Every week MacCentral brings you game news and info, but there are some items that inevitably escape our grasp. That’s why we have this retrospective, which helps us keep you apprised of some game-related announcements that we didn’t get to the first time around. Welcome to the week in games.
European Harpoon3 site debuts
If you’re a European game fan and you like Harpoon3 — the naval warfare simulation title resurrected for the Mac by Jesse Spears — you may be interested in a new European Harpoon3 mirror site that has the latest news and info about the game.
Harpoon3 OS X plans take shape
Speaking of Harpoon3, Jesse Spears has provided some clarification about his plans for Mac OS X — he said that he expects to have a native OS X version available about the same time that 10.1 comes out. He expects to release it as a beta version.
Gathering of Developers subsumed by Take Two
It’s a sad postscript in the annals of Mac gaming — it appears that Gathering of Developers has been wholly absorbed by its owner, Take Two Interactive Software. Earlier this year Take Two and Infogrames cut a deal to bring titles to be published by Gathering to MacSoft instead, so the news doesn’t have any direct effect on Mac gamers, but it’s a sad ending to the company that brought Mac gamers titles like Railroad Tycoon II, 4×4 Evo, Oni and others.
M1A1 brings Marathon to Aleph One engine
M1A1 is a new mod that purports to adapt the original Marathon game to the Aleph One engine, a 3D game engine based on Marathon’s open source code. Aleph One supports OpenGL and even runs in Mac OS X as a Carbon application. And if you’re a Windows or Linux user, you can grab the SDL version.
Unprovoked “brings new life” to space shooters
Cortic Software has announced the release of Unprovoked, a new 2D action game that features a multiplayer component as well. It’s a multilevel shooter that puts you in the role of a galactic defender who must go on a variety of missions.
X-Plane used to test prototype aircraft
There’s a neat picture on the X-Plane Web site showing a pilot simulating a new type of experimental autogyro called the Carter Copter. This aircraft is present in the latest update to X-Plane, and it’s a real honest-to-gosh experimental craft that’s currently undergoing testing. What makes it even neater is the guy is running his simulation on a Power Mac G4 equipped with a Cinema Display. Check out the pic for more info.
Elsewhere on the Web
Utterer.com has posted a review of MacSoft’s Centipede; Inside Mac Games has reviewed the Saitek P1500 Game Pad; MacGamer has debuted its first MacGamerX column, dedicated to Mac OS X gaming; and MacGamez has posted a review of MacSoft’s recently released strategy game Tropico.
Closer to home
MacCentral itself brought you coverage from QuakeCon; news about the release of a demo of Escape from Monkey Island; info on the release of Green Berets, a new Myth II-based real-time strategy game set in the jungles of Southeast Asia, and more.
If you have ideas for ways that we can improve our own game coverage, or if you have a Mac game-related product or service you’d like to see mentioned on MacCentral, please make sure to e-mail us with the details. And as always, check MacCentral each and every day for the latest Mac game-related news and info.