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"That's what you're so excited about?" By Ruffin Bailey Published: 3/3/99 |
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Most game reviews take about ninety percent of their time building up to how the
reviewer really feels about the product being reviewed before finally throwing
down the gauntlet and telling you their bottom line. I'm going to reverse this
trend in this article by first telling you what I think, and then taking the
remaining 90% to help you figure out what I mean! GamesThe high requirements should have turned many of you away already. But if you are fortunate enough to have a brand new Mac, you next have to turn to Connectix's list of compatible games. This site has been more than enigmatic over the last several weeks. If I recall correctly, Metal Gear Solid was originally on this list, and I'm sure Tomb Raider 1 was. These two big names are gone today (3/1/99). How can you tell what games you're going to be able to play on your thousand dollar Playstation? And why are some of the biggest names dropping?Sites like Macs Only!'s CVGS Watch do a bit better job telling you what's available, but just to make sure I took my stock revision B iMac through the paces with five Playstation games, two that were on Connectix's list and three that weren't. The two that were were both sports games: Sony's own MLB '98 and EA Sport's NCAA '99 football. The three that weren't on the list are what I consider some of the Playstation's best games that aren't coming out for the Mac anytime soon: Soul Blade, Parappa the Rapper, and Metal Gear Solid. If there's one place where the Mac's game library is sorely lacking, it's sports, and this is the field where I was most hoping see the VGS perform. Sony's MLB '98 played without a hitch. I played as Pittsburgh against San Fran and got toasted in the eighth, and then played as Boston against Atlanta and once again got beat. Certainly a fun game though nothing special, and indisputably better than the current Mac offerings. And the VGS handled it well. NCAA '99 didn't fare as well. The game played next to flawlessly aside from some pauses at kickoff, but the sound had some fairly major bugs. The announcer was almost impossible to hear unless the volume was turned up quite a bit, and then when the bands played the noise could be heard for miles. I was impressed that my alma mater's entire fight song was on the disk, but the fact that I had to choose either for the game to sound like the band was watching me play from behind my computer or not hear the announcer at all was aggravating. What makes this problem even worse is that NCAA '99 was an officially recommended game! I tried to tell myself that the loud, annoying band and quiet announcer was more like actually attending the game, and pulled some major upsets in the Coaches' poll. Parappa and Soul Blade were unplayable on my stock iMac. The music in Parappa was not in time to the video. This made it impossible to time my responses to the music, which is the whole point of the game. Soul Blade, an excellent port that expanded on the arcade fighter Soul Edge, skipped so many frames in an attempt to keep up that I didn't try to play twice. Games not on the list, taken at random, do not lend themselves to positive results. I had wanted to play Metal Gear Solid ever since I tried out the demo at last year's E3. I'm happy to report that MGS, once on the Connectix's list if I recall correctly, worked fairly well. As with Parappa and NCAA, sound was the problem. There is a wonderfully annoying sound that buzzes/rings when your undercover agent is discovered by an enemy soldier. Often when this sound has started, the VGS wouldn't turn it back off! Much of MGS consists of cut-scenes, and there was one time that I had to listen to the alarm throughout a fairly long act. I could have quit and restarted from my last save, but not being one to save very often, I decided to grin and bear it. I also had some trouble using VGS's "virtual memory cards" with MGS (and a little with NCAA as well). If I tried to eject the one I was using and create a new one, I instead got an exact copy of the one I'd just ejected. Same thing if I tried to make a new card in the second card slot; the VGS copied the memory card from the Player One slot to the Player Two slot! Not only that, if I tried to save my game by overwriting a previous save (using the card in the second controller slot), I got an error. So though the memory cards are much cheaper and easier to email to friends than those from an actual Playstation, their implementation is buggy at best. One more complaint that popped up repeatedly was the inability to use the VGS's pause feature, initiated by hitting the esc key, to leave a game to, say, wash the dishes (or more realisticlaly, take a nap), and then come back and finish later. I found that if I left a game paused more than about half-an-hour, my iMac would be locked up when I returned. As an unexpected bonus, all games seemed to load faster than I remember the Playstation loading. The 24X CD drive on my iMac might have had something to do with this. The bottom line seems to be that unless a game gets rave reviews on a site like the CVGS Watch (and I do mean "rave"; contrary to the positive Soul Blade review on Soul Blade, the game wasn't close to playable on my system) or makes it onto Connectix's list, you're not going to be able to play. This is certainly an aggravating prospect. ControllersI played these games with Gravis's GamePad Pro USB, which is the perfect mate for the