpenGL run on many vendors cards - not only those made by 3Dfx. With Voodoo3 only available from 3dfx/STB, I think game developers (and customers) will show more support for Direct3D. it's already the most widely used API on PCs (since it is supported by almost all 3D cards, not just 3Dfx's).-Mike]

John wrote asking which games available on Mac supported 3DFX glide API: There are quite a lot actually. : Future Cop, Unreal, Quake, Descent I and II, Shattered Steel, Myth I and II, Carmageddon, F18 Hornet/Korea, Tomb Raider I and II etc. plus almost all games that uses RAVE acceleration. (Dark Vengeance, Mechwarrior II etc)

[For summary explanations of the differences between Voodoo1, Voodoo2, Banshee and Voodoo3, see the 3Dfx section of the FAQ.-Mike]

March 25th

Good news:A reader sent note that he was told by Westlake Interactive that Mac Unreal 2.20 should be out next week. Yeah!

GT Interactive reveals features of their Unreal Mission Pack: Return to Na Pali

3 Brand New Weapons. 3 Brand New Baddies. 17 + Brand New Levels. Unreal Mission Pack: Return to Na Pali. Your senses expanded...Further. "

Virtual Gameboy 1.5 available: This version fixes several bugs and adds support for InputSprockets and RAVE. Download it at Emulation.net.

3dfx article on 22 bit color: Gary Tarolli of 3DFX has a lengthy and informative article on 22 bit color vs. 32 bit color. In particular, he's concerned about the inaccuracies and generalizations that many techy websites are putting into their articles. [If you missed yesterday's main site news - here is some info on what higher color and larger textures can add to games in the future (only Unreal on the Mac really uses more than 16 bit color, but Quake 3 and future games will). Below is a copy from my Savage S4 post from the main site news yesterday.-Mike]

S3's Savage4: For an idea of the Potential of advanced texture compression and truecolor capable rendering engines like the new S3 Savage4 (4x AGP) - take a look at S3's Image Comparison page (All images are taken from S3's custom 'Savage3D Gallery' level of Unreal™'). The differences between the Voodoo2 SLI (dual card) is striking. The 256x256 texture size limit and lack of true-color rendering is said to not matter by some, but the samples there really do show a dramatic improvement. Rage128 and TNT/TNT2 cards also offer truecolor rendering, but S3's Savage chips have special texture compression design that allows up to 200MB of textures in one scene they say. S3's Texture Compression scheme (S3TC) was licensed by Microsoft for use in DirectX 6. You can also read what the industry is saying about S3TC. I'd love to see Mac support for the Savage4 chip. The images also give you some idea of possible benefits from true-color rendering and large texture support that is available on the Mac in the Rage128 from ATI.-Mike

Quake 3 Footage! Pseudo.com has new video video of Quake 3 taken at the Game Developers Conference last week that you'll want to see for yourself.

The Spotlight Awards are given out each year at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) to deserving developers and their games. This year's winners are:

Best of Show - Half-Life, Valve Software
'People's Choice' - Half-Life, Valve Software
Lifetime Achievement - Louis Castle, co-founder of Westwood Studios
Best Use of Graphics - Half-Life.
Most Innovative Game Design - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Best Use of Audio - Half-Life.
Best AI (Artificial Intelligence) - Half-Life.
Best Children's Title - Lego Creator.
Best Trivia, Puzzle or Classic Game - You Don't Know Jack 4: The Ride.
Best Simulation - Gran Turismo.
Best Strategy/Wargame - StarCraft.
Best Adventure/RPG - Baldur's Gate.
Best Sports Title - NFL Blitz.
Best Action Game - Half-Life.
Best Multiplayer Game - StarCraft.
Best PC Game - Half-Life.
Best Console Game - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Rumors are circulating to rename next year's trophee "the Half-life"..:-)

Epic Partners with NetGames: Epic Games and NetGames USA signed an agreement where NetGames' statistical software will be adapted for use with Unreal Tournament:

"NetGames USA's ngStats and ngWorldStats products and services will be bundled with Unreal Tournament to allow players to view and track highly detailed scores and game statistics.  Unreal Tournament will also include support for ngTCS (Tourney Control System), a powerful software system that facilitates, automates, and enhances the process of holding computer gaming tournaments."

Unreal Technology page has more info on this new feature : here is a summary by Green Marine:

" The really cool thing about local logging is the persistant stat tracking. As you play, all of your scores are tracked to give you a lifetime total. If you play through the entire single player Unreal Tournament with local logging turned on, you can see how many kills you personally racked up during the entire game, your proficiency with a certain weapon, or what bot gave you the most trouble. There is also a link on the main report page that tracks your best game ever...other games are sorted by date. Its really cool to watch in action, especially when you are playing with friends. Building up a database of many games can show some surpising insight into the way you play.

The second type of stat logging is global logging. This is very very cool. Dedicated servers that have an external internet connection can turn on global logging. When a game is played on that server an encrypted log is generated. At the end of the game a batcher is called that sends the log file to NetGames USA's global stat compilation server. All of the stats for that game are entered into the global database and the relevant HTML is updated. This allows for some very cool things like: global laddering, player of the week, and clan of the week. You can even pull up your own stats and compare them to anyone else who plays UT online. Don't want to be logged? UT's internal server browser indicates whether or not a server is running global logging. " Check out the screenshots :

• http://unreal.epicgames.com/ngStats_For_UT_Main.gif
• http://unreal.epicgames.com/ngStats_For_UT_Totals.gif
• http://unreal.epicgames.com/ngWorldStats_For_UT.gif

Carmageddon 2 Mac is not out yet SCI is already talking about Carmageddon 3 and Carmageddon online. Check out Carpocalypse for all the info.

Myth II Soundtrack Released Bungie has released the Myth II Soundtrack that is "twice as great, with twice the tracks and twice the ambiance. Featuring 30 tracks and 56+ minutes of soul-blighting sounds." The soundtrack is just $9.95. you can get it directly at the Bungie Store. The proceeds from the sale will go to O'Donnell-Salvatori who created the sounds and music for Myth II, and whose office recently burned down due to a fire. Thanks to MacGaming for the info.

Icon Contest for Quake II: Nate Trost of Logicware has announced a contest to get the best-looking icons for the Mac version of Quake II. Send your icons in an archive as an email attachment to: nate@logicware.com

Thresh's FiringSquad on Quake Arena Mac: MacGaming reports about a recent posting on Thresh's FiringSquad which discusses the state of Quake Arena running on Macs at the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose, CA. According to the observer's report, Quake Arena looks better on the Mac but doesn't run as smooth.

MGL Exclusive deal: 8 MB Game Wizard for $129. Check it out as these should go pretty quickly. [Update: A reader post on the main site news says MC told him that they were to release SLI enabled drivers for Voodoo2 next week!-Mike]

Yukiyasu Ogawa sent me a note that he has ported several little 3DFX voodoo programs to the Mac.

• MacSwarm
• MacTunnels
• 3DFX Clock for Macintosh
• Mac Chrome
• Starplanes
• 3D Particles

They are available on his download page. Ogawa-san also posted a Voodoo checker utility that gives various information on your card (memory, V1 or 2, etc)

BlockForge 1.0.1 available: BlockForge is a new version of the classic game "Tetris"

March 24th

Official Ship Dates on ATI Rage128 Cards: If you missed it in yesterday's news - I posted a page with ATI's official comments on shipping dates on the Mac Rage128 cards. The page also has answers to common questions on slot usage (66mhz/33mhz) and MPEG card compatibility as well.-Mike

I finished very late last night wrapping up my MP850-Mp750 Villagetronic glide drivers review, so I had no time to write the news yesterday. I added a comparison in a middle range Mac as well. Check it out if you are planning to get one of those cards.

FutureCop 101a Update: Chris Conway of Electronic Arts sent me a v101A Updater that is supposed to fix the problem in our previous file where US versions of the game would not be recognized by the patcher. Click Here to download it from our Mac Software mirror site (643K HQX file)-Mike

CPU Review has an article on the PC ATI xPert 128 (PC version) card.

Voodoomag offers an interview with Brian Burke of 3DFX STB about the coming Voodoo III.

Shell McConnel sent word that GT Interactive will soon release a new mission pack for Unreal. "The pack contains 3 new weapons, including a Rocket Launcher, Grenade Launcher, and Combat Assault Rifle. There will also be new monsters, 12 new single-player levels, and at least six new deathmatch levels! The expansion pack will work with either Unreal or Unreal Tournament." Awesome!

Quake Jersey available: Tim Willits' (Id Software) plan file has been updated:

Quake 3 Arena jersey update.
"Action Imprints is all caught up on their first batch of orders. They tell me the response has been great. If you have seen the March issue of Next Generation then you probably noticed John Carmack wearing the very cool Quake 3 Arena jersey in some of the pictures. The jerseys where initially created for the folks at id. However, due to the enormous request for these jerseys, Action Imprints, the company that created the jerseys for us, will make them available for purchase to the general public. Further information can be found here."

New Descent 3DFX 1.14 posted: Duane Johnson, programmer for the 3DFX version sent us the news about the latest update:

Howdy,
Here's the scoop for version 1.14 of Mac Descent 3Dfx available at
<http://members.xoom.com/bike2live

D1/2 Game Prefs accessed with Option key held down at game startup
D1/2 Monitor resolution switching is now optional throught Game Prefs
Dialog
D1 Briefing screens are available through Game Prefs Dialog
D1/2 Much better error detection & reporting (especialy in the sound
code)
D1/2 Many bugs squashed
D1/2 Assembly language vector math (small speed boost)
D1/2 Larger texture cache for animated & door textures

I hope this version fixes some of the problems that some people hav been having.

I am looking into adding "back" in support for IPX, to allow people to play on the internet with Kali. (The Parallax code did not include the needed files). So if anyone knows where I can get some examples code of how to do IPX on the Mac it would help a lot.- Duane

'Nude Raider' Crackdown: Gamers love Lara Croft. Some seem to love her just a little bit too much. Some renegade web sites have been posting images of Lara Croft "sans clothes". Core Designs, original maker of Tomb Raider, has seen enough and has decided to call in the law. Get the rest of the story.

SharkyExtreme put together a bunch of info on the differentvideo cards that were showcased at the recent Game Developer Conference (GDC). Read the article and learn more about the Voodoo 3, TNT 2, Vanta and more. (PC oriented but interesting)

Intellivision Games Resurrected for PC and Mac Many of those Intellivision games you loved as a kid (at least Mike and I ;- )) can now be played soon on PC or Macintosh from a new CDROM compilation. A report at Internet Wire tells that the CD has 50 of the classic Intellivision games as well as more than 20 never-before-seen titles. The CD goes for $29.95, check out the Intellivision Productions website for more information. You can download six of the games for free from the site!

Magnus Helin sent word that he was able to get some heatsinks from Villagetronic.

"I finally got my heatsinks delivered form VillageTronic, so now my MacMagic blasts away at 60 MHz without artifacting or crashes! Maybe it's just me, but Unreal did feel a bit smother than at 57 MHz
And for last, a very cool trick for Unreal! I don't know if you've posted this one earlier, but try flipping down the console after starting a botmatch and type "open unreal". This will put you, as well as your bots, in the flyby sequence! Do a "walk" in the console and you can do some cool target practicing... :-)

RichE sent word on his latest Unreal map project :

Resident evil one level demo

Resident Evil re-vamped for more speed & bots

and a Quake 3 map for Unreal !

All are Unreal 2.20 only sadly.. Grab it since I think the Mac version 2.20 should be out very soon.

May readers (probably new owners of Unreal also) have asked me to explain in details the various advanced settings in Unreal . I will write a special html file for this later this week if I have time. Don't forget to check Unreal readme also. Some of the advanced settings functions are explained there. [For Rage128 owners I think the comments on the Yosemite Game Performance page might have a few tips on settings.-Mike]

There is a preview of Oni at U-Games. Check it out!

Beyond3D has posted an interview with Mark Rein of Epic Games, in which they discuss many different aspects of Unreal Tournament.

X-Plane 4.7, an update to the fully customizable, realistic flight simulator with amazing graphics, has been released. The update requires a full version of X-Plane 4.0. You may also download a demo from the X-Plane website.Thanks to Macvertigo for bringing up the info. [This is one expensive flight sim however and needs OpenGL drivers (i.e. ATI, etc.) I think.-Mike]

Download X-Plane 4.7 [full version, 31 MB]
Download X-Plane 4.7 [updater from 4.6 or higher, 5 MB]

Wheel of Time web site has been updated with the latest news on in development of Wheel of Time.

