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Mac Compatible
Coming Soon?
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Mac Compatible Madness! October 6, 2003
Hi there! It's been a long long time since I updated this page, hasn't it? And, a lot of things have happened since then that might make Mac LucasArts fans happy. Lets get down to it:
IMG has reviewed EMI, giving it a very good 9/10 rating. They call Murray "Stan" but, you know, nobody's perfect. Here's a bit from the review:
EMI: GM, System Requirements
Aspyr, in their latest "Aspyr eNewsletter," has announced that Mac EMI has gone Golden Master, and should ship before the end of the month! Along with this news they listed the final system requirements:
Mac Games out of Stock, EMI Update, and more
As usual long time no update. Well, here we to:
First off some depressing, let along annoying news: Jason Savage let me know that he contacted the LucasArts company store about some games and was told that many Mac titles are dangerously low in stock, or even out of stock, and (theoretically) no more will be manufactured. Here's what he had to say:
So pick up those copies of Monkey Island 2 and while you still can! Until (hah) LucasArts Archives Volume 3 comes out for Mac there's already no way to get ahold of Monkey Island 1. It's quite a shame considering every game in the LEC Archives 3 (Monkey 1 and 2, Full Throttle, The Dig, Afterlife, and Dark Forces) exept for the Curse of Monkey Island demo were ported and available for the Mac at one time or another. Mac gamers are going to have to work hard to get caught up on the story when EMI gets released! If this upsets you in some way you should definately let LucasArts know!
Speaking of EMI, if you haven't pre-ordered it yet: shame on you! EMI Insider games.macnn.com reports that EMI is finally just around the corner, confirmed by Westlake's product status page, listing Mac EMI as final cantidate. Keep your eyes peeled next time you're in CompUSA, then, eh? Woo!
And last but not least games.macnn.com is holding a poll to determine the next wallpaper to come out of Custer's Corner, their resident (high quality) fan-art factory. Currently EMI and Q3: Team Arena are neck and neck. I like both quite a bit, but this being LucasMacs you should all go out and vote for EMI!
MacWorld SF 2001
There was pretty low attendance as far as games developers go. Even Bungie didn't show (even at the Microsoft booth!), but Aspyr was there, and had EMI up and running (with sound and video) front and center, right at the entrance to the games area. There was always a small crowd huddled around EMI, though often trying to figure out why the mouse was broken. Once anyone figured out that you move "the pirate" with the keyboard, hilarity ensued. The dartmaster joke seemed to get a lot of laughs. Anyway, I talked to some of the Aspyr folks who gave me the system requirements, which I, lacking a camera or notepad promptly forgot. The gist of it was if you have any candy-coated mac you should be able to run EMI to varying degrees of success (for instance original rev iMac owners with the ATI Rage Pro will not be enjoying it as much as those who just ordered a 733 Mhz G4 with GeForce 2). They also said that all of the content was done for EMI's product spotlight page at Aspyr.com, and will be going up later in the week.
Games.macnn.com reports that EMI was Aspyr's most popular title at the show. I'm not certain if that means most copies ordered (yes they were taking preorders at the show, and likely it will be on sale at aspyr.com the moment the EMI spotlight goes up) or most attention at the booth, but either way it's great to see EMI getting so much attention on the Mac market. And last but not least, The PowerBook Zone has uploaded a picture of Aspyr's EMI setup on the MacWorld show floor, here.
Thanks to VirtualPC, a piece of software that emulates Wintel hardware, Mac users can get ahold of CMI and play it from start to finish. While not capable of handling 3D PC-only monsters like Half-Life very well, VirtualPC has very little problem handling 2D games like Curse on most new systems. My year and a half old G3 handled it with just minor skipping in cinematics and a twinge of sound lag (the sound lag decreased significantly when I upgraded from 3.0 to 4.0, but it was still present), but those owning G4's should get a near flawless gaming experience thanks to version 4.0's AltiVec/Velocity Engine enhanced code! The joy of being able to play CMI on your Mac comes at a hefty price, though. $199.00 to be exact, assuming you don't already own a copy of Windows 98. CMI itself is pretty cheap at the moment, though, selling for only $9.99 at Amazon.
The other big Mac EMI news of late is that Jesse Spears has reported to games.macnn.com that MacEMI has reached alpha status! Along with this news of progress is a full overview of the game. Likely if you're reading this site you already know the basic story and have seen the screenshots, but it's worth checking out anyway, if only to get that special Mac touch... or something.
Westlake Interactive has updated their product status page, noting that EMI has reaced "first playable" status, meaning they've gotten the MacEMI up and running (with tons of bugs of course). The estimated release date still reads "???," but now that it's reaced first playable we should be hearing more details from both Westlake and Aspyr about the port.
