Appletell review - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Section: Software + Apps, Games, Features, Review Genre: First-Person Shooter Format: DVD Developer: Infinity Ward Mac Port: Aspyr Studios Mac Publisher: Aspyr System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.5.4, 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB RAM, 128MB ATI Radeon X1600 or Nvidia GeForce FX 7300 graphics card, 8.0GB free hard disk space plus 1GB swap file, mouse and keyboard Review Computer: 2.4GHz 24” Intel Core 2 Duo iMac, 2GB RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2600 Network Feature: Internet (TCP/IP) or LAN (TCP/IP) multiplayer supported Processor Compatibility: Intel only Price: $29.99 ESRB Rating: M (intense violence, strong language, blood and gore) Availability: Out now Official Website: www.callofduty.com As has been noted numerous times here at Appletell and throughout the gaming world, there are three things you can kill in computer games without fear of reproach: Nazis, zombies and Nazi zombies. If you like, you can lump aliens in with the zombies, and you can lump robots in with the Nazis. But you can’t use cops, hookers, marching bands or video game reviewers without expecting to eventually stand before Arlen Specter to explain why the downfall of modern civilization is not because of your little video game. And yet, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) is set in a realistic, timely world in which the battles you’re fighting don’t really stray from those you might hear about on “All Things Considered.” The developers get away with this for two reasons. First, then invent militant organizations to serve as their bad guys. Second, this game is a brutal depiction of war. Brutal to an unsettling degree. It doesn’t glorify war, and it doesn’t even really lionize soldiers. If this were a movie script, John Wayne and Chuck Norris would run from it in terror. Is that the appeal of CoD4? Not entirely. It’s the gameplay itself that drives CoD4 to the upper echelon of first-person shooters. More specifically, the multiplayer gameplay, because although the single player are varied and intense, they never really feel like more than a training session for the multiplayer game. In CoD4, you play the role of a United States Marine and a British S.A.S. operative. As with other Call of Duty games, you’re sent on different missions in which you will have different roles, usually assigned to you by your commanding NPC. Sometimes you’ll snipe, sometimes you’ll lead an attack, but almost always you’ll be accompanied by a squad of fellow soldiers who help you in your quest. Keeping your comrades alive can make things easier for you, but there’s never really an emotional involvement with them. You don’t get to know the bulk of them, you just see their names over the head as they run in front of you. Although there are some powerful story elements that make this game smarter than most war games, a little more care with the story leading up to these moments would have greatly improved their emotional impact. But, the developers made the decision—and probably correctly—that a combat-based game should focus on combat. Here, CoD4 delivers. You thought previous Call of Duty games were wild? Huh uh. The action on many of these levels is just insane, with enemies attacking you from all angles and using terrain and weapons better than any AI characters I’ve ever seen. Yes, they’ll occasionally poke their head out from around the wall to give you a chance to shoot them, but by the time they do, you’ve already been killed by a grenade that seemed to come from nowhere. Even a lot of the cover provided in the game won’t protect you long. In CoD4, bullets can travel through items such as wood, so it’s no longer enough to hunker down behind a table and wait for your shot. You’ve got to create your shot by making better use of the terrain and your weapons. This makes CoD4 quite difficult. In many cases, you’ll have to die multiple times before you can even figure out who’s killing you, let alone develop a strategy for killing him/them. It’s frustrating in that matter, and I anticipate that some gamers will be turned away early. Those who stick around, however, will be rewarded with a satisfying gaming experience, and the practice necessary to compete in the multiplayer game. Thankfully, there’s a lot there to satisfy. Mac users can play PC users online, first of all. And, unlike most multiplayer first-person shooters, CoD4 is somewhat RPG-like in its approach; the character you create is rewarded for kills, assists and such, allowing you to accrue experience points that unlock further levels. These, in turn, unlock new weapons, accessories and abilities. My favorites are “Martyrdom,” in which a dying character can go all Jennifer-Grey-in-Red Dawn by blowing up the enemy with a grenade, and “Last Stand,” in which a dying character will be able to get off a few more shots before dying. It’s all very Hollywood. I expect it won’t be long before they release the “I can’t move my legs, go on without me” mod or the “Tell my wife I was thinking about her” extension. What brings all of this together, of course, are the visual and audio effects. If you’ve got the system for it, CoD4 looks fantastic, even when the action is at its most intense. The smoke and particle effects are especially amazing, and really do become strategic elements. The audio is equally stunning, totally immersing you in the action in a way that graphics alone couldn’t accomplish. Using just my iMac’s speakers, I was impressed. Playing the game with headphones, I was floored. If you’ve got a decent set of speakers, your neighbors will be hiding in their basements. Of course, all of this comes at a price. My test computer is at the high end of the system requirements, and I still couldn’t max out the graphics. My home computer, which is my normal test system, is at the bottom end, and I had to dumb things down to the point where I knew I wasn’t doing the game justice. The game still plays, but it looses a lot of its punch. I’ve read numerous reports/reviews that claim Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the greatest first-person shooter of all time. I attribute that more to the emotional impact of the surprising turns along the way, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t an amazing game. The single player game seems shorter than previous Call of Duty games (setting aside all the restarts, of course), but flows well and serves as excellent training for the multiplayer version. There, you’ll be able to kill hours at a time, if you’re inclined to do so. You could also pop in and out within half an hour and still have plenty of fun. Well, as much fun as one can have in a game without zombies and robots. Appletell Rating Buy Call of Duty 4 Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Macintosh/iPhone software update round-up - September 15, 2008

