Debut of the Best Mac Game Ever

Ten years ago the best game ever released for the Mac, Myth II Soulblighter, came out of the award-winning Bungie game development house (birthers of such titles as Marathon and Halo). It also was released for PCs, and in fact I played Myth III on one, but never tried II on a PC for comparison.

Myth II kept me playing for well over a year, during which I’d sometimes be found dragging my 35-pound “Bondi” iMac 233 home from work to play at night. I’ve revisited the game several times, as it’s been updated (by an unpaid support community) to work on Mac OS X, and even the Linux operating system. If 3rd-party support is a measure of how much a game is liked, this game was loved. I’ve played it on five successive Macs now, installing it as the feeling strikes at some point on each of the Macs. It was that good.

The engine could be used to “skin” your own games, and a WWII Mod was released for the game. I played that back in 2000 and found it to be pretty damn good, though not as fun as regular Myth II.

Gameplay

It was a “real time strategy” game with a strong anime influence, really really outstanding small touches, and a surprising sense of humor. It was a joy to learn, to play, and to play (with and against) others over the (sadly, gone) Bungie Net Myth network. It was extremely “environmental”, meaning the sounds, characters, and graphic details made you feel like you were there. Rain, snow, semi-transparent fog, it was all there.

The gameplay was superb, the graphics were cutting edge… even the tutorial and cutscenes were enjoyable to the point I’d play them for folks who stopped by, with or without their consent. The view/camera was controlled by your left hand via the keyboard, and character actions were done with the mouse (and some keyboard). You could pan, zoom and orbit the camera, and the terrain was fully 3D, making high ground very tactically valuable.

Because the camera control was so granular and smooth, you could really take advantage of your terrain and characters’ abilities. Best of all was the fact that the developers infused a real sense of humor into the game, but one that didn’t get in the way of gaming.

Cinematic Video Compilation

Messing Around

It was — and I’m sorry if the term is overused — a work of art. If you’d like to get into it, I’m sure copies can’t be more than $5 on eBay. It might even be free… I have no idea. Use this to get your bearings because the game won’t install on OS X right out the box. But the install tool you’ll find on that site makes it simple.

For those wondering, I never played Myth I, and found Myth III “The Wolf Age” to have none of the charm of Soulblighter. It was too dark, visually, and lacked the sheer enjoyment that Soulblighter had.

I haven’t fired it up for a year now; it’s about ti…

I didn’t know Rush Limbaugh is a Mac user, until I found myself at a page on his site where he’s complaining about Mac OS X 10.5 bugs [link thanks to Keef]. Fair enough, we all complain. But then something caught my eye:

So I’m asking these guys during the break, “Do you think I ought to put out a plea to Steve Jobs? I know he’s politically opposite of me, but just to say, “Mr. Jobs, please, I just ordered six brand-new Mac Pros: four for me and two as gifts; maxed out, Blu-ray drives. I’ve loaded ‘em up. Our whole office here is Mac, and I just want it to work because I love them — and these two things that aren’t working would seem to me, as a novice, to be a simple fix, but they’re not.”

[my bold]

I’m usually pretty up-to-date on Mac configurations, and sure enough, when I went to the Apple Store to check on the nagging possibility that Blu-ray drives had been introduced for Macs without my knowledge, there’s no Blu-ray drive options on Mac Pros, or any Macs for that matter.

So either Rush is full of (yet more) hot air, or there’s a Mac pilot program for celebrities, and he’s in it.

MacRumors notes a new id string for the next MacBook Pro has started to leak out of Cupertino. It’s been many months (June 2007) since the MBPs were updated, so this signals what many anticipated happening soon anyway.

Questions: will it have a fancy new touchpad ala MacBook Air? Will it have greater screen resolution than current models?

[by Silvarios] [taken from Dear lord: iCab 4.0.0 beta!]

