TO THE MAX      Issue #1        March 31, 1995


WHO'S MAX??

I'm just your ordinary everyday Joe, only my name is Max. I see what
goes on, just as everyone else does, and yes, I grumble about it, just
as everyone else does. But me, I say what I have to say so that others
can hear it. Not that I'm any more intelligent than the next guy, mind
you, but sometimes ya just gotta say what ya gotta say, and be heard
when ya say it. So, this is my sounding platform. You can read it or
not, it's your choice. That's what America's all about, isn't it?
Freedom of Speech, and Freedom to ignore someone else's Speech.

So what makes me so special? Nothing. I don't claim to be anyone I am
not. I tell it like it is, and that's it. I don't make things up - "the
truth is far too much fun." (Dustin Hoffman, "Hook.")

Most of my gripes are about cyberspace and the proverbial toilet it's
being flushed, but I hit other subjects too.


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POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

More like Political Stupidity, which of course is redundant. I mean,
what is the beef here? Everything's gotta change just so someone,
someplace, isn't offended. Lemme tell ya something - offense is half the
offender and half the offended. There are a great many people out there
who just can not take a joke, and that's sad. When someone loses the
ability to laugh at themselves for what they are and still be proud,
then the country's taking a bad turn. For example, we don't have
janitors anymore, we have "Maintenance Engineers." Why? "Janitor"
doesn't sound important enough? The problem isn't with offending the
janitors, it's that they lack a stuffy impressive sounding title. So,
they puff it out to two words where one would have done nicely. Just
means that the unemployment offices have to expand the size of the
"previous job" blank. It's gotten to the point where we can't call a
spade a spade - it's an earth moving implement.

Seen the latest version?  Cable's running "Stories for Every Child" now.
The Political Correctness Machine has hit fairy tales too.  (Or are they
calling them something else now, so as not to offend the homosexuals?)
What was wrong with the originals?  They weren't good enough for other
kids?  A Chinese girl can't enjoy Little Red Riding Hood unless they
make ol' Red an oriental?  Jack and the Beanstalk now uses a colored
cast to make it more appealing to Negro children?  Why?  Are they going
to go through all of Uncle Remus' tales next and translate them to
Street English?  Or maybe all the old African stories, and change them
all around to appeal better to the Eskimos?  Come on people.  I am not
racist in any way; I believe everyone has the same rights as everyone
else, provided they get off their ass and work for them.  This takes the
cake though - if it's not broken, don't fix it!

Get off it, America. We have a lot more important things to worry about
(like perhaps the homeless and the jobless? Or is that now the
"residentially" and "occupationally challenged?") Everyone is wasting a
lot of precious time and effort going through Webster's Unabridged
making sure that no one gets upset over a lack of proper wording, and
that offends the intelligent people who know better. Some people are
going to be offended no matter what you call them, because they are
hopelessly paranoid. (Security challenged, pardon moi. Or does saying
"pardon moi" offend the French now?) By the way, I made sure to spell
check this paragraph - I wouldn't want to offend Dan Quayle.


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"BUT IT'S NOT DOOM!!!"

I am sure you have all seen that posted on at least one bulletin board.
DOOM took the world by storm, it's true, but now, two years later,
people are still clinging to it like it's the golden fleece.

For those who have been living under a rock for the past few years, DOOM
is a game that pits you against several thousand alien creatures who
only have one thought in their little brains - kill.  They don't care
WHAT they kill, but usually it's you they're after.  What makes this
game so appealing is the viewpoint - you're seeing the action as if you
were there.  Now, this is not a new thing - Wolfenstein 3D, by the same
company - id Software - introduced us to this possibility about the same
time Ultima Underworld I was released to the commercial market.  In my
opinion, what made Wolfenstein so popular was that it was free.  You had
to PAY for Underworld, and money is something that gamers only use to
buy faster modems to download programs.

DOOM had the same free appeal.  You could download the first 9 levels as
shareware, then buy the next two.  (Or download it from a pirate BBS,
which seemed to be the more popular choice.)  And, something even more
appealing is that you could create new levels for it, which added to the
replay value.  If you had already mastered the original 27 levels, hop
on a BBS and download 27 more.

