Dear IMG: I think the Free Preview edition of Inside Mac Games would be a great addition to the monthly Nautilus CD-ROM. Have you considered calling them to see if they would put it on Nautilus? Bill Dwyer - Chicago, Illinois
- Yes, in fact, they called us. The Free Preview edition of Inside Mac Games will be available monthly on Nautilus. Nautilus is a monthly CD-ROM magazine full of great articles and the latest shareware. Call (800) 637-3472 for subscription information. —TD
ADB Problems
Dear IMG: I have a question about the Gravis MouseStick that was not addressed in your review of the product. I use a Teleport Bronze modem, and I'm afraid that adding another device to my ADB port (I have a Macintosh IIsi, which has only one of those) may be too much for its power supply. Any ideas on that? Joao Costa - New Haven, Connecticut
- According to Ron Haidenger of Advanced Gravis, the MouseStick has an ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) power requirement of 85 mA (milliamperes) and the Gravis Mac GamePad less than 10 mA. A mouse will typically require from 40 – 80 mA, a standard keyboard about 25 mA , and an extended keyboard about 80 mA. You should consult the "Special Features" manual that came with your Macintosh to determine the requirements of your keyboard and mouse as well as the specification for the maximum power draw for all ADB devices on your Macintosh model.
Some Macintosh documentation also suggests a limit of three devices per ADB port. This is stated to be due to possible performance degradation with high amounts of ADB data traffic. Ron says that he has have experimented with up to 7 ADB devices on a single port (including a Global Village ADB modem) with no indication of performance problems. Needless to say that if you do stray beyond Apple's specifications, you are doing so at your own risk, and you may also violate your Apple warranty if still in effect.
A third consideration with ADB devices is the total length of the device's cables. Apple specifies that the combined length of all [ADB] cables should not exceed 16 ft. (5 m).
—TD
Baseball Games for the Mac?
Dear IMG: I was wondering if you have reviewed any Baseball Games for the Mac. I am trying to find out which is the best for the Mac. I have Hardball II which I think is great, but I am curious about the others. Please let me know what you think! Roy Bee - via America Online
- Baseball games for the Mac have never received much attention; unfortunately most of them don't deserve any. Besides the aforementioned Hardball II, Earl Weaver baseball is the only title that comes to mind. The game play in Earl Weaver is in a word — boring, however the statistical features are strong. EW baseball will also only work in B&W and fails to load on most newer Macs running System 7. I'm afraid we haven't heard of any other baseball titles in the works thus far. —JB
Missing IMG Disk
Dear IMG: I have a disk subscription of IMG which I am extremely happy with. Unfortunately, my MAY 93 version seems to have disappeared as it never arrived at my place (perhaps US Mail had it in for me as an Australian?). The previous disks (April, Feb, March) arrived fine, and yesterday I received June, which brought the absence of May to my notice. Michael Graf - Killara , Australia
- We apologize if an issue we sent didn't arrive. It's quite a long way down under, so it's not surprising a disk went astray. If you contact us through normal channels, either by E-mail or US mail, we'll be happy to rush you out a replacement. —JB
PC, or not PC?
Dear IMG: Thanks for the positive review of Lunicus in the June 1993 Issue IMG. I was, however, amazed at the allegations of racism made by the reviewer, Christopher Breen. He claims:
“Most disturbing for those of us in politically correct Northern California is Terry McCallum, an African-American character... you are forced to speak to McCallum in a dialect not reserved for other characters. For instance, you greet Terry with "Hey, McCallum," whereas you address Raife, the overly-sensitive moon-babe with a simple "How's it going?" To finish your conversation, you must fling the hipster-like "Later" to McCallum, versus the simple "Goodbye" reserved for Dr. Heisenstein, the absent-minded German genius...”
I would remind the reviewer that Molotov and Heisenstein are senior officers who are treated more formally than your peers, McCallum and Sasha. And you're right, the rebellious Raife must be handled with kid gloves throughout. However, no reading of the complete dialog of the product reveals any consistent racial bias one way or the other. In fact, the people who worked on Lunicus are themselves quite diverse, covering the gamut from male-female, white-black, young-old, Christian-Jewish, etc. and none of them complained of racial bias in the dialog at any time.
This kind of editorial effort to promote "political correctness" [PC] is becoming more prevalent in the mainstream media, but I really don't think it has much of a place in a video game review. Compared to other titles, I think Lunicus should be applauded for making use of a diverse character set. But the important point here is that we did this to make use of a variety of different voices and dialects, not to promote any kind of political agenda, and certainly not to promote racial stereotypes. Bill Appleton, President, CyberFlix
- I singled out McCallum not to promote a political agenda nor to accuse CyberFlix of any racial bias, but rather to indicate that characters drawn to type might present a problem for some readers. —CB
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