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The Pangea Software web site has been updated with great news about their latest project, Otto Matic. Apparently the final game boxes are now in the hands of the good folk at Aspyr Media and should be shipping out today.

Here's the official word from Pangea:

Otto Matic will start shipping today, and the Otto Matic demo should be available later tonight!

When asked about his thoughts on the game, Pangea president Brian Greenstone calmly replied, "Whoo hoooooooooooooooooooo!" As a bonus for Otto buyers, a page of special stickers will be included to proudly show your love for the game. Congratulations to everyone involved on such a quick development cycle (just under a year).

Head over to our sister site Macgamefiles.com to get the demo, and while it's downloading, check out the Pangea page and read through IMG's preview for much more information on Otto Matic.

IMG Preview: Otto Matic

MGF: Otto Matic Demo 1.0 (24.8 MB)

Aspyr: Otto Matic

Pangea: Otto Matic

Pangea Software

Otto Matic

Today, IMG previews Geneforge, the unusual new role-playing game from Spiderweb Software:

The three-person company, already well known in the shareware RPG community, is bringing an expansive new one-island world to gamers this winter.

To play Geneforge is to enter a world of magic, adventure and intrigue. The retro-role playing game casts the player as a Shaper. Shaping is the most powerful and secretive school of magic in this electronic universe. Its members have figured out how to create life, and to mold it and program it according to their needs and whims....

Spiderweb president and chief prognosticator Jeff Vogel said creature creation and control was high on his hit parade for Geneforge.

"The basic idea was that I wanted a game where you could make this horde of creatures to serve you, and care for them or let them get slaughtered according to your whim," he said. "That was the germ of the whole idea. I had to think of what sort of people could gain this power, and how they would treat it. And then I thought about how they would interact with the world around them, and, more importantly, how they would interact with the creatures they make. And that's where the plot came from."

IMG Preview: Geneforge

Spiderweb Softtware: Geneforge

Spiderweb Software

Geneforge

MacGamer is reporting that the groovy spy shooter No One Lives Forever will be released on February 15th. The game created by Fox Interactive and published by MacPlay is one of highest rated of the year.

Henry Price of MacPlay confirmed with MacGamer today that No One Lives Forever, the swingin' spy shooter that uses the Lithtech engine, is confirmed to ship on February 15th, 2002.

We are currently shooting for February 15th. I tell you this without having a beta copy of the game yet. As you know with any product release nothing is solid until you have a Gold Master. We are trying to be very careful with release dates; until I have a gold master in my hand a release date is not solid and is only wishful thinking. The beta testing phase of creating a product is critical as to whether a product is released early, on time, or past the date we all hope for. At this point I hope for February 15th. We have taken all of information from our programmers, marketing, management and our trusty Ouji board. However at this point in the process I will still have to use my brand new talking dart board in order to give a 100% solid date.

We are taking release dates very seriously. We know how important they are to the Mac community.

MacGamer: No One Lives Forever scheduled for Feb. 15

MacPlay: No One Lives Forever

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The Riven: Unofficial Home Page has posted an interview with Riven Co-director Richard Vander Wende. Riven, a sequel to Myst, has rapidly achieved the status of a classic.

Wende has some interesting things to say about his time at Disney, his work on Riven, and his future projects. The interview also features images of the work that Wende did and some interesting moments form the game.

As an artist and designer, what parts of Riven are you most proud of?



The Sunners, the Wahrk (and its skull), the Ytrams, gold Scarabs and the spade Fish; Gehn's Mag-Car, the Sub-Car, and the Fissure telescope; the Superdome (gold dome), Wahrk observation Room, Paper Boiler, and Map-Plateau (on the Survey island)....

Currently Wende is at work on a new project.

If it all goes perfectly and everything plays out according to our desires, it'll become a movie. If not, there are other ways it could manifest itself. Regardless of how well we render the actual script, it's a good story -- I'm not about to let it go to waste.