MacNN Games has posted an interview with Jesse Spears, the Mac EMI project lead at Westlake Interactive. The interview starts out talking about Jesse's past work and then gets into EMI questions, asking about system requirements, mac specific features, and progress on the port:
J.S: I'm working toward the First Playable milestone (that is, the game needs to run enough that it's recognizable as EFMI, but it will probably be buggy, and will probably be missing major features, such as sound). I'm sure we'll announce it as soon as Monkey hits First Playable.
Just a quick note to let you all know that MacNN has added a page of information about Escape from Monkey Island. Nothing new there for anyone who has been following EMI, but good to see it getting some more mention in the Mac press. Also Mixnmojo has posted the first of four exclusive shots from Bombad Racing, the kart style racer coming to Mac and PC from LucasLearning. The latest version of the popular Mac online gaming browser, chat, and gathering application, GameRanger, was released today. One of the most notable features in this update is support for the formerly LAN (local area network) only Star Wars: Episode I Racer! Yes, that means that you can now challenge your Racer-owning friends to multiplayer games over the Internet! This should definately up the replay value of Racer, especially for people who don't have a network of computers (or friends) and have been, until now, unable to play against other humans online. GameRanger is a free download, and supports most other popular Mac games, so if you don't already have a copy you're missing out the most valuable gaming utility to come to the Mac. Well it appears that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak! Woo! That's what I get for sitting on news :). Anyway, last week I sent over a couple of questions to Brandon Owens at Aspyr about the EMI port, who was glad to fill me in on what he knew so far about the recently announced, formerly considered "unimaginable" Mac port of Escape From Monkey Island. Heres what he had to say (his replies are in bold): You said that you have an estimated release date, so obviously not much is set in stone, but I'm still curious if you have an idea of the game's proposed system requirements?The answers (although often vague due to the early state of the product) speak for themselves! It's also great news to hear (as confirmed as possible at this point) that Westlake Interactive, the company who did the actual programming on the Mac ports of Deus Ex, The Sims, and Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force, will be handling the actual coding of EMI as well. Also, for the curious, IMG said in their recent EMI report that the project listed as "Unimaginable" on Westlake's project status page is indeed Monkey 4, which means the EMI port has been under our noses for a bit now and very few have known about it! Sorry again for the redirect. Mixnmojo's server is really having drive problems. They will be finally resolved for good any time now. Everyone seems to be excited about the EMI port, especially Aspyr themselves! According to this MacCentral article Aspyr waited until the end of their presentation to suprise everyone with the EMI announcement in a "Steve Jobs-like moment," saving the best for last. The MacCentral story also says that Aspyr is very interested in creating a longer-term relationship with LucasArts than just a port of EMI (which they have done with many large PC developers in the past), but like all things it will likely depend on how well EMI fares on the store shelves. Also of interest is this InsideMacGames report on Aspyrworld, which not suprisingly spends the majority of its time centering on the EMI port and the doors it may open for future LEC game ports. They also drop the interesting tidbit that Obi-Wan is being led by a team with Macs on the brain, and may be written with the intention of portability. As they say in the article, it is "piling speculation on top of speculation," but if you can remember back to two days ago, the last word anyone heard from LucasArts then was that the mac as a platform didnt agree with them, and that was that. Now it seems that anything is possible. Update: Brandon Owens at Aspyr just sent me some more details about the EMI port: Yes, Aspyr has just closed the deal with LucasArts to bring EFMI to the Mac! It is tentatively scheduled to be released during Q1 of 2001, a better date will be set once we get closer to completion. We're extremely excited to be working with Lucas and to be a part of bringing this awesome title to the Mac platform. Well after the interview with Simon Jeffery things seemed to be looking pretty down for the Mac LEC scene. Turns out that may be just about as far from true as anyone could have imagined! I just saw on MacNN today that Aspyr Media, the Mac software developer famous for its ports of The Sims, Deus Ex, and Madden 2000, has been contracted to port Escape From Monkey Island to the Mac, along with Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf 2001 and Tomb Raider: Chronicles (I have not yet received confirmation of this from Aspyr, but MacNN reported that it was announced by them at their own show, Aspyr World, in Austin, TX this evening). Not only is this the best LucasArts/Macintosh related news in the last six months, but if EMI sells on the mac it could definately mean more Mac ports of future titles (and maybe recent past titles?)! Many little bits of the EMI code have been ported to the Mac in past games, like LucasArts' INSANE video engine, both the midi and full audio versions of LucasArts' iMuse interactive music engine, and the core of the game's 3D engine, OpenGL, so some of the groundwork is already laid out. That doesnt make the task of porting a game of EMI's proportions easy, of course. For instance, the core engine for the gameplay itself, often called GRIME, has never been ported over to the MacOS since Grim Fandango, the only other LucasArts game to use this engine was never brought to the Mac (The last LucasArts adventure to come over was The Dig, which used the older 2D based SCUMM engine). This announcement brings up many questions for Macintosh LucasArts gamers about future ports (for instance, will we ever see the third game, Curse of Monkey Island brought over to the platform? Monkey Island 1, 2, and 4 will be here. That leaves a rather big hole. And what about Grim Fandango, the LEC adventure released between Monkey 3 and 4?), and of course specifically about EMI (like will we see any additional enhancements like those in the past LucasArts Mac ports, and will there be a carbonized version for MacOS X?). Time will tell! Also, sorry if anything isn't working quite right. The site has temporarily been moved in part to my personal web space while Mixnmojo is down for repairs. The main Mixnmojo site as well as this site and the rest of the Mojo community should be fully functioning within the next couple of days. LucasMacs host The International House of Mojo recently interviewed LucasArts president Simon Jeffery, and at my request (and likely that of all Mac LucasArts fans) asked a question about LucasArts comitment to the Macintosh platform in the near future. His answer, although fair, was pretty dissapointing: Recently, LucasArts has been porting games such as Episode I Racer to the Mac. Does LucasArts have any plans to port adventure-game greats such as CMI and Grim Fandango which were previously unavailable to Mac users? Also, will future titles be developed for the Mac platform?Not exactly the answer one would have hoped for but at least there is a tiny hint of possibility down the line. We shall see. Well, MI4 was unofficially announced within the last couple of days, and I'm pretty excited. Will there be a Mac version? Maybe. I'd like one. It's all 3D. Let's hope its not all Direct3D. This is Jake Rodkin reporting. Inside Mac Games recently ran an interview with Mary Bihr, LucasArts Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing about LucasArts return to the Mac with Racer. The interview doesnt contain that much new news (other than a patch for Mac Racer making it compatible with current 3Dfx drivers), but its better than no Mac news from LEC. Stay tuned. I know this news is old at this point, but LucasArts has released the demo for Mac Episode 1 Racer. Get it here at MGL, or here at LucasArts. MacGamersLedge has posted a review of Episode 1 Racer here. The review is a pretty good one, citing misleading system requirements and lack of support for multiple USB devices as some of the few problems. Go check it out. According to the LucasArts Episode 1 Racer page and this press release, Racer for Mac has gone gold. The company store is taking preorders, so we suggest you get it today! From the press release:
"The Mac platform offers a tremendous opportunity for developers, and we’re thrilled that LucasArts is bringing their cool products to the Mac," says Tony Lee, senior director of Worldwide Markets for Apple. "With Apple hardware such as iMac and Power Macintosh G4 optimized for gaming, we strongly believe our game-hungry customers will turn out in force to own a copy of Star Wars: Episode I Racer." Hopefully Racer will sell well and this will give LucasArts enough convincing to return to the Mac market. We'll see. LucasArts recently posted a job description for a Macintosh programmer. Actually, it appears that the position has dissapeared from the LucasArts Recruting page. That can only be good news. Hello everyone (and a very big hello to oneo and Darth-Phenom), and welcome to the newest Mixnmojo site, LucasMacs. I plan to keep you up to date on the (hopefully) growing LucasArts - Apple relatioship. Lately the number of announced LucasArts Mac games has started growing again, LucasLearning is fully cross-platform, and Episode I Racer is soon to be released. Also, as mentioned on the mixnmojo.com main page, MacGamersLedge and the LucasArts jobs page, LucasArts is looking for a mac programmer. Things are looking up. LucasArts supported the Macintosh on and off for quite a long time. Most every game they made was ported over to the Mac, usually in bursts when they had a mac programmer on full time. Too bad LEC stopped supporting Mac ports around the time they started switching to DirectX (Jedi Knight, approx). Stay tuned. Just a bit about this site. It came to be mostly because I've enjoyed LucasArts games on my mac since Monkey Island 1, and have been dissapointed, then extremely happy, then dissapointed again as LucasArts has recomitted and dropped support for Mac games over the years. Also, when I posted the start of The Great Debate, the few Mac Mixnmojo readers asked me for more info. I'll try my hardest to scrape what little there is and post it here. Well, guess thats it. How do I turn this damn thing off? A while ago MacgamersLedge had a chance to talk to Eric Johnson, LucasArts employee and head of the Mac team for Episode I: Racer. Check it out. | |
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Images currently used without permission, but, well, I don't intend to make any money off of this, nor do I make any claims to their creation. Logo picture by Sebastian Grubaugh | ||||
I just got back from MacWorld San Francisco last night, what a show! Well, actually a lot of the show wasn't that spectacular... aside from the 
