Hot on the heels of their Payback demo release, Virtual Programming Ltd today announced that they have added three new games to their Mac lineup including Firetoad's racing game Fuel, Legion, a strategy game based in ancient Rome, and Celtic Kings, a real-time strategy / role-playing game taking place in ancient Gaul.

Here's a description of each of the new games announced:

• Fuel, from FireToad Software, is a new racing game currently being developed simultaneously for the PC, Xbox, and Mac -

FUEL is the motor-head's action-thinking, vehicular marathon. In this adrenaline filled, present-day racing game you choose between one of eight characters, adapting your game play to their unique strengths and weaknesses. As you progress through the tournament, you will be required to control your character while on foot, in a dune buggy, a speed boat, and even a helicopter. You will be required to navigate across a vast terrain all the while switching your mode of travel. Each stage of the race will require slightly different tactics in how you get to the next checkpoint.

Legion is a revolutionary strategy game based in ancient Rome. At the strategic level the player controls vast armies and must carve an Empire from the assortment of tribes and city states that occupied ancient Italy, Britain and France. At the tactical level the player must position their armies to take advantage of terrain and make use of the best formations, to ensure victory.

Celtic Kings is a real time game that blends strategy, role-playing and adventure elements. There are two modes of playing the game that complement each other – adventure mode and strategic mode. In strategic mode, you play against computer opponents or other players on the Internet exercising your strategic and tactical skills to achieve objective victory. You train and command many units, hire and develop heroes, acquire powerful artefacts and conquer strongholds and villages. Launch large-scale military campaigns against your foes to bring them to their knees. The game-play in this mode is similar to the traditional RTS gameplay. In adventure mode, you control a party of heroes and explore the world as the struggle between Caesar and the Gaul chieftain Vercingetorix evolves. Which side you will support? Will you betray your allies of yesterday? Will you follow the mysterious druids as they request your assistance? Command strongholds and large armies; take risky missions behind the enemy lines. Find powerful artefacts to support you. Make friends and foes as you try to reveal who are you and who you want to be.

Stay tuned to IMG as work on all these projects progresses.

Virtual Programming

Payback

Yesterday Apple released an update to Mac OS X, bringing it to version 10.2.2. The update includes numerous bug fixes and enhancements to digital hub devices, networking, Address Book, Mail, and more. According to several game developers IMG spoke with, Mac OS X 10.2.2 also includes new drivers that fix a bug that caused textures in some OpenGL-based games to get garbled. Gamers are encouraged to update their version of Mac OS X to 10.2.2.

A complete list of bug fixes and enhancements can be found at the Apple Knowledge Base document (linked below). To grab the Mac OS X 10.2.2 update, simply run Software Update or download a separate installer from Apple's web site.

Apple

Apple Knowledge Base: Mac OS X 10.2.2 Update

The Slacker's Guide to Shareware, authored by the wild and often wacky Chris Barylick, is back with another installment. In this feature the Slacker looks at some cool shareware games including Dope Wars and Doom Legacy.

Here's a snippet from the article:

Winter is just around the corner and with chances of successful hibernation slim at best, the Slacker will have to settle with sheaves of internship applications to keep him warm throughout a season that lovingly tries to kill you.

Dark skies and cold temperatures aside, some great games have come out lately, the kind of titles that make friends, pets and family members just part of the background noise. The Slacker will keep searching for an intern, one whose mastery of injecting Red Bull directly into the Slacker’s veins is matched only by an ability to beat the Slacker to the end of a dirt-cheap bottle of Ozeki. It was a bad election day this time around and further medicine is needed to dull the pain…

The Slacker's Guide to Shareware - Part 6

Click to enlarge

Our friends at MacGamer have posted a review of Pangea's recently-released action adventure game, Bugdom 2. Reviewer Corey Tamas gives the game high marks, scoring an overall score of 97 percent out of 100.

Here's a clip from the review:

One of the hallmarks of Pangea Software is the graphical excellence of their game titles. While screenshots of games like Doom 3 are going to make anything look bad by comparison, Bugdom 2 still deserves its place in the vanguard of sweet-looking Mac games. Not only do you get the usual assortment of checkbox 3D "cool" items like glowing stuff, transparent stuff and whatnot, but lead programmer Brian Greenstone also mentioned that this is the first game for which he has actually hired a professional animator. The results are pretty cool, too; from the hopping little bottle flies to the pained one-legged-hop of the garden gnomes when you kick them in the ankle, you can see a liveliness and good humor that characterizes all of Pangea's games. Full screen anti-aliasing and Truform technologies are also available for those Macs with the hardware to run them, but even if your rig doesn't you can easily scale Bugdom 2 to work like a charm on any machine that meets the minimum requirements. The philosophy of graphical excellence in Bugdom 2 is how it should be: It's not out to change everyone's life, it just wants to look great and play the "ooh, ahh" card once in a while for the player's pleasure... and it succeeds just fine, thank you.