Section: Software + Apps, Miscellaneous, Third-Party, iPod + iTunes, iPod Accessories, Cases, iPhone + Communications, iPhone, iPhone SDK & Apps, Mac + Computers, SoftwareMacintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for September 15, 2008: CardScan, a leading provider of contact management systems, today announced the availability of CardScan Executive for Mac, comprising a contact management software and business card scanner. CardScan for Mac software features automatic synchronization to Address Book, allowing users to keep data the same across devices and applications. The company also announced that all CardScan Executive Version 8 systems will include software for both Windows and Mac. The assignment is daunting. The “thinnest” and “funnest” iPods ever created. But the challenges are nothing new to the designers at Speck Product’s innovation lab in Palo Alto, California. Fast on the heels of last week’s new iPod announcement, the team is fiercely on task delivering fresh designs for the arrival of at least five new iPod cases between now and the upcoming holiday season. Just days after the official release of the new iPod touch and iPod nano, MacCover offers the matching protection covers on their site. The covers are made in 3mm thick, shock absorbing felt in 9 colours, and are made to fit the new models exactly. There is also a D-ring attached for keys or personal gadgets. 21 Pro: Blackjack is the ideal blackjack game for every player, novice and expert alike. With life-like high-resolution graphics and authentic game play, 21 Pro provides a genuine casino experience. If you have never played or have been intimidated by sitting at a blackjack table, this is the perfect game to learn how to play. If you are an experienced player, and want to take your game to the next level, the 21 Pro’s card counting will help you fine tune your skills. Marware has announced its latest leather holster case for the Apple iPod touch 2G, the C.E.O. Premiere. The classic design offers textured, perforated leather, an ultra-slim belt clip and elegant contrast stitching. Providing a sleek, upscale look, the C.E.O. Premiere is a stylish premium hip case that works with both the new iPod touch 2G and the original touch. They’ve also announced the new executive flip-top leather case, the C.E.O. Flip Vue for the new iPod touch 2G. Designed to provide the perfect balance between all-around protection and easy access, the C.E.O. Flip Vue is a sleek, elegant holster case. The C.E.O. Flip Vue allows for all iPod touch functionality while providing elegant leather protection. And because two announcements in one day just isn’t enough, they’ve also released the C.E.O. Sleeve for the Apple iPod touch 2G. The C.E.O. Sleeve is a slim, attractive Nappa leather sleeve that combines elegant protection and quick access to the new iPod touch. This case is uniquely designed to appeal to the more discriminating, style-conscious wearer. The C.E.O Sleeve is a premium holster sleeve that works with the new iPod touch 2G and the original touch. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion for its award-winning subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), will arrive in stores on November 13 in North America, Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Russia, and November 14 in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. The expansion will be available in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on November 18. Details regarding the launch of Wrath of the Lich King in mainland China will be announced at a later date. Plyxim, LLC. has announced the release of Exibia 1.3, their broadcast scheduling application for Mac OS X. Exibia allows clients in a multi-user, multi-platform environment to upload and schedule QuickTime-compatible videos to a centrally-located server. Media Atelier has released GrandTotal 1.0, its invoicing application for the Mac OS X Leopard platform. GrandTotal is ideal for freelancers, small- to mid-sized companies, and any organization that needs to generate personalized, invoices, estimates and account statements. GrandTotal sports an easy to use, sophisticated interface that will have you up and running in minutes. A wide range of word processing and layout tools makes creating handsome, customizable documents simple and quick. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Appletell Review - Fable: The Lost Chapters for Macintosh

