DimensionZ

Category: Mac Gaming Alliance

Reviews from the Mac Gaming Alliance (MGA), the Mac games site that ran here on DimensionZ from 1997 to 2000. Retro Mac game and hardware reviews, preserved as originally written.

  • Diablo Mac Review (1998)

    Diablo Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 June 1998 and is reproduced as originally written, with the original screenshots (click to enlarge). More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher Blizzard
    Tested on PowerMac 8600/300 w/32 mb RAM
    Gameplay 4.5 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 4 / 5 apples
    Interface 5 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 2.5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 5 / 5 apples
    Overall 4.5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Jonathan Dreyer

    Diablo is here! Finally, after a long and painful two year wait for the much anticipated PC “Game of the Year 1996” it is available on the Macintosh. Was it worth the long long wait? Probably not. But is it a fun and addictive game? You bet! Does Diablo have it’s share of drawbacks? Of course…

    Diablo screenshot
    (Click on Picture to Expand)

    Gameplay

    One of the main draws of Diablo is it’s unique role playing game style with real time combat elements. In Diablo you play one of three different styles of character’s, a Warrior, a Rogue, or a Sorcerer, each have there own special skills and abilities to be used at your discretion in your quest to defeat the evil Diablo. Using a local town as your starting point you advance underground thru the Dungeon, Catacombs, the Caves, and finally to Hell where you will face Diablo. Throughout those sixteen levels of action you gain experience points, learn new spells, or find more items and weapons to try to cram in your space-limited inventory. An interesting note about Diablo is it’s randomization factor, every time you lay the game the underground levels will be different, you will never play the same game twice! Single player Diablo, although fun, is easily beaten within a few days of playing and then becomes boring and repetitive. The really fun part of Diablo is multi-player over the Internet thru Blizzard’s Battle.Net server system.

    Diablo screenshot
    (Click on Picture to Expand)

    Easy to access multi-player gaming is definitely the gem in Diablo’s crown. Using Blizzard’s Battle.Net server thru the internet made Diablo the easiest game to setup I have ever played over the internet. The biggest problem with Battle.Net internet play is the large number of PC players online using hacks and other cheats to make a lot of Battle.Net games very unfair to Mac users who have no cheats available to them. Still, if you can find legitimate games to take part in you can have some real fun.

    Diablo screenshot
    (Click on Picture to Expand)

    Graphics and Sound

    The graphics in Diablo are definitely nothing to brag about! Although they’re decent gaming graphics a few minor flaws are exaggerated through some of the games features. One of the most annoying features of Diablo is the zoom feature, game zooms in on your character but the graphic begin to getting very pixilated. They should have just left that feature out entirely for all of it’s usefulness. Another inherit flaw of the game is it’s fixed view point. There is only one view of you character, no on the fly rotating, just one fixed view, which while in deep battle can become a very mean curse.

    The sound effects in Diablo are average for a game these days, nothing spectacular or exciting just your average everyday sound effects. The music on the other hand was horrible! I found the music so annoying to play with I just turned it off all together. I don’t know why Blizzard would put such mediocre music in a game like this.

    Interface

    Interface’s like the one found in Diablo are seeming to becoming the norm these days. Interfaces with in-game graphical control boxes and no Mac-like interface dialogue boxes. I assume this is for faster porting times but, I don’t see how this would be the case in Diablo.

    (Click on Picture to Expand)

    Difficulty

    Diablo has no difficulty. Not literally but in a manner of speaking, Diablo simply is not challenging under single-player playing. The only challenge in Diablo comes from multi-player play where you have to match wits and might against actually humans.

    Conclusion

    During the long porting time of Diablo for Mac it appears they really did a good job of optimizing and bug checking it. I encountered no bugs over the 100 plus hours of time I spent playing it.

    Diablo is a great “multi-player” game! I would only reexamined this to gamers with lot’s of internet time to spend on Battle.Net, forget about single-player gaming altogether.

    Find a copy

    Diablo 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 Diablo 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.

