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Myth III Preview
An Anonymous Coward sent in: "A nice new preview of Myth III: The Wolf Age has been posted at InsideMacGames after a visit the author made to MumboJumbo Studios. There's no word yet if Loki will port this 3D-enhanced sequel to Myth II as well, but there's always hope..."
There was no storyline information because Mumbo Jumbo is apparently following in Bungie's footsteps by making the game's storyline very complex, very detailed, and a very important part of the game, and keeping it secret until you can actually play the game and be surprised by it. This approach is much better than the "reveal more reveal sooner" marketing of most other game companies. Sometimes there's nothing left in a game for me to find once I finally get it (Unreal 1, I'm looking in your direction...)
One of the best video game series ever created, but sadly underrated from day one. Myth was a phenomenal game, a karate chop to the tired world of crappy first-person shooters and lame sim games (Pizza Tycoon, anyone?) Superbly written, with excellent graphics (and 3D acceleration with a 3DFX card), and realistic missions (even the first mission could be tough) this was a MAN'S game. A GAMER'S game.
Then Myth II came out and really raised the stakes, with interior missions, large 3D objects that could be manipulated, better graphics, more secrets, and development tools included in the box. Also released simultaneously for PC and Mac, the way games should be. A bit easier than Myth, with superb multiplayer support.
But Myth and Myth II both had graphical problems that stemmed from the combination of 3D rendered landscapes and objects and billboarded sprites for the actual characters. Myth III is going to resolve this issue and add even greater levels of detail, and it appears that they'll do it while keeping the strong storyline and level design of Myth and Myth II intact. This is the first game I've seen this year that I feel I MUST purchase. Can't wait.
Eh. Depends on how they put the demo together. If it's a small force mission with only a few units, you'll never see the collision bug. That only takes effect when you have large masses of units coming together (and then passing through one another :p).
The demo may illuminate some of the problems and/or solutions, but probably not all of them.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Myth I was a groundbreaking game, with realistic troop movements and tactics. Loved it.
Myth II ruined the franchise, by allowing unrealistic encounters -- among other things, they removed the collision radius between units. Why they took a great engine and concept and screwed it up, I'll never understand.
I'm going to want some assurances that Myth III is faithful to the original, with some realism and thought in its design, before I try anything in that franchise again.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I read through this review this morning, as I have been an avid fan of the Myth series since the begining. It was way ahead of it's time with it's unique style of gameplay.
...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.
Myth III will be available for OS X, as noted in this quote, "Yes, the Mac version will be fully carbonized for those who want to run it under Mac OS X.".
Don't worry about speed either. The reason the last four Mac OS X updates(10.0.1/2/3/4) have not gotten much fanfare is because version 10.1(Codename Puma) is coming out relatively soon. (See MacWorld) It will deal with a lot of the speed issues along with DVD playback also.
Myth III looks beautiful. But I've never had fun with these games. I had much fun on Atari playing Dungeon Master, Bombjack, Maupiti Island, Double Dragon, Shinobi, Wings of death, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, IK+, Ultima 3, R-Type, etc, etc.
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Loki set up a special newsgroup for port requests: loki.requests on news.lokigames.com. Please don't mention Diablo or Half-Life, however; those have been mentioned far too often. :-)
-Karl
Now is the time to send a polite email to Loki stating your desire for a Linux version and your willingness to pay for it. The more groundswell now, the sooner they will consider the port, right?
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
Did anyone else notice that all of the Pictures were taken with Mac OS 9.n? Does this mean that the game will run slow as it is being emulated on my new laptop (OS X)?
Keeping
I hope that GoD and company can live up the the same high standards as Bungie. From the screenshots, there are obviously still a lot of issues with the game. I hope they will put in the effort to fix them and make it a wonderful game before they release. Far too many developers now are satisifed with releasing crap, and even if they do fix the issues eventually, the game does not do nearly so well as if they just did it right in the first place.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
You're wrong. The 3D terrain in myth and myth II wsa an important gameplay element. For example, archers can shoot farther if they are up on a hill, dwarf exploding cocktails will roll down hills, some cliffs are high enough that archers and such can fire off of the edge, while ground troops can't climb up it...