Every day MacCentral brings readers news and info from the world of Mac games, but there are sometimes items that don’t make it onto our regular pages. That’s why we have this weekly retrospective. It also gives us a chance to catch up with what some Mac game sites are reporting on, as well.
America’s Army/Revolution 7.1 patch released
Ryan Gordon has released a patch for America’s Army that enables the game to support M-Audio’s Revolution 7.1 audio card. You can download it from a link on his .plan file update. Not only does the patch enable the card to work, but it may help improve performance on some machines by offloading the audio to the card instead of making your Mac’s CPU do the work.
Billy Frontier updated for Nvidia card problem
Pangea Software has updated its recently released space cowboy game Billy Frontier to v1.0.2. The new release has a fix to correct problems with Macs that use Nvidia graphics chips — the game would “hiccup” when loading textures.
Laser Squad Nemesis is Mac-bound
The Gollop Brothers (whose claims to fame include X-Com) are working on a Mac version of Laser Squad Nemesis, according to comments posted to the Web site’s FAQ. It’s a two-player squad level strategy game designed to be played by e-mail.
Myth II 1.4.2 released
Project Magma has released Myth II 1.4.2, an update to the recently released update to Bungie’s classic strategy game Myth II: Soulblighter. The 1.4.2 release should fix troubles that anyone who downloaded 1.4.1 or 1.4.1a ran into.
Noiz2sa released for Mac OS X
Can’t get enough of Kenta Cho’s rRootage, the freeware shooter that distills the essence of shoot-em-up boss levels down to an abstract, psychedelic romp? Give Noiz2sa a try. This one is a bit more of a vertical scroller, but it’s the same trademark trippy geometric stuff you’ve seen in rRootage.
Solace v1.0.3 released
Freeverse Software has released Solace v1.0.3, a new version of their Axis & Allies/Risk-style strategy game. The new version adds some new figures and fixes a variety of bugs manifested in earlier versions.
Space Spuds 0.9.2 source code released
Freak Software has released the source code to its game Space Spuds. It was created with REALbasic version 5 and has been released under a modified uDevGame license from iDevGames.com. The code and assets can be used for educational and private use only.
Strange Adventures In Infinite Space released
Cheapass Games and Digital Eel have released the final version of Strange Adventures In Infinite Space (SAIS) for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. The game is available for online download for US$15. A CD-ROM version will be released in September.
Westlake Interactive updates Project Status page
Mac game conversion studio Westlake Interactive has updated its Project Status page with a new “secret” project called Russell. The company noted that it’s in early development and will run only on Mac OS X, though it declined to identify the publisher. Russell joins Booty Call and Webber on Westlake’s list of secret projects. The company is also working on Halo: Combat Evolved and Age of Mythology for MacSoft, as well as Star Trek Elite Force II for Aspyr Media.
Elsewhere on the Web
MacGamer turns its attention to America’s Army: Operations while Inside Mac Games has posted a Radeon 9800 Pro Technology Overview. Apple’s own games site looks at Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4.
Closer to home
This week MacCentral brought readers news about Feral Interactive’s release of a demo version of Warrior Kings. GarageGames updated ThinkTanks to v1.1. Mumbo Jumbo is shipping Super GameHouse Solitaire Collection. Pacific Software and Feral have reached a Japanese distribution agreement. World War II Online has been updated to v1.9, and former players are welcome to give it another try. uDevGame 2003 is underway. Nvidia is set to acquire MediaQ, which makes graphics acceleration hardware and software for handheld computing devices. MacSoft plans to publish Age of Mythology for Mac. Virtual Programming is planning to bring Horse Racing Manager to Mac as well.
As always, we encourage you to drop us a line if you have any questions or comments, ideas for ways we can improve our coverage on MacCentral or Mac game-related products and services you’d like to see highlighted.