The week in games

Here’s a look back at some of the Mac game-related headlines we missed the first time around. Check further below for news from MacCentral and other Web sites you may have missed, also.

Burger tools available for download

If you’re a game developer, you may be interested in a recent offering from Bill “Burger” Heineman. He has released programming tools for Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Windows 95. Burger’s resumé includes the games developed by Logicware and Contraband Entertainment, as well as Fighter Squadron, which he’s presently working on for MacPlay.

Gathering announces Substance Award

Gathering of Developers’ co-founder and Vice President of New Media, Doug Myres, passed away in May shortly before E3. In memory of Myres, the company has announced that it will present an honorary award called the Doug Myres Substance Award. The award will be presented to a computer game industry leader on July 1 at the Cyberathlete Professional League’s Four Year Anniversary gathering in Dallas, Texas. The award “recognizes a member of the industry whose integrity, solid character and influence reaches beyond the business and makes a significantly positive impact in the gaming community,” according to Gathering.

King of Dragon Pass 1.6 released

A Sharp has updated its role-playing adventure game King of Dragon Pass to version 1.6. The new version corrects a number of bugs, including possible crashes. King of Dragon Pass is set in the world of Glorantha, a popular role-playing universe used by the RuneQuest games.

The Sims House Party coming in July

In case you were curious, Aspyr Media reported last week that the newest expansion pack for its ever-popular game The Sims will be released by July, in time for Macworld Expo. Aspyr announced in April that they would release a Mac version. The game is expected to go Beta soon.

‘Undying’ = Peroxide

Do you keep track of Westlake Interactive’s secret code-names for its as-yet-unannounced projects? Westlake maintains a list of unannounced games on its Project Status Web page. If so, you may be interested to learn that the “Peroxide” project has turned out to by Clive Barker’s Undying, a new first-person shooter coming from Aspyr.

Elsewhere on the Web

Tom Gaglione asked us to mention his site, MacGamersReview.com. The site features reviews that readers can add themselves — it features more than 220 reviews of popular Mac games. Myth III fan site Mythwolfage.com has posted an interview with Myth III lead designer Scott Campbell, along with some new screenshots. The folks over at Inside Mac Games have posted a new feature called Ask MacPlay, in which folks get to ask the Mac game publisher questions. MacGamer’s Corey Tamás has taken a look at Creative’s Sound Blaster Live! for Macintosh audio card in a newly posted review.

Closer to home

On the pages of MacCentral this past week, we’ve brought you news including huge layoffs at Humongous; a recap of an interview with GraphSim president Jeff Morgan on his company’s new releases; word about a new Freddi Fish title from Humongous (and possibly the last for a while, all things considered); info from Aspyr Media about the pending release of two new Tomb Raider games for the Mac; other info from Aspyr about Clive Barker’s Undying coming to the Mac; Freeverse’s release of a Carbonized version of CrossCards; and more. Visit MacCentral’s News Archives for more.

As always, we encourage you to drop us a line if you have ideas for how we can improve our coverage of games-related news on MacCentral, or if you have a product or service you’d like to make our readers aware of.