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 7/08/99 |
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Mac Quake 2 is released, and the hoards are restless!Recently there's been some discussion on the comp.sys.mac.games.action USENET newsgroup regarding the lack of multitexturing in Mac Quake 2. Our video cards are doing two scans to produce what takes just one shot to create on WinPC's Quake 2. Certainly this revelation is a bit annoying, and it's gotten me thinking about the state of Mac gaming and Mac gamers.In the L.A. Times article I featured in Tuesday's Game news, you might remember the quote from "Nancy Underwood, an Apple developer-relations manager". She admitted Apple's gaming strategy was not to cater or even target what I like to call the "shade tree gamer", or someone who gets as much enjoyment swapping in and out acceleration cards and .ini files to get those last 2 frames per second. Instead, it is Apple's goal to "offer the best out-of-the-box experience" for gamers. What Apple is committed to giving us reminds me of that quote attributed to Henry Ford long ago, "You can have whichever color you like, as long as it's Blue and White." The new B&W G3 is a great gamer's machine straight out of the box. For me, John Carmack's continued use of the Mac as a testing and development platform combined with the fact that he's throwing recommendations for Apple right and left tells me we've got a legitimate machine. Bytemarks and uneven speed tests aside, the Mac is fast enough to garner respect and support from the king of gaming. When Quake 3 is released, don't think for a second that we're going to be one step behind Windows and Linux PC's. Quake 3 Arena truly is an exciting prospect for the Mac. But Quake 3 is an abnormality. When it comes to Mac gaming, we're still a day late and a dollar short. Most people who own a computer for gaming first and computing second do not buy a Macintosh, nor should they. Games are more prevalent, released faster, and garner more attention on the Windows platform. Hardware is cheaper. There's a bigger market calling to developers, and they go where the money leads. Despite what Gateway and even eMachines have done recently to promote ease of set-up, without a doubt the best gamers assemble their own machines from many different boxes. Custom gaming computers are the rule rather than the exception in the PC world. Simply put, the Mac gaming world (as a whole) and the PC gaming world (as a whole) are two completely different markets at least in the minds of the marketers. Yeah, but why don't I have Mac Quake II Glide?Stripped from a gamer's post in yesterday's USENET:
To compare Quake 2 to Duane Johnson's upcoming port of Descent 3 is an unfair comparison. Duane is perhaps currently best known for his excellent freeware upgrade to Mac Descent 1 & 2, Descent 1 3Dfx and Descent 2 3Dfx. Hmmm. Think about that for a second. This man's claim to fame was his addition of a 3dfx card compatible renderer to Descent. It's no surprise that this was one of the big reasons he was chosen to do the Descent 3 port. He knows 3dfx inside and out (and if you don't believe me, pick up a cheap copy of Descent and go download the 3dfx update (of course, you'll need a Voodoo card as well)). It would have been great for Logicware to add a Glide version to Quake 2, but that's really not within the scope of a strict "port". PC Quake 2 didn't have Glide, and, as Matt points out in his post:
What we should be doing...Instead of worrying about what we wish we could have (100% assembler Quake 2 with Glide support ;^), we should realize the luck we have that a 22 year-old who doesn't even particularly like games has been working on porting the Mesa libs to the Mac. With Apple's anti-custom gamer stance, we're lucky to be able to use Voodoo 2's at all! And believe me, without the three years that Miklos Fazekas has poured into the Mesa libs, we might not be waiting in line for Ken Dyke and 3dfx's generic Mac Voodoo 2 and 3 drivers.It pains me to say that the future looks bright, but in many ways it sure does. This whole Mac gaming revival hasn't really impressed me yet. We're still a generation and a half behind the PC in Tomb Raider, we're not getting TRIBES or Half-Life anytime real soon [but it is coming-Mike], and there is still no game to fill the shoes left by Marathon (a Mac first product that was superior to any contemporary PC product). But in the near future, look at what we've got planned: Madden 2000, Oni concurrent release, generic Voodoo drivers, fully-optimized Quake 3 Arena code with a concurrent release, and, of course, more sound files to slap into Maelstrom to make it new again (okay, I'm kidding on the last one). [Don't forget Descent 3, Rainbow 6 and possibly Aliens vs Preditor and Kingpin as well-Mike] And that's my point. Quake 2 is just another port. Heck, it would have been great if Logicware had gotten someone to port Quake 2 over to PowerPC assembler (machine language). Quake 2 would have screamed!!! But that's about as unreasonable an idea as could be imagined. It's a shame Quake 2's another port and it's disappointing. I still wish Westlake would have added some Mac-only levels in Tomb Raider 2, but I'm going to have to settle for the Powerbook that was spliced into one of the cut-scenes. But a port's a port, and extras are not in the contract. Deadlines and deliverables are. Take Quake 2 for what it is. One, the net code is solid. I've played some online deathmatch, and things run pretty well. Two, it's not going to be updated every other week like Unreal. id's done with Quake 2, and what Logicware's given us is that version, 3.20. Three, we can use Voodoo (not just ATI cards) to play Quake 2 thanks to Miklos. I do think you'll see some updates in both the Mesa OpenGL engine and Quake 2 that will get us more compatibility and faster gameplay. Until then and until Quake 3 is released (which should officially usher in the Second Golden Age of the Mac first person shooter (Marathon being the first)), have fun with what we've got. There are many PC users to frag. Remember that Apple wants gamers to upgrade the whole machine at once... to use what Apple deems is the best configuration. Apple does a good job giving us a quality configuration as well. But for those of us who can't afford a new G3 tower (and even those who can and would prefer some Voodoo muscle), instead of railing Logicware for not squeaking out those last few frames per second, take and quick breath and be happy that we can play at all. -Ruffin Bailey
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