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Inside Mac Games Volume 6 #3
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IMG Volume 6, Issue 3
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1998-06-12
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by Glenn Goldberg
Macsoft, $49. Requirements: PowerPC, 12MB RAM, System 7.5.3, CD-ROM.
Contact Macsoft at http://www.wizworks.com/macsoft.
Have you saved the universe lately?
With that question, you are launched into the adventure of a lifetime. The
year is 2178. It has been 20 years since you destroyed the Sa-Matra at the
end of Star Control 2. Hyperspace has collapsed and all the sentient beings of
the galaxy are cut off from each other. Using an ancient vessel that does not
use hyperspace, you have convinced a group of aliens to join you on a trip to
the center of the galaxy where you hope to find out why the universe seems to
be following hyperspace into oblivion. You fire up your warp bubble engines
and...
Star Control 3 (SC3) is the third in Accolade’s intergalactic strategy and
battle series, and the first to be ported to the Mac. In Star Control 1 you had
to fight off the Ur-Quan; while in Star Control 2, you had to save the Earth
form the Evil Hierarchy. The nice thing about the series is that you don’t
have to play the others to get into SC3. The manual has a decent two page
introduction that brings you up to date.
The SC3 manual is 56 pages long and for such a complex game it seems a bit
light. There is some great background information about the Star Control
universe but that is a problem. Granted, the information is interesting, and
in some cases important, but it should not take the place of instructions. The
space in the manual could have been better used for information about game
play. There were some serious omissions, such as how to get from the
adventure module to the battle section of the game. It took me a few minutes
to figure it out.
There is some important information in the manual so take some time in
browsing through it. The alien species section is important and so is the ship
data section.
Installation is a snap. Double click on the installer and tell the program
where you want SC3 put. That is it. There are two installation options;
minimum and standard. If you choose minimum, the program only takes up
about five MB of space but unless you have a very fast machine, don’t even
think about picking this. The standard install takes up about 62MB on your
hard drive but it runs much faster and smoother.
Star Control is a port from the PC and unfortunately this is quite obvious.
There are NO Macintosh friendly menus and no dialog boxes for save or load
data. This is very disappointing, especially coming from MacSoft. It is little
touches like these that Macintosh players notice and appreciate.
 
SC3 opens with a main menu where you can pick from five options: Hyper-
Melee, Start a new game, Load a saved game, See the credits, and Quit.
Hyper-Melee is just the battle portion of the game. Hyper-Melee allows you
to put together a fleet of ships and go head to head with a computer-
controlled fleet or a fleet controlled by another human.
Choosing from 25 different ships, the players put together fleets using a
point system (large ships cost more points than small ones). This allows two
human players of different skill levels to fight fairly (the weaker player
getting more points). If you are playing against the computer, it will choose
a fleet of roughly the same strength.
After you have finished configuring your fleets, you choose your first ship
and are thrust into the battle arena. The arena is an area of space (your
monitor), usually with a planet in it, that connects from top of the screen to
bottom and from the left side of the screen to the right. This area of space can
be shown as either a flat overhead view or at a 45 degree angle. The
isometric view is pretty but is not necessary.
A disconcerting feature of the battle mode is the auto-zoom. As the ships get
farther apart, the game zooms out so both ships stay on the screen. This gets
a difficult to watch after a while. As the ships move in and out the scale
changes making it difficult to get good aim at your enemy. You get used to this
but it takes a while. If this scrolling gets too difficult to watch, pressing F9
locks the screen on a center point and the game zooms in and out on that
point.
 
Maneuvering the ships involves the keyboard or a joystick, if you have one.
Each ship has a primary weapon and a secondary ability that does various
things. Some ships have point defense weaponry while others can launch
fighters. This is where the ship data section of the manual comes in handy.
Knowing what each ship can do can be a formidable advantage.
To keep track of your ship, use the panel in the upper left hand corner of the
screen (the enemy ship is in the upper right hand corner). This panel
shows the amount of crew left in the ship and the amount of hull the ship has.
If either of these drop to zero, your ship is destroyed. Different weapons do
different types of damage, so you must keep this in mind when you pick your
ships.
One note: the computer is a coward. If your ship outguns the ship the
computer has picked for the battle, the computer will run away. If this
happens, there is an aggressive attack button which causes the computer
controlled ship to turn and attack for a short while. This can save a great deal
of time during long dogfights.
Although the Hyper-Melee is fun, the bulk of SC3 is in the adventure game.
This is the part where you take on the role of the all wise “Captain” in an
effort to unite the galaxy and solve the mystery of the collapsing universe.
The adventure game opens with a five minute movie to bring you up to date
with what has gone before. The movie looks ok but dropped frames all over
the place. Granted, I ran SC3 on a Power Mac 7100/66, but even Fallout,
which requires an 80MHz processor, didn’t jump that much.
After the movie, you will find yourself in a planetary system. This is where
the fun begins. Down the left side of the screen you have the common game
controls. These are the controls that are useful in every screen of the game.
They are: Quadrant View, System View, Orbit Controls, Colony Controls, and
Options. As you use these other views, buttons will appear on the upper left
hand side of the screen. These controls are specialized for each screen.
On the lower right side of the screen is the game clock. Remember, you are
racing against the destruction of the universe so every minute counts. You
can adjust how fast time passes by clicking on the clock and moving the
slider either left or right.
 
