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We will of course understand completely if you treat this news item with extreme skepticism; rest assured we also have one eyebrow cocked skyward in disbelief. Throughout the development of the Mac OS version of Deep Space Nine: The Fallen from Simon and Schuster and The Collective, we've had the word "gold" dangled in front of us far too many times without result to be anything less than suspicious.

However, this time the news comes direct from Doug Hare of the development team at the Collective, so for what its worth we'll present his prediction. As you might remember, the primary stumbling block that has held Mac DS9 back for so many, many months has been the sound and music system. The Mac version of the Unreal Tournament engine has its own Mac-specific music system (known as Zerius) but this music engine plays MOD (module) music files; the music and ambient sound in DS9 is based on MP3 files, which on the PC side are played through a much-used sound playback library known as the Miles Sound System. Unfortunately for quite some time no Mac OS equivalent of this MSS was available, and thus The Collective was stuck waiting for RAD Game Tools to complete the Mac version of this library.

As we reported several months ago, the Mac version of Miles Sound System now seems to be complete, after an extended beta testing period. Doug Hare of The Collective confirmed this, although he said they discovered several bugs that have slowed down integrating this engine with the Mac DS9 port.

According to Doug he expects final testing of the game to begin in the near future; this should be a swift process, as the port of the actual game (minus the sound system) has been complete and tested for many months). Duplication should begin soon afterwards, and he said he expects a release in July of this year. Yes, we did add the "of this year" just for kicks. If his prediction proves true -- and we sincerely hope it does, as we are still quite eager to play this game -- July will be a huge month for Mac gamers, as the list of titles due that month (and at MWNY, of course) continues to grow.

Deep Space Nine: The Fallen

The Long, Sad History of DS9 for the Mac OS

Simon & Schuster

The Collective

DS9: The Fallen

Buy DS9: The Fallen

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