The week in games

Each week MacCentral brings readers the latest news from the world of Mac gaming, but 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. It also gives us a chance to link to other Mac game-related news around the Web.

Blizzard axes more Starcraft, Warcraft III accounts

This past week Blizzard Entertainment announced on their Battle.net online gaming service that they’d whacked another 200,000 Starcraft and 7,000 Warcraft III accounts for cheating. The company takes a very dim view of players who try to circumvent their anti-cheating efforts; in some cases, players are banned permanently while others are banned for playing for a month.

Burningmonkey.com gets new content

Freeverse Software has updated Burningmonkey.com with new information, more easter eggs and more monkeys. It’s the Web repository of information about Freeverse’s continuing Burning Monkey game franchise (card games, mah jong, casino games and more).

Dark Horizons: Lore signed to GarageGames

Max Gaming LLC is working on a new mecha combat action game based on the Torque Game Engine called Dark Horizons: Lore. It’s coming to various platforms including Mac OS X and GarageGames announced plans to publish it as their first “core” game title. GarageGames has published several other TGE-based titles for Mac, Windows and Linux.

D2X brings Descent 2 to Mac OS X

The D2X Project is helping to keep alive one of the all-time classic computer games, Descent 2. The effort has yielded Mac OS X support. If you have Descent 2 and you’d like to play it on your Mac OS X-equipped system, you can get more information about it and download the binary.

Descender 1.2 released

SloppyDisk Software released a new version of their Tetris-style puzzle game Descender. Version 1.2 fixes bugs, adds customizable level backdrops and a new online scoring system.

Manic Minefields 2.1.4 available

Norbyte has released Manic Minefields v2.1.4, a new version of their Minesweeper clone. The new version fixes bugs.

Redline development progress continues

Ambrosia Software marches onward towards its completion of Redline, a new auto racing game. The developer’s progress log shows that effort was made to resolve OpenGL issues in Panther, along with a variety of changes to improve networked games and more. More details and screenshots showing the game in action are available from Ambrosia’s Web site.

Second Life extends property rights to digital world

Linden Lab is working on a Mac OS X version of Second Life, their massively multiplayer online world where people can build, shape and craft things that can be bought and sold or traded with others. It’s a bit like EverQuest meets The Sims. The company this week noted a change to its Terms of Service (TOS) agreement with end users that allows them to keep the intellectual property they create in game. What’s more, they’ll be able to license their content under a Creative Commons license if all goes well.

Elsewhere on the Web

MacGamer has posted a preview of Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, coming soon from Aspyr. Inside Mac Games has posted a review of the Power Mac G5 Dual 2GHz. Apple’s Games site has previewed Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb.

Closer to home

This week MacCentral brought readers news of Aspyr Media’s plans to port Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. Freeverse’s Burning Monkey Casino is at gold master. Freeverse is also sending 3D Crazy Eights to retailers. MacSoft said that Age of Mythology will hit retailers’ shelves this coming week. GameRanger has gone multilingual with the addition of Unicode support. Feral Interactive announced that Rayman 3 is already at release candidate. I Spy Fantasy offers gamers ages 6-10 plenty of puzzle solving challenge.

If you have questions, comments or suggestions, make sure to drop us a line.