Alternate history Abuse

[jk]

#12106

I know the podcast’s stance on Amiga but what’s less clear is the position on old Mac games. Given it’s been 30 years or more, I hope this is close enough to DOS and thought I’d share a bit of alternate history from someone who grew up with 68k and PowerPC Macs.

This is my boxed copy of the Abuse… demo.

In the late 90s I was gifted a big box copy of Marathon Trilogy from my Dad’s friend. I’m unsure _why_ he gifted it to me and also knew to pick a seminal series but they did and it’s one of 2 boxed computer games I still have.

On the main CD of the Marathon Trilogy was the 3 Marathon games, Pathways into Darkness (pre-Marathon Bungie FPS) and an Extras folder. The Extras had a simple slideshow for Myth (another Bungie developed game), a product catalog and an Abuse Demo.

I don’t know if Bungie ever published another game (was Oni internally developed?) but at this point in time, Abuse made the cut.

I took a screenshot of the included Bungie Catalog ’97 on the Abuse page since I doubt anyone would’ve seen this before.

Here’s a couple of screenshots from the Demo that would be different to the PC version.

I returned to the demo a bunch it’s unique control scheme and the fact there was a bunch of secrets to find. I don’t think there’s anything else unique to the version outside of the publisher, unless there was an action mapped to right click which I wouldn’t have had access to with my one-button mouse handicap.

Looking forward to exploring the game more this month and give me a reason to fire up Mac OS 9 again.

Attachments:

1. 

   Bungie-Catalog-97-1.jpg
   

2. 

   Abuse-Demo-1.01-1.png
   

3. 

   Abuse-Demo-1.01-2.png
   

4. 

   IMG_7651.png
   

5. 

   IMG_7656.png
   

[Tijn]

#12112

Oh yeah this is cool! I’ve read the Mac port of Abuse is quite well done. It’s not a simple straight up port at all, it really makes use of the Mac’s capabilities.

Oh and just for the record, all the Amiga stuff is just having a laugh of course. I know it’s obviously a joke, but I just felt it’s good to have it out there that we don’t actually hate the Amiga (or any platform for that matter) 😛

[Evil Taco]

#12113

This is super neat for sure!

Smiling wide about “the Amiga stance” too ^_^

[watchful]

#12114

Mac?! That’s a completely distinct platform! You’ll have to start a totally different spinoff podcast for that! 😉

For real though, I didn’t realize the Mac port was so distinct. Will have to check it out myself once I can get some hardware. (My experience with emulation of Macs has been mostly negative.)

[jk]

#12115

I’m unsure the Mac port is different aside from the publisher. I’ll have to try the DOS version after to see if there’s anything obvious.

I won’t try the source ports with the nice framerates until later in the month to avoid ruining the originals though.

[jk]

#12215

So I didn’t realise the control menu and rendering style were specific to the Mac port but they are. I attached some screenshots of the 2 screens that control those.

I have been chipping away at it at night playing on Normal but have only managed to make it to level 8 so far. I haven’t even seen all the weapons yet with 2 still to be seen.

I actually soft locked my save in level 8 where there is a save point hidden behind some explosives and an area that fills with heaps of aliens. Accidentally saved while dodging the aliens and got stuck in an endless loop of respawning into a death animation.
Was worried I’d have to start from level 5 again which was my only other save, but I found out I could go into Edit mode, then load the level again. That way, allows me to at least start from the same stage. The command parameters available on DOS don’t exist for the Mac version as there’s no terminal on classic Mac OS.

Attachments:

1. 

   Abuse-1.01-1.jpg
   

2. 

   Abuse-1.01-2.jpg
   

3. 

   Abuse-1.01-3.jpg
   

4. 

   Abuse-1.01-5-1.jpg