DimensionZ

Blog

  • Castles: Siege & Conquest Mac Review (1998)

    Castles: Siege & Conquest 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 around 1998 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher MacPlay
    Tested on LC475 (25MHz 68LC040)
    Gameplay 4 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 3 / 5 apples
    Interface 5 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 5 / 5 apples
    Overall 4 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Jon Ostenson

    Castles: Siege & Conquest is set in the middle of chaotic 14th-century France, a time of great bloodshed and contention for the throne of France. During the course of the game you will conquer territories, build castles on them to ensure their allegiance to you, and maintain a delicate balance between the political, economic, and military aspects of your realm. You also have to keep your people happy and maintain a good relationship with the Pope. Your ultimate goal is to become king; to do so, you’ll need to gather enough might and resources and petition the Pope to declare you king. If he grants your request, you’ll win the game. If another player successfully petitions the Pope first, you lose.

    Gameplay & Interface
    An attractive graphical interface also serves to easily give you access to all of the game’s commands. Events take place in real-time, so it would be easy for the game to get out of hand, but MacPlay has done a good job of making the interface work to your benefit. There are numerous tutorials included with the CD-ROM version that introduce you nicely to the game’s features and what it will take to be successful. These tutorials function much like Apple’s AppleGuide, taking you step-by-step through the game’s interface and commands.
    Quicktime movies and sound clips of old black and white movies add some realism and, at times, humor to the game. These clips often introduce numerous side plot lines that will demand your attention at the same time as you seek to conquer the realm. Successfully navigating through these plots may influence your relations with the Pope (an all-important figure in this game), alleviate your people’s sufferings, or increase your stockpiles of resources.
    As you move along conquering territories and subjugating enemies, you’ll need to build castles on your lands to ensure their allegiance to you. The castle design stage allows you to either design your own or choose from historically-based designs. If you do choose to design your own castle, the process is simple and intuitive (and kinda fun!). Once you lose your first territory to rebellion, you’ll understand the importance of these castles.

    Difficulty & Replayability
    Castles provides four different levels of difficulty (ranging from Easy to Impossible) that should provide many hours of challenge. You may also play as any of five different lords, each situated in different geographical areas of the map. As you try to conquer the other lords in the land, you can take a number of approaches (I.e., military domination, economic domination, etc.). These different factors make for a practically unlimited number of scenarios.
    This is not an easy game, even at the simplest level. It will be long months before you’re in a position to petition the Pope, and then after you petition him you must keep you total points above a certain level to keep his attention.

    Graphics & Sound
    Castles’ graphics are nice, but nothing to write home about.Likewise, there’s some nice sound effects, music, and speech, but this game won’t make you run out and buy some Bose for your Mac. This isn’t a game, though, that relies heavily on multimedia, but instead on strategy and skill. In those areas it is very successful.

    Find a copy

    Castles: Siege & Conquest 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 Castles: Siege & Conquest 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.

  • A-10 Cuba! Mac Review (1998)

    A-10 Cuba! 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 around 1998 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher Parsoft
    Tested on Performa 5260/100 Mhz
    Gameplay 4 / 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

    Guerrilla forces have taken control of the beautiful island of Cuba! Once again the A-10 Wathogs must suppress the enemies of freedom. A-10 Cuba adds more action packed missions and new features to the award winning A-10 Attack! Defend the run down Naval Air Station at Guantanamo Bay, escort damaged aircraft over heavily defended occupied territory, and then destroy the precious resources which fuel the enemy war machine. Transform aircraft and tanks into piles of smokin’ garbage with the largest airborne arsenal available to mankind.

    Gameplay

    First off I’ll tell you what I didn’t like about A-10 Cuba. First of all, A-10 Cuba isn’t really a game, you don’t earn points or awards it’s a REAL simulation, at the end of the mission you land if you want to and select end game unlike F/A-18 Hornet where after you land it gives you a screen showing that you successfully completed the mission and show what you destroyed. Now what I liked, I really like it’s realistic flight engine, I believe this is the most realistic flight simulator I have EVER played now mind you I’ve never actually flown a plane but, of all the books I’ve read and simulators I’ve flown, this is still the most realistic.

    Interface, Difficulty, and Reliability

    Since this is a mac first game not a port the interface is very Macish, it has all the options, dialogue boxes, and buttons you aspect in a mac game. It has all sorts of difficulty options, graphic options, sound options, and more of the usual.

    I found A-10 Cuba very difficult to master, it has I very steep learning curve and lots of buttons. As for the missions, I found those very interesting although not much new to a flight sim veteran.