  • Star Control 3 Mac Review (1998)

    Star Control 3 Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 June 1998 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher MacSoft
    Tested on PowerMac 7100/66
    Gameplay 4.5 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 4 / 5 apples
    Interface 4 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 4.5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 5 / 5 apples
    Overall 4.5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by David Leinbach

    Introduction

    Travel through hyperspace has now become impossible due to interdimensional fatigue. Now you have built a ship from Precursor technology which uses warp bubble technology to travel great distances. To try and reverse the collapse of hyperspace, you and a number of teams travel to the Kessari Quadrant. Unfortunately, the nature of the precursor ship scattered the teams throughout the Kessari Quadrant. Your mission is to rediscover the teams and restore hyperspace.

    Gameplay

    In MacSoft’s Star Control 3, you can play a normal game or you can jump right to battle’s with enemy ships. In Hyper Melee mode you can configure yours and your enemy’s fleet including the number of ships, and the types of ships. You can also choose whether you wish to use mouse or keyboard control, the skill of the computer and you can even play Hyper Melee mode over the modem. Once you have setup the game, you choose a ships, one at a time, to battle in one-on-one battles until only you or the enemy’s fleet remains. In battle, you can easily control you ship from the arrow pad, Ctrl, and Option key for player one and C, V, B, X, and Z for player 2(in a human vs. human game). You can change the view and speed the improve the amount of enjoyment received from this mode of play.
    In Adventure Game mode, you must locate the teams and new alien races plus you must colonize new worlds to gain resources for ships. Lastly, you must discover Precursor alien artifacts which may help in reversing interdimensional fatigue. Once you get into the game, you will learn that you of another race which has only been referred to as the Eternal Ones who feed on other races and they may be the cause of all your problems. While fulfilling your mission, you will encounter races who will not take kindly to your presence and may force you into battle. Once you enter battle, the computer will choose one of your ships and one of the enemy’s(if there are more than one). They will then enter battle. One complaint I do have is that you cannot control your own ships.

    Graphics & Sound

    The graphics in this game are very well done. What more can I say? The in-game movies are partially blocky however most of them, including the alien races who look nothing like human actors, look as if they were just recorded onto the computer using an electronic video camera.
    The sound is almost as professionally done as the graphics but they are not as realistic as would be preferred. Some of the gun shots sound as if they were created in 5 minutes. Even so, I found that the gameplay distracted me enough that I didn’t notice it that much.

    Interface

    This game has a fairly intuitive interface. I was able to learn to use most of the functions of this game without having to read the manual. Most of the buttons use graphics that allow you to easily navigate through the game and actually succeed. The method of transferring crew from ship to ship to colony and back is easily implemented by clicking on the source/destination and selecting how many people you want left on you head ship. Selecting how much resources to allocate to each industry in a colony is accomplished by moving a slider control. The only complaint I have relating to the interface is that while in communication with some aliens, your choices available are severely limited at times. One limitation that I wish they had removed was that you cannot exit a communication at any time.

    Difficulty & Bugs

    I almost wrote that this game had a perfect difficulty level when I realized that this was not true. This game almost had a perfect difficulty level but I found it too easy which is why I thought it was perfect because I was able to win in this game. As you play the game gets harder because you must battle ships which have an increasing difficulty and you must solve some difficult problems.
    As for bugs in this game, I encountered none except for what could be considered a bug but also could be blamed on the hardware. While playing the introductory movies at the beginning of the game, the sound was really choppy. Other than that, the game seemed fine.

    Conclusion

    This game is a very enjoyable diversion from the normal types of games. When I started playing this game I thought that it would be boring but I ended up playing for 4 hours straight. Anyone who enjoys strategy games will definitely enjoy this game and I am almost positive that anyone will enjoy playing this game. The amount of thought that this game requires is enough that you won’t get bored because of it being to easy while at the same time is not so much that you decide to give up because of boredom in that way. Overall, if you have a CD-ROM drive of 4x or faster then you should definitely consider this game.

    Find a copy

    Star Control 3 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 Star Control 3 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.

  • Carmageddon: Splat Pack Mac Review (1998)

    Carmageddon: Splat Pack Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 March 1998 and is reproduced as originally written, with the original screenshots (click to enlarge). More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher SCi
    Tested on PowerMac 7300/180
    Gameplay 5 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 4 / 5 apples
    Interface 4 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 2 / 5 apples
    Overall 5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Marty Dodge

    SCI in their infinite wisdom has decided not to bring the Splat Pack out for the Mac. So why the review? Well being that Mac people are always used to having to do things for themselves, several people mucked around with the files in Carmageddon and the Splat Pack and determined that most of the files for the PC and the Mac are identical. Many of us have been using PC cars in Carmegeddon for months. A sort of group think was held in the discussion group of Carmageddon.Com and several of us decided to give it a shot.

