The week in games

Every day MacCentral brings readers breaking news and information from the world of Mac gaming, but there are always a few items that don’t make it onto our daily pages. That’s why we have this retrospective, which we call The Week in Games.

<?php virtual(“/includes/boxad.inc”); ?>

Borodino brings Napoleonic warfare to the Mac

By Design Inc. has released Borodino, a new turn-based Napoleonic-era warfare strategy game based on the Waterloo Campaign engine. This game covers the battle between Napoleon and the Russians in 1812. An OS X native version is available, too.

Creepy Mines 1.2.1 released

DanLab Games has released an updated version of Creepy Mines, its shareware game in which you must remove diamonds from mines by hitting them with your ball. This version fixes a door error bug.

Freeverse Board Games add GameSmith support

Pursuant to Freeverse Software’s online game service GameSmith’s update to v3.3, the company has also released a 1.1 update to its Freeverse Board Games, a collection of eight “classic” board style games with multiplayer support. Freeverse Board Games are free — download them from Freeverse’s Web site and get playin’!

GarageGames to showcase titles at GDC

GarageGames will showcase its library of games at this month’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Jose, Calif. The company supports Mac OS X along with Linux and Windows with its Marble Blast title and other upcoming games.

Hang3000 updated to 2.0.7

Ken Winograd and Space-Time Associates has released Hang3000 2.0.7, a new version of the “secretly educational” Hangman-style word guessing game. This new version features the ability to show what category the Random Words selection was chosen from.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at final candidate

Aspyr Media noted that its Mac conversion of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is at Final Candidate, the final milestone before the game is announced gold master and sent to duplication. The game’s conversion is being handled by Westlake Interactive and should ship within the next few weeks.

Sloppy Sokoban 1.7 available

SloppyDisk Software has released an update to its puzzle game, Sloppy Sokoban. The new 1.7 version gets new graphics and smoother animation, new levels, a statistics screen, and much more. Mac OS 8.1 and Mac OS X native versions are available for download.

USB Overdrive X 10.2.2 released

Alessandro Levi Montalcini has offered a minor update to USB Overdrive X, his universal game controller and mouse driver software for Mac OS X. Bug fixes and several “handy new commands” are available in the new release, available for download from the Web site.

WingNuts demo updated to v1.2.4

Freeverse Software has updated the demo for its superlative scrolling arcade game WingNuts to version 1.2.4, fixing a few minor bugs and improving OpenGL support along the way. You can download the improved demo from links on Freeverse’s Web site now.

Elsewhere on the Web

MacGamer.com has posted a first look at Star Trek Elite Force II, a new game that’s coming to the Mac from Aspyr. Inside Mac Games has posted a review of Mutant Storm, a Robotron-inspired shareware game.

Closer to home

This week on MacCentral readers learned about Armored Assault’s availability as a Mac open beta — it’s a tank-based game from the makers of WarBirds. Information about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 is available from Aspyr’s Web site, and the Mac game publisher also announced plans to publish SimCity 4 for the Mac as well. Freeverse Software’s GameSmith has been updated with zero-config networking support. Cornerstone TSP Games has ported Pocket Tanks, a Scorched Earth clone, to the Mac. MacPlay has posted Soldier of Fortune II v1.0.3. MacSoft has released Civ3Edit, an OS X editor for Civilization III.