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DINO DIARY #5 (29 February 2000, 19:30 EST) Firaxis has been busy in recent weeks, but Dino Diary #5 has arrived to push your imaginations into overdrive yet again.
This entry discusses resource allocations and combat, and two dinosaur wireframe renders to check out: the Gallimimus and the Torosaur!
SMACX: THE LOST EPISODE! (4 March 2000, 3:11 EST)Replying to questions on the never posted 9th episode of the SMACX story, as well as the complete disappearence of the both the smac and smacx stories from the official site, Firaxis webmaster Dan Magaha announced that the 9th episode has just been posted. Dan also noted that there is a plan to post both stories on firaxis.com in the near future. Funny thing is, we're planning on doing the same thing, especially since we have the first 6 smacx episodes in our Centaurian Tales subsection. I hope we're faster than Firaxis :) Anyway, definately check out the last episode! -MarkG
SMAC FOR MAC PATCH IS NEAR (27 February 2000, 4:42 EST/SMAC) Copying from the February issue of the official Aspyr Newsletter In the next few days, we will be releasing an update patch for S.M.A.C. that will clear up a few problems that people were experiencing. I spoke with the man, the legend, Brad Oliver, to get the scoop on the S.M.A.C. patch.
> What problems were some folks experiencing? The bulk of the issues were DrawSprocket oddities - the game would pick the wrong resolution, or would accidentally start up in a window. There were also some miscellaneous issues with keyboard commands. These are all fixed
> Was correction fairly easy? Yes, I've managed to kill every issue that's been reported that I can reproduce here.
> Any entertaining stories? "These two guys walk into a bar..." Hmm...no, none are popping out at me. One guy did mention that he customized the Gaian faction to change the name from "Deirdre" to "Mark". He noticed that whenever his name was mentioned in the game, he was referred to as "Lady Mark". ;-)
> Any neat features or special areas in the game that gamers might enjoy? In the upcoming patch, I added a feature that allows you to see how many hours and minutes you've been playing SMAC. If you go to the Apple menu and choose "About Alpha Centauri.." it will tell you.
> You're awesome! You don't really want to give me a big ego, do you?
Thanks again to Brad and the Westlake Interactive team for all of their hard work. The S.M.A.C. patch will be available soon through our web site's support (http://www.aspyr.com) page and through your favorite online Mac game site, like Mac Gamer's Ledge (http://www.macledge.com) And Apolyton of course! :) -MarkG
WINNER: TBS GAME OF THE YEAR (2 March 2000, 9:42 EST) All is not disappointment in SMAC's battle for recognition in this year's multitude of award gallas. Yesterday C|Net's GameCenter unveiled the 1999 Reader's Choice Awards, and SMAC was crowned TBS Game Of The Year with an astonishing 72 percent of the GC reader vote.
Why did this happen? Feature editor Bill McClendon offered his opinion:
"Seven distinct factions, along with the build-it-yourself tech trees, give players a variety of options. In addition, the balanced and dynamic gameplay makes each game's outcome uncertain".
The RTS Game Of The Year went to, not surprisingly, Age of Empires II: Age of Kings, and Unreal Tournament was anointed Game Of The Year. -DanQ
CALL TO POWER FOR MAC
1.2b POST INSTALLATION (27 February 2000, 4:22 EST/CtPMac) In various reports filtering through on the newsgroups and by way of personal e-mails it seems that the patch has largely been very successful in rectifying many of the problems: * The unable to restore AI appears to have been eliminated * There still seems to be a DVD issue with Music and Wonder movies forcing some players to "force quit" the application response. I haven't heard any remarks about any other patches yet, so presumably everything has been technically resolved.
MEMORY Several people have e-mailed querying the new memory requirements for the game. This is what to expect: Here's the complete rules for CTP's memory requirements: - CTP now requires at least 75MB of memory. If it can't get this amount, the game will not run (you'll get a warning dialog). - By default, CTP will request 105MB of memory (the "preferred size" in the Get Info window). If it can't get this amount but there is still at least 75MB available, the game will run in whatever amount of memory is available. In this case, a warning dialog will be displayed to let you know that CTP is not running with the full amount of memory that was requested. - If you have changed the "preferred size", the rule above still applies. CTP will request whatever amount is in the "preferred size". I'll be looking out for any more news on future patches. -Baston
MACGAMENEWS.COM REVIEW: 7 OUT OF 10 (27 February 2000, 15:28 EST/CtPMac) Jeffrey Chen from macgamenews.com has reviewed Civilization Call to Power and marked it fairly favourably. He summarized by saying:
"In the end, Call to Power isn't so much a Civilization game as a turn-based Age of Empires. Instead of an open-ended, multi-tactic empire game, you're guided towards a military, action-based philosophy whether you like it or not, and your technological advances are geared towards that end. The domestic administration features are more of a backdrop than an essential feature, despite the fact that these are the best improvements. The gameplay and interace suffer from this muddled mentality, and that's a shame, because if Activision had gone one route or the other, this could have been a very good game."
MGL REVIEW: 4 OUT OF 5 (27 February 2000, 6:37 EST/CtPMac) Head over to Mac Gamers Ledge for Greg Weston's review of Civilization Call to Power that has just been posted. It would have no doubt scored higher if it were not let done by its system requirements. Greg's conclusion was:
"The system requirements really killed me on this one. It's a decent enough game in general, and I'm giving it a good rating because for a typical strategy gamer it'll be fun, and as a game it's decent. There are, however, some technical issues that a potential buyer should really be aware of".