    A-10 Cuba is very replayible in the Network mode, if your not connect to a network you can use a program like NetLink Remote or ARA to play a modem game.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion A-10 Cuba is a excellent simulator but a bad game, if you want a simulator this is what to get, if you want a game then I suggest F/A-18 Hornet.

    Find a copy

    A-10 Cuba! 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 A-10 Cuba! 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.

  • Quake Mac Review (1997)

    Quake Mac Review (1997)

    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 December 1997 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher Macsoft
    Tested on StarMax 4000/200 with Techworks Power3Dfx card
    Gameplay 2 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 4 / 5 apples
    Interface 3 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 3 / 5 apples
    Bugs 3 / 5 apples
    Overall 3 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Marty Dodge

    MacQuake is the much antiucipated conversion of the 2+ year old PC game. Was it worth the wait? Well, sort of. It has many annoying features, like the fact that you cannot play Death-match on Ethernet (Appletalk) LAN, and the fact that there is little variation in the in the gameplay. Kill everything…that’s about it.

    Quake was and always will be primarily a multiplayer game, Deathmatches are what made its name. Anyone with half a brain in his head will admit that the solo levels are nothing special. The graphics are impressive but they get boring after a while. The baddies are very linear and it seems more time was spent on the walls than on the creatures. It is true however that there are thousands of solo/net levels kicking around the net that can provide with hours and hours of pleasure after you complete the game for the first and last time. Also cheats abound all over the net.

    I would have liked to be able to wax poetic about the multiplayer aspects of MacQuake, alas I cannot because it will not function on an Appletalk LAN There is talk that there will be a patch to fix this problem but we shall have to wait and see. Why MacSoft decided to release MacQuake without giving the game the ability to play over Appletalk is beyond me. MacQuake dedicated web sites and newsgroups are reeling with complaints about the multiplayer MacQuake.

    There is a recent update that has corrected several game faults and has gone some way to allow to much trumpted multiplayer function via the internet. By the time the multiplayer function of MacQuake is released, there will probably be quite a few MacQuake clans and ladders set up on the web. There are several very good sites already dedicated to MacQuake, most of which allow players to hook up over the internet. With any luck QuakeWorld will be ported to the Mac sometime soon, until then Mac owners will remain second-class cititzens in the Quake world.

    The weapons in MacQuake are standard and are nothing special. The monsters suppose to be the stuff of nightmares are not that worrying. It will be interesting to see how they appear on my newly acquired Power3D card. There are some useful features like the ability to save on the fly, anywhere you want and (~) key which allows you to type all kind of cheats and skips in. In the game there are also Quad damage, protection & extra health power-ups to find and pick in addtion to all the weapons, ammo, armour, and health kicking around which is standard in all games of this type.

    Hopefully Quake II will come out for the Mac sooner or later. Until then you will have to be happy with some of the excellent ID approved scenarios like Malice, a few Mac freindly expansion packs and the forthcoming scenario based on the X-Men comic world. You will have to pay extra for them thought.

    Is MacQuake worth the hype? No. Although, Quake for all its bad points is a damn good engine, just check out Malice. Like Duke3D, Quake would have been impressive a year ago, for me it is a case of too little too late. What really annoys me, is that if I had MacQuake by itself I would not rate it at all, since Malice arrived I look at it in a whole new light.

    Find a copy

    Quake 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 Quake 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.

  • Civilization 2 Mac Review (1997)

    Civilization 2 Mac Review (1997)

    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 November 1997 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 5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 5 / 5 apples
    Overall 5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by J. Driver

    Civilization II is the sequel to its predecessor, Civilization. Civilization II is very different from the original game in terms of units, rules, terrain, etc. While the original Civilization was a success, Civilization II is expected to be even more popular. In general terms, Civilization II puts you in command of an entire empire, you get to choose from over twenty. You also have to keep your people happy, keep other empires under control (including wars and espionage), make sure the environment is not harmed, and make sure your empire grows (either by building new cities or capturing other empires’ cities.)

    Gameplay

    Civilization II is very easy to play, once you get used to its concept. You basically control cities’ production and move units, both civilian and military. The game also comes with an appropriate soundtrack, with titles like “Ode to Joy” and other unique titles. An extensive map editor also comes with the game.

    Graphics and Sound

    Civilization II has much better graphics than its predecessor. They look like they were created on a Macintosh rather than a PC. Civilization II also comes with many sounds to accompany events that occur, most of them for battles and wars.

    Interface

    The interface for Civilization II is done mostly through the menu bar. This makes things very convenient. For those who like to use keys instead, you can control some operations through the keyboard. If you need help, there is a High Council which utilizes video so you can find out what you need to do. Also, there is a program called the Civilopedia which contains documentation on anything you will need in the game. There is also a massive cheat menu, but you will be penalized if you turn them on.