Warning, it’s going to take a fair bit of words to get my point across. Here’s the modern web attention span version. iCab 4.0.0 beta has been released to registered iCab users. It is a universal binary and requires Mac OS 10.3.9, while some features require 10.4 or 10.5. Version 4.0 of iCab is a complete rewrite in Cocoa as compared to version 3.0 which was built with Carbon. Version 4.0 uses WebKit and the older versions use the proprietary iCab rendering engine. Here’s a screenshot from the iCab 4.0.0 beta:

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This guy received an email from Other World Computing:

Thank you for your patience regarding your order for the Modbook OS X
Tablet Solution. This e-mail is to inform you that the product is nearly
ready to ship and that new configuration options are now available. As
of the latest available information from Axiotron, we anticipate being
able to ship your Custom configured Modbook solution on or before
January 11th, 2008. On a first in, first out basis – Modbooks are
expected to begin shipping on or before January 8th, 2007.

As is our standard policy, we do not charge your credit card for an
order prior to it shipping. While your credit card will be authorized
when it goes into build, no charge will occur until the day it is shipped.

Could it be this thing sees the light of day? Will Apple beat OWC to the punch by releasing its own tablet PC at MacWorld in 3 weeks?
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I stumbled upon an Apple Developer Connection email, or as they spelled it at the time, “A P P L E    D E V E L O P E R    C O N N E C T I O N” from January 10, 2003. It is stamped Issue 332, and it appeared just after MacWorld. Enjoy:

—————————————-
MACWORLD ANNOUNCEMENTS
—————————————-
[1] Mac OS X Adoption Soars With More Than 5 Million Users

Apple is entering 2003 with more than 5 million active Mac OS X
users and more than 5,000 native Mac OS X applications. This year
also marks the first “All Mac OS X” Macworld Expo with every
developer on the show floor featuring Mac OS X products.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jan/07macosx.html

—————————————-
[2] Apple Introduces X11 for Mac OS X

X11 for Mac OS X allows X11-based applications to run side-by-side
with native Mac OS X applications on the same desktop and makes it
even simpler to port X11-based applications to the Mac. Apple’s
implementation of X11, the common windowing environment for UNIX
operating systems, is easy to install and is optimized to take full
advantage of Apple’s innovative Quartz graphics system.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jan/07×11.html

—————————————-
[3] Apple Delivers AirPort Extreme 802.11g Wireless Networking

AirPort Extreme is the next generation of Wi-Fi wireless networking
technology based on the new ultra-fast 802.11g standard. With speeds
up to 54 Mbps, AirPort Extreme delivers almost five times the data
rate of 802.11b based products, yet is fully compatible with the
millions of 802.11b Wi-Fi devices around the world.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jan/07airportextreme.html

—————————————-

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[by Silvarios] [from Power Mac G4 Sleep Issue]

I notice that my new Power Mac G4 has a peculiar sleep issue. If I put the Power Mac to sleep or if it goes to sleep after a period of inactivity, it wakes itself every four minutes. Like clockwork. No joke.

If I remember correctly, this issue predates the DVD burner install, not that I imagined it would have been the culprit anyway. It seems to only happen when I have the Power Mac connected to my MacBook via ethernet. The MacBook is set to share it’s Bluetooth internet connection via ethernet to the Power Mac. The connection is direct via a regular Cat5e patch cable. I turned off the “Wake for Ethernet network administrator access” option in the Energy Saver preferences on the Power Mac, yet the problem persists–every four minutes. No really, every four minutes. Who needs clocks when I can figure out how much time has passed by the sleep wake sleep cycle of the Power Mac? Again, this issue seems to only occur while the Power Mac is connected via ethernet to the MacBook. Any thoughts?

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[by Berger] [from Some Actual Apple Macintosh Questions]

On Firewire cases:

I’ve been through a number of external cases – both cheap and not so cheap – and have settled into a couple that work very well for the way I do business.