Section: Software + Apps, Games, Mac + Computers, Software, Features, Review Genre: Action/RPG Format: DVD Developer: Lionhead Studios Macintosh Developer: Robosoft Technologies Publisher: Feral Interactive Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.4, 1.6GHz Intel Mac, 512MB RAM, 64MB video card, 3GB hard disk space, DVD ROM, mouse Review Computer: 2GHz 20” Intel Core Duo iMac, 1GB RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon X1600 Network Feature: No Processor Compatibility: Universal Price: $49.95 ESRB Rating: M Availability: Now Demo: No Official Website: www.lionhead.com/fabletlc/ It’s not long into Fable: The Lost Chapters before you realize you’re in for something different. As if the words “Action/RPG” aren’t already enough to warm the soul of Mac gamers everywhere (oh, we’ve tasted action and we’ve tasted RPGs, but we rarely have them served in the same meal), the dramatic conclusion to the otherwise light and cartoony introduction will let you know that maybe this game is special. And it is. First off, I’m not sure what’s “lost” about these chapters. The original version of Fable was for Xbox, and the original version of Fable: The Lost Chapters was for Xbox, so it appears as though this was basically the same game with some additional content thrown in. I only bring this up to let you know this isn’t a sequel. There’s nothing out there you need to play first to avoid being lost in The Lost Chapters. Now, Fable: The Lost Chapters comes to us via Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios, the guy and the company that also developed the over-hyped Black & White and the under-hyped The Movies, both of which found their way to the Mac. Fable is quite a different from both, and is quite a bit different from pretty much any other game available for the Macintosh. It plays more like a console game than Mac game; more like The Legend of Zelda than Tomb Raider: Whatever. Fable is very big in both gameplay and in the world it creates, and those who play it will find themselves immersed for quite some time. As with most role-playing games, you start out as a young lad completely unaware of who he is and what he’ll become. Indeed, your first quest is to buy your sister a birthday gift. How quaint. It’s not long, however, before destiny leads you to one of those Harry Potter schools so you can learn to fight and use magic and gather fruit. At this early stage, the game does unfortunately bog down a bit as it seems you’re just going through the motions to master the controls, your inventory system, etc. Pay attention, though; the relationships you form here, good and bad, play a part not only in the game’s plot, but in who your character will grow to be. What’s more impressive is that this customization of character not only happens naturally throughout the game, but is reflected in how your character looks. If you fight most of your battles with melee weapons, he’ll become muscular. If you prefer archery, he’ll remain slim and dress in brown. Focus on magic, and he’ll...grow old? I guess using magic is the fantasy equivalent of having kids. No worries, though; looking old doesn’t change your ability to fight or remain attractive to non-player characters (who don’t seem to age, by the way, while you do...which is a welcome design choice when you enter the brothels). Although it’s fun to watch your character grow, it’s purely cosmetic. Your decisions throughout the game, however, are cosmetic. Everything—from how to talk to/deal with people to what tattoos you wear to your haircut—affects how others react to you. Hell’s Angel, metrosexual, or anywhere in between, you pick the outfits (and obtain the scars) to play the part. Likewise, if you generally run around doing good, you’ll acquire a nice glow and people will dig you. Behave poorly, and you’ll grow some devil horns and get those shifty eyes that spell trouble. Would that real life worked the same way, we’d all know from whom to buy our cars. The dilemmas that affect all of this are presented to you almost immediately, and continue throughout. But that’s not the focus of the game. This isn’t The Sims, thank goodness, it’s an action game, and there’s plenty of fighting to be done. The control system for this, unfortunately, is awkward and quite rigid. You pretty much need a multi-button mouse if you want to be any good, and that’s not even enough, by default. The game maps your block maneuver to the click wheel of the mouse, which is all well and good, but I have my click wheel mapped to duplicate the “double-click” command of the side buttons, so it doesn’t work. Fable seems to base its commands on the button’s assigned function, not on the action of clicking the button, so you my find yourself facing some messy reprogramming to get the controls to work properly. For a game that was originally released for the Xbox, you’d think the controls would be much simpler to manage. Despite the epic feel of Fable (epic, in the RPG use of the word, meaning to grow from boy to man and exact some revenge along the way), there’s no real sense of urgency. With the wide availability of health and resurrection vials, dying is both avoidable and pointless. The main story is fine, if a bit tired, and the side quests seem to be there solely to extend the life of the game. This is all okay, though, because the real joy comes from watching your character grow and seeing how he interacts with others. It’s just as much fun to find a wife as it is to chop off some monster heads, as fun to explore new lands as it is to accomplish the quests when you get there. That’s what the RP in the G is all about, after all. And to top it off, the game looks fantastic. Again, as with Tomb Raider: Anniversary, the folks over at Robosoft Technologies have done a fantastic job of porting the game to the Mac, taking advantage of the Mac’s strengths. The animation is smooth and the environments are wonderfully detailed with great lighting effects, which is key in a game that wants you to buy into a mystical world. It may take a bit to get used to the cartoonish appearance of the characters, but it’ll happen. It doesn’t hurt that the ambient sounds are very natural sounding and effective, and the music score is the type you could listen to outside the game and still be impressed. Arriving late as it did (the PC version was released nearly three years ago), I’m glad Feral stuck with Fable: The Lost Chapters to bring it our way. I’m hard pressed to come up with a Mac equivalent, but there’s really no need to, considering how generally well this one was done. The story is a bit tired, the quests can get repetitive, there are some control issues, and character management gets burdensome, but the game’s atmosphere and the connection you’ll develop with your character and the world around him create an immersive gaming experience we haven’t had for quite some time. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait this long to experience it again. Appletell Rating: Buy Fable: The Lost Chapters Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Review: Jade Empire: Special Edition