Hardware support for Fly!: FLY will fully support RAVE and Glide on the Mac. You should be able to use any video card you want from the Voodoo 1 to the RAGE 128 as long as the card has a minimum of 4Mb (and supports RAVE or Glide). Of course, if you want 32-bit color, you will need a more powerful card (3Dfx does not support 32-bit color).

MacQuake Infinity is a new Quake site targetted for Mac users.

[There was no March 23rd Update]

March 22nd [news are a bit light today. I spent the evening doing more tests with the Villagetronic MP 850. See the article below-Frank]

Big surprise: I had the idea yesterday to make more tests with the MP 850 Banshee tweaker with Quake and Unreal. My intuition paid off as you will see in this updated MP850 Glide coverage article. When switching off Vsync, I was able to make the VT MP850 the fastest card for Quake, beating the MC Voodoo II by about 15 FPS and even beating the ATI 128-B&W G3/400 . Check it out!

I also got some test results from Satoshi Iizumi : [ results similar to the ones I found]

Power Mac 8500/180
PowerForce G3 220/110(run at 315/126/45)
1M L3 cache, 192M total memory
Village Tronic MP850
Thousand of colors
98 MB to Unreal, Full install, no VM
Refresh rate: 100Mhz
800*600 with LQ Unreal.ini : 30.26 fps
800*600 with HQ Unreal.ini: 18.92 fps
640*480 with LQ Unreal.ini: 32.05 fps
640*480 with HQ Unreal.ini: 23.37 fps

Its pictorial quality is very good, I think. But the sound problem remains.- Satosh Iizumi

Serpentine Unreal Mod  
The final beta of Serpentine Unreal is now available, marking the completion of this conversion project that adds real-world weapons and effects to Unreal. They promise a maintenance release when the next version of unreal is released. It is only compatible with Unreal 2.20. Make sure to grab it when Mac Unreal 2.20 becomes available. Thanks to Blues for the tip.

Unreal Patch Status: The Unreal Technology page has word on the long awaited next Unreal patch, now planned to be called version 223.

Tomb Raider Gold released: Aspyr Media announced that Tomb Raider Gold has been released. Tomb Raider Gold is a special version of the original Tomb Raider plus 4 extra levels. divided in 2 sections : Unfinished Business and The Shadow of the Cat. I hear the price is going to be about 29.95$ System Requirements: 4X CD-ROM Drive, 16 MB RAM, 80 Mhz CPU or faster

Bungie has announced that they are working on Myth 1.2.1 of their popular game Myth 2: Soulblighter:
"We're currently working on a minor update, Myth II v1.2.1, which addresses issues with Alt-Tab on the PC, Banshee 3Dfx cards, and crashing in pre-game chat on bungie.net. We don't have a release date, but rest assured that as soon as testing is complete you'll hear about it. "

Unreal 3 movies: Jack MEK Porter was kind enough to post new shorter movie clips of Unreal Tournament. One is 14mb and one is 5mb in RealPlayer format .

Logicware and Half Life: Frank Caratozollalla of Mac 3D.com reports that Antennahead's Andrew Meggs is leading a team over at Logicware to port Half-Life to the Mac. Antennahead was a Mac shareware game developer of games like ShatterBat and Sanctity. Yet before Sanctity was ever released Antennahead shut its doors due to running out of funds. Thanks to IMG for the info.

A Team Fortress classic website debut article is available.

Tim Willits (Satan), Level Designer at id Software uodated his plan file.

New Quake Modeller in the works: 'You still can't get it, (oh, do you remember the WAIT for Quiver) but you can see some screenshots at my new website- Giles Williams'

Pangea Software has posted new screenshots of Bugdom on their web site

[Mac Unreal compatible Maps: I think frank has mentioned this site before recently but I was just sent a reminder that http://www.planetunreal.com/v219/ has a list of maps that are compatible with the current Mac Unreal code base.-Mike]

In case you missed it this weekend, the Official 1.0 MP850/Glide Drivers were released by Villagetronic. Get them at the MP850 Drivers page.

Other Site Games/Unreal Info:

• Site Game Related Articles Index
  Includes tutorials on Setting up a Quake Network, Quakeworld, Using Skins, and many other Game related reviews and articles (3Dfx cards and more)