Every day MacCentral provides readers with news and info from the Mac game world, and this feature gives us a chance to keep you up to speed with some of the other game-related announcements that popped up this past week. Without further ado …
Marathon Rubicon released
Some Mac gamers still consider Bungie’s Marathon games the best series ever made. If you fall into that camp, or if you’ve just got a soft spot for Marathon, check out Marathon Rubicon. It’s a full-on mod for Marathon Infinity, and it features hundreds of new textures, more than a dozen new characters, lots of new scenery, eight new weapons, and more, all in a nonlinear plotline that enables you to finish the game with multiple different endings, depending on the choices you make. Seems pretty amazing.
GraphSim publishes Pro Pinball Fantastic Journey
Empire Interactive has already published Pro Pinball Fantastic Journey, but the Mac version has never seen proper retail distribution. GraphSim Entertainment aims to change that, however — the company has picked up North American distribution rights for the game. If you’re a fan of “true” pinball simulators, definitely check it out — it’s a jewel.
MacMAME 0.37b13 “rises from the dead”
MacMAME project lead Brad Oliver says that he’s been getting worried e-mail from fans of the arcade game emulator MacMAME, since there was an incremental PC-based MAME release that wasn’t mirrored on the Mac. He says not to worry, and to make it up to folks he’s released 0.37b13. The new version sports some under-the-hood improvements and adds support for transparency effects used in some games.
Links LS 2000 fixes saved game bug
Green Dragon Creations has posted an update to Links LS 2000, MacSoft’s excellent golf game for the Mac. (Green Dragon ported Links LS 2000 for MacSoft.) The new version, 1.0.4, sports a fix to the way saved game files are manipulated, to prevent saved games from getting corrupted. An important problem to correct, obviously.
Gridz now supports GameRanger, and vice versa
Speaking of Green Dragon Creations, their offbeat and fast-paced strategy game Gridz just got an update, to version 1.4.1. The new update enables Gridz to support the popular free online Mac game service GameRanger. It also fixes a DrawSprocket-related bug.
Star Wars Gaming Survey asks about Mac
There’s a Star Wars Gaming Survey hosted by Surveyhost.net that asks various questions of Star Wars fans, including what kind of system they play their games on and what kind of system they’d like to see new games made for. Here’s a great way to evangelize the Mac.
Avernum 2 v1.0.2 posted
Spiderweb Software has posted an update to Avernum 2, its role-playing game for the Macintosh. According to the developer, the update, version 1.0.2, “resolves a variety of small bugs.”
Q3Map on Mac OS gets some fixes
The developers behind the Quake 3 mapping utility for the Mac, Q3Map for Mac OS, have made some improvements. The new version, 0.003T, is ready for download. And yes, as the version number implies, this is a very early development version, so exercise appropriate caution. Q3Map for Mac OS enables you to convert Quake maps developed using Scott Kevill’s Quiver utility to a format that can be read by Quake 3 Arena.
Elsewhere on the Web
Our game-savvy colleagues at other Web sites had some interesting news to report this week, too. Inside Mac Games recently posted an interview with Clent Richardson, Apple’s VP of worldwide developer relations. As you can imagine, most of the questions focused on what Apple’s doing to support existing game developers and attract new ones to the platform. Meanwhile Rampancy.net has posted details from Bungie’s Matt Soell about Halo’s development progress. Apple’s Game site does a great job of keeping Mac users up to date with what’s happening in the Mac game world, and this week they posted news about MacPlay, the new Mac game publisher with an old name. Apple profiled the company’s new releases and talked with company president Diane Zammit.
Closer to home
There was a ton of game-related info on MacCentral, too. The emulator community was rocked this week when it was learned that Connectix had cut a deal with Sony to sell Virtual Game Station, their popular Sony PlayStation emulator; MacCentral talked with Connectix president Roy McDonald to find out what this means for the future of emulation on the Mac. MacSoft released Monopoly Casino, a new casino game collection based on the popular board game Monopoly. Microsoft highlighted Halo in its ‘GameStock’ press event this week, and from the looks of it, the game will feature more first-person action than originally anticipated. Sierra Sports released the hybrid CD-ROM ‘Game Room’, a casual gamer’s pack. Westlake Interactive says that MacSoft’s Centipede and Aspyr Media’s Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 are both in beta-testing now.
There’s more, too. Check out MacCentral’s News Archive page for a complete recount of last week’s events, and stick with us every day for headline news from the Mac universe. As always, we encourage you to drop us a line if there are Mac game-related news items you want us to report on, or if you have ideas for how we can improve our Mac game news coverage. We’re here to serve!