The week in games

MacCentral brings readers news from the Mac gaming front each and every week, but there are usually a few items that don’t make it onto our regular news pages (fewer than usual this week, as it was pretty quiet game-wise). That’s why we have this retrospective, called the Week in Games. It also gives us an opportunity to catch up on other Mac game-related news on the Web.

Battle for Wesnoth ported to OS X

Battle for Wesnoth was released for Mac OS X this week. It’s a fantasy turn-based strategy game made available for free under the GNU/GPL license.

EverQuest Fan Faire coming to Chicago

Chicago-area Mac gamers interested in EverQuest may want to attend the EverQuest Fan Faire, scheduled for September 25 – 27. The event will feature panel sessions, costume contest, bazaar, silent auction and more.

Halo: Combat Evolved goes gold (for PC)

Gearbox Software and Bungie Studios announced earlier this week that Halo: Combat Evolved has gone gold, for the PC. Gearbox has been working on a Windows conversion of the popular Xbox game for some time; Gearbox’s interpretation of Halo sports a significantly modified graphic engine and new gameplay elements, so this isn’t the same game you’ve played on the Xbox. MacSoft will publish the Macintosh conversion of the game, which has been underway for quite some time and is expected to be released soon (no release date has been set).

Redline progress update

Ambrosia Software will publish a 3D auto racing game called Redline, and its developer has posted some news about the game’s continued evolution on Ambrosia’s message boards. He reports that recent issues addressed in new development builds of the game include improvements to shadow rendering, dynamic texture loading and quality handling and more.

Shadowbane: The Rise of Chaos expansion coming

Players of Ubi Soft’s MMORPG Shadowbane may be interested to know that an expansion pack is coming this holiday season. Shadowbane was released earlier this year simultaneously for Mac and PC. The expansion pack features new high-level content, a new race called the Nephilim, new classes, new disciplines and more.

Elsewhere on the Web

MacGamer has posted a video roundup of some recent time spent with Westlake Interactive. Inside Mac Games has posted an in-depth Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition review. Apple’s own Games site takes a look at Law and Order: Dead on the Money, coming soon from Aspyr Media.

Closer to home

This week MacCentral posted news about Dominions 2 coming to multiple platforms, including OS X. MacPlay announced plans to publish games from JAMDAT formerly announced by newly acquired JAMDAT subsidiary Hexacto Games. Aspyr Media announced that Zoo Tycoon Marine Mania and Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer have both gone gold master. Apple has unveiled updated PowerBook G4s; the 17- and 15-inch systems are now better game systems than ever with updated processor speeds and fast graphics chips. e.p.i.c. interactive has posted a demo of Northland, a new strategy game that derives inspiration from Viking folklore.

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