 
The quadrant view is where you make you make your navigation decisions. In
the center of the screen is a “3D” star field that rotates around a center
point to show the orientation of the different star systems. Click on this
window and your fuel circles appear. These show the distance your ship can
travel, both one-way and round-trip.
The quadrant specific controls include; rotate (to move the stars around),
names (gives either the full names of the systems or descriptive names of
the systems), a name filter, and four display icons. The name filter is an
ingenious invention. You type the first few letters of the system you want to
visit and the main screen shows you where the system is. There are over 80
star systems in the SC3 universe so the filter is a handy little device.
The system view splits the screen into three windows. The system window
(the upper half of the screen) shows the planets in the system. The fleet
window (the lower right portion of the screen) shows what ships are in your
fleet. The system radar shows the planets and, more importantly, any other
fleets that may be in the vicinity.
Once you are at a planet, your options will depend on whether or not the
planet already has a colony on it. If the planet is barren you can build a
colony on it. This is done from the orbit screen.
The top of the orbit screen is a graphic representation of your ship and the
fleet. The top row shows resource units, fuel, colony pods, ICOM (I’ll get to
ICOM in a minute), and any items you may have. The next row are pictures of
all the races and how many of each are in your colony ship. The last two rows
are for the fleet, showing the ships and how many aliens each ship is
holding.The bottom half of the orbit screen is a sensor scan of the planet.
The resource, fuel, and race icons at the top of the screen are also used to
transfer these articles from the ship to the surface and vice versa. Click on
the icon and use the slider to move items to and from the surface of the planet
(very non-Mac).
ICOM (InterCOnferencing and Monitoring system) is your ship’s computer (
think of H.A.L. from 2001). Consult ICOM frequently because it is the online
hint machine. ICOM will tell you what you need to do next. I did not consult
ICOM enough and an intergalactic war broke out before I could complete
enough of my quest.
The colony screen is where you decide what the colony will produce. When
you first build a colony, only a mine and a factory are produced. The factory
then begins using ore to create other structures until the colony is complete,
then the factory shuts down. The colonists know what is needed so the factory
runs automatically. If you want a research station right away, tough, you
have to wait until one is built. This adds to the wait time at the beginning of
the game.
On the upper right side of the colony screen are the colony status icons. They
show the colony population, the ore units you the colony has, the resource
units the colony has, the factory progress, the progress of the ship builders,
and the progress of any artifact research. Strangely enough, even though the
population and resource icons look exactly like the icons on the orbit screen,
you cannot use them to transfer resource units or population to and from the
ship. It would make sense to be able to do those activities on this screen but
that isn’t the case.
The graphics and sound are adequate except in two areas; the dialogue screens
and the battle mode. In the isometric view of the battle mode, the graphics
are quite nice. The ships have a lot of detail and sounds are pretty good.
SC3 really shines in the dialogue screens. The graphics are, for the most
part, a pleasure to look at. Most of the races seem to be animatronic puppets
and these look very good. There are a few races, such as the Daktak, where
it’s obvious that they’re just bitmapped graphics and are not quite as sharp
looking.
 
The vocal talent should be congratulated for doing a superb job with the
voices. The voices sound exactly the way you would expect them to sound. The
Spathi sound like the whiny cowards they are (imagine if you crossed Nathan
Lane, Jerry Lewis, and Woody Allen). It’s wonderful to listen to. The
dialogue also seems well thought out and adds immeasurably to the enjoyment
of the game.
SC3 loses major points for it’s decidedly non-Macintosh interface and
clumsy implementation of the control screens. Accolade could have made a
few minor changes which would have added a great deal to the enjoyment of
the game and it’s ease of use.
With an engaging plot and interesting characters, SC3 had the makings of a
tremendous Sci-Fi adventure. Unfortunately the game takes too long to get
interesting. There is too much time at the beginning of the game spent
waiting for things to happen and then reacting to them. You tend to lose
interest. If, however, you have the patience to ride out the slow early game,
SC3 becomes a fun romp to save the universe.
Highs:
• Good story.
• Intriguing characters.
• Decent graphics.
• Great vocal talents.
Lows:
• Very non-Mac interface.
• Slow to get into the game.
• Some icons don’t do what they should.
 