    Carmageddon: Splat Pack screenshot
    (Click to Expand)

    As you may have determined by now, it worked. Starting with the demo of the Splat Pack we discovered it would work, if you were willing to put in about 40 minutes of annoying and careful copying across. James then determined that the complete Splat Pack could be used the same way. I went as far as to buy the PC version but ended up not getting round to experimenting. This was still an onerous and time consuming task. Until that is… James decided to write an Applescript program to copy all this stuff for you. If you have a copy of the Splat Pack and 40 minutes of time, Splat Pack Installer will do it all for you. SCI should give James a contract as we speak, he saved them a hell of a lot of time and money and they still get to sell the Splat Pack to Mac owners.

    Now some of you might want to get boycott SCI for not bringing out the Splat Pack for the Mac. Get mad for a few minutes and get over it. Remember, we want them to bring out Carmageddon II for the Mac, after all the thing is being done on a Mac. If you have not yet seen screenshots of it go to MacInkill and enjoy your future. It looks amazing and should be a blast to play. We should also be happy that SCI made the programming so easy to much about with, that is why Carmageddon has staying power. One last thing, because the Splat Pack is a fairly “old” title you can buy it for very little on sale at major outlets or by mail-order.

    Carmageddon: Splat Pack screenshot
    (Click to Expand)

    Now that is off my chest, the add-on that is the Splat Pack. The game play is the same as the full game, but the graphics have been approved, and the opponents are a lot more fun. The tracks, besides “Ring of Fire” which for some reason will not work on the Mac, are neater as well (range from Aztec to Myst—like islands.) The tracks for the most part are harder than in the full game. Some of the jumps and curves are killer. Cars are great as well. There is nothing better than nailing a pesky Citroen CV with the Peterbilt semi-cab, and watching the little commie bastard fly across the screen. Other standouts are: a Duesenberg, a monster truck and Chevy from the 70s. There are now sheep & boar as well the ever present cows and people to hit as one drives round the track. Your original cars seem to have improved handling and combined with the more macho grunt of the engine, both give real pleasure. (For the Eagle II, just think cartoon Batmobile that is red.)

    To Get the Mac Splat Pack Installer, visit MacInKill

    Find a copy

    Carmageddon: Splat Pack 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 Carmageddon: Splat Pack 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.

  • Top Gun: Fire at Will Mac Review (1998)

    Top Gun: Fire at Will Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 March 1998 and is reproduced as originally written, with the original screenshots (click to enlarge). More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher Macsoft
    Tested on PowerMac 8600/300 w/ 32mb RAM
    Gameplay 5 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 2 / 5 apples
    Interface 4 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 4 / 5 apples
    Overall 3.5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Jonathan Dreyer

    Top Gun: Fire at Will is an interesting game, it’s not quite a full fledged flightsim and not anywhere near an action game. Top Gun is a Flightsim/Arcade hybrid, the flight controls are not nearly as complex as in F-18 Hornet, allowing Top Gun an arcade like gameplay.

    The action begins at Top Gun School, where you’ll compete for the coveted Top Gun Trophy. Then, you’ll lead your wingmen through fierce aerial combat in a burgeoning global crisis. Top Gun gives you the ultimate that modern F-14 dog fighting has to offer.

    Top Gun: Fire at Will screenshot(Click to Expand)

    Gameplay

    Although I said that the control of Top Gun were simple compared to Hornet, that doesn’t mean that an idiot could fly the famous F-14 Tomcat. All the necessary aircraft control to be a successful pilot but the emphasis has been put on gameplay, not realism. While Hornet is a better simulator, Top Gun is by far a better GAME.

    Top Gun: Fire at Will screenshot(Click to Expand)

    The Gameplay is the greatest part of Top Gun. You start in the Top Gun school where you go through numerous training missions, each one increasing in difficulty from the one before, your goal is the infamous Top Gun Trophy. There are plenty of mission in many varieties, night flying, escort runs, carrier takeoffs, carrier landings, etc… You have 4 different weapons at your disposal for success in those missions, the M61A1 “Vulcan” cannon, AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles, and AIM-54 Phoenix missiles. And of course you have your RIO sitting right behind you waiting for a chance to give his sarcastic advice. The Top Gun school missions are a perfect to give the flightsim newbies the basics of takeoffs, landings, and dog fighting. There were even some Top Gun school missions later on that I (the flightsim expert) had trouble with, namely the grand canyon mission where you have to stay under the rim of the canyon while dog fighting 3 enemy planes, that was one of the toughest flightsim missions I’ve ever flown.

