Damage Incorporated Mac Review (1998)

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From the archive: this review first ran on the Mac Gaming Alliance (MGA), the Mac games site that lived here on DimensionZ in the late 1990s. It was published around 1998 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

Damage Incorporated is a three-dimensional Macintosh game in which you are a Marine sergeant who commands up to four other Marines in six different scenarios. Your goal is ultimately to track down a powerful militia leader and terminate him.

Gameplay

Damage Incorporated is based on the Marathon 2 engine, with some improvements. You can run, jump, duck, and swim through thirty levels. You have ten weapons to choose from. You can also open doors, either mechanical or swinging, some requiring key cards to open. In addition to killing enemies, you may also have to rescue hostages, which talk (assuming you have v. 1.1.) You can also have a game on a LocalTalk network or equivalent. There is, however, no TCP/IP or modem play. Choose your squadmates carefully! If you bring the wrong ones, you could really be asking for trouble, unless you do not mind if they occasionally go TRAITOR or BERSERK. Overall, gameplay is very intense and easy to play, even on a slow machine. One word of advice: get the updated version, v.1.1. It allows hostages to talk, text to appear, and fixes many bugs.

Graphics and Sound

All the textures in Damage Incorporated were either hand-painted or created on Macintosh computers, resulting in a beautiful environment. In addition, levels contain sounds related to the level?s location. And when enemies die, you know when they do. There were a few problems related to sounds not appearing (specifically mission briefings when starting certain levels.) Also, when you are looking at a wall or column, and it is slanted, the texture may look strange.

Interface

Damage Incorporated allows you to use a keyboard or mouse, primarily. It also allows you to change settings very easily. When you bring your map on screen, you can even use your mouse to command your teammates to go to a specific location on the map! This is probably the best feature of the game! Unfortunately, there is no crosshair, something every Build engine-based game has today.

Difficulty

Like the interface, Damage Incorporated also allows you to change the difficulty level, ranging from ?Grenada Landing? to ?War in Vietnam.? This allows both beginners and well-seasoned players to have a great time. And, again, choose your squadmates carefully, because if one of them goes TRAITOR or BERSERK, watch out! This is also on of the game?s best features!

Conclusion

Unlike most games, Damage Incorporated gives what they really want: mass carnage in a great environment. Like in real life, you men can become mentally wounded in combat. Unfortunately, I think it very slightly gives the public an untrue image of the Marine Corps. They are not ?mindless killers? and are the best military unit in the world (in my opinion.)

Find a copy

Damage Incorporated has been out of print for years, but used copies of the original Mac release still turn up, and some classics have been re-released for modern systems. Search for Damage Incorporated on Amazon.

Ratings use the MGA’s original 1–5 apple scale. Prices, system requirements and web links in this review are from the time it was written.