Caesar III Demo Released!

From the web site:

As a provincial governor charged with spreading the glory of Rome, your mission is clear: build cities, foster trade and industry, and make money. How you accomplish this is entirely up to you. Gain wealth and power, make a career out of pleasing the emperor, battle Barbarians and repel invaders or concentrate on building the next Eternal City. Fail and you'll end up as lunch for the lions. Prove your strength of mind and spirit and you just may be crowned Caesar!

The final version of this polished and popular (on the PC side) game is due in early Summer. [Eilers] Screenshot 1, Screenshot 2

Caesar III Demo (19.5 MB)





E3 coverage at IMG
We've worked through the night and into the next morning for the last few days, bringing you what we think is the best and most complete coverage of E3. Stop by our E3 pages and check out each lovingly crafted article, each thrilling gallery of from-the-floor images, each tantalizing rumor and innuendo! (Can you tell the lack of sleep is getting to us?)

E3 Page One (Days Two and Three, Wrap-Up):

• MG Presents the "Best and Worst at E3" Awards
• Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 for Mac
• Info on Bungie's "Blam"
• Eidos Returning to Mac?
• Madden 2000, Looking Good!
• Act Labs Brings Mac RS and RS Shifter to Mac
• Prince of Persia 3D A Possibility
• The Sims On The Way?
• Settlers III Sighting and Notes
• More Observations on Bungie's Oni
• Intensor Chairs, Speakers Shake, Rattle and Rumble
• Shogo Coming to Mac
• Carmageddon: The Death Race 2000
• Saitek To Unveil More Mac Products
• Gravis Committed to Mac
• Other Tantalizing Tidbits
• More LucasArts News
• More LucasLearning Titles Coming to Mac

E3 Page Two (Previews, Day One)

• Giants: Citizen Kabuto Wows Us!
• Messiah Mac? Dear God, Please!
• Dragon's Lair 3D Coming to Mac
• LucasArts Shows Off Pod Racer, More to Come.
• Pharaoh Coming to Mac
• Pictures from Day Two at E3
• We Came, We Saw, We Drooled:
• Simon and Schuster show DS9: The Fallen and Deer Avenger 2
• Caesar III Demo Due Monday!
• Pictures from E3: Day One
• Command & Conquer 2 on the Mac?
• MacSoft Shows off Unreal Tournament
• Bungie Previews Oni
• Diablo II Mac Version Officially Announced
• Simon & Schuster's E3 Line-Up
• IMG's E3 Page Debuts





IMG Breaks Hits Record!
Yesterday marked IMG's busiest day; we had an incredible 200,000 hits. We served over 25,000 pages on Monday, and had well over 9,000 unique visitors. To top it off, we served an amazing 2.6 gigabytes of information. Wow!

That's the good news! The bad news is our service provider isn't too pleased with our rapid growth and increasing hits and we're actively looking for a new home with a faster pipeline. We think that's a good problem to have. Now, let's see if we can break some more records today, and tomorrow, and next week... [Deniz]





Descent OpenGL Released
Those of you without 3dfx hardware who have been eyeing the 3D-accelerated versions of Descent 1 and 2 created by Duane Johnson can now celebrate... Duane has released an OpenGL-compatible version! This means anyone with ATI hardware (we would assume Rage Pro or better) can now enjoy 3D accelerated Descent 1 and 2. Here's the word from Duane:

Well I finally got the OpenGL version of Descent 1/2 running well enough for release. There are still plenty of optimizations that I have planned but instead of making everyone wait, here it is <http://descent2.com/mac>. It's not as smooth as the 3Dfx version because I'm doing texture indexed color to RGB conversion on the fly instead of at level load time.

I don't have the cockpit overlay working yet & the HUD text is in Monoco instead of the Descent font. I've tested on an early release Rage128 PCI & iMac RagePro.

So what are you waiting for? Download it! You can try it with the demos if you don't own the actual games, or head to your local computer store and check the bargain bin; I found Descent 2 there for $9.00 a few weeks ago at CompUSA. [Eilers]

Descent I OpenGL (1.6 MB)

Decent II OpenGL (1.6 MB)

Apple's OpenGL 1.0 (4.3 MB)





Bleem! Released for PC
On 5/15/99, the long-anticipated PC Sony PlayStation emulator Bleem! was finally delivered via the net to the hands of hungry gamers. Having missed their promised ship date of 5/5/99 and with many "customers" already holding their Bleem! Key CDs, the 10-day delay was surely the longest 10 days in Bleem!'s short history. You can get the full scoop and the download the engine itself, providing you have your Key CD, from the Bleem! website.

IMG had the chance to chat with the folks at Bleem! while at E3 this past week. They seemed enthusiastic about Bleem! and although no date for the Mac version of Bleem! was given, they did indicate it was the next step once the PC version was released. [Kester]





IMG First Impressions of Bleem!
Does Bleem! make the cut? Even though it is a PC-only title currently, IMG wanted to see what all the hype was about, so we climbed on board and got ourselves a copy to try. This reporter was among the thousands who got onto the Bleem! list, both to see how well it performed and to foresee the future competition for Connectix's own Virtual Game Station as well. Now that we've had the chance now to try it for a few days, here's the skinny on the Bleem! PlayStation emulator.