    Top Gun: Fire at Will screenshot(Click to Expand)

    Graphics & Sound

    The graphics of Top Gun are it’s biggest flaw, they stink. The graphics seem to be heavily pixelated even at the highest graphic settings available. The ground and the ocean look ugly, as you can see in some of the screenshots scattered throughout this review. Objects look great, such as other planes and buildings but, the rest of the Top Gun world is almost painfully ugly, if it wasn’t for the great gameplay this game would really suck.

    Top Gun: Fire at Will screenshot(Click to Expand)

    The sound and music of Top Gun is wonderful. It even has the Top Gun song from the movie (although sung by a different singer). The music perfectly balanced for the levels giving it just the right amount of atmosphere without being too distracting. Sound effects in Top Gun were nothing special, the missile sounds are the same for every missile you have and the gun sound is rather annoying when trying to shoot down your enemies.

    Interface

    Top Gun is a top notch port. All the expected macintosh elements were there, including the use of Apple Input Sprocket for joystick support. Note: I found a conflict with SpeedDoubler 8 and the input sprocket, to play disable SpeedDoubler first.

    Difficulty

    Top Gun has a perfect difficulty balance, each mission get progressively harder from the one before. This balance allows you to master the basics of flying in Top Gun without being forced to fly unusually difficult missions.

    Top Gun: Fire at Will screenshot(Click to Expand)

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, Top Gun has the best gameplay of any game I’ve played recently but, if you’re looking for a flightsim, this is not for. Top Gun is more for gamers with little or no flightsim experience or who just want to play a really fun game. Once you look past the graphics into the gameplay, you’ll realize that Top Gun is great game.

    Top Gun: Fire at Will screenshot(Click to Expand)

    Find a copy

    Top Gun: Fire at Will 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 Top Gun: Fire at Will 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.

  • Duke it out in D.C. Mac Review (1998)

    Duke it out in D.C. Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 March 1998 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher Macsoft
    Tested on PowerMac 6500/250
    Gameplay 5 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 5 / 5 apples
    Interface 5 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 4 / 5 apples
    Bugs 5 / 5 apples
    Overall 5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by J. Driver

    Duke it out in D.C. is an add-on pack created for Duke Nukem 3D. In this expansion pack, you visit important government buildings, historical monuments, museums, and utilities, while tracking down the kidnapped President.

    Gameplay

    This is an expansion pack for Duke Nukem, so the interface is the same. Gameplay is very fast in this pack, if you have a Power Macintosh. You can go places where the average person in Washington D.C. could not go: in the Oval Office, the FBI lab, the sewer system, and even climb Lincoln’s statue! The most visually amazing level, to me, was the one of the Metro system, Washington D.C.’s subway system. There were abandoned stations, train crashes, extra trains, graffiti, and everything that you would expect out of a big subway system. If you were disappointed with the original subway level in Duke Nukem, then get this pack! Subways, of course, are not everything. My second favorite level was of the Smithsonian! The first time I played that level, I thought it was a total digitized version of that museum! The virtual museum had an art gallery, collections called “Humans in Space”, “The Living Ocean”, and “The Lost Worlds”, many elevators, information desks, vending machines, restrooms, fountains, and more! The only things it were missing were restaurants and gift shops. Overall, it was the best game I ever played!

    Screenshots:
    Screenshot #1
    Screenshot #2
    Screenshot #3

    Graphics and Sound

    There are many new graphics in Duke it out in D.C.: signs of federal buildings, a new brick texture for sewers, textures for the subways, and many more! While there were no new sounds, the textures and levels make up for the loss.

    Interface:
    There is no new interface in this pack. There were, however, some new graphics in the startup screen.

    Difficulty

    The levels, while being very large, also supply a good number of enemies. I did feel, however, that weapons could have been more evenly distributed.

    Conclusion

    Duke it out in D.C. was well worth the wait for a Macintosh version! You actually felt like you were in Washington D.C.! I would highly recommend this expansion pack for anyone interested in America’s capital!

