 Quake 3: Arena Test for Macintosh Released!
John Carmack's hotly anticipated Quake 3: Arena has already been declared game of the year in many circles. The preview movies have been enticing, the technology involved is dazzling, and Carmack's surprise speech at the last Macworld Expo extolling its virtues was received with awe by all.
And now, the test version of the game is here! Sent out free of charge, Q3A promises to be one of the most downloaded items in history. A high-end Mac with a Rage Pro or Rage 128 is required, as well as Apple's OpenGL drivers.
As soon as your download is complete, plug into the following servers:
192.246.40.37:27960
192.246.40.37:27961
192.246.40.37:27962
What in the bloody hell are you waiting for?! Go now! [Daranciang]
 Quake 3: Arena Test (21.4 MB)
Q3A Test Mirror 1
Q3A Test Mirror 2
Apple OpenGL Drivers (6.8 MB)
 Yesterday's Breaking News Recap
For those of you who missed yesterday's news, three major announcements were made: Half-Life is coming to the Mac, ported by Logicware and published by Sierra; Madden NFL 2000 (yes, it is a sports game!) is being ported by Westlake Interactive and published by Aspyr Media; and Diablo II for the Mac was confirmed by Blizzard Entertainment. We love this news so much we just had to tell you about it twice!
For those who don't know about Half-Life, this is an award-winning first-person shooter with highly acclaimed AI and realistic environments. Set in a future time deep underground in a secret government lab, you play a scientist who survives an experiment gone wrong. A portal has been created through space and time, and horrible things are coming through and eating everyone they find! You not only have to battle these freakish beasts (some of whom travel in hunting packs and cooperate in battle) but your own government is trying to kill you as well... For more info check out Sierra's official page for this title.
Madden NFL 2000 is the sequel to the best-selling Madden NFL 99 from Electronic Arts. Acclaimed for its high-resolution graphics, realistic detail and announcing by John Madden himself, Madden 99 was a hit; Madden 2000 promises more of the same, only better!
And of course Diablo II is the sequel to the award-winning real-time RPG Diablo. This sequel adds two characters (the Amazon and the Paladin) as well as hundreds of new weapons, spells, 16-bit graphics and spectacular lighting effects. The Mac version won't begin until the PC version is complete, so expect a delay, and we don't know for certain but it seems likely that Future Point will be doing the conversion (they ported all previous Blizzard titles to the Mac OS.) [Eilers]
 Mac Half-Life ported by Antennahead's Andrew Meggs
Well, Mac gamers got a double-shot of good news when they found out Half-Life was coming to the Mac: not only do we get Half-Life (Yes! We get to play Half-Life!) but the person porting it to our platform is none other than Mac shareware author Andrew Meggs. You might remember Andrew was the author of the Screaming Cabala graphics engine, used in his surreal game Shatterbat; you also might remember Sanctity, a long-promised project featuring real-time combat with dozens of vehicles in a 3D landscape—Andrew was the lead programmer for this project as well, though it sadly never came to fruition. Well, now Andrew works for Logicware. In the interest of keeping gamers informed about the project, he sent us the following short FAQ:
Q. When's it [Half-Life for Mac] going to be released already???
A. The golden master is due at Sierra on November 15 to be in your hands in time for Christmas. I'm going for a somewhat accelerated development schedule, though, so hopefully I'll be done by mid-September.
Q. Why so long?
A. For various contractual reasons (games4mac take note!) work on the port did not begin until April 1. Also, consider the pedigree of Valve -- most of their engineers came from Microsoft, and consequently their code is very Windows-centric. Significant sections of the code are so closely tied to Windows (and MFC) that it's easier to rewrite them from scratch than attempt to convert them over to another OS. Once I'm over that hurdle, things should go much faster since I'll be working with id's Quake engine code which has already been ported to everything in existence.
Q. Who's behind all of this?
A. Valve is the original PC developer. Sierra, the original publisher of Half-Life for PC, is also publishing the Mac version. I've seen in the press, but not heard directly from them, that they're getting back into the Mac market in a big way. The port itself is being handled through Logicware, my new employer. (My contact address remains insect@antennahead.com, however.) Internally, I'm basically the man on this one -- no one else is working on Half-Life and I'm not working on anything else, so you know who to talk to.
Q. Can I be a beta tester?
A. I believe Sierra will be handling the QA internally.
Q. Where and how can I get the latest updates?
A. I've been keeping a development journal for another project at http://www.antennahead.com/nightwings/ and I'll probably include Half-Life info there as well. I have a .plan file that you can finger at andrew@logicware.com. I haven't begun using that but I probably will. Or, the best and fastest way to make sure you don't miss anything would be to get on a little mailinglist I set up over at ONElist. This is a one-way announcement list that'll probably get at most one or two posts a week. To subscribe, point your browser at http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/hl-mac-news.
