Every day MacCentral brings you the latest news and info from the Mac gaming industry. Even so, there are occasionally stories that deserve coverage which don’t make it onto our regular news pages. That’s why we’ve created this weekly retrospective, which we call The Week in Games.
Macflightsims.org launches
Michael Caswell let us know that he’s gotten Macflightsims.org off the ground. The new site is dedicated to Macintosh flight simulators, with an emphasis for now on civilian flight sims like X-Plane. The site is pretty bare-bones right now, as it’s just getting started, but stop on by and bookmark the site if you’re interested in this aspect of Mac gaming.
Reckless Drivin’ 1.42 released
Jonas Echterhoff noted the release of a new version of Reckless Drivin’, a 2D shareware arcade action game for the Mac. The new build fixes a crash bug on non-USB equipped Macs.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein ships
Various reports from our readers (and our own copy sent from publisher Aspyr Media ) confirmed that at long last, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is shipping for the Mac. First impressions are that Westlake did a great job with the conversion — it’s been rock-solid through the first few levels of the game we’ve played through, and is quite playable on a G4-equipped machine with an ATI RAGE 128 Pro-based graphics card — actually below the minimum spec printed on the box.
Rune: Halls of Valhalla ships
A few weeks ago we brought you news that Mercenary Studios would deliver the long awaited Rune expansion pack, Rune: Halls of Valhalla. This week, the company is actually shipping the game. The disc is available for US$24.95. It can be used as a standalone multiplayer game or as an expansion pack for the original Rune, a third person 3D action game published for the Mac by Gathering of Developers in 2000.
Shiny Entertainment finds new home
With Interplay in dire financial straits, the company has been shopping around for a buyer for its subsidiary Shiny Entertainment. Shiny is the game developer behind past hits including Sacrifice, MDK, and upcoming games based on the motion picture The Matrix and its sequels. It’s still too soon to see how this will affect Mac users over the long haul, but it’s worth noting that Infogrames is the parent company to Mac game publisher MacSoft.
Warcraft III action figures coming soon
If you’re looking for some cool new monitor pets to keep your Mac company, Blizzard Entertainment noted last week that Warcraft III action figures are coming soon. The set will feature orcish war chief Thrall, dwarven mountain king Muradin Bronzebeard and night elf arch-druid Furion Stormrage. Each figure is about 5 or 6 inches high and sports about 8 points of articulation. They come with removable weapons. Look for them when Warcraft III comes out — it’s coming soon.
X-Plane 6.13 released
A new version of Laminar Research’s X-Plane flight simulator is available for download. Visit the Web site for details about version 6.13, which fixes a bug in vertical flight and makes preparations for new scenery add-ons. X-Plane is a versatile flight simulator that enables you to design and pilot multitudes of aircraft.
Elsewhere on the Web
MacGamer interviewed Beenox Studios chief Dee Brown about Beenox’s recent efforts with the Goliath 3D game engine and a new game called The VATZ, both of which will be shown off at next month’s E3 Expo. Meanwhile, Inside Mac Games previewed The Sims: Hot Date, a new expansion pack for the simulated life game published by Aspyr Media that’s coming soon to the Mac. Apple’s Games section has posted a QuickTime trailer for WingNuts, the hit arcade-style action game from Freeverse Software.
Closer to home
Speaking of Freeverse, the company announced on Friday that it will publish Wipeout 2097 in the US; up until now it’s been available as UK import only. Wipeout 2097 publisher Virtual Programming Ltd. and Paradox Entertainment announced plans to produce a Mac version of the real-time strategy game Europa Unversalis II, which they hope to get on store shelves in time for the holidays. Freeverse also announced that they’re selling their remaining stock of Deathground CDs for $0.50 (plus $4.50 shipping) to make way for other inventory. Beenox Studios announced Goliath and The VATZ, a new cross-platform 3D game engine and game title respectively; Beenox told MacCentral that The VATZ can be available for the Mac if the publisher they end up making a deal with so wishes it. ATI is offering a trade-up program that offers a cash rebate to buyers of its new Radeon 8500 and Radeon 7000 Mac Edition video cards, if they trade in their old one.
As always, we encourage you to let us know if you have ideas for ways that we can improve our games coverage, or if you have a Mac game-related product or service you’d like our readers to know about.