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Disney Online has announced that Pirates of the Caribbean Online, an immersive massively multiplayer online game and virtual world inspired by the popular film franchise, has launched for the PC and Mac platforms. Pirates of the Caribbean Online allows thousands of players to experience the adventures made famous in the films and explore beyond these boundaries in a quest to become the most legendary pirate on the high seas.

“The launch of Pirates of the Caribbean Online opens up an entirely new world of pirate adventures to thousands of fans who can now play alongside their favorite characters in a fully-immersive environment that builds on and goes beyond the epic stories created in the films,” said Paul Yanover, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Disney Online. "We believe the game’s focus on action and adventure, combined with many customization options will appeal to a broad audience of both gamers and fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as they set out on their own course to live the legend.”

In Pirates of the Caribbean Online, players create and customize their own pirate, captain their own ship, and assemble a crew of their fellow rogues in an effort to become the Caribbean’s most legendary Pirate. Along the way, players will interact with characters made popular by the films, like Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, and will also encounter a host of new characters and enemies unique to the game. To become the most notorious pirate, players must forge alliances, hunt for buried treasure, battle evil undead forces, and use cunning and strategy to outwit their foes.

A portion of the game is available for free and players can get unlimited access for a monthly subscription fee. At launch, Disney Online is offering new players subscriptions to Unlimited Access for a first-month fee of $4.95 and a $9.95 fee for following months.

Players can download the game directly and access additional information at the game’s web site.

Pirates of the Caribbean Online (add to watch list)

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Aspyr Media's latest newsletter offers a snapshot of progress on the company's upcoming Mac game titles. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock will come with a Gibson X-Plorer USB guitar and will feature a mouse and keyboard play option. Enemy Territory Quake Wars is nearing the last round of testing, with online play against Windows machines working well. Progress on Neverwinter Nights 2 continues despite difficulties with the game's graphics engine. Finally, Aspyr has just started work on The Sims 2 Bon Voyage.

GUITAR HERO III: Legends of Rock
We've spent the last month adding extra optimization for the graphics engine under OS X, and making sure the game will work under Apple's new OS update, Leopard. The PC & Mac version will come with a Gibson X-Plorer Model USB guitar, giving you the full Guitar Hero experience.   We've also gone through the extra effort to make a very fun keyboard & mouse control option, in case you want to play the game on your Mac Book Pro when you don't have the guitar handy.

ENEMY TERRITORY QUAKE WARS
We've been working on compatibility with OS X Leopard, and tuning performance on the broadest range of Intel Macs we can.  The online part of the game is playing very well against PC's, and as soon as we polish up a few more optimizations and bug fixes the game should be ready to go off for the last round of testing and approvals.

NEVERWINTER NIGHTS 2
The completely reworked graphics engine in Neverwinter Nights 2 has proven a challenge to get running well on a broad range of Intel Macs and versions of OS X. We're focusing on compatibility with some of the older Intel iMac video cards and Apple's upcoming OS X release, Leopard, and this has unfortunately delayed development on NWN2. We're unsure if the game will be done before the end of the year, but Aspyr Studios' engineers are busy working with Apple, nVidia and ATI to get the game running the best it can.

THE SIMS 2 BON VOYAGE
We've just started work on the latest Sims 2 expansion pack for Mac, Bon Voyage.  We are working as quick as we can to get this game on shelves, stay tuned for more information.

Aspyr October 07 Newsletter

Aspyr Media (add to watch list)

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (don't use) (add to watch list)

The Sims 2: Bon Voyage (add to watch list)

Buy Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

Buy Neverwinter Nights 2

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Isotope 244 has released the Atomic Cannon 3.0 Beta for download. A ballistics game in the tradition of Scorched Earth, Atomic Cannon lets players choose from a variety of weapon types to unleash on their tank based enemies. The update offers a variety of changes to the game including the introduction of cross platform network multiplayer action.

Changes in Beta 3.0:

- Online cross platform multiplayer with 16 players
- Supply drops which contain credits, health, weapons, or traps
- Game lobby with chat
- 18 all new weapons
- Walls and bunkers
- Airburst weapons
- Jetpacks
- Mines
- Sentry turrets
- Hazmat armor
- Balanced weapons
- Fixed beam weapons

Isotope 244 (add to watch list)

Atomic Cannon (add to watch list)

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Aspyr Media has announced the finalized system requirements for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The game allows players to unleash their inner rock stars, challenging their skills against a star-studded soundtrack of more than 70 songs.

Here are the final requirements:

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
    * Operating System: 10.4.10 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard)
    * CPU Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
    * CPU Speed: 2 GHz
    * Memory: 1 GB RAM
    * Hard Disk Space: 5.1 GB + 1 GB Swap File
    * Video Card (ATI): Radeon X1600
    * Video Card (NVidia): Geforce 7300
    * Video Memory (VRam): 128 MB
    * Media Required: DVD-ROM
    * Macintosh mouse and keyboard
    * Official Guitar Hero X-Plorer Guitar Controller

MULTIPLAYER REQUIREMENTS:
    * Internet(TCP/IP) play supported
    * Internet play requires broadband connection

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
    * CPU Speed: 2.33 GHz
    * Memory:2 GB RAM
    * Video Memory (VRam): 256 MB

Supported Video cards:
    * NVIDIA GeForce 7300, 7600, 8600
    * NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500
    * ATI Radeon X1600, X1900, HD 2400, HD 2600

Head over to Aspyr's site for more information about the upcoming game.

Aspyr Media (add to watch list)

Buy Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

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Macgamestore.com has added the Universal Binary version of Bookworm Deluxe to its catalog of downloadable games. In the game players link letters to form words in a vocabulary challenge that features enhanced graphics, music, and effects.

Words! Words! Words! This classic vocabulary challenge really knows how to spell f-u-n. Link letters and build words to feed Lex, the insatiable bookworm. But watch out for burning red tiles... they'll send your library up in flames!

Buy Bookworm Deluxe

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