Sacrifice (Mac)

Rating:
Summary: Good Game play, but it really doesn't make you want to play
Review: Basically in Sacrifice you serve a god of your choice (or multiple gods), you are their pawns and do what they ask. The game is a rather hard to classify, if I had to chose one category I would call it a strategy. Basically you go around doing odd quests for a variety of gods. There is a god for almost every type of player; the good, the bad, the tree-huggers, the industrial type and more. My main problem with this game is that it doesn't hook you in, it really doesn't make you want to rush home and play it, which good games should. The story... well the story works, and not much more. Game play is easy and you will catch on quickly and there are little technical problems. But for me it all goes back to the fact that it really isn't something that you really want to play, I myself found it hard to finish the game, not because it was bad, because it didn't hook me in, I would play it for a few hours and then forget about it. Overall, I would only buy this game if you have either extra time, or extra money.

Rating:
Summary: AHHHHH!!
Review: I found this game to be quite enthralling, and when I first played it I was using OS 9.2 on my G4 466. That's when I found the first bug, the game uses cutting edge techniques to get enough preformance (mainly with memory management). The game would only run in 9 with 512mb or less.

I removed some memory to get down to the system requirements, dispite some bugs I got through to the last level a couple times (it was too tough for me, and I just plain enjoyed exploring the other sides of the story).

Since then I have upgraded to OS X full time, and upgraded to a Radion 8500. The system seems to crash a whole lot now, though it is predictable. Most often while desicrating an alter while having too many units in the area. I really don't know if this is the cause, but by pulling back all extra units I have been able to get past many 'crashy' spots.

With all of the trouble that I've had with this game I still wake up and play it first thing in the morning and think about it constantly. I feel that it was worth it even if an incompleat product - you should keep this in mind however before you purchase!

I eagerily await a new computer that MAY play this better (it's possible that something that I upgraded is conflicting, or a I may have a memory chip that isn't up to par for the game...)

----

Also I'm now running the latest ATI driver, and the most current Sacrifice update.

Rating:
Summary: A Fun game despite the bugs.
Review: I found this game to be quite enthralling, and when I first played it I was using OS 9.2 on my G4 466. That's when I found the first bug, the game uses cutting edge techniques to get enough preformance (mainly with memory management). The game would only run in 9 with 512mb or less.

I removed some memory to get down to the system requirements, dispite some bugs I got through to the last level a couple times (it was too tough for me, and I just plain enjoyed exploring the other sides of the story).

Since then I have upgraded to OS X full time, and upgraded to a Radion 8500. The system seems to crash a whole lot now, though it is predictable. Most often while desicrating an alter while having too many units in the area. I really don't know if this is the cause, but by pulling back all extra units I have been able to get past many 'crashy' spots.

With all of the trouble that I've had with this game I still wake up and play it first thing in the morning and think about it constantly. I feel that it was worth it even if an incompleat product - you should keep this in mind however before you purchase!

I eagerily await a new computer that MAY play this better (it's possible that something that I upgraded is conflicting, or a I may have a memory chip that isn't up to par for the game...)

----

Also I'm now running the latest ATI driver, and the most current Sacrifice update.

Rating:
Summary: Great Ideas, Horrible Execution
Review: I really do want to love this game, the concept and plot are simply wonderful. This game is complex and enthralling, many of the scenes are quite beautiful and the sound effects are some of the best I"ve ever heard. The game design is very innovative, the plot is told like an epic story which is very open-ended. HOWEVER the developers of this game should simply be ashamed of themselves, the gameplay/interface is incredibly complicated and took much more time than I was willing to put in to master. The port itself is very buggy and while it worked fine, though a bit slow, on my PowerBook G3 when I tried it out on a friends G4 with about a gig of RAM and a sweet video card it wouldn't even run at all. The OS X support is fairly stable, but the OS 9 version crashes consistantly. In short, had this game been developed well it would have been awesome but it is now condemned to a life in one of my drawers, perhaps never to be touched again.

Rating:
Summary: AHHHHH!!
Review: It keeps crashing, I cant even play. Does any1 kno wut is wrong or how to fix it? I'm running Mac OS 10.3.4 on a g3 ibook with 500 mH and 384 Megs of ram.