I go through a bunch of drives per year because I save all of my PSD build files for clients so I can re-purpose for other jobs. I like a tray system and this one from Stardom has worked well for me for the past couple of years. You can buy separate trays for SATA and IDE. I use both 400FW and 800FW/USB2 versions. About $100 for the 400 and $125 for the 800/USB. Trays have been $10 each through newegg, but they don’t carry them any more and I’ve seen them going fro about $22 on average. I bought about 15 trays within the last 2 years – they all work perfectly. I keep the loaded trays in my fire safe when I’m not accessing files.

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[by Silvarios] [from Hacking iSync to work with my Nokia 6086]

My new phone saga continues. I couldn’t figure out how to send my Address Book contacts to and from my Nokia 6086 and my MacBook. When I first configure the Bluetooth connection between the Nokia and my Mac I’m given two options:
1. Address Book
2. Internet Connection

The second options works great, but I never was able to grok the whole share Address Book info. Maybe I’m just dense. I can browse most of the directories on my phone from my Mac except for a few crucial spots, such as the Nokia’s Address Book. Big postitive note, just copied an episode of the Tech Night Owl Live to my phone’s new 2GB MicroSD card and it works great, well the process of copying the file went smoothly, but the Nokia’s media player is a bit lacking. I can’t seem to resume playback from the same spot after I answer a call and then hang up, fine for plenty of musical tracks, not so great when I’m somewhere in the middle of a two hour podcast.

Back to the Address Book syncing. iSync is not natively compatible with my Nokia 6086 cell phone, at least as of Mac OS 10.4.11, but when there’s the internet, there’s a way. Found three links right off the bat (thanks Google):
1. A somewhat lackluster review of the Nokia 6086 on some random person’s blog
2. Which linked me to a HowardForums post on how to hack my copy of iSync.
3. And finally this page which linked to a slightly different tactic in attaining iSync compatibility as option two did.

Sure, my phone graphic in iSync is wrong as I’m using some random Nokia phone graphic already included with iSync, but option three contains an image which will work fine once converted to tiff.

Nathan

Edit: I lost the actual link for my first “link three” and so you get the fourth way I found instead. Oops, then I forgot to add/fix links for number 3 and now that as well is fixed.

I used Carbon Copy Cloner to back up my MacBook’s drive before installing OS X 10.5 “Leopard”. Instead of storing the data on my ocassionally flaky “Coolmax” 3.5″ enclosure (with non-flaky 500GB Maxtor drive), I chose to put the drive in my PowerMac G5 and clone in a machine-to-machine fashion using Firewire.

This is not a step-by-step, but rather just some thoughts I thought I’d pass on to those who may run into the same bumps I did with Carbon Copy Cloner:

On Mac OS

• enable Remote Login on the target machine
• mount the target machine’s volume

On CCC

• Target Disk -> Select a Target -> Remote Macintosh… here you must use a “.local” extension on your target machine’s name, for instance “G5.local”. “G5″ did not work for me.
• CCC creates an authentication certificate that you must install on both machines

Hope this helps!

Mac Rumors says we may see an updated MacBook tomorrow.

Apple’s Leopard update, however, has revealed drivers for the newer Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics chip. This is the successor to the Intel GMA 950 which currently resides in the existing MacBooks. This would suggest that the next MacBook will see an upgrade to the Santa Rosa chipset. This, however, remains speculative. The driver, however, appears functional and works when used on a PC laptop with the X3100 chipset.

These screenshots (and the build in general) are probably what we’re going to see in the final shipping OS next month, and I’m excited. Lots of features, lots of eye candy, and lots of solid visual design. Excellent.

^^^click^^^

And check that out — locked/unlocked icons for Wifi signals in the Airport menu dropdown. Cool. I’ve been using the wonderful but $8 Wifind by Tastyapps.

So I wandered into my local CompUSA yesterday and of course headed straight to the Mac section. I start telling my friend, who had very graciously accompanied me and let me rant to her about Macs, about how a good virtual buddy of mine, that would be Keef, had uncovered all this info about the new iMac screens. She seemed suitably impressed and as a recent Mac convert herself actually looks forward to when I have something Mac related to say.