    Difficulty

    Civilization II has many difficulty levels. Be warned, however, that the easiest difficulty level itself is not as easy as you may think. While you can turn off barbarians, who cause various chaos, you will be penalized if you do. Also, you are penalized if you cheat.

    Conclusion

    Civilization II is an excellent game. It provides hours of exciting gameplay without severe problems. I highly recommend this game!

    Find a copy

    Civilization 2 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 Civilization 2 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.

  • Riven Mac Review (1997)

    Riven Mac Review (1997)

    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 October 1997 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

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

    Riven in case you haven’t heard, is the sequel to the best-seller Myst. Myst is a game that created a genre, a hard thing to do. But, the question on everyone’s mind is Does Riven stand up to Myst? That’s a very hard question for me to answer. Technologically Riven is far superior but, what about the other elements that make up a great game you ask, read on.

    Gameplay

    Technologically speaking, not much has changed in the gameplay since Myst, it’s still the simple point and click interface. You point where you want to go and, click you’re there. This time around I found a few problems with this sort of interface, because you aren’t always sure of where to click to, say look a a certain piece of wall, where you click could send you packing way past what you where interested in, this could be a cause for a lot of the back tracking you will have to do in this game. But I supposed if it worked once, why mess with it.

    Gameplay in terms of plot and storyline is a different story. I found the plot/storyline of Riven rather weak or almost non-existent, in Myst I felt I knew what I had to do to move on in the game, in Riven I found the gameplay was almost non-linear. With no real plot or storyline to follow, Riven becomes a non-linear puzzle game, albeit a good one.

    Graphics & Sound

    The graphics and sound in Riven have far surpassed my expectations. I had expected graphics better than Myst but not this great, Riven is without a doubt the most visually appealing game I have EVER played. The graphics in Riven will be hard to surpass in any other game this year. I have one complaint though, when a moving door or some other moving object stopped the whole scene seemed to have a slight color change…

    After the somewhat mediocre sound in Myst, Riven’s sounds were quite literally music to my ears. Riven’s ambient sound is wonderful, changing with every change of scenery almost. The sound effects in Riven very well done and very professonal, the sounds of moving doors, gears, levers, etc…

    Interface

    Riven being made on a Mac means that you won’t find any of interface problems you might find in a PC port. Riven has all the Mac menus and command key shortcuts for save and open. One complaint, I thought that the Setup options screen was a bit confusing to be useful.

    Difficulty

    The puzzles in Riven are very difficult, I found them more difficult than Myst’s puzzles. I thought that there were fewer hints for the puzzles than in Myst.

    Conclusion

    I had trouble reviewing this game, I mean it was the most anticipated game of 1997. I felt that the expectations for it were way too high, no game in the world could live up to expectations that high. I believe that Riven did not live up to the expectations set by the months of anticapation, it is a great game still.

    Find a copy

    Riven 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 Riven 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.

  • Power3D Mac Review (1997)

    Power3D Mac Review (1997)

    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 hardware 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 September 1997 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher Techworks
    Tested on PowerMac 8600/300
    Overall 5 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by Jonathan Dreyer

    The Power3D is the first all-gaming 3D accelerator available for the Mac. This card is based on the popular 3Dfx Voodoo chip set which has been all the rage on the PC for a while now. The Power3D provides full-screen 3D acceleration (ONLY full screen, i.e. no 3D in a window) and support for 16 bit color all in one 7 inch PCI slot.

    The Power3D comes bundled with some great games also, Quake Episode 1 (3Dfx accelerated), MechWarrior 2 (RAVE), VR Soccer (3Dfx), and Weekend Warrior (3Dfx). As you may have guessed, the Power 3D supports both native 3Dfx games and Quickdraw 3D RAVE games.

    Techworks’ listed requirements for the Power3D are: a MacOS PowerPC with at least one available PCI expansion slot, 32mb RAM, and a 640*480 multi-sync monitor. One Note: 32mb of RAM is just not enough! You need at least 48mb, that’s the absolute minimum!

    There is a rather nasty bug with the Power3D. The Power3D operates using a pass-thru cable to your OWN 2D video, be it built-in internal or another PCI card, well the pass-thru cable when used with some Apple monitors will not allow you to use some Apple-Only resolutions, it will only let you use VGA specific resolutions like 800*600.

    The Games

    The Power3D comes bundled with some pretty cool games. The most impressive game is Quake, they only included a non-networked version of the first episode but, the first episode is good enough. Once you play 3Dfx native Quake, you can NEVER go back to plain old software Quake again. With 3Dfx Quake you get picture perfect graphics, smoke, translucent water, and NO jaggies at all. 3Dfx Quake is a thing of beauty, I will never play Quake without my Power3D again!

