Aspyr Media Inc. announced Monday that the Mac conversion of Command & Conquer Generals has hit its Beta development milestone. The game is now expected to hit stores in April, three months after it was initially anticipated. Conversion of the game was first announced in late September, 2003.
Command & Conquer Generals is the first installment of the long-running real-time strategy game series since the original Command & Conquer to come to the Macintosh. The game puts players in the role of a leader of one of three different advanced military forces: The United States, China, or the ‘Global Liberation Army,’ which uses terrorist-like tactics to compensate for its lack of superpower-era technology. You deploy air, ground and amphibious forces on detailed 3D terrains alone or against up to seven other players online.
Aspyr noted that online multiplayer capabilities for Command & Conquer Generals is Mac-to-Mac only. This reverses earlier information provided to MacCentral when the conversion was first announced that indicated Mac to PC multiplayer was planned for this release.
Published for the PC by Electronic Arts, Command & Conquer Generals’ Macintosh conversion is being handled by i5works, a frequent collaborator of Aspyr Media that has also done the Mac conversions of Ghost Recon, Raven Shield, SimCity 4 and X2: Wolverine’s Revenge.
System requirements for Command & Conquer Generals will call for Mac OS X v10.2.6 or later; G4/1GHz or faster; 256MB RAM; 1.6GB HD space; DVD drive required for installation and play; and ATI Radeon 7500 or Nvidia GeForce2 MX or better 3D graphics acceleration with at least 32MB VRAM. GameRanger will be supported for online multiplayer gamefinding.
Command & Conquer Generals can be pre-ordered from Aspyr’s Web site for US$49.99.