Finally, it introduced a semi-unique concept called "deathmatch," which
pitted you against a HUMAN opponent.  Again, this wasn't new - GEnie had
Multiplayer Battletech for years before DOOM saw the light of day.
However, Multiplayer Battletech wasn't nearly this gruesome - DOOM is
bloody.  You see blood spurting and guts flying.  And if a rifle isn't
enough, you can carve them up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey with a
chainsaw or blow them to bits with a missile launcher, complete with
appropriate screaming and "splat" sound effects.

Since the release of DOOM, and then later DOOM II (a commercial
more-of-the-same sequel), many companies have come out with their own 3D
games.  Some of them are pretty good, others are... well... DOOMed to
obscurity.  With all the various games out there, there is bound to be
discussion as to which is better than others. Unfortunately, intelligent
conversations are hard to come by. Most of what I have seen on the net
and BBS's is a lot of crap from DOOMheads who think that DOOM was and
always will be THE greatest 3D game ever to be created.  It was the
first notable game to come along to use that type of technology, but the
best ever?  I doubt it.  As I said, most of the reason it's still so
popular is that it's got tons of levels created for it by people who
have no life other than to play DOOM. Games like System Shock and
ShadowCaster are limited in replay value, but are still good games
nonetheless.  However, I have seen some pretty stupid reasons why people
like DOOM and no other game.  Allow me to share some of them with you.

Before I go any further, let me clarify what I mean by "DOOMhead." There
are a lot of people playing DOOM that have natural lives, and are fairly
intelligent.  However, the term DOOMhead applies to the childish,
immature, lame-brained individual who thinks that life was created to
play DOOM, a job is so you can afford network cards to play Deathmatch,
and school is a place to meet Deathmatch opponents.  The only messages
they ever post to a BBS or the net is "LOOKING FOR DEATHMATCH PLAYERS",
usually spelled wrong, almost always in the wrong conference or topic
thread, and consistently in all capital letters. (During my brief stay
on America Online, I saw no less than 14 messages from uneducated
assholes who were looking for deathmatch opponents - in the Networking
Support folders listed under "Netware 4.1")  Such a message will usually
be accompanied by a line proclaiming their total mastery of DOOM, and
daring anyone to dethrone them.  A DOOMhead doesn't play any game that
doesn't allow invincibility cheat codes, except maybe deathmatch
because, as they will tell you, they are the best bar none and don't
need cheat codes cause they can't be beaten.  A DOOMhead gives new
meaning to the word "ego." A DOOMhead will flame anyone who dares to say
that another 3D game is any good. A DOOMhead will fight to the death to
defend DOOM, as long as you're not talking about QUAKE (id Software's
next project.)  QUAKE hasn't been released, but it's already better than
anything that's out now, mainly cause id Software says so.  (How many
things did DOOM promise that were not delivered?)



DOOM vs. DESCENT

"Descent is a DOOM ripoff."

According to the guys at Parallax, Descent was originally in development
two years ago as an Apogee release called "Inferno." Why Apogee ditched
it is anyone's guess, but it was in the programming stage before DOOM
was even an idea.  How can you rip something off that didn't exist yet?

"There's no BFG."

As in, no way to completely and mindlessly anihilate everything in the
room without trying.  Sorry, kids, this game takes more strategy than
"run, shoot, then laugh cause you're using the God mode cheat."  What
were you expecting, a Wave Motion Gun?


DOOM vs. DARK FORCES

"Dark Forces is a DOOM ripoff."

Dark Forces uses a better engine than DOOM, allows more flexibility of
movement, and better level design.  If anything, they looked at DOOM's
engine and decided to do it better, which I feel they did.

"There's no mid-level save game."

It's called reality.  Life has no save game, but I don't see you
complaining about that.

"There's no modem/net play."

Head-to-head play seems to be a requirement for games nowadays, and a
game without it will be flamed by any DOOMhead.  (Not that anyone really
CARES what a DOOMhead has to say, but it makes for humorous reading.)
In the case of Dark Forces, LucasArts has stated that deathmatch-type
play doesn't fit into the storyline of the Star Wars universe.  Why
would rebels be shooting at other rebels?  All sorts of permutations and
combinations have been created... "Rebel vs. Boba Fett" or "Rebel vs.
Dark Trooper," but LucasArts apparantly is sticking by their guns.