The Key to Everything
The Key CD was the 1st annoyance that came up, since you need to insert the CD before you can run any games. This isn't too bad once Bleem! is actually running, since you just restart the emulator to change games and not Bleem! itself. Now, this wouldn't have been a problem, if Bleem! didn't find a dislike to some of the games we tried in it. Some games brought it to a grinding halt and some crashed the PC itself. However, to it's credit, Bleem! ran quite a few titles without too many problems.

We Didn't Want Sound Anyway
Sound was also a problem. It seems that Bleem! doesn't like the Sound Blaster Live! cards too well, which is strange due to the fact that these are one of the PC industry's top sound cards. There are controls to turn on and off several options in the sound settings that let you try to work around any problems you might have in that area. I ended up turning the sound off to fix the problems from this end. And as you might have guessed, it's not much fun to play games without sound. With VGS, we had only minor problems with sound, some minor clicking and delays as the CD was accessed.

Eye-candy
The 3D acceleration is where Bleem! really shines, taking advantage of your PC's 3D hardware to clean up the existing on-screen visuals. Games like Gran Turismo and Tekken 3 looked stunning, easily toppling Virtual Game Station's software-only emulation especially at resolution's of 1024x768 or higher where the 3D is allowed to work its own magic. However, many titles that we tried wouldn't run under 3D hardware mode, where as they would under the less visually stunning software mode.

The Sum of its Parts
Overall, IMG feels that while Bleem! does have it's problems, as it matures and eventually reaches the Mac, we could have a real winner in the Playstation emulator arena. We are confident that the fixes to come will overcome the incompatibilities and make a more solid product. And given the Mac's more simplified set of hardware variations in the iMacs and new G3 towers, we can see how much easier it would be to set-up in the first place.


For Your Information: IMG ran Connectix VGS on a 400mhz Blue G3, and Bleem! on a P2 400 with a RivaTNT 1 card and a Sound Blaster Live! [Kester]





Bungie Has Action Sack in the Works
Bungie has an interesting plan to hook iMac buyers on their products from day one... The Bungie Action Sack is a burlap sack with six Bungie titles inside: Minotaur, Abuse, Pathways to Darkness, and the complete Marathon trilogy. It seems bungie thinks that a first-time buyer of an iMac will consider it a no-brainer to get six games for the low price of $19. A fiendish plot to twist the minds of men, if we've ever seen one! [Eilers]





IMG Shareware Spotlight
This week, our spotlight illuminates three excellent pieces of shareware. The first is Bubblomania, created by Jochen De Schepper. Like all great games, it has a simple premise: All the player need do is move the needle back and forth to pop bubbles which float unpredictably to the top of the screen. The challenge comes from knowing which bubbles to pop. Also featured this week is Addiction Interactive's Manic Minefields. The game takes the gameplay of Minesweeper and gives it a fresh look, along with some smart, stinging humor. Different graphical themes are available to choose from as well. Rounding out the week's selection is Connect4, an eMailware conversion of the classic board game. Different board sizes, variable rules, and vicious computer AI come in the package.

Shareware authors: Want free publicity? e-mail Dan Daranciang at dan@imgmagazine.com with the details of your latest masterpiece. The spotlight is wheeled out every week.

Also, yesterday an intrepid IMG reader asked us if we knew of a bridge game for the Mac, and to our surprise, we weren't able to find one. Anyone out there know of such a program? If so, please forward us an URL for download. It would be greatly appreciated. [Daranciang]





Mac-O-Rama Has Yet Another Sale!
Don't these guys ever run out of excuses to have a sale? Hey, wait, we're not complaining!

From the press release:

In a galaxy not so far away... MAC-O-RAMA is having another out-of-this-world contest! Win cool Star Wars Episode 1 stuff! Prizes include figures, furniture, candy and more! Everyone wants to play, so we have extended the giveaway and are giving you more chances to win... but hurry, there is only one week left to enter! And while you're here, we've got these great games at nice, low prices...

Afterlife $10
America’s Greatest Arcade Hits 3D $19
Connectix Virtual Game Station $39
Dark Colony $17
Day of the Tentacle $10
Full Throttle $10
Mortimer $10
Postal: Special Delivery $13
SimAnt (Jewel case) $11
SimFarm (Jewel case) $11
Starcraft $35
X-Wing Collector’s Edition (Jewel case) $10

And get FREE Priority Mail shipping (in the US) on these great titles:

Havoc $11
Railroad Tycoon 2 $48
Starship Titanic $40

There are two easy ways to win cool Episode 1 toys! Any purchase made from May 10 through May 21 will automatically be entered in the drawing. Or if you are a little short of cash, just visit MAC-O-RAMA at <http://www.mac-o-rama.com> to enter!

Contest starts May 10, 1999 and ends May 21, 1999.

Well, you head them... Yet another contest, and even more prizes. Head on over to Mac-O-Rama to win great stuff and support Mac games by buying some of them! [Eilers]