    Find a copy

    Duke it out in D.C. 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 Duke it out in D.C. 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.

  • Duke Nukem 3D Mac Review (1998)

    Duke Nukem 3D Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 March 1998 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher Macsoft
    Tested on Performa 5260/100 Mhz
    Gameplay 5 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 3 / 5 apples
    Interface 4 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 4 / 5 apples
    Overall 4 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Jonathan Dreyer

    You are DukeNukem, ready to kick some alien butts! Aliens have invaded LA and it’s up to you to wipem out!

    Gameplay

    I really enjoyed the gameplay of Duke. There’s 4 different episodes each with 7 to 11 levels and different plots. I think the best feature of this game is the interaction with Duke’s environment. Opening doors, shooting holes in the wall, blowing up toilets and garbage cans, riding subway trains, and handing money to the exotic dancers (making them strip) are just some of the cool things you can do with Duke you can also relieve yourself in the toilet. It’s a standard 3D shootem up game, you use the arrow keys to move around, fire, crouch, jump, use items such as a Jetpak or steroids. In each level there are many different guns and aliens to pick up and wipe out. I think the best part of Duke is the sound effects, the sounds are great this has the best sound effects of any Shootem up game I’ve played. But where Duke excels in sound it lacks in graphics, Duke was a straight Mac port which means the graphics weren’t redone like LucasArts did for DarkForces and therefor the graphics in Duke look very blocky.

    Interface, Difficulty, and Reliability

    Lion did a good job of porting Duke, all the options have Mac dialogue boxes unlike Doom. Changing the controls, sound, and difficulty is very very simple.

    I found Duke Nukem refreshingly challenging compared to Doom and DarkForces, if you had trouble finishing Dark Forces or Doom then this isn’t the game for you.

    You can play Duke Nukem an infinite amount of times using 3rd party maps and/or playing multiplayer games. It’s very fun playing multiplayer games knowing you’re playing against a real person.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion Duke Nukem 3D is a very good game. I would recommend buying it unless, you don’t buy that many games and have a high end PPC Mac in which case I would say wait for MacQuake.

    Find a copy

    Duke Nukem 3D 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 Duke Nukem 3D 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.

  • Deadlock Mac Review (1998)

    Deadlock Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 March 1998 and is reproduced as originally written, with the original screenshots (click to enlarge). More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher Macsoft
    Tested on LC 475
    Gameplay 3 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 4 / 5 apples
    Interface 3 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 5 / 5 apples
    Overall 4 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Ben Kilford

    Beneath you floats the untamed Gallius 5. A newly discovered planet in the disputed part of the galaxy. A colony ship is ready, equipped with all the basics you need to settle on this planet. The select group of colonists orbiting with you are prepared both to build a strong colony and defend it to the last stone.

    Deadlock screenshot(Click to Expand)

    Game Play

    The game play is pretty good you lead a group of colonists in a fight for a planet. You can have unlimited play which you set up however you like. For example you choose the number of other colonies fighting for the planet and how many city centers are to be built to win. Mac Soft have put in a very useful tutorial which will show you the basics. You use a mouse to do most of the controlling, such as building and to attack you enemy. As you expand your territory you will encounter your enemy and may have to go to war. The one thing that I did not like is you have to end your turn to make progress instead of it doing it automatically.

    Deadlock screenshot(Click to Expand)

    Graphics and Sound

    The introductory graphics are excellent because they are realistic, they show you what the planet looks like and introduces the Characters. When the game starts the graphics become less impressive, they are not as realistic and the characters lack detail. The sound effects are quite pleasing, particularly the squeeks and beeps. However the background music becomes annoying because of constant repetition.

    Interface

    I liked the way the interface was laid out. Your menu bar is at the top of the screen and a simple click will activate each box.

    Difficulty & Bugs

    The level of play ranges from novice to expert. Players can play against the computer or on a network of computers. The level of difficulty depends on the number of city centers to be built and the number of Characters activated. There were no bugs that I was aware of during the time I used this program.

    Deadlock screenshot(Click to Expand)

    Conclusion

    I enjoyed playing Deadlock. There was a lot to do during the game. I feel it is rather similar to SimCity but better. I rather like the feature that allows one to fight against their enemy. This is an excellent building and alien busting game full of technology and some new design methods.