"The game code has the words 'Worship Satan' in it."

This complaint from a DOOMhead?  Where the entire game is played with
the premise that all these creatures are from Hell?  They're really
fishing now.  To set the record straight, some programmer with a warped
sense of humor used that as a debug code in the IMUSE.EXE file. You'd
never see it unless you started hacking apart the game files with a hex
editor.  (And if you're looking for trouble, why bitch when you find
it?)  Nowhere in the game do these words appear, but it's enough
argument for a DOOMhead (and your die-hard Bible thunper student of
Sister Bertha Better-than-you.)


DOOM vs. RISE OF THE TRIAD

"It's a DOOM ripoff."

You get the idea.

"It has non-orthagonal walls."

Actually, a DOOMhead would NEVER use a word as large as
"non-orthagonal."  They would instead whine "The walls are 90 degrees."
True, Rise of the Triad uses wall blocks, similar to Wolfenstein, rather
than line definitions like DOOM.  This doesn't really detract from the
enjoyment of the game, but a real DOOMhead would have no idea what kind
of game it is, since it's not DOOM and they never would have played it.
(Or at least never admitted to playing it.  Doing so would make them
look like an ass in the eyes of every DOOMhead on the planet - as
opposed to just looking like an ass in the eyes of every sane person on
the planet.)



Suffice to say, DOOM will be around for a long time.  It was a landmark
achievement for id Software, and I have no doubt that QUAKE will start
the fever over again.  (Look at the following it has already, and it's
not even in beta code yet.)  However, I also have the sinking feeling
that the DOOMheads are here to stay, at least for a while, or at least
until something better comes along.  (Of course, they won't play it -
they're too busy blowing each other up to even read this.  Assuming of
course they can read.)

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ILLITERACY ONLINE

Are we raising a nation of idiots when it comes to computers? Microsoft
and IBM are constantly at each others throats as to whose operating
system can beat up the other, but they are both missing the boat.
Teaching people to use a mouse to click at little pictures isn't
actually TEACHING them anything. Sure, they know what to click to open a
text editor, and for most of us, (including yours truly) being able to
point and click is nicer than typing "CD\DIS <ENTER> DAT <ENTER>" all
the time. But what happens when you sit them down in front of someone
else's system? The little pretty pictures aren't always in the same
places, or - God forbid - there aren't any pictures! (Did I offend
anyone by saying "God?" Good, I thought I was losing my touch.)

Herein lies the problem - schools and training classes are spoon feeding
icons and GUI's (Graphical User Interfaces, pronounced "gooey"
appropriately enough) down the throats of our kids, such that they feel
superior to others who know not the power of the mouse. Stick these kids
in front of a good ol' C: prompt though, and where are they? Back to
Hunt and Peck 101. Most people, as evident by the articles I read
relating the average tech support call to computer companies, have
absolutely no clue as to what to do with a DOS prompt. Not that it's
their fault, mind you - all they have been taught is Windows. They buy a
computer, they plug it in, turn it on, and BANG! up comes Windows. (Or,
if they have a sound card, trumpets blare - this can be changed to
something more appropriate, such as an explosion or a flushing toilet.)
To the neophyte, Windows IS the computer, and exiting to a C:\> prompt
means something went seriously wrong and it's time to call the 1-800
number.

Luckily, or unluckily as the case may be, most of the popular
applications out there are migrating to Windows. You can run all kinds
of stuff by pointing and clicking now, such as spread sheets, databases,
word processors, and yes, they are even porting games to Windows. (As if
DOOM wasn't bad enough with the system hangs and crashes, now they're
gonna make it work in Windows? This I gotta see.  Buggy game + buggy
operating system = formatted hard drive.) But what happens when they run
into a program that wasn't designed for Windows, or won't run under
Windows at all? Joe User goes out and buys a game at the local software
store, and finds no instructions for Windows installation. Immediately,
he calls the software company and the first thing the tech tells him to
do is exit Windows. Long pause. "Exit Windows????" The tech realizes
that he's going to miss not only his coffee break, but lunch and dinner
on this one.

With the advent of the online service, and more recently, the so called
"Information Superhighway," (Again with the Political Correctness.  What
was wrong with the word "Internet?" for crissake?) the everyday computer
novice can now get connected to hundreds of other computer novices. They
can all congregate in a chat area together and stare at each other, not
knowing what to do next. (Chatting requires typing, and they obviously
have not learned how to do that. Read some of the messages in support
areas sometimes, you'll really be surprised that they were able to make
it that far.) The problem however is that many of the sophisticated
online networks are now lending themselves to Windows and trying to make
themselves easier to use. This of course makes it hell on the people who
actually have to SUPPORT these blessed adventurers.

I recently received a signup kit to a growing online service, who shall
remain nameless to protect the stupid. (But their initials are "AOL."
Not that they need protection - in reality, they need a clue.) I
normally don't use online services; I restrict myself to the BBS world
where the new people are at least tolerable. (And let me say something
here - I am not against new people. I'll clarify later.) However, I had
heard a lot of neat things about this service, so I decided to take the
plunge. Credit card in hand, I signed up, and within minutes, I was
online. Very user friendly interface, nothing required too much thought,
at least for me. I found my way to the chat areas, and was absolutely
amazed at the names of some of the rooms there. "Bi fems looking for
work." "Wife in bed, hubby horny." "Pedo GIFS here." So this is the type
of person that is discovering the online world now? People who obviously
have less intelligence than the average door-wedge, yet they are able to
not only get signed onto an online service, but create rooms that
advertise their stupidity? Who in their right mind would go out of their
way to publically advertise illegal smut, especially after Jake Baker
went and got himself railroaded by the Thought Police?

But I digress. My point was not the kind of chat rooms this service
allows; I'll save that for another article. I quickly retreated from the
chat area, further confident that I had made the right choice in
avoiding online services, and ventured into their computer support
areas. Here, by following a few message threads, I learned a disturbing
problem this service is having. Because computers are so darned
impossible to learn, (at least this service seems to think so,) they
have attempted to make their software even more idiot proof. Instead of
making people learn to use something like a decompression program (one
of the VERY FIRST utilities anyone with a computer should learn to use,
right before a virus scanner and after finding the ON switch) the
intrepid programmers built one into their system software. I checked the
settings in my software before logging on, and had set this little gem
to OFF - if I want to decompress something, I'll do it when and where I
want to, I don't let some program decide that for me. However, for the
average user who has no idea how to unZIP (except maybe for the ones in
the chat areas, who were advertising this fact to the rest of the online
world) the software will do this automatically as soon as you log off
their network. Members of this service could download a file, and it
would be decompressed for them - they didn't even have to THINK! Sounds
like a neat idea, right?

Wrong. In February 1993, shortly after this little "feature" was added,
PKWare released PKZIP 2, which includes a new compression method. The
system designers of this network's software were either unprepared,
apathetic, or both, but the decompression method doesn't know what to do
with files in ZIP 2.04 format. (Similar to what PKUNZIP 1.10 does on a
2.04 file - it pukes royally.) Okay, so things change, it happens, who
can predict this? Wait, it gets better - to date, two years later, they
STILL have not bothered to upgrade this feature. Instead of actually
coming up with a way to unZIP files compressed with the new method,
their latest software just says "Sorry, I don't know what to do with
this." Even funnier is that the service won't allow people to upload
files in the newer compression method to avoid making the green members
have to use a DOS utility such as PKUNZIP. Apparently, their attitude is
that if you can't do it in their little GUI program, it's wrong.  Rather
than move ahead with the rest of the world, this company has retreated
behind their GUI, confident that they can keep everyone from using a DOS
utility simply because someone came up with this bizarre vision that a
GUI is better.  Instead, they are concentrating on adding Internet and
World Wide Web features - now wait a sec.  You mean to tell me that an
Online Service that won't even take the time to teach its users how to
use an unzipping program is going to unleash thousands of idiots onto
the Web and make them deal with TAR and Z files?  Where the hell was
Steve Case when they were handing out the clues?  This guy's sending up
the plane and THEN not even considering training the pilots!