    MechWarrior 2 is the only RAVE accelerated game included with the Power3D. The speed at which this game runs is a testament to the Power3D’s speed. Running MechWarrior with the Power3D and and a ATI Xclaim VR, there is no difference is speed. I bought MechWarrior when it first came out and found the graphics too dull, the RAVE version definitely fixes that, the graphics are smooth and I didn’t experience any slow downs at all, even when standing in the middle of huge fire-fights with 8 other Mechs.

    Weekend Warrior is the game show game brought to you by Pangea software, originally this game was RAVE enhanced and was even bundled with some PowerMac 6500, the 3Dfx port was done very well. I had the chance to run both the RAVE and 3Dfx versions of Weekend Warrior and found the Power3D version to be superior. The only problem I found with Weekend Warrior is that it’s not really a game, I thought of it as more of a technological showcase than game.

    VR Soccer was renamed for North American’s, it was originally called Acuta Soccer and was scheduled to be released by MacPlay in North America, that was until MacPlay’s bloody spring where they canceled all but 2 of their fore coming titles. At first, I thought VR Soccer was just another techno showcase like Weekend Warrior. That was until I really started playing it, VR Soccer is a well done game with outstanding graphics and excellent gameplay.

    For screenshots of these and other 3D accelerated games, visit our 3D Gaming section

    Quake Setup

    Pixel Doubled to 640 by 480 (Software)

    640 by 480 (Software)

    3Dfx Accelerated

    Frames Per Second

    37 fps

    16.9 fps

    37 fps

    Conclusion and Other…

    In conclusion, The Power3D is definitely a wonderful GAMING add-on. As I stated earlier, the Power3D can only do 3D acceleration in full screen, therefore you can’t use any 3D graphics programs with it. The closest Mac competitor is ATI’s Xclaim VR using the Rage Pro chipset, the Xclaim only do RAVE accelerated games but can do 3D in windows. More and more 3D accelerated games are coming out all the time now and I believe that 3D acceleration will become the norm in the Macintosh gaming world. So to end, if you’re a serious gamer, go for the Power3D!

    Other Resources for 3D Gaming

    You can check out the MGA’s own 3D Gaming section here or:

    You can go here for a complete list of 3D accelerated games

    Find one today

    The Power3D hasn’t been made for years, but used units still turn up for collectors restoring vintage Macs. Search for the Power3D 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.

  • Postal Mac Review (1997)

    Postal Mac Review (1997)

    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 September 1997 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

    Publisher Ripcord
    Tested on Unkown
    Gameplay 4 / 5 apples
    Graphics & Sound 4 / 5 apples
    Interface 3 / 5 apples
    Difficulty 4.5 / 5 apples
    Bugs 4 / 5 apples
    Overall 4 / 5 apples
    Reviewed by David Padula

    Before I even begin the review of the game Postal I must mention this little thing about it first. This game has a high level of violence and I wouldn’t recommend it for younger children.

    Well I have played the game Postal for about 1-2 weeks and I really do enjoy it. The game play is easy and the learning curve is pretty simple. The entire idea of the game is to kill at least 80% of those alive on the level. Once you do that you can go to the next level.

    The graphics on the game are nice. They aren’t rendered in 3D, which is good in my opinion, since then it would require a good deal more of yuor computer processing it and then even the lower end PowerMacs would have trouble running it. The game uses an above view and a 45 degree angle (if I recall it correctly).

    The objective in the MAIN part of the game is to kill everybody. It sounds just like the objective in Doom or Quake but this is slightly different. It seems that everybody is out to kill you. Why I am not sure since the game never really explains it. Even in the ending it isn’t really explained. The objective is to kill at least 80% of those on the level and then you cvan move on. The best part is that if you want you can kill everybody on the screen. Also a nice added bonus is that you can blow up canisters and gas tanks. They don’t just explode like in Quake and Doom but they also light on fire and burn for a bit.

    There are two problems I had with the game though.

    1. There was no opening movie or story that went along with the game. I didn’t like that myself since I am used to the games that give you a nice story so you have an idea what you are killing people for.

    2. The other thing that really annoyed me was that they supplied a program with the game to make your own levels. I personally was unable to get it to work right. It came with a small textfile giving very quick directions about the program and then it said that there was no support offered for it so don’t bother calling us. I found this really stupid to do. Why give a program to the users and then supply really poor directions on using it?

    Overall I did enjoy the game very much. I would highly recommend it to anybody that likes the type of game where you just run around and kill things. The weapons are nice, the graphics are good, the gameplay is nice, and the sounds are really funny and nice. I do think that this game shouldn’t be for those younger kids.

    Find a copy

    Postal 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 Postal 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.