Microsoft has recalled Halo 2 for Microsoft Vista due to "nudity". Don't get too excited. A Bungie programmer left a funny error message that shows someone mooning.

Not the kind of nudity I was hoping for but funny still. Image via Shiny Shiny.

Age Of Empires III for Mac has been out for several months now, and I've enjoyed playing it. It's a follow up to the aptly named Age Of Empries II, which I also enjoyed playing. It's a control freak like type game, where you control your empire. Production, buildings, miltary and the destruction of other empires if you wish.

The Demo is now available at MacGamefiles. It's one of the first Intel native games released. The other requirements are: G4/G5 or Intel processor running at 1.4GHz or faster, Mac OS X v10.3.9 or higher, 512MB RAM, 64 MB Video Card (with support for hardware T & L). 56K dial-up Internet access or LAN for online play.

I was on the edge of my seat watching this, "Luigi's departure now gives Koopa enough time to lay seige to the castle. The toads try in vain to defend their princess." Here is part 1, but the actions starts with part 2.

After seeing a Myth 1 update on MacUpdate that allows it to be run in MacOS X natively I decided to check it out. What I ended up doing was downloading the Myth II update instead, installing it and playing it. Its been many years since I last played myth and now that I have better hardware the game is just as enjoyable as it ever was. I was surprised and happy to see that it supported the max resolution on my TiBook (1280 x 854). I never got around to defeating Myth 1 and may decide to take that on as a project.

Updated 7/14/03 I'm a big fan of Simulation games. Sim City has by far been my favorite. I was glad to hear that there was going to be a mac version of Sim City 4. The features are much improved over previous versions. Maxis did a good job of adding things without over doing it. I like the ability to have major streets and minor neighborhood streets. When creating residential zones it will auto draw streets within neighborhoods so all your houses have streets within the right distances of them.

I tried to register the game at the EA website so I could report the problem, but there was some issue with my serial number and it wouldnt let me register (yes, I legally bought the game). So instead I'm waiting for a response on that issue before I can report my real issues.

I decidedto check the MacNN message board to see what they had. Turns out someone messed with some of the setting and found that the ATI Radeon 9000 configuration was not set correctly in one of the graphic files. This person was using a TiBook with a Radeon just as I am. In the Video Cards.sgr file located in the Sim City 4 directory the line for the Radeon 9000 Pro reads: card 0x4966 "Radeon 9000 Pro" and needs to be changed to: card 0x4c66 "Radeon 9000 Pro".

Yup, that fixed it. Works like a charm now. No graphic drawing issues at. Now if I can just keep my budget balanced. After playing it for a few days now it can become pretty sluggish after my city population reaches 5000 sims. But it is still playable. I also found a great site called Simtropolis that has many great add-ons. Although geared for the PC they work fine on the Mac.

At least according to their web site. Even though its propaganda for the US Army, its a very cool game. I've played in on the PC and glad to see there will be a Mac version.

For the last few days I have been playingSpy Hunter for both the Mac and PC. The CD comes as a Hybrid. The boys have it for the Playstation in which it came out some time ago and I played it then. It was a good game, IMHO. I like car games like this. Although it doesn't compare to Carmageddon. Still I looked forward to the computer version. I can say this, Aspyr needs to release some bug fixes but it seems true to the Playstation version.

One strange thing I found on this is that it didn't play to well on my PC, but played really well on my Mac. My PC is a 1.8Ghz P4 w/ a GForce MX 400 with 32 MB video ram. Not top of the line. However since this game only goes to 1024x768 I would expect decent performance. Even at 800x600 the display is choppy. So choppy that it effect game playability. (Maybe time for a new video card here anyway.)

On My Mac I have a 1Ghz G4 with a Radeon 9000 & 64MB video memory. I'm guess the big difference is the 2X video memory. It was very playable on the Mac and there was no choppiness. However I was disappointed that it didn't have any wide screen resolutions on it.

Unfortunately I have only been able to get past the first mission. After that the screen freaks out and it gets into some loop where it cycles through everything continuously.

My alter ego in the PC world? [UPDATE 6/18/03] Its not there anymore since I ran out of space. Will bring it back some time in the future.

Yes I am a Mac fanatic. I'm about as fanatical as they get, and for good reason. But we do live in a world with the dark side's looming presents. Thus I have been playing a online game called "Aces High" and there is no Mac version. Check out my page. I've got some videos there that I made with iMovie