Don't get me wrong - I use Windows, and have dabbled in OS/2 (gack.)
They have their place and time.   (For example, I am able to type this
in one window, and watch the morning news in another window.  You
couldn't do that at a DOS prompt.)  However I know enough about this box
to be able to navigate a DOS prompt.  I don't try and run DOOM from
Windows, and I certainly don't try to force everyone to use Windows
simply because I use it on occasion.

Once in a while, I think America needs to close the Windows.

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@$%!*-UP OF THE MONTH AWARD

You always see awards for outstanding service, exceptional talent, blah
blah blah. I'm tired of seeing people and companies applauded for doing
their job, I want to see a company get royally roasted for screwing the
public. So, every month, I hope to point out a company who has gone
beyond the call of duty in shafting the end user.

This month's award goes to:

                            EPIC MEGAGAMES

Epic Megagames, for those who don't normally deal in the obscure, is a
shareware games company (their words, not mine) located in Maryland.
They appeared a few years ago with their first game, Jill of the Jungle.
Jill carried the underlying theme that a) a woman can be a game's main
character, and b) Apogee Software Productions wasn't the only kid on the
block. Admittedly, the game was fun to play, and did introduce something
new in platform games - a female character. But that's where Epic's Rein
of Terror (no that's not a typo) ended. The games they have come out
with since Jill have been lame, dull, bug ridden, and insipid. Solar
Winds was boring, and I lost interest in Zone-66 after getting shot 10
times because the game ran too darn fast to react to anything. (As you
can tell, I don't have the reflexes of a rabid 10 year old that Zone-66
requires.) Epic Pinball, a bug-ridden game with annoyingly scratchy
digital music, was an attempt to get at the table crowd. Based on what I
have been reading on various BBS's and echos, it is their best seller.
That's not saying much for the rest of their product line.

To try and redeem themselves, Epic came out with Xargon, which is
basically Jill of the Jungle with a male character in jeans and a
t-shirt instead of a female in a bodysuit. Three years later and that's
the best they came up with? A rewrite of an older game? Since then their
only other release has been Heartlight, which was a direct copy of an
old Commodore 64 game called Boulderdash. It looks like they ran out of
original ideas, so they have been giving the public remakes of older
games in lieu of something new.  The guy who created Jill for them came
up with an idea to redo Jill and publish Jill II, however Epic didn't
seem interested in releasing it so close to their last release.  So, the
guy went to a compnay called Union Logic, and published it as Vinyl
Goddess of Mars (a take off on Leather Goddesses of Phobos perhaps?)

With the release of Epic Pinball, I noticed that Epic Megagames was no
longer advertising Software Creations BBS as their home board, but
rather CompuServe and Exec-PC. After some digging, I came up with two
reasons:

1. According to the regulars on Software Creations, and confirmed by the
sysop, Epic Megagames was originally contracted to advertise Software
Creations as their home board, and do technical support there as well.
The boys at Epic decided that they didn't want to answer e-mail or
support their products, and suddenly stopped advertising for Software
Creations. Dan kicked Epic off of his BBS, so to get back at him, they
use CompuServe as their primary support area. Bad move for Epic if this
is true - Software Creations is THE place to get good stuff, any BBSer
worth their modem knows that. Epic lost the largest method of shareware
distribution they could have ever had - no one goes to CompuServe
looking for new games, half the time CompuServe's stuff CAME from
Software Creations.

2. According to Mark Rein, the loud-mouthed and extremely rude vice
president of Epic, they were "tired of living in the shadow of Apogee."
(Software Creations has been the home BBS for Apogee Software for about
four years.) They couldn't stand to be on the same BBS with a company
that ran rings around them in the market, so they took their toys and
went to CompuServe, where there are no other shareware companies to
compete with them.

I have absolutely no clue why Epic went to CompuServe. You can't even
get to their support area without a CompuServe account, and I doubt the
people already on CompuServe are there primarily for games. I checked
out their support area though, and lemme tell you the place is dead. The
only conversations are between the Epic folks.  Epic did advertise
Exec-PC for a while, but I noticed that too went away.

As far as living in Apogee's shadow, maybe someone at Epic should get a
clue and realize that companies like Apogee and id are popular because
they make cool games. If Epic could write anything that could even come
close to competing with the rest of the shareware market, maybe they
wouldn't have to worry about being overshadowed? Half the design teams
Epic uses for their games were rejected by other shareware companies
because they couldn't do any quality work.  The only decent people they
had went to other shareware companies cause Epic was ripping them off.
(Remember Ken's Labyrinth? The 14 year old whiz kid who tried to do
Wolfenstein one better?  He's working for Apogee now.)

Epic's main method of promoting their games is via slam tactics against
other companies. Anyone who watches the RIME Apogee gaming echo knows
that Mark Rein is in there frequently, starting fights with Apogee's
online representative. There's no Epic echo, so Mark goes into the
Apogee echo to try and make Apogee look bad. Hey, Mark, do us all a
favor and give it a rest. You're only making yourself look like an ass,
and making Epic look bad for hiring you. Why not get together with Tim
Sweeney and finish that Simusex game he wrote a few years ago? Who
knows, maybe it might sell a copy or two, or at least keep you off the
nets for a while.

Epic's latest release, Jazz Jackrabbit, seems to be a big step upwards
in game quality, and I was ALMOST ready to re-write this article.
However, I found out that Epic decided to put a cheat code in called
APOGEE MODE, which cut the game to half speed and 16 colors.  Well,
there went any credibility for THAT game.

I won't even waste more than four lines on Safari Software.  They come
up with their own games, published by Epic; if it's good Epic can say,
"We did it." but if it sucks (as they all have so far) Epic can disavow
any knowledge of it.

Congratulations, Epic, you've done exactly the opposite of what you set
out to do all those years ago.  We're all disappointed in you, and
really really do hope you'll fade off into bankruptcy and stop giving
shareware a bad name.

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REVIEWS


Magic Carpet            Bullfrog Software/Electronic Arts

CD-ROM, approx $50

Anyone who has ever dreamed of flying on a magic carpet hurling spells
at people, this is your game.  You are in charge of restoring balance to
a world ruined by a bunch of wizards with ego trips.  To do this, you
have to collect magic power (called "mana") and store it away in your
castle.  At the same time, you have to defend yourself and your castle
from worms, bees, vultures, crabs, a variety of other land and air-based
critters, AND other carpet-riding wizards.  Frustration is going after
an enemy castle, only to find out that the enemy and three of his
friends are pounding the shit out of your castle with meteors.

This game definitely does DOOM one up.  Every time a 3D game comes out,
a dozen assholes swarm the net to proclaim that it's a DOOM ripoff and
they won't be buying a copy.  Big deal, that makes it easier for the
intelligent humans to find copies.  Magic Carpet is a new idea in 3D
games, and is definitely worth a look.  However, taking a lesson from
the shareware market, Bullfrog made a two level demo available.  It
plays exactly like the CD version, minus the cinematic scenes.  Look for
it at ftp.ea.com or on a local BBS.




Descent                 Parallax Software/Interplay

Diskette/CD-ROM, approx $35

If Magic Carpet rules the skies, Descent rules the underground.  You're
in a fighter plane, zipping through mining shafts on other planets.
Human mining colonies have been shut down by some unknown force, and all
the robots have been converted to killing machines.  You have to go down
there, destroy anything that moves, and let the guys at mission control
sort out the pieces.

The shareware version (released last Christmas) has seven levels, and
then advertises the registered version consisting of some 30 more.  The
registered/commercial version has finally been released, so fly do not
run to the nearest software store.  It's one of the most talked about
games on the net, and best of all supports modem and network play (yay!)
One of the newest things of late is to hook up your computers to see how
many times you can kill each other in the most unique way.  Descent
gives you even more ways, with lasers, cannons, and four types of
missiles.



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Currently, I don't have a permanent account anyplace - I sorta drift.  I
don't have an E-Mail address, but if I see discussion about this in
public areas, I'll take it to heart.  If you want to rebut this, go for
it - but do it publically.  I don't respond to private slams - that's
for wussies.  You got something to say, say it so everyone can hear it.