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AppleSwitcher moderator Keef makes a case for why you should avoid the new 20″ iMacs. If you care about screen quality you should read this. I noticed and remarked on the poor viewing angle of the iMac’s display while briefly using a new 20 at an Apple Store. Alternatives: get a last-gen iMac 20″ or the current-gen iMac 24″.

In defending a previous comparison, Scot Finnie uncorks some new, spot-on observations I agree with wholeheartedly.

The main point I was trying to make is that when you compare Macs with comparably equipped Windows PCs, sometimes Macs beat Windows PCs in the price/performance comparison. Sometimes Windows PCs beat Macs. Overall, there’s relative parity.

My host (Dreamhost) either doesn’t allow me to store drafts/sent mail on the mail server, or I simply can’t find the setting to allow this in their control panel. No worries, I can store drafts locally.

If you see this in Mail.app when composing email, and you use IMAP-style email, here’s the fix.

Preferences -> Accounts -> Mailbox Behaviors -> (uncheck) Store draft messages on the server.

As you can see in the image above this can work for sent mail too.

Obviously this will not store drafts or sent mail on the server. Think carefully about this — if you retrieve email from different Macs/PCs often this may not be the solution for you. This solution works fine for me because I always use the same Mac for email, so if I write a draft it will be stored locally on my hard drive and accessible.

If you’re using a Plesk server for email, see this fix.

[This post was taken from the Mac forum's Mac vs PC cost of ownership thread. - Ed.]

I’ve purposely got as much of my workflow as possible (which ends up being pretty much all of it) on older (i.e. cheaper to replace) machines.

Two weeks ago, my primary OS 9 machine’s (a 500mhz Pismo) display died (after a year-and-a-half or so of “pink screen” syndrome). Ended up being a minor inconvenience– I had two more identically-configured Pismos (1gb RAM, 20gb HD–got them for next to nothing on eBay) waiting to go. Since there was nothing else wrong with the original laptop (other than the dead LCD), I connected it to a backup Pismo (via Target Disk Mode) and, after setting it as my startup disk, used Retrospect to duplicate it to the new HD (other than having to re-enter serial#s for Extensis’ QX-Tools and Conflict Catcher, I was back in the exact same environment without a hitch). I also had multiple backups of the HD on disk and tape as well (I’m admittedly paranoid when it comes to backing up).

Although I’ve been using my OS X machine (a 1ghz Titanium PowerBook–the last Apple laptop that can boot into both 9 and X) for some work-related Photoshop stuff and scanning, page layout (my main bread and butter gig) has been pretty much all done on the Pismo in QuarkXPress 3.3 and 4.1 (in real OS 9–I don’t do Classic). PDFs are distilled in Acrobat 5.0 (also on the Pismo).

And then I tried QuarkXPress.

While I’ve become reasonably fluent with InDesign, I actually prefer the XPress way of doing things (and being able to flawlessly open legacy files that date back to 1990 or thereabouts is a big plus–yeah, I know, InDesign can “open” XPress files, but I’ve been less-than-impressed with how well it actually does it). Version 7 of XPress (even on my lowly 1ghz PowerBook) runs reasonably well (I’ve had no stability problems in my testing, and it’s more than fast enough for what I’m doing). The new features are, imo, killer (although I’m not too crazy about the humungously-sized PDFs it exports–makes it necessary to run them through Distiller, which brings the size down considerably). It’s always something …

So, Quark vs. Adobe aside (yawn), first thing I had to do (before actually committing the OS X PowerBook to real work) was get an identical machine for a backup.

And last week, I did just that.

After figuring in the value of the second battery, the installed AirPort card and the other (admittedly, not worth much to me) included accessories, I’m absolutely amazed at what the final cost of this laptop was to me.

I think one of the things I like best about new technology is how it affects the cost of older (but, in my case anyway, still perfectly serviceable) technology.

Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) — Without a doubt, Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) will take center stage at Steve Jobs’ keynote address.

Secret OS X 10.5 Features
iMacs — or maybe not, after all?
iPhone
Ultraportable
via MacRumors