    Find a copy

    Deadlock 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 Deadlock 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.

  • Carmageddon Mac Review (1998)

    Carmageddon Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 March 1998 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher SCi
    Tested on Performa 5260/100 Mhz and a PowerMac 8600/300
    Gameplay 5 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 4 / 5 apples
    Interface 4 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 5 / 5 apples
    Overall 5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Jonathan Dreyer

    Note:(Feb 2/98)

    On my new PowerMac 8600/300 I can play Carmageddon in High-Res 640*480 and it’s completely smooth, absolutely no jerkiness at all!

    Carmageddon

    First of all, this is the BEST game I have played for a very long time! I’ve had more fun playing this game than any other in the this year. Now for something about the game: The Nastiest Driving Game in the World.. Ever! Pit your wits and wheels against 25 maniac drivers over 36 formidable race circuits in your quest to become the King of Carnage and the Prince of the Pile-up! Carmageddon.. it’s murder on the streets

    Gameplay

    I have to say that the gameplay is the most enjoyable part of the game! There are 2 ways to finish a race, you can either go through the race and complete the laps or you can just go around smashing all the other cars, the latter being much more enjoyable. During the race you have a timer at the tops of the screen that counts down to zero, to increase the time on the timer you either run over some people and get some blood splatter or ram the other cars until they are destroyed and you get credits and time. A variety of tracks and opponents keep the game very very fun during the 36 races.

    Graphics and Sound

    The second great thing about this game are the graphics and sound. The High-Res 640*480 graphics are absolutely fabulous, the only problem is that Carmageddon doesn’t support any 3D cards (yet?) so unless you have a very very fast processor, you’re stuck in Low-Res which thankfully is still great and playable on most PowerMacs.

    The sound effects in Carmageddon are wonderful, the screams and shrieks of people just before you run them down are hilarious. The music is also fantastic!

    Interface, Difficulty, and Reliability

    You can tell as soon as you start the game that this is a PC port. All of the menus and settings screen are similar to a PC games there are no Mac-like dialogue boxes in this game but, even though the game’s interface is still good, especially with the bloody hand cursor.

    I found that they difficulty of the different races to be either very easy or very hard, in some races it took me 4 tries to hit something before my low low starting time ran down.

    As for reliability, the game never crashed on my at all, a very rare thing indeed.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, I recommend this game. If your computer can run it at a reasonable speed then this game is excellent! I have absolutely no complaints about this game.

    Find a copy

    Carmageddon 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 Carmageddon 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.

  • X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse Mac Review (1998)

    X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 January 1998 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher MacSoft
    Tested on PowerMac w/Power3D
    Gameplay 5 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 5 / 5 apples
    Interface 5 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 4 / 5 apples
    Bugs 3 / 5 apples
    Overall 5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by David Leinbach

    X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse is the prefect add-on to Quake, it adds what Quake lacks, a PLOT! This is a TOTAL conversion for Quake, that means that everything is new, all-new weapons, sound effects, music, and enemies

    Gameplay

    As I mentioned, this game has a plot, a rather complex one at that. The Evil Apocalypse has cloned the X-Men into his own personal army for world domination. Where do you come into this? Magneto, while no friend of the X-Men, created you, an advanced cyborg to thwart Apocalypse’s evil plans. As a cyborg, your forearms morph into 7 all-new advanced weapons to be used against the sinister X-Clones. There are 12 different X-Men will be fighting, Archangel, Beast, Bishop, Cannonball, Cyclops, Gambit, Iceman, Phoenix, Psylocke, Rogue, Storm, and Wolverine. Of course all the X-Clones have their powerful mutant powers to use against you, i.e. when fighting Wolverine make sure that he is REALLY dead, otherwise his mutant healing factor will bring him back to surprise you.

    There are 18 levels in Ravages, each one is unique with it’s own puzzles and setting. There’s a real plot to follow and goals to achieve in every level.

    Without a doubt, multiplayer X-Men is WAY better than plain old multiplayer Quake. In Multiplayer X-Men you can play any of the 12 X-Men and use their unique mutant powers. You can have multiplayer games with players just using their mutant powers and no guns to find out which X-Man/Woman is really the most powerful.