VGS. This pad looks and plays almost exactly like a Playstation game pad. The missing triangle, square, X, and circle had to be replaced with a well-placed post-it so that I could tell which button was which, but other than that things went great. To make things even better, Connectix is offering a $15 coupon for a GamePad Pro with a VGS purchase! Luckily, if you've got the computer to play the VGS you probably also have USB ports.Connectix's implementation of InputSprockets left a little to be desired; you can't save favorite controller set-ups and there is one spot in MGS where this is a bit aggravating (I won't say more, because it'd be something of a game spoiler!). Playing with the keyboard isn't even close to playing with the pad, however. And since you need a separate port for each controller, if you shell out $30 plus shipping for a second gamepad, it's going to take some doing to get the free USB port for a friend to play. Cost and WorthFor $45 plus $45 for two USB controllers plus some postage (let's call it a C-note) you can have a Playstation with a very limited library and questionable support in the future. For $130 and a trip to Toys R Us, you can have a real Playstation with a dual-shock controller that plays every Playstation game. Neither should you discount the fact that the "actual" game station will be able to utilize every Playstation controller including dual-shock controllers, light guns with recoil and pedal reload (don't hold your breath waiting for that to come to the Mac), and analog steering wheels. On the flip side, you will have to shell out $12-$18 bucks for the memory cards, something the VGS makes for you for free.Option three is to purchase another true console like a Nintendo 64. For $130 you can have a console with great games like Goldeneye, Zelda, and Mario. You will be able to play sports games with no load times because the N64 directly accesses a cartridge, and you'll have graphics that kick the Playstation where it hurts. And in "late-breaking news", Sony has just released the specs for it's next console due out March 2000, the Playstation 2. This might sound like a long ways away, but the Playstation 2 has a couple of features that might influence your purchase of an "actual" Playstation today. Next-Generation online has a pretty good article that tells you "10 Things You Must Know About PlayStation 2". The main feature that might interest you is that the PSX2 will be backwards compatible with Playstation games and controllers. NGO also hints that the price of the Playstation may soon be dropping: A release only a little over a year after the Dreamcast release would clearly be an effort on Sony's part to dominate not only the mass market, which it will do with a $99 PlayStation... Just another tidbit to factor into your decision making! If you already have a controller for you Macintosh and want to play some of the Playstation's exclusives like Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil (Director's Cut) that have pretty solid VGS reviews online, sure. The VGS is for you. But if you want to play Madden '99 against your buddies, forget it. Playing the VGS is like playing a console on an incredibly tiny (and incredibly expensive!) TV while having your fingers crossed that the game's not going to lock up at some inopportune moment. Not to mention that you can only hope that there won't be some successful court action by Sony that stops further development. All the negativity aside, it's time for true confessions. (Cue the music) I got a call from Babbage's literally in the middle of writing this review that NCAA '99 had just arrived in the store. I quickly left my keyboard and traded in an N64 game (South Park, no less) and two Sega Saturn games for this single Playstation game which will be played exclusively through the Virtual Game Station. Now I already own an N64, and would still purchase that before I shelled out for the VGS. On the other hand, NCAA '99 is not a game that's out for the N64 and I'm a football game fanatic. Furthermore, I really wanted to play MGS. The VGS, for me, fills a perfect niche. Now I won't have to miss out on the Playstation games that aren't coming to the Mac or N64 that I was dying to play. And, as I've said, NCAA '99 plays flawlessly even though the sound is off, or as I keep trying to fool myself, the sound is incredibly faithful to an actual trip to the stadium. The "bottom line":For a few more bucks than the VGS and a couple of controllers, you could buy the real thing. I have to recommend you buy a console, Playstation or N64, if you want a quality gaming experience. Then continue to buy Mac games when you have to have the best (like Tomb Raider, Quake, Civilization 2, and Unreal).Several readers have pointed out to me one arena where the VGS shines: playing on your Powerbook. VGS's steep requirements say that I can forget about playing on my Powerbook 150 *chuckle*, but those of us lucky enough to have a compatible 'book can really impress the unenlightened. To imagine playing Metal Gear Solid on a three hour plane flight is one thing. With VGS, the imagining is over. If you own an N64 or plan to buy a Sega Dreamcast but still want to play a few Playstation exclusives, the VGS might be for you. Or perhaps you have absolutely no desire to get a gaming console but would like to run down the street to the video store and rent some games to be played on your Mac. If that's the case, as long as you check the compatibility lists first, the VGS isn't such a bad buy. Related Links:
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