Mac game publisher Aspyr Media quietly posted on its Web site today its plans to publish Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, for both Mac and PC. The company is also accepting pre-orders for the game.
This is the second announcement from Aspyr in recent weeks noting plans to publish Mac and PC versions of a game that originated on video game consoles. Aspyr is also working on Mac and PC conversions of SpyHunter, which is presently at the Beta stage of development and anticipated for release this month.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 is the latest edition of the skateboarding action game starring the eponymous pro skateboarding legend — a Mac user and “Switch” ad star in his own right. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 takes players to enormous free roaming levels, choosing from 190 progressively harder goals as they work to successfully perform 14 of the greatest skateboarding stunts in history.
The game features visages of Tony Hawk and thirteen other real-world pro skaters, and features an enhanced career mode that has skater-specific Pro Challenges. As with past Tony Hawk games, this new edition sports new tricks. There’s also an eight player online mode with new online games like Goal Attack and Capture the Flag.
This particular announcement is a huge coup for Aspyr Media, as the Tony Hawk franchise has proven to be enormously profitable. It also comes at an unusual time — Aspyr released Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 for the Macintosh not too long ago, and players of that game are still awaiting a long-overdue patch that provides promised multiplayer and force feedback capabilities.
Preliminary system requirements for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 call for Mac OS 9.1 or later or Mac OS X 10.1 or later, G3/400MHz or faster, 128MB RAM plus virtual memory (256MB for OS X), 700MB hard drive space, and ATI Radeon or Nvidia GeForce2 MX 3D graphics acceleration with 32MB of video RAM or more recommended.
In related news, Aspyr Media also announced today that its Macintosh conversion of BloodRayne, a recently announced third person 3D shooter licensed from Majesco Games, has gone Gold Master — the final step before a game is sent to duplication. Look for it on store shelves soon.