 |
| | Publisher: Activision  Genre: Action | | Mac OS X: Not Supported Mac OS Classic: System 7.5
CPU: 603e RAM: 48 MB Hard Disk: 60 MB 4x CD-ROM |
| |
|
Quake II
January 18, 2000 | Matthew Rieger | | Pages: |  | 1 | 2 |  |
|
The legendary and once champion of deathmatch gaming Quake 2 has been a long time coming to the Mac. Mac gamers will remember John Carmack's outspoken attitudes about 3D gaming on the Mac as he fingered its lack of OpenGL and adequate hardware acceleration. Therefore, Mac gamers plugged away at Quake 1, and although we have enjoyed it for years, we were left out in the cold, drooling over its sequel. Now that Quake 2 has finally appeared, should we be excited, or should we even care? Well, yes and no… Quake 2 is a standard first-person shooter, the second in the best-selling Quake series from id Software. The "plot" of the game is rather contrived as it is in most shooters—gameplay thinly veiled behind some pretense to justify the mass killing of whatever monsters you encounter. In Quake 2’s case, you take on the role of a space marine accidentally diverted from the rest of your unit while being deployed on a foreign planet to destroy the Strogg, alien monsters on their way to conquer Earth to use humans as cyborg parts (and food, of course). Surprisingly, Quake 2 attempts to stick to the storyline during the single-player game, and considering what little plot there is, succeeds. The fact that each mission has varying objectives, which you receive every so often in the course of playing, helps gameplay. Therefore, it’s not all "run, kill, hit the switch, find the next room"—this isn’t Doom after all—but don’t expect gameplay much deeper than that. OpenGL or Not, Here I Come In terms of graphics, Quake 2 is fairly interesting visually, with more detailed models and lots more effects and graphics additions than games made previously. On the other hand, Quake 2’s belated Mac release means that its graphics are no longer up to par with today's eye-candied games such as Quake 3 Test or Unreal. Now, while the graphics are still pretty, there are some annoyances with its OpenGL-only support. For example, to use 3dfx hardware (Voodoo chipsets), it's necessary to use the free Mesa3D OpenGL-like libraries, which allow OpenGL games to run. While the Mesa3D libraries perform exquisitely, the way in which Quake 2’s OpenGL support was programmed nevertheless can create glitches or inconsistencies.Currently, Mac-compatible cards that support OpenGL are limited to ATI's chipsets (such as the Rage 128 in Blue-and-White G3s). These chipsets support 2D and 3D modes simultaneously, allowing 3D-accelerated graphics in a 2D window, for example. Unfortunately, the porting company Logicware neglected to enable Quake 2 to switch back to a 2D window when 2D is required. The most noticeable instance of this is configuring InputSprockets: 3dfx card owners must switch back to software mode, tweak the settings, go back to hardware mode (each switch takes a minute or two at least), and then test their new settings. I found this extremely irritating when trying to set my mouse sensitivity properly.
| Pages: | | 1 | 2 | |
|
|
