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Inside Mac Games Volume 6 #3
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IMG Volume 6, Issue 3
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TEXT_148.txt
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1998-06-12
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133 lines
  
 
 
 
 
 
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