The week in games

Every week MacCentral brings readers top headlines from the world of Macintosh gaming. Regardless, there is always news that doesn’t make it to our main page during the week, and that’s why we’ve developed this feature, called the week in games. Despite a lengthy hiatus that began before the holidays, MacCentral’s week in games retrospective is back beginning this week.

Aspyr: Undying, Hot Date coming in March

Aspyr Media has updated its Project Status Web page with details regarding two upcoming titles: the long-awaited Clive Barker’s Undying and the latest expansion pack for The Sims, Hot Date. Both titles are listed as being in “Early Development” and are coming in March. It’s worth noting that Undying was originally expected to be released last year, but the project ran into development problems that pushed the release back.

Escape Velocity: Nova one step closer to completion

Matt Burch noted on Ambrosia Software’s EV3 Progress Log that the latest installment of the legendary shareware space action/adventure game series Escape Velocity is one step closer to completion. Escape Velocity: Nova is now at beta 7. He expects all the changes made in this version will make final candidate testing “fairly painless.”

Galactica headed online

Monkey Byte Development and Sacred Tree Software indicated that Galactica: Anno Dominari is headed online. The space-based strategy game now runs natively in Mac OS X and will soon be playable over the Internet, following a private beta test.

Glider Pro comes to Mac OS X

Mac software publisher Casady & Greene noted the release of Glider Pro X, a Mac OS X-native version of the classic side-scrolling action game that puts you in control of a paper airplane that has to make its way throughout a house, art museum, the Titanic, and other locations.

Rune: Halls of Valhalla headed for Mac

Human Head Studios’ Tim Gerritsen posted a message to the forums on the Human Head user forums indicating that his company will bring out the Mac version of the Rune expansion pack, Halls of Valhalla. The news comes following PC publisher Take Two Interactive Software’s decision not to publish the Mac version. Gerritsen said that some details need to be worked out, but that they plan to release the Mac expansion pack — which has been done for a while — soon.

Space Tripper available for Mac OS X

UK developers PomPom have announced the release of a new Mac version of SpaceTripper, their Defender-meets-3D retro action game. The new 1.6 update adds some new features like an added camera mode, unlimited continues option and more.

Vertigo 1.0 released

Keith Wiley has released Vertigo 1.0, a 3D game that started out as an homage to Asteroids. “However, while blasting rocks certainly has its appeal, this game turned out to be a really exciting space-based dogfight game where you battle it out with enemy ships,” said the author. The US$10 shareware game can be downloaded now.

Elsewhere on the Web

This week MacGamer.com took a look at Commandos 2: Men of Courage, a game reported by Macworld Spain as coming to the Mac. Inside Mac Games queries game developers on the new iMac introduced at Macworld Expo San Francisco this month. Skewed Perspective has posted a review of Zork: Grand Inquisitor, a recent release of MacPlay. Apple has posted an exposé of online gaming, from first-person shooters to card games.

Closer to home

MacCentral had a few key game-related stories to report this week as well. Sony’s The Station online gaming service is reporting that it’s now a Mac developer, and has opened up some of its games to the Mac already. Ambrosia Software and Beenox Studios has released the Coldstone game engine, which you can use to make your own games. Activision reported that it has acquired Gray Matter Interactive, the developer of Return to Castle Wolfenstein (this won’t affect the development of the Mac version, for what it’s worth). Digital Leisure has announced the release of several classic laser disc games for Mac OS X. MacPlay struck a deal with Ubi Soft to bring RealMYST to the Macintosh, as well.

As always, we heartily encourage you to drop us a line if you have Mac game-related products or services you’d like to let our readers know about, or if you have ideas for how we can improve our games coverage.