by Greg Kramer

With the election season upon us, we can all reflect how nice it is to live in a country where elections are decided peacefully and without bloodshed. If, on the other the hand, that sort of thing bores you, you will enjoy “Prime Target” from MacSoft. Part political thriller and part first-person-perspective shooter, Prime Target reveals politics as the gory, last-person-standing game it really is.

Built with Bungie’s Marathon 2 game engine, Prime Target should look comfortably familiar to Mac action game fans. Complete with Marathon 2’s rich texture maps, directional ambient sound, and underwater action, it takes the look and feel of Marathon to a brand new and more down-to-earth place. Do not, however, let this fool you into thinking it is any safer; there may be no Pfors, but there is a pretty surly team of political thugs waiting in the wings and they want nothing more than to splatter your guts on the wall.

How and When
The year is 2004, on the eve of the national elections. Your friend, Senator Cathryn Mayfield, has called you to visit her at her office—there seem to be a group of suspicious men lurking around the Senate office building. She sounds strange. When you arrive you are greeted not by a bored security guard snoozing behind his desk, but by a couple of 9 mm bullets aimed right at your head. It does not take long to find the murdered body of the Senator on the floor of her office. With the guidance of a radio stolen from the bad guys and whatever memos, letters, and other clues come your way (oh yeah, and your trusty Roscoe too) you must find out why and by whom your friend was killed and make sure you do not join her. 

Marathon Again?
Clearly, Prime Target is meant to be more than Marathon in blue pinstripe suits. Prime Target adds a few more wrinkles in the special effects department. The environment is somewhat more interactive than Marathon: doors can be shot open, glass can be shattered, innocent plants and trash cans can be decimated, and objects can be pushed around. Plus, the surroundings are more than just a bulletproof backdrop; bullets leave marks on it and blood stains drip down walls (if you are into that sort of thing). You can also travel through the building via the heating duct system.

Waiting for you around every corner are the foot soldiers in this mysterious and diabolical war. Armed to the teeth with orders to shoot on sight, they are big, mean, and trigger happy. Dark suited thugs, armored gunmen, ninjas, and bald-headed punks control the building, and in the immortal words of Bungie’s own “Bob”, “They’re Everywhere!!”. Among the many weapons you wield in your quest are a Bowie knife/brass knuckles, a Baretta, a sawed-off shotgun, and a rotary rocket launcher. With an intelligent AI and realistic physics, players will have no trouble feeling the danger.

Summary
Along with its cousin “Damage Inc.”, Prime Target shows what a little creativity and an absolutely fabulous game engine can do. With a proven structure from Bungie and the ingenuity of MacSoft (a quickly rising star in the Mac game market), Prime Target should keep Mac gamers’ guns a-blazin’.

Publisher Info
MacSoft
3850 Annapolis Lane
Suite 100
Minneapolis, MN 55447
(612) 559-5140
        www.wizworks.com/macsoft/homepage.htm