Anyone Remember Glider?
     Glider. . .  Remember that classic shareware game for the Mac where you were a paper airplane gliding through a house full of hazards?  The only controls where forward and backward; move over a vent and the air pushes you up, move away from the vent and you gradually start to descend as you fly your way to the next vent.  It was one of the original black & white shareware games back from the days of the Mac Plus that can probably be found on nearly every local BBS from here to Timbuktu.  Well guess what, not only has it been upgraded to color (woah, about time, eh?), but it has been commercialized.
 









     Glider Pro, as it is now called, has been upgraded, colorized, and given a serious sound rehabilitation.  It works smoothly and simply, capturing one of the main reasons why it became one of the classic shareware games of all time.  Miscellaneous sounds have been replaced with full fledged musical scores, instructions covering how to fly the paper airplane are now part of the background scenery in each room (quite handy), and the graphics are truly enjoyable (occasionally even mildly impressive).
     Now for the true magic.  Glider, the original shareware program (I went back and downloaded it for old time's sake) is a 162K program.  Glider Pro, the demo version, is, get this 3.8 megs.  WHAT!?!  (Say it again out loud, like a scream, "WHAT?!?")  3.8 megabytes for a demo that is easily mastered and over after the first dozen or so screens.  I cannot possibly imagine what makes this such a memory-monger, except maybe the musical scores.  Whatever the reason, I am sure that some users will be downright horrified to see how much space the game takes up (especially since, compacted, Glider Pro is 1.9 megs - download it, decompress, and SURPRISE).
     Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying avoid it at all costs.  It's great to see a classic game like Glider keeping pace with the changes in the evolution of Macintosh computers.  Very, very few of the older black and white shareware programs made it past the conversion to color that hit the Mac community years back.  Glider apparently did and it is an achievement that the author should be proud of.
     But 3.9 megs, the number just keeps rolling around in my head, 3.9 megabytes.  It's a lot of space for the Mac user mindful of space.  It's also a lot of space for a game whose end I reached after 20 minutes of play (it almost took longer to download than to master).  Admittedly, this version is only a demo version, but if the demo is 3.9 megs, how big will the full version be?  For those looking to remember the good old days, download it and give it a wing!  But Glider Pro is not recommended for those looking for a good, hours-worth-of-play shareware game.  Please note, this is not intended to be a "bad review" - it is actually a good review with a note of caution to those for whom disk space may be a problem.
                                                                                                - a. anderson