The week in games

Every day MacCentral brings readers the latest news and headlines from the world of Mac games. There are always a few stories that don’t make it onto our regular news pages. That’s why we have this weekly retrospective, called the Week In Games. We also provide links to Mac game news of note on other Web sites, too.

Atari reborn

Although the news doesn’t have any direct bearing on Mac games, it may be of interest to “old school” gamers: Multinational game publisher Infogrames Inc. has renamed itself Atari. The company purchased Atari’s name brand when it acquired Hasbro Interactive in 2001, and has published several games under the Atari brand since then. Infogrames sold its Mac business unit, MacSoft, to Destineer earlier this year.

Dracosoft updates games

Dracosoft has released updates to several of its games: Avalanche, Burst, Cube It! and Wordsmith. The updates make bug fixes, and in some cases add features or improve documentation.

Energy The Petanque Factory released

Phelios Inc. has released a new puzzle game called Energy The Petanque Factory. The game features balls in bases that must be sorted by color by rotating the basis. Four worlds, 100 levels. For more details, hit the Web site.

E3 this coming week

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, happens this Wednesday through Friday in Los Angeles, Calif. It’s the world’s largest trade show dedicated to video and computer games, and MacCentral will be there. We’ve already got meetings lined up with major companies offering Mac games, as well as Mac game publishers who will be there as attendees. If you have questions you want us to ask the companies, make sure to drop us a line.

Enigmo 1.2 released

Pangea Software has released Enigmo 1.2, a new version of their new 3D puzzle game featuring water and mazes. The update adds anti-aliasing in Windowed mode with ATI hardware and makes other fixes and improvements.

Galactica: A.D. beta released

Sacred Tree Software and VendorNation have released a new beta version of Galactica: Anno Dominari, the shareware space-based strategy game. The new version corrects a startup crashing bug.

GameRanger 3.3.1 released

Scott Kevill has released a new version of GameRanger, the Mac-only online game matching service. The new version implements a number of improvements and fixes, including a more advanced Profanity Filter. Current users can log on to automatically download the latest version of GameRanger.

Solace details unveiled at Freeverse

Freeverse Software has posted a new Web page dedicated to Solace, the company’s forthcoming Axis and Allies-style turn-based strategy game. The game will feature a play-by-email mode, OpenGL graphics, and other features when it’s released in the second quarter.

Spearhead trailer released

It should only be a few more days before Aspyr Media’s Mac conversion of the Medal of Honor: Spearhead expansion pack hits store shelves, but if you’re interested in seeing what the full game has to offer, check out Apple’s site. They’ve posted a movie trailer of the game in action.

Elsewhere on the Web

MacGamer has posted a review of Master of Orion III, the recently released space-based strategy game from MacSoft. Inside Mac Games has posted a look at Aspyr’s recent Tony Hawk 4 event in San Francisco, Calif. Apple’s Games site features a preview of NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, the forthcoming racing game from Aspyr Media.

Closer to home

This week, MacCentral brought readers game headlines including Meshwork 2.0’s released (Meshwork produces low-poly-count 3D models suitable for game skins). THQ Inc. is shipping two Finding Nemo games for Macs and PCs based on the new Pixar/Disney movie coming to theaters at the end of May. Aspyr Media has released to duplication NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. MacSoft released a beta tech demo of Unreal Tournament 2003. Disney Interactive has released a new game for preschoolers based on the popular Playhouse Disney television show The Wiggles. Aspyr Media announced plans to bring Law and Order: Dead on the Money to the Macintosh, a mystery game based on the popular television drama series. Anark Studio 2.0, a multimedia development system suitable for creating media-rich content including games, ships for the Mac this month.

As always, we encourage you to drop us a line if you have questions we didn’t answer, ideas for ways we can improve our games coverage on MacCentral, or games you’d like to see us cover in the future.