    Screen shots

    320 by 240 Pixel Doubled

    640 by 480

    3Dfx Enhanced

    Graphics & Sound

    Coming into this, I had very high standards for the graphics in this game. I can honestly say that this surpassed even my highest expectations. In pixel doubled mode, the graphics were blocky but, in regular 640 by 480, the graphics were wonderful. The real beauty is in the 3Dfx accelerated edition, what can I say except “Absolutely Beautiful!”. For your own comparison, check out my screen shots to the left, they’re all of the same scene in the different resolutions.

    The music on the X-Men CD is perfect for the game, it adds just the right amount of atmosphere in. For me, the game just doesn’t seem right without this music. Sound effects for all the weapons are majestic, I’ve been reading the X-Men comics for about 4 years and the sounds in this game were just as I had always imagined them.

    Interface
    To play X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse, you launch a front-end application from which you can start a new game, start a multiplayer game, load an old game, view a cool comic-book style animated intro, and even enter in some extra “command-line parameters”. This is the first official product by the powerhouse mac porting company, Westlake Interactive, programmers from Westlake are responsible for such great Mac ports as Duke Nukem 3D, and Shadow Warrior so they knew what they were doing.

    Difficulty

    I have no qualms about the difficulty of X-Men, in fact I found it to be just the right balance of difficulty, a much better balance than Duke Nukem or even Normal Quake.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, I found X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse to be the perfect add-on to Quake, I think that every Quake player out there should rush and get a copy of this! This one of the very few games that if I had a chance to remake it it, I would NOT change a thing! This is a must buy! I can not recommend this enough…

    Find a copy

    X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse 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 X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse 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.

  • Play to Win Casino Mac Review (1998)

    Play to Win Casino Mac Review (1998)

    This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

    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 January 1998 and is reproduced as originally written, with the original screenshots (click to enlarge). More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher MacSoft
    Tested on Performa 5260/100, 20mb RAM
    Gameplay 3 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 4 / 5 apples
    Interface 5 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 3 / 5 apples
    Bugs 5 / 5 apples
    Overall 3.5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Jonathan Dreyer

    Finally, a realistic Casino game for the Mac. Play to Win Casino includes Slot Machines, Blackjack, Roulette, Video Poker, Craps, and Video Keno. And best of all, all the games have realistic odds! Although that means that you’ll be losing more often than winning.

    Gameplay

    The gameplay in Play to Win is very intuitive. Each when you go to play each game, you can use the step-by-step instructions to learn how to play, or you can learn the latest advanced strategies if you already know how to play. You can set the games to warn you if you’re making a bad bet or a good bet, let you know of the house edge on certain bets, and know which machines are “hot”. I suggest you turn on all of the computer advice when you first play because, as I said, these games have REAL Las Vegas odds meaning that no matter how good you become, the house will always win in the end, if you listen to the computer advice you’ll which games to play and which bets to make to avoid the house edge. You start off with $25,000 dollars, this may sound like a lot but, you can lose it pretty fast in this game.

    Also, in the Slot machines, Video Poker, and Video Keno games I hated having to drag my coins into the coin slot every time my credits ran out, until I found in the menus above there was an option to put in 200 credits at a time.

    Graphics & Sound

    Play to Win Casino’s sound effects are great! The sounds of the chips hitting the table, the sound of the slot machine spinning, the cards being dealt out, and all of the beeps that the Slot machines, video poker, and video Keno machines make when you win or lose. And those sounds don’t just sound like computer generated garble either, they sound like they were actually recorded from a Casino, although I doubt that is true.

    There’s nothing special about the graphics in Play to Win, I mean how fancy can you make the graphics in a Casino game? One complaint, though in the blackjack game I thought the graphics of the cards were a little blurry.

    Interface
    As usual, like any other MacSoft published game, I have no complaints about Play to Win’s interface, it has all the right Macintosh menu bars, menus, and dialogue boxes. This is definitely no half-assed port of a game.

    Difficulty

    As I said, one of Play to Win’s main attractions is the real Las Vegas odds, that means that the chances are that you will lose more money than you win but, if you want to use this to practice up before your trip to Vegas, great! This will make a great trainer and will hopefully keep you from losing big time when you actually go.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, Play to Win Casino is just about the only realisitc gambling game available for the Mac. If you like playing casino games on your computer or want to practice up for a trip to Vegas, this is for you! This is not a game I would recommend to everyone.

    Find a copy

    Play to Win Casino 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 Play to Win Casino 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.