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Pangea Software today announced the official release of its latest game, Nanosaur II: Hatchling. Pangea has released a demo as well as the full version, both of which are available for download through Macgamefiles.com. The download version of Nanosaur 2 runs in a limited demo mode until a serial number is purchased for $24.95.

Apple’s .Mac customers who download the full version of the game from their iDisk get a special bonus: they can play additional levels in demo mode. A boxed CD version of Nanosaur 2 will start shipping on March 19th. The CD version costs $34.95, and will come with two pairs of 3D glasses.

Here's more from the official press release:

“The initial response to the game has been astounding!” says Brian Greenstone, President of Pangea Software. “The visuals in Nanosaur 2 far exceed what most people were expecting, and the gameplay and all-out fun-factor of the game are really making an impression.”

Nanosaur II: Hatchling is the sequel to the incredibly popular 1998 game Nanosaur, but unlike it’s predecessor, Nanosaur 2 has multiple levels including six 2-player levels with modes such as Racing, Capture-the-Flag, and Battle. Additionally, Nanosaur 2 supports the optional use of 3D glasses for a truly immersive 3D experience. Both anaglyph and shutter glasses are supported.

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MGF: Nanosaur II: Hatchling

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MacSoft today released a patch to its epic strategy game, Age of Mythology. The new 1.0.1 version brings it in line with its PC counterpart, which is currently at 1.0.7. The update includes a number of fixes including fixing a problem for online players that were running the game behind a router or a gateway. The update also addresses a bug with the game with dual-processor machines that would cause the game to randomly crash. Please note that MacSoft recommends that users must upgrade to QuickTime 6.5 for the fix to work properly.

For the whole list of changes and bug fixes, and to download the 3.7 MB patch, head over to Macgamefiles.com.

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Having just released his latest and greatest game, Inside Mac Games sat down with Pangea's Brian Greenstone to get this thoughts on Nanosaur 2, how it turned out, and what is in store for Pangea in the near future.

Here's a clip from the interview:

IMG: So today you released Nanosaur 2. How do you think it turned out?

Greenstone: Honestly, I'm blown away with how it came out, and I'm not just saying that. When we started Nano 2 I just figured it would be a quick sequel that wouldn't be anything all that exciting. But as the game progressed I realized that we really had something unique. In the end I have to say that this game has the highest production value of any game we've ever done, and is probably the most solid game we've ever done too. I'm very very proud of this one.

IMG Feature: Pangea's Greenstone Talks Nanosaur 2

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Shareware game developer Aescapia has recently released an update to Hollow Ground, their tactical 3rd person shooter. The patch, which brings Hollow Ground up to version 1.0.5, contains a number of fixes and improvements:

* Optimized graphical performance significantly under MacOS X.
* Changed ion stone cybernetic upgrades to make them more balanced, preventing the multiple ion stone exploit.
* Fixed bug that sometimes caused ion stones and seraphs to disappear temporarily when the player character teleported a distance of more than two screens.
* Added Command-H keyboard shortcut to hide the application from within any of the game menus.
* Changed sprites so that they glow instead of flash when they are hit and take damage.

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Hollow Ground

Aescapia

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Continuing their aggressive stance against online cheaters, Blizzard has recently closed a number of accounts and banned CD keys due to either cheat programs or hacking. Always aggressive in their policy of keeping their Battle.net service as cheat-free as possible, 263,000 Starcraft accounts and 19,000 Warcraft III accounts have been permanently closed. In addition, 8000 Warcraft III CD keys have been banned from ladder play for one month, and 1,100 have been permanently banned.

Blizzard adds that repeat offenders risk having their CD keys banned altogether, and that they will continue to monitor Battle.net as necessary.

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Epic programmer Ryan Gordon, who is currently porting Unreal Tournament 2004 to the Mac, today updated his .plan file with some good news for Mac gamers with single-processor machines running Unreal Tournament 2004. According to Gordon, he has fixed a bug that will dramatically improve frame rates on those types of machines. Here's Gordon's post:

I just fixed what is possibly the stupidest bug, ever. All of you having _awful_ performance with the Mac demo on single processor machines can expect your framerate to double in the next patch and in retail.

The PC version of Unreal Tournament 2004 recently went gold and is expected to ship on March 15th. The Mac version isn't far behind and should be going gold soon. We'll be sure to keep you posted.

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