Q. What machines will be supported?
A. Everything with a G3 (including the iMacs) will be supported one way or another. Earlier G3 machines with Rage II chips will probably have to use the software renderer. Faster 603- and 604-based PowerMacs will probably be OK, and almost certainly if they have a Rage Pro or better 3D card, but I can't say what the final performance will be until the game is final.
Q. What 3D cards will be supported?
A. The port will support OpenGL. Graphics cards that support OpenGL will be supported. Graphics cards that don't, won't. Right now that means 3D acceleration on the ATI Rage Pro and Rage 128 chips. Technically speaking, OpenGL is also accelerated on the ATI Rage II chips, but I don't think it has enough texture memory to handle Half-Life, and in any case the software renderer will almost certainly be faster than a Rage II on machines with enough CPU power to run the game. If you have another 3D card (like a Voodoo), all you can do is try contacting your vendor to suggest they provide an OpenGL driver. Apple has stated that drivers are the responsibility of each card vendor, so I wouldn't hold out too much hope of direct support in Apple's OpenGL.
Q. Doesn't Apple's OpenGL only run on new G3 systems?
A. Beta 1 of Apple's OpenGL implementation is only "officially supported" on a few Mac models. At this stage in the beta cycle they simply haven't done full compatibility testing on their entire line of systems. I can personally say that it works quite well on my 9600/200MP with a Rage Pro, so I expect that the list of supported systems will be larger once it goes through final QA. Of course, only time will tell.
Q. Will Team Fortress Classic be supported? What about TF2?
A. Half-Life uses compiled DLL files for their mods rather than a scripting language, so mods themselves can't just be copied over; they have to be ported as well. I'll intend to at least play with porting TFC internally to test the support for loading other mods, but whether or not a fully tested and supported Mac version of that mod sees the light of day is something that will have to be determined between Sierra, Valve, and Logicware. Valve's upcoming Team Fortress 2 will be a totally new game based on a new engine, so that will be a separate porting project.
Q. What about Nightwings?
A. As some of you know, I was working on a 2D retro-shooter called Nightwings (more info at http://www.antennahead.com/nightwings/) and work on that has been very, very quiet for the last two months. I've been very busy with the job change, the cross-country move, and then working on Half-Life, but that project hasn't been canceled by any means, just delayed. Right now all of my own hardware is on loan to Logicware until the machines I'm supposed to have to work on Half-Life arrive, so I haven't been able to do a whole lot outside of my "day job", but once that's worked out I'll be back in action.
September seems a very long wait, especially with Quake III: Area, Unreal Tournament and many other such games on the horizon, but Andrew can't be blamed for the delay. Watch his web site for progress updates, and start counting down the days before we can play this award-winning title on our Macs! [Eilers]
Aliens Vs Predator Trailer Released
A large trailer for this upcoming game has been released on the Aliens Vs Predator website. Also being ported to Macintosh by Logicware, this title (while still sketchy on the details) seems unique in several ways; most notably you can choose to play as a Marine, a Predator or an Alien. The game should be available shortly after the PC release, according to head programmer 'Burger.' Note that this trailer requires Quicktime 3 (not 4, though we assume that would work also.) [Eilers]
ftp://ftp.stomped.com/pub/avp/avptrailer.zip
MGA Moves to www.mac-gaming.com
In a move that seems destined to prompt some litigation, the website Mac Gaming Alliance has moved to a new URL, http://www.mac-gaming.com. Here is the text of their announcement:
After close to three years operation, the Mac Gaming Alliance has finally
moved to it's own domain name at http://www.mac-gaming.com/
To celebrate this special occasion, we are holding a game giveaway of
Blizzard's latest Macintosh offering, Starcraft.
This contest starts tomorrow, April 23, and will run until May 15.
Be sure to read some of our latest review of titles like Starcraft and
Klingon Honor Guard.
While the folks at MacGaming.com may be none too pleased, we'd like to welcome the MGA to its new home. [Eilers]
Vote for the 'Golden Bastards'
Hollywood has the Oscars; the music industry has the Grammys; what does the gaming industry have?
The 'Golden Bastards.'
Well, WE didn't make that one up. It seems a website by the colorful name of 'Space Bastards' has come up with some awards to be presented at this year's E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) which is less than a month away. They have a page where you can vote in various silly categories such as 'Most Gratuitous Use of FMV (Full-Motion Video)' and 'Worst Game Ever.' The voting seems heavily skewed towards UK companies (Space bastards is a UK software company) but the ballot is write-in, so stop by and put some of our Yank publishing houses on the charts!
The Space Bastards published a title called 'Robosaurs vs the Space Bastards' which they are selling for the PC at the handsome price of 10 pounds UK. A warning to those who are tempted to view the rest of the 'Space Bastards' website: you'll come across some adult language and images. [Eilers]
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