Jade Empire: Special Edition is inspired by Asian history and mythology, and while it feels a bit hackneyed at times, it’s still an engaging and fun RPG romp that might merit your attention.

OpenCL gets touted in Texas

Attendees at the SC08 high-performance computing conference in Austin got a progress report on OpenCL, the the Apple-spearheaded parallel computing API that figures to be a prominent new feature in the upcoming Snow Leopard update to OS X.

Macintosh/iPhone software update round-up - September 19, 2008

Section: Software + Apps, iPod + iTunes, iPhone + Communications, Mac + ComputersMacintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for September 19, 2008: codefromtokyo has announced the release of Japanese 1.0 for Apple iPhone and iPod touch. Containing more than 127,000 entries, “Japanese” is not only an incredibly fast and easy-to-use Japanese-English dictionary but also an invaluable study-aid for anyone interested in the Japanese language. It’s also the only Japanese-English dictionary which completely works offline. Programming in Objective-C 2.0 is a carefully written introduction to Objective-C and object-oriented programming for developers new to Mac OS X or iPhone programming. Programming in Objective-C 2.0 is a concise, carefully written tutorial on the basics of Objective-C and object-oriented programming. The book makes no assumptions about prior experience with object-oriented programming languages or with the C language (which Objective-C is based upon). Because of this, both beginners and experienced programmers alike can use this book to quickly and effectively learn the fundamentals of Objective-C. Readers can also learn the concepts of object-oriented programming without having to first learn all of the intricacies of the underlying procedural language (C). Macgamestore, in partnership with WildTangent, has announced the release of FATE for the Macintosh. FATE is a fully 3D fantasy action role-playing game where the player takes his/her character through progressively difficult levels of a dungeon, fighting monsters, completing quests, collecting valuable items and gold, and improving the character’s attributes and skills along the way. MacSupportJobs today announced free single job post until the end of September 2008 to promote the launch of the site dedicated to the recruitment of Mac support professionals. Nuclear Nova Software has announced GL Golf 2.17, their award winning 3D golfing game for Mac. GL Golf 2.17 offers a realistic physics system and graphics. Up to four players can golf twenty-one unique courses. Everything in a real game of golf is included, such as water hazards, sand traps, trees, bushes, wind, four seasons, different times to play, and much more. A free six hole demo is available from Nuclear Nova Software’s website. Altomac has announced Filemailer, their freeware sending and retrieval solution for Mac OS X. Saving both time and disk space, Filemailer is a revolutionary utility that changes the way people share files via internet. Millions of people around the world send and receive email whose sole purpose is to transfer files from one computer to another. Filemailer aims to solve the problem of sharing files between computers while saving space. Play ʻEm has announced the availability of Touch ʻEm on the iPhone App Store, its first game for iPhone and iPod touch. Touch ʻEm is a unique take on icon-matching games, leveraging the iPhone platformʼs multi-touch technology to create a fast-paced and addictive experience that takes moments to learn but will keep players matching for hours on end. iWebTemplate is proud to announce the addition of 11 new Rapidweaver themes to its collection. The new designs are courtesy of seyDoggy. SeyDoggy has been in the RapidWeaver theme business for over 2 years selling professional, cutting edge themes since November 2005. Exceptional designs with great details will help you display the essential information in the best possible way. Download high quality themes as iPhone wallpapers or iPod touch wallpapers from www.portablethemes.com. The site has also been designed to be viewable from all popular browsers, including mobile Safari. Viewers can also upload and share their own images and create themes from them. Black Cat Systems has announced that RF Toolbox version 3.6.0 has been released and is now available. The latest version adds an RF Link Budget Calculator for determining the necessary transmitter power, antenna gains, and other parameters for various radio links, including WiFi. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »