At last, it’s the news that hardcore Mac game fans have been waiting for since Mac game publisher Aspyr Media first announced plans to publish Return to Castle Wolfenstein for the Mac. Today, Aspyr director of PR & marketing Amy Torres confirmed that the game has gone gold master.
Torres indicated that the Mac conversion of Return to Castle Wolfenstein is now in duplication. “… we expect to see the game on store shelves by April 29th,” she said.
Torres called that date “conservative” for all retailers and suggested that it may show up even sooner for individual stores or customers, so if you’ve pre-ordered the game, you should see it soon.
The Mac conversion of Return to Castle Wolfenstein has been the subject of intense criticism from a small but vocal minority of Macintosh game enthusiasts. Originally expected to be released earlier this year, Return to Castle Wolfenstein was held at “Final Candidate” status for much longer than expected.
Aspyr, its Mac conversion development partner, Westlake Interactive, PC publisher Activision and original developer Id Software have not articulated the specific cause of the delay. Regardless, Id Software’s release of a publicly available OS X-only multiplayer test build of the Return to Castle Wolfenstein engine late last year fanned the discontent of some Mac gamers who presumed that the problem lay with Aspyr or Westlake, despite the absence of any formal comments from any of the parties involved. Regardless, the title is now set to appear in Mac gamers’ hands by the end of this month.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a revisitation to a series that first appeared as a 2D action game on the venerable Apple II. Designed using the same underpinnings that power the popular first-person action game Quake III Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein immerses you in a 3D action game set during World War II.
You assume the role of B.J. Blazcowicz, an Army Ranger recruited by the OSA to infiltrate the Nazi stronghold Castle Wolfenstein, where Heinrich Himmler and his underlings are trying to harness both genetic engineering and occult powers to manifest an army of horrible, unstoppable creatures.
In addition to a bizarre and challenging single-player storyline, Return to Castle Wolfenstein features online play that’s proven to be enormously popular since the game’s release for PC late last year. As with Quake III Arena, online multiplayer features are platform-agnostic, so you’ll be able to go up against players regardless of what computer platform they prefer.
Final system requirements for Return to Castle Wolfenstein call for Mac OS 9.2 or later, or Mac OS X 10.1 or later; a Power Mac G3/G4, flat-panel iMac; or PowerBook G4 (Gigabit Ethernet) or later; 500MHz or faster processor; 128MB RAM; and ATI Radeon, nVidia GeForce2 MX or later 3D graphics acceleration card.