Rating:
Summary: A game you'll hate to love ...
Review: Sacrifice has enough eye candy and interesting gameplay that it could easily merit four or even five stars--IF it were stable and reasonably smooth to play. I realize that my 300 MHz B&W G3 represents the low end of the Apple spectrum these days, but since I have no trouble getting Black & White or MYTH III to run smoothly (and both of these have hefty system requirements), I certainly can't see why Sacrifice should sputter and crash the way it does. Don't bother going for the lowest resolution and detail settings, either--it won't help. You might as well enjoy the nice 1024x840 32bit graphics, as the game's performance will not benefit from turning all the nicer video settings off. Form what hear and read, not even having a nice tricked-out G4 will get Sacrifice off the ground--something must be fishy with the code itself. It's a shame, since Sacrifice is quite an original title with amazing visuals and great sound FX. But it's the first game in a long while that I really wish I hadn't bought.

Rating:
Summary: A game you'll hate to love ...
Review: Sacrifice has enough eye candy and interesting gameplay that it could easily merit four or even five stars--IF it were stable and reasonably smooth to play. I realize that my 300 MHz B&W G3 represents the low end of the Apple spectrum these days, but since I have no trouble getting Black & White or MYTH III to run smoothly (and both of these have hefty system requirements), I certainly can't see why Sacrifice should sputter and crash the way it does. Don't bother going for the lowest resolution and detail settings, either--it won't help. You might as well enjoy the nice 1024x840 32bit graphics, as the game's performance will not benefit from turning all the nicer video settings off. Form what hear and read, not even having a nice tricked-out G4 will get Sacrifice off the ground--something must be fishy with the code itself. It's a shame, since Sacrifice is quite an original title with amazing visuals and great sound FX. But it's the first game in a long while that I really wish I hadn't bought.

Rating:
Summary: It's Too Bad the Support Was Pulled...
Review: Unfortunatley for Mac users, this ported game showed up far too late in Shiny's support of it. They have repeatedly announced that they would not release a sequel, and that last official patch for the game was released over a year and a half ago.

But if you ever wanted to play an RTS which puts you, the general, on the battlefield, this game is it. The interface, which seemed clunky at first, is one of the smartest I have ever seen, allowing both mouse input and fully-customizable keyboard input.

The creatures can line in a myriad of formations, control grouping is incredibly simple (unlike Myth and exactly like the Blizzard titles)and many of them have special abilities of their own you can order them to invoke. Your wizard (your presence on the field) will also be casting quite a number of spells when not summoning creatures to fight. You can create volcanic eruptions, carve a chasm in the earth, send your enemy into a Tornado, or even throw the opponents off into an abyss to name just a few. Full customization for multiplayer is available upon a single completion of the campaign.

Basically, this game has all the advantages of any other RTS on the market now. Truly ahead of its time, and not yet equalled.

The graphics were very damanding in its time; had there been an ongoing effort to keep this title going, it may have paid off. As of now, when the more popular games are also very demanding, most systems that can handle these games can also handle Sacrifice. But you'll need a Mac friend to play online - alas, PC users and Mac users cannot play each other.

Rating:
Summary: It's Too Bad the Support Was Pulled...
Review: Unfortunatley for Mac users, this ported game showed up far too late in Shiny's support of it. They have repeatedly announced that they would not release a sequel, and that last official patch for the game was released over a year and a half ago.

But if you ever wanted to play an RTS which puts you, the general, on the battlefield, this game is it. The interface, which seemed clunky at first, is one of the smartest I have ever seen, allowing both mouse input and fully-customizable keyboard input.

The creatures can line in a myriad of formations, control grouping is incredibly simple (unlike Myth and exactly like the Blizzard titles)and many of them have special abilities of their own you can order them to invoke. Your wizard (your presence on the field) will also be casting quite a number of spells when not summoning creatures to fight. You can create volcanic eruptions, carve a chasm in the earth, send your enemy into a Tornado, or even throw the opponents off into an abyss to name just a few. Full customization for multiplayer is available upon a single completion of the campaign.

Basically, this game has all the advantages of any other RTS on the market now. Truly ahead of its time, and not yet equalled.

The graphics were very damanding in its time; had there been an ongoing effort to keep this title going, it may have paid off. As of now, when the more popular games are also very demanding, most systems that can handle these games can also handle Sacrifice. But you'll need a Mac friend to play online - alas, PC users and Mac users cannot play each other.