Every week MacCentral endeavors to bring readers the latest in Macintosh game news and info right alongside our general coverage, but occasionally minor items slip through the cracks. We’ve come up with this weekly retrospective, The Week in Games, to cover those items that we’ve otherwise missed throughout the week.
Deimos Rising at beta 4, screenshots available
This goes back a few weeks, but it’s worth mentioning anyway. David Wareing has posted news to the Deimos Rising Progress Log message board on Ambrosia Software’s Web site. He said that the sequel to his hit Mac arcade game scroller Mars Rising has hit its beta 4 milestone, and posted some screenshots to prove it. Old school gamers should get a huge thrill out of this one; it harkens back to the best of the 16-bit gaming era.
Diablo Battle Chest in stores now
Is there someone on your shopping list that doesn’t yet have Blizzard Entertainment’s enormously popular Diablo series yet? If so, you may be interested in the newly released Diablo Battle Chest, a hybrid Mac/PC CD-ROM collection that includes the original Diablo, Diablo II, and the Diablo II expansion pack Lord of Destruction all together along with a strategy guide too. All this for the low, low price of $50.
Elite Force expansion pack at final candidate
Westlake Interactive reports on its project status page that Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Expansion Pack should soon be ready for prime-time. The add-on pack will be published by Aspyr Media after its final qualification has been completed; the game is at “final candidate” right now, which means that if they don’t find any other problems, it’ll soon be declared gold master and sent to production.
Netrikulator released
If puzzle games are your thing, you might be interested in a new offering from FIDIM Interactive called Netrikulator. (FIDIM, in case you’d wondered, is an acronym for “Fine, I’ll Do It Myself!”) “The game play can best be described as a combination of Tetris and Pipe Dreams as the user tries to form as many complete networks as possible before the screen fills up,” said developer Tom Rockwell. A demo of the shareware release is ready for download from FIDIM’s Web site.
Power64 3.2.1 released
Up for a classic game back when 8-bit systems were the rage? Roland Lieger indicated that Power64, his Commodore 64 emulator for the Mac, has been updated to version 3.2.1. Changes in the emulator include a customizable program menu; improved file-type detection logic; and many other changes minor and major.
Quake 3 Gold out, it’s official
Okay, it may seem a bit redundant since MacCentral brought readers news earlier this week about Quake III Gold’s availability in stores (it’s a hybrid CD-ROM set that bundles both Quake III Arena and Quake III Team Arena). Regardless, Activision sent us “official” word on Friday noting the game’s release. No new surprises there, really — the game includes installers for both Mac and Windows and runs about $30 from your favorite computer game store.
UT X troubleshooting tips
If you’ve been having problems getting Westlake Interactive’s recently released Mac OS X preview of Unreal Tournament to work on your system, Westlake president Mark Adams has put together a collection of troubleshooting tips to help you out.
Elsewhere on the Web
Inside Mac Games has posted an interview with MumboJumbo Games’ Mike Donges to talk about their forthcoming game Myth III: The Wolf Age. The interview includes a couple of new screenshots, too. MacGamez has posted its impressions of Return to Castle Wolfenstein MP Test. MacGamer has posted a video interview with B-movie queen Julie Strain, whose claims to fame include being the heroine of Heavy Metal: FAKK 2, the third-person action game published for the Mac by Gathering of Developers.
Closer to home
This week MacCentral brought readers game-related news including Aspyr Media and The Omni Group’s word on Cocoa game development for OS X; info about the long-awaited Mac update (and OS X application release) of Myst III: Exile; news from e.p.i.c. interactive about their plans to publish the Earth 2150 series for the Mac; info about Bold’s acceptance of pre-orders for Age of Empires II; financial news from graphics chip and card maker ATI Technologies, Inc.; release news on Quake III Gold for both Mac and PC; and more. Check the News Archive page for details.
As always, we encourage you to get in touch with us if you have ideas for ways we can improve our games coverage or if you have Mac games or related products and services you’d like to see highlighted on MacCentral.