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Disappearing Act
Dear IMG: As a subscriber from the early disk issues on, a major reason for subscribing has always been your Mac Games Release List. Coverage of newly released games here in Germany by Mac magazines is very scarce, so your list provides the only means to determine whether a game is available. In addition, the list provides comprehensive information on the upcoming games to look for. Unfortunately, the July issue of IMG has no Mac Games Release List anymore. I hope this is only a one-issue problem and not a “new feature” of IMG. Please bring the list back. — Dieter Adam via Internet

• The Mac Games Release List was on vacation last month. It’s back this month. We promise never to leave it off again (we got hundreds of e-mails about this).

Eyes on C&C
Dear IMG: I am just wondering when the Mac version of Command and Conquer will be on the shelves. After realizing that the demo of Warcraft II has been released, I am hoping that a demo of Command and Conquer will be released soon as well. — Shih-Chieh Lin via Internet

• C&C should be out shortly. Really! Check out our preview of C&C in this month’s issue.
 
Not So Phantastic
Dear IMG: I had been on the fence about buying Phantasmagoria. I had heard it was only a so-so game, but when it got a good review from IMG in the next to last issue I called that nite and had MacZone send it the next day. To my initial reactions were not as favorable as your reviewers, I was enjoying it and certainly didn’t feel I was cheated (though it was obviously only a moderately successful port from the DOS/Windows world). THEN I got the dreaded “unimplemented trap error message”! I then went into AOL to see what I was doing wrong and found that this was a VERY common problem with no real solution. I’ve tried to get help from Sierra, but to no avail. The overwhelming consensus on the message boards is that the only solution is to send the game back (and I understand that is proving to be very difficult - not withstanding Sierra’s guarantee). HENCE, my complaint is that your reviewer totally missed the boat on the overall quality of the game. He/she must have played it on an Intel machine and assumed it would be the same on a MAC. — Don Jennings via Internet

• Our reviewer played Phantasmagoria on the 68040 and it’s possible he didn’t get the same errors you did. Overall we haven’t been very impressed with Sierra’s support for the Mac. Let’s hope in the future their titles ship bug-free.

Where’s the Speed?
Dear IMG: According to multiple “independent studies” the PowerPC Chip, and indeed Power Macs, are significantly faster than their Pentium counterparts. I have no doubt that this is true, but why are games such as Doom II, Hexen, and Descent so much faster on comparable PCs, even though applications such as Photoshop and high-end 3d programs are faster on Macs? The only answer I can think of is sloppy programming, and that’s what I tell my PC-using peers. Is this the only reason? For example, Descent runs much better on my friend’s 75 Mhz Pentium than on my 80 Mhz PPC601. The same is true of Doom II and Hexen. I have noticed, though, that LucasArts titles such as Dark Forces run as well on my 80 Mhz PPC than my friend’s 133 Mhz Pentium, so I know it is possible. Thank you for a great publication. — Ben Kennedy via Internet

• There’s a few factors that you have to consider. The complexity of the game, the overhead the Macintosh system carries, and how much time is spent on optimizing a port can either make or break a port. In the end, some ports are better than others. The PowerPC more than holds its own, it’s up to the coders to take advantage of the speed.
 
Lost in Space Quest
Dear IMG: I have a few major complaints on your Review of Space Quest 6 on the July CD. First of all, you made a few errors on the history of Space Quest, yes the other Space Quests were done by Two Guys from Andromeda, but the “other guy” was not Al Lowe. Al Lowe is the creator of Leisure Suit Larry. The other “guy” was I believe Mark Crowe. C’mon guys... (don’t quote me on the name, I’m working from memory).

Otherwise, I saw no mention of how incessantly bad this PC port is! During play I would frequently get internal errors of PC design! (Error 48: inset is not a selector of object....Error 46: bad opcode in something.dll) .DLL!!!!! This is a MAC folks!!!! — Edward J. Pollard via Internet

• Al Lowe was in fact one of the founding creators of Space Quest 6 as well as Leisure Suit Larry. As for the errors, typical ;-)

Escaping Velocity
Dear IMG: Look, I just have to draw everyone’s attention to Ambrosia’s Escape Velocity, has it not already been sucked there like so many unsuspecting dust-mites to the gaping maw of an hoover.  I cannot speak highly enough of this game - I’d rate it as the best shareware game of all time, and certainly I’ve played a few ;) The latest version is available from the ambrosia ftp site <ftp.ambrosiasw.com>, in the pub directory :) — Stuart Heath via Internet

No Control, No Mech
Dear IMG: I just purchased MechWarrior 2 and have a Gravis Firebird. I am having a lot of difficulty getting the program to recognize ALL keys I might desire to use. It will recognize some of the keyboard equivalents but not others for some strange reason. For example, I can’t get the keys for torso twist to be recognized by the game from the Firebird. And there are many more. 

Is there a problem with the Firebird and MechWarrior in terms of compatibility? I assume there is and this isn’t a real good start for this game. — rjagolfr@one.net

• The current shipping version of MechWarrior II only supports the CH Products joysticks. Activision is working on an update that will work with other joysticks. As soon as we get it we’ll put it on the IMG CD-ROM.

Losing Touch
Dear IMG: I have long been a fan of SimCity and SimCity 2000, and I was looking forward to SimIsle continuing the tradition. The demo kiosk at Fry’s looked good. So I rushed out and bought a copy a couple days ago as soon as it appeared in my local store.

Unfortunately, the game crashed on launch!

I’m an engineer working on System Software here at Apple. So I did all the standard things: install a clean system 7.5.3, I even tried turning off most of the built in extensions which everything ought to work with, but to no avail.

I called tech support and spoke to Michael #2. He did not seem to have much Mac experience (I hope because your Mac products work so well you don’t get many calls). Eventually it came out that I had two monitors on my 8100 (like all 7100 and 8100’s) and the game “doesn’t support additional peripherals.” I tried to explain that two monitors was a standard, from the factory configuration, and at any rate it should work.

Of course, SimCity 2000 runs on the same configuration. In fact, I’ve NEVER had a Mac game not work on the first try.

So I decided to do Maxis a favor and debug the problem. I used my normal system software configuration (various 3rd party extensions, and everything else I normally use). I got rid of the PowerPC code from the app so I could single step in MacsBug. It turns out when the game first starts there is code to select which monitor to use when there is more than one (routine name is WhatMonitor) but the DLOG resource it is trying to load does not exist, and there’s no error checking, which leads to a crash. I manually forced the routine to select the main screen, and the game started right up!

That’s when the real disappointment set in: it’s obviously a quick-n-dirty DOS port. The game only uses 640x480 graphics, even on my 20” monitor! All the other Sim games use the whole screen, which greatly enhances play. Typing command-Q does not quit, even though it’s in the File menu. No scroll bars, or “hand” to drag the view around. The dialogs do not follow standard Mac human interface guidelines. When you quit, you are prompted to save by having the Standard File dialog come up directly, instead of a preliminary “Do you want to save? yes, no, cancel” dialog. Basically, it looks like someone’s first Mac program. I looked closer at the box and noticed the game is only “presented by Maxis” but “created by Intelligent Games.” Any chance of having the SimCity 2000 team do a real port? Or me? — Mike Wiese via Internet