Today I interrupt my regular gaming coverage to bring you up to
date on the major Mac event of the summer: Macworld Expo. Of
course, you may have heard plenty about the Macworld Expo in the
last few days and weeks.
This article is not meant to give general coverage, but rather
to look at how the recent events will affect the Mac gaming
community.
Around the Mac gaming community, some people have been calling
this "the best Macworld expo ever." Whether or not this is true is
a matter of opinion, but few would argue that, in general, the Mac
gaming scene looks better now than it did before the Expo.
Probably the biggest announcement was Apple's new G4 Cube. Some people claim that the G4 Cube
is aimed at gamers. In my opinion, the G4 Cube has the potential to
be a great gaming computer, but there are some things which need to
be changed before it is a truly worthwhile gaming computer: its
price and its video card. The entry level Cube goes for $1,800.
While not outrageously high, $1,800 is a little steep for the
budget-conscious consumer who sees that the G4/400 minitower can be
had for a $200 less, and the iMac can be had for as little as
$800.
The ATI Rage 128 Pro is one of the weaker links of the G4 Cube.
Currently, it offers sufficient, but not top-of-the line, game
performance. While it is sufficient for now, it will probably
struggle within a year or less to run the newest 3D games well. If
and when the ATI Radeon chip becomes an option in the Cube, the
video card issue will no longer be such a problem. The video card
in the Cube's AGP slot is removable, and thus upgradable, but due
to the small size of the cube, some video cards such as 3Dfx's
Voodoo5 will probably not fit.
That said, the Cube has one thing going very strongly for it:
its size. An eight inch cube would be very easy to transport for
those gamers who like to take computers to LAN parties and hook up
with a bunch of others, as well as simply taking less desk space.
Even without any PCI slots, graphics would not be a problem if the
Radeon was available as an option.
My assessment of the Cube is that if it cost $1,400 and had the
option of including a powerful 3D card such as the ATI Radeon, I
would line up to buy one. I would also appreciate if its standard
RAM was 128 MB, since some new games want upwards of 100 MB for
themselves. I would not even mind if the lowest Cube was G3 instead
of G4 powered, since the G4 does not currently offer major
advantages to gamers. I also believe that this price would be
possible, based on the cost of other Macs. However, at its current
configuration and price, the Cube is interesting, but probably not
the Mac to buy if gaming is your main intent.
Apple also refreshed their iMac and Power Mac G4 lines at the Expo. None of the
changes will make a significant gaming difference, although the
iMac has dropped to $799 for the base
model, which will make it an option for more people. It was
hoped that Apple would introduce the Radeon and/or cards from other
manufacturers as an option in the Power Mac G4 - and maybe even the
iMac - but this did not happen. A recent conflict between ATI and
Apple over leaked information seems to be the reason for the lack
of the Radeon option. More about this conflict is available on
MacCentral.
Two other new Apple products were announced at the Expo: a new
keyboard and a new mouse. The keyboard returns to the size that
users were used to before the iMac, which is a big improvement, not
only for gamers but for just about everyone. The new mouse is
optical and has a more traditional shape than Apple's round
"hockey-puck" mouse, but it still has only one button. Actually it
has no "button" - the whole mouse functions as a button. Hard-core
gamers may still want to buy a multiple-button mouse. On the other
hand, I am still surviving with a single button mouse after all
these years, although I expect that once I get a multi-button
mouse, I will never want to go back.
Apple was not the only company showing off new hardware. In the
graphics card market, ATI and 3dfx had the Radeon and Voodoo5,
respectively. Both cards will sell for around $300 and be major
improvements over current offerings. The Radeon is supposedly the
faster of the two, but real benchmarks will have to wait until the
products are shipping. Both cards will be available in PCI
versions, while ATI has also announced an AGP version of the
Radeon. Both products will hopefully be available by early
fall.
One other newcomer to the Mac hardware market is Creative Labs.
They announced progress on their Sound Blaster Live sound card to
the Mac, hopefully releasing it by the end of the year, at an
approximate cost of $100. Most Mac users have never felt the need
to buy separate audio hardware (except maybe speakers) since the
Mac has built in sound. However, this new card offers 3D sound as
well as other enhancements which reportedly can make a major
difference in sound effects. Also, having a separate sound card can
take the sound burden off of the main processor, potentially
enhancing performance. The Sound Blaster Live is a PCI card. Visit
<http://www.americas.creative.com/mac/learn/welcome.html#Live>
for info on Creative Labs' Mac offerings.
And now for the games.
More games were announced or released during the week of the
Expo than any other week in recent memory. Bungie pleased Mac users
by announcing that Halo is still coming to the Mac. In fact, the
whole Bungie/Microsoft deal may be a little better for Mac gamers
than many, including myself, suspected. Peter Tamte, formerly of
Bungie, is forming a new company which will bring games, especially
Microsoft games, to the Mac. Games which have been announced
include Age of Empires II, Links LS 2002, and the newest version of
Microsoft Flight Simulator. It is not currently known how Halo's
release will be handled: by Bungie or by Tamte's new company.
Bungie and Microsoft were not the only ones busy on the gaming
scene at the Expo. Blizzard,
as hoped, formally announced WarCraft III for the Mac, which is
expected to ship in 2001, possibly at the same time as the Windows
version. Blizzard's Diablo II for the Mac is also now available for
purchase.
Another group called United Developers announced plans for
several Mac ports. These include Majesty, SiN, and Fighter
Squadron, AKA Screamin' Demons over Europe. United Developers has
several other games in the works. Their website should provide plenty
of information, once it is complete. In the meantime, information
about United Developers and their projects can be found at
<http://www.macgamer.com/wphp/news/item.php?id1&eventid=1>.
Perennial powerhouse MacSoft also had some new announcements to
make. Among their upcoming games are Beachhead 2000, Vampire: The
Masquerade Redemption, and Rogue Spear, the expansion pack to Tom
Clancy's Rainbow Six. MacSoft also announced a host of new games
aimed at casual gamers, such as Breakout and Risk II. Their full
line-up can be found at their website.
I think that covers most of the major announcements. In case I
have missed something, or if you just want more information than
one column can provide, check out MacLedge or MacGaming, as they have done a good
job of covering Macworld Expo news.
In addition to new announcements, several new games have been
released recently, including Baldur's Gate from Graphic Simulations, and The Sims
and Deus Ex from Aspyr. While
these announcements and releases should occupy owners of newer Macs
for a while, unfortunately most of the products mentioned here are
not very low-end friendly.
I will soon return to the familiar low end focus as I prepare to
look at games for first generation Power Macs in my next column (at
very latest, the one after that).
