by Dan Radmacher
                              

                              Pangea, $30. Requirements: 120MHz PowerPC 604e or 180MHz PowerPC
                              603e or better, ATI RAGE II or RAGE Pro chipset, 8MB RAM, System 7.5.3
                              or better. Contact Pangea at http://www.realtime.net/~pangea.
                              
                              Nanosaur is easy on the eye. Textured graphics, translucent effects,
                              convincing, clear water. The developers of this $30 charity-ware game put
                              a lot into making it look beautiful. Unfortunately, the gameplay can be quite
                              frustrating.
                              
                              You are a dinosaur from the future (brought to life through genetic
                              engineering used by humans who were subsequently wiped out by a plague).
                              In order to strengthen dinosaur society, you are being sent back in time to
                              retrieve eggs from five different species of dinosaurs before the asteroid
                              that wiped them out hits Earth.
                              
                              Being the advanced form of life you are, you won’t be relying simply on
                              brawn. You’ve got a blaster and a jet pack, plus ammunition and other
                              weapons left behind by predecessors who had failed the mission. You’ll be
                              facing an array of stupid, angry dinosaurs who, not realizing their all about
                              to die, really don’t want you stealing their eggs. You’ll go up against persis-
                              tent T-rexes, tough but slow stegosauruses, acid-spitting dilophosauruses,
                              dive-bombing pteranodons, and charging triceratops. Oh, and look out for
                              the hot lava. Just one more thing: That asteroid we mentioned before? It hits
                              in 20 minutes, so hurry.
                              
                              Your perspective is either from behind and above your dinosaur, or through
                              the dinosaur’s eyes. I found the top-down perspective easiest. You can con-
                              trol the dinosaur either from the keyboard (as far as I could tell, there’s no
                              way to change the control settings) or you can configure a joystick.
                              
                              Aside from the usual directional and fire controls, you can also make your
                              dinosaur do fairly impressive jumps (good for hopping over lava) and make
                              it pick up eggs. Unfortunately, getting in the appropriate place to pick up an
                              egg is a precision maneuver, not easy to accomplish with a T-rex bearing
                              down on you and a pteranodon tossing rocks at you.
                              
                              Nanosaur is pretty tough. The time-limit puts a lot of pressure on you, and
                              ammunition is limited. If your dinosaur dies, another one teleports in to
                              take its place, but it has only the ammunition it started with. Oh, and if you
                              die in a pool of lava, that’s what your replacement will teleport into.
                              
 






















                              The jet pack is a nice feature, but it has no fuel when you start. You have to
                              fill it up at steam vents located around the lava pools. This is also a
                              precision maneuver, and it’s hard to find un-harassed time to fill up.
                              
                              All this points out some problems in the logic of the story. Like, if you’re
                              time traveling back, why not go back, say a month before the asteroid hits
                              instead of 20 minutes? Why not supply yourself with plenty of ammunition
                              and jet-pack fuel before  you go?
                              
                              Well, because the game wouldn’t be much of a challenge then, would it?
                              
                              If Nanosaur weren’t charityware, this review might be less charitable.
                              While the graphics are commercial quality, the gameplay is not, really.
                              There’s no way to aim up or down, which means hitting the pteranodons is
                              almost impossible, unless you have some of the relatively rare heat-
                              seeking missiles (which don’t seem to track really well around the hot
                              lava). The dinosaur is overly responsive to commands, which makes
                              maneuvering to pick up an egg quite frustrating.
                              
                              Finally, the entire game lasts no longer than 20 minutes. After that, you’ve
                              got nothing but replay value — except for the terrain and level editor
                              Pangea just released, which I have not had an opportunity to try out.
                              
                              Nanosaur was my first opportunity to see the Rage II chip in my G3 in
                              action. The results are really something. The game is obviously a labor of
                              love for the developers. If this were a commercial release, I’d have more
                              complaints. But Nanosaur grows on you. It’s worth the download time, and
                              it’s worth making a donation to one of your favorite charities.
                              
                              
                              Highs:
                              • Stunning 3-D accelerated graphics
                              • Multitude of weapons
                              • Interesting terrain
                              • Great water effects
                              
                              Lows:
                              • Controls difficult for fine motor activities, such as picking up eggs or
                              refilling jet pack
                              • Limited gameplay (except if you take advantage of terrain editor)
                              • Can’t aim up or down