Tag: Simulation Games

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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 1999 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 G3 233 130 RAM (VM on)
Overall	2 / 5 apples
Reviewed by	Marty Dodge

Rocky Mountain Trophy Hunter, with even more locations to shoot virtual game, is the follow-up to blindingly dull Deer Hunter. (The game not the movie.) Macsoft claims that the original is a top five selling game for the Mac. Quickly following the release of DH, this just in time for Christmas sequel, promises more guns and more types of game to track and hunt. Included with the game is an insert with all of the hunting and fishing titles published by Wizworks, presumably all of these games, including Deer Hunter II will make it to the Mac if DH and TH do well.

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Trophy Hunter: Interactive Big Game Hunting, has got to be the second dullest game ever created for any platform (Deer Hunter being the first). The point of this game is to track and shoot big game. You can use a rifle, shotgun, bow, muzzle-loader or six shot revolver to kill big horn sheep, bear elk and moose. The practice area is now included in the hunting screen, so you can practice your aim, with any of the weapons featured. There is a constant chatter from a coach who compliments or criticizes your aim. Of course being on a computer there is no feedback from the weapon. There is no feel for the kick of the pistol or shotgun nor is there the feeling of release when the arrows leaves the bow. Maybe Deer Hunter II should be a candidate for “force feedback” add-ons.

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The only realism in this game is the long wait for an animal to come into your sights. You can help yourself with the aid of a call, bait and musk. There is also a choice of using a stand to sit on and. If the rifle scope is not enough for you, there are binoculars and a spotting scope to help you find prey. In addition to the “Tools of the Trade” the aerial maps contain hot spots, a compass and wind indicator, and things like tracks, markings, blood trails and rubbing areas. When and if you hit anything it is recorded in a Trophy Room, with the head of an animal and a description.

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The graphics are basic although if you are unlucky you can encounter climate and extreme weather, the sounds are basic, if accurate. Because the game is so basic and simple the requirements are pretty low. PowerMac, OS 7.1, 16 RAM, color monitor and 80 MHz or faster. As with Deer Hunter, the low requirements and lack of high-tech graphics mean there are no obvious bugs.

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One good thing about this otherwise dullard of a game is the fact that some of the proceeds of the game will be donated to Wildlife Forever, an organisation dedicated to maintaining America’s wildlife heritage, a noble cause indeed.

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Find a copy

Rocky Mountain Trophy Hunter 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 Rocky Mountain Trophy Hunter 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.

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 August 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/32 mb RAM
Gameplay	5 / 5 apples
Graphics & Sound	3.5 / 5 apples
Interface	4 / 5 apples
Difficulty	4 / 5 apples
Bugs	4 / 5 apples
Overall	4 / 5 apples
Reviewed by	Jonathan Dreyer

When Deer Hunter was announced for the Mac by MacSoft it caused a bit of a stir in the Mac gaming community, some people even thought it was a joke. I know I thought “a Hunting simulation?!, they’ve got to be kidding!”, but after playing it I understood why it was a best-seller on the “other” side before coming to the Mac. Deer Hunter is a fun, enjoyable, and not to mention addicting game.

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Gameplay

Deer Hunter is a surprisingly simple game to learn yet very difficult to master. When you go hunting you have a choice between three weapons, a Rifle with scope, a 4-Shot Shotgun, and a Compound Bow. After you choose your preferred weapon you should go to the shooting range to practice before heading out on the hunt. Before you can go out hunting you have to decide on three options, whether you want to use a tree stand and hunt from in a tree, whether or not you wish to use an attracting scent, and whether or not you would like to use a cover scent to mask your bodily odors. When just starting out I recommended that you use all 3 options to lower the difficulty of bagging a deer, once you get more experienced the real fun comes from hunting without those aforementioned hunting peripherals. Once you have geared up for the hunt you can choose between 3 different areas to hunt from, an Indiana winter land, Colorado Alpine forests, and Arkansas autumn woodlands. Each area has it’s own advantages and disadvantages, my personal favorite being the Indiana winter land as it seems to have the large bucks. While hunting you have a deer call, an antler rattle, and binoculars to aid you. As soon as a buck comes into view you have to aim quickly and hope your first shot is good because you most likely won’t get another one.