Pangea Software

Bugdom 2

MacGamer Review: Bugdom 2

Buy Bugdom 2

Click to enlarge

For those waiting for the WW2-based Unreal Tournament Modification, The Third Reich, the wait is finally over. The Third Reich is a total conversion for Unreal Tournament that features realistic weapons and gameplay, and beautifully done models and textures. Going along with the release, the team has announced they are looking for people to run dedicated servers and also they have begun work on an Unreal Tournament 2003 version of the Mod.

Here's the announcement from the Third Reich Website:

With the game released, we would again like to ask for decent dedicated servers, to support the expected amount of players. Anyone who's interested in setting up a dedicated server and would like for us to put the server ip on the site, just let us know and we'll do that right away.

For those of you who are new to the game, we have worked out a nice features list. Those who are already acquainted with TTR and are eagerly awaiting the release, will find the extensive manual a very interesting and useful read, to get more insight in The Third Reich, giving you an edge when you'll go to battle. We really advise everyone to go through the manual, even if you are a veteran at WW2 games, tactical shooters, tactical simulators or 3d shooters in general.

One more thing before you start downloading and enjoying our hard work :) We'd really like to hear your feedback on the initial release, since we will evaluate it.

-Two sides with 11 available roles, 15 weapons and all about realism, teamwork and tactics
-Realistic weapon models, handling and bullet behavior including ballistics and penetration
-Locational damage
-Authentic weapon sounds recorded from authentic WW2 weapons
-Voice commands for in-game communication
-6 superb and atmospheric battlefield locations
-Much much more ...

Download The Third Reich

The Third Reich

MacSoft

Unreal Tournament

Westlake Interactive

Epic Games

Shareware maker KavaSoft has recently released a new strategy game for the Mac. Titled iConquer, this game sports the singular goal of world conquest, where up to six players attempt to conquer all 42 countries on the map.

Designed for OS X, iConquer sports several OS X-specific features:

iConquer takes full advantage of the Aqua interface and the Quartz
graphics system, displaying stunning visual effects like transparency,
drop shadows, and anti-aliasing. The game is played on a detailed map
made from a NASA satellite photograph.

iConquer

KavaSoft

Posotive Spin Media, a maker of custom web, database, and multimedia solutions has released the first application in a series of planned OS X shareware applications. The first application, Bombsquad, is a clone of minesweeper, a popular game that is bundled with Windows. Bombsquad has a notable twist from its Windows counterpart though.

Here's the developers desciption of this twist:

Something that always ticked me off about Minesweeper was how well it mirrored real life: one step on a mine and you were through. In an effort to "think different", I fixed this oversight. BombSquad gives you a period of time (I call it "Crunch Time") after triggering a bomb to rectify the situation by flagging another bomb. Find another bomb in ten seconds, and everything is OK; don't find it, and "Boom!" - game over.

Download BombSquad

BombSquad

Posotive Spin Media

Click to enlarge

In a press release posted on PC gaming news site Blue's News, Ubi Soft Entertainment has just announced that coding on their re-make of the classic arcade game Dungeon's Lair has been completed ("gone gold").

Dragon's Lair 3D: Return To The Lair is the highly-anticipated re-make of the classic coin-operated laserdisc arcade game:

Developed by Dragonstone Software, Dragon's Lair 3D features the same fun, pick-up-and-play gameplay that made the arcade version a blockbuster hit in 1983. Now gamers will be able to experience Dragon's Lair 3D with the highest quality graphics and sound available today.  The game is targeted to launch for (PC and Xbox) on November 18. 

True to the classic arcade phenomenon, Dragon's Lair sets players against the menacing dragon Singe and the evil wizard Mordroc to save the beautiful Princess Daphne.  With full control of Dirk the Daring, a valiant but clumsy knight, Dragon's Lair 3D players fight their way through the castle's treacherous, labyrinthine-like halls to overcome new monsