Aspyr Media has already been in the news a couple of times this week, with yesterday’s announcement that it’s bringing Jedi Knight II to the Mac and info earlier this week about the production status of Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. Now the company has provided new details about other game development efforts currently underway in the latest edition of its monthly newsletter, mailed to subscribers late yesterday.
Aspyr noted that Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds should actually begin shipping sometime early next week. When the company noted the game was in duplication earlier this week, it didn’t know for sure when the game would ship. Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds is the Age of Empires-derived strategy game that puts you in control of one of several different factions as seen in the Star Wars movies, with resources to manage and units to create.
The Sims Hot Date, the latest add-on for the phenomenally popular simulated life game The Sims, is close to being released as well. Westlake Interactive’s Mark Krenek is putting the finishing touches on it and Aspyr anticipates that this game will go gold very soon. Hot Date enables you to have your Sims take each other on dates in a new downtown area, and more.
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is still slated for a release later this summer, but Aspyr reported that it’s in Final Candidate status — that’s where the game is tested for any last minute problems and sent to the original publisher and developer for final approval. Aspyr is accepting pre-orders for the game now, too. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is a gritty first-person action game set in the European theater during World War II.
Another game in Final Candidate status is the long-awaited Mac conversion of Clive Barker’s Undying, a first-person shooter based on the Unreal engine that was originally slated for release last year. Aspyr moved the release date to this year following some development delays, and Westlake’s president Glenda Adams is herself working on the game. It once again is expected to go gold soon, according to Aspyr.
Last but certainly not least, Aspyr provided some hard details on a forthcoming patch for Return to Castle Wolfenstein, its Mac conversion of the Id Software game. Some Mac users who already have the game have been frustrated because the initial Mac release’s version was disparate with the PC release’s most current update, preventing Mac users from using many PC-based Wolfenstein multiplayer servers already online.
Aspyr said Westlake’s Duane Johnson is hard at work on a new Wolfenstein patch, 1.32, that will bring the Mac version inline with a new PC build released last week. In addition to the 1.3 and 1.31 changes that add support for using the “Punkbuster” anti-cheating software system employed by Wolfenstein servers, 1.32 makes other multiplayer and single player fixes, adds a new map, support for “mod” files, and makes other changes. Aspyr said they expect the patch to be released early next week.
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