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Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Deer Hunter are life like, although not as detailed as I would have hoped. The backgrounds reuse the same five or six trees and bushes over and over again. The grounds itself looks like a jpeg graphic that was tiled over the entire hunting area. The Deer, while graphically the most realistic part of the game, seemed to move very jerky and unnaturally. Overall the graphics are decent although somewhat mediocre in parts, you get what you pay for in this bargain priced twenty-dollar title.

The sound of the forests in Deer Hunter are very life-like and realistic, you could almost close your eyes and imagine actually outside in a forest hunting deer. I quickly became annoyed with the hunter’s comments though, he only has a few different parts to say but he never seems to stop saying them, he says them over and over and over.

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Difficulty

Deer Hunter has no difficulty level per-say, but by utilizing the options of tree stand, attracting scent, and cover scent, you can greatly change the difficulty of the hunt. The problem with that is that the hunt then become either easy or hard, there is no medium difficulty. There are cheat codes for Deer Hunter but I won’t post them here because this is game I don’t believe anyone should cheat in as it completely takes the fun away.

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Conclusion

In Conclusion, Deer Hunter, although an unusual game these days, is unbelievably fun and amazingly addicting. Once you start playing Deer Hunter you want to keep on playing, always in search of the seemingly impossible to find 15 point size buck.

I recommend this cheap bargain title to just about everybody except animal rights supporters. You should defiantly check this game out.

Find a copy

Deer Hunter 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 Deer Hunter 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.

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 August 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/32 mb RAM
Gameplay	3 / 5 apples
Graphics & Sound	4 / 5 apples
Interface	3.5 / 5 apples
Difficulty	2.5 / 5 apples
Bugs	4 / 5 apples
Overall	3.5 / 5 apples
Reviewed by	Jonathan Dreyer

Real Pool is one of MacSoft’s product that isn’t just aimed at the hard-core gamer. Real Pool contains all the elements that should make it a very fun game to play, but instead I found it average and at time mediocre. Real Pool does offer enjoyable variety and a lot of bang for your buck at it’s cheap suggested price tag of $29.99

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Gameplay

Real Pool offers you 6 different Pool games to test your skills at: 8-Ball, 9-Ball, Straight, Rotation, Carom (Spanish) Billiards, and Bumper Pool. When I sat down to play the only Pool Game I really knew how to play was 8-Ball, now I know how to play all 6 different games.

• 8-Ball: You must pocket all of your balls either solids or stripes. After you have pocketed all of your balls you must then pocket the 8-ball to win the game.
• 9-Ball: The cue ball must always strike the lowest-numbered ball on the table before striking any other balls, but you may use the lowest ball to pocket any other ball on the table. You win by pocketing the nine ball with a legal shot.
• Straight: Pocket Balls, one at a time, in any order to score points. The first player to reach 150 points wins.
• Rotation: Pocket Balls to score more points than your opponent. Each ball’s value in terms of points corresponds to it’s number. The first player to reach 61 points wins.
• Carom Billiards: Score points by striking both the red ball and the other player’s cue ball with your own cure ball. First player to 30 points wins.
• Bumper Pool: Pocket your 5 balls before your opponent pockets their’s.

Real Pool advertises “realistic physics”, I found the physics of the game to be on the most part realistic until it came to the actual sinking of the ball, I found that the pockets were rather “loose” in letting shots in, about half the shots sunk wouldn’t have gone in in real life.

Real Pool also supports the obligatory Multiplayer option, allowing people to play against each other on the same computer or over the internet. I tried the multiplayer option a few times but found that I preferred the variety of different computer opponents.

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Graphics and Sound

Real Pool does live up to it’s claim of 3D photo-realistic graphics. As you can see in the screen shots, in graphical terms this is the most realistic pool game I’ve ever seen. One word of warning, on slower Power Macs the graphics can really slow down the game requiring you to switch to the lower graphics setting which makes the balls look very blocky and pixilated.

I had some problem’s with the music in RP. At times the music became very annoying and often distracting, but turning off the music made the game seem sort of eerie and weird.

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Difficulty

Real Pool has great variety in it’s difficulty by allowing you to choose from many different opponents. Each opponent has different skills and favors different shots. No two opponents are alike. You have never truly mastered a game until you have played and beaten all of the opponents.

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Conclusion

In Conclusion, Real Pool is the best pool simulator available for the Macintosh, although that’s not saying much because it’s only competitors are MacPlay’s Virtual Pool and a few shareware games.

If want to play pool on your computer this game is for you because nothing else out there can match it in terms of variety and features.

Find a copy

Real Pool 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 Real Pool 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.