Richard Vander Wende Interview

Presto Studios

Ubisoft

Myst III: Exile

Buy Myst III: Exile

MacGamer had a brief chat yesterday afternoon with Stan Ossias, Senior Product Manager for the Macintosh Desktop Marketing Group at ATI Technologies, asking questions about the status of their upcoming Radeon 8500 and Radeon VE and about the recent furor over application-specific driver tweaks.

Here's a sample of what Ossias had to say about the Radeon 8500:

We are committed to introducing it; it's the time that's in question. I can't confirm the specific details in question, but the general capabilities of the chip are already reported at MacGamer, so they are still relevant. Our internal benchmarks show that we outperform the GeForce3 across the board on Mac OS 9 and OS X. We've very comfortable this will be the fastest performing chip when it's shipped. The new NVIDIA product isn't too intimidating, based on the specs of the product we have. We have a strong Mac development team behind it, so we have a really good solution. It won't be wanting for anything.

IMG News: ATI Announces Radeon VE Mac Edition

IMG News: ATI Announces Radeon 8500 for Mac

ATI Technologies: Radeon 8500 (PC)

IMG Preview: Radeon 8500

IMG Feature: Radeon 8500 'In the Flesh'

MacGamer: Stan Ossias Interview

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Dracosoft has released their Mac OS X-only RPG Dragon Alpha. This RPG has the ability to add plug-ins for added playtime. The game also has a very interesting story.

1000 years ago, a Great Elder Dragon came down from the heavens and unleashed a wrath of wild dragons on the world. The Gods, fearing the wrath of such a powerful force would destroy them, withdrew into hiding. Now wild dragons rule the world and humans are no longer the dominant force of the planet. People have accepted the fate given to them and attempt to live in union with the dragons knowing, that at anytime, a dragon could tear through their homes killing all in its way.

Download Dragon Alpha (35.3 MB)

Dracosoft: Dragon Alpha

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MacGamez has published part one of a two-part overview of upcoming shooters for the Macintosh. Guest writer Corey Tamás talks about Red Faction, Halo, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and No On Lives Forever.

It's not always the easiest thing in the world to say which game is going to appeal to which player. We take a look here at a few titles that are coming up and help you to establish which one is most likely to be up your tree.

MacGamez: Mac Shooters Part 1

GraphSim

Volition

Red Faction

In a continuing effort to squash more of those unruly bugs, Bold has released a new patch for Age of Empires II. The version 1.0.3 update contains the following fixes:

• Fixed multiplayer syncronization issues.
• Fixed a random crash that usually occurred late in the game.

IMG Review: Age of Empires II

Bold: Age of Empires II

MGF: Age of Empires II 1.0.3 Update (1.7 MB)

Bold

Ensemble Studios

Age of Empires II

The Games section of Apple's web site was updated yesterday with three new Mac gaming stories.

"Mac OS X Games at Macworld" looks at the Macintosh Gaming Area at next month's Macworld Expo in San Francisco:

In the Macintosh Gaming Area, we’ll have the latest Mac OS X games loaded on the best Mac hardware available so that you can play until the show floor closes or your thumbs fall off, whichever comes first....

If you can tear yourself away from the games long enough, stop by the Mac Games Theater, where we’ll showcase presentations from top Mac games publishers such as Aspyr, GraphSim, MacPlay, Destineer, and MacSoft.

One of Survivor’s exciting qualities is its multiplayer feature. You can play Survivor against your friends with the Mac-only online gaming service GameRanger. Multiplayer games begin after the tribes have merged, so the season is only seven episodes long, and everyone is at risk for elimination at the end of every episode. A chat function allows you to talk to your opponents either privately or in a group so that you can formulate strategies.

Apple: Games

IMG is pleased to announce the appointment of Sean Smith to the post of Senior News Editor here at Inside Mac Games.

Tuncer Deniz, IMG's Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, said:

We're excited by the direction Sean has given to the news team and confident he'll strengthen IMG's tradition of providing the finest Mac gaming news coverage.

Inside Mac Games

Search for other Mac games news stories or browse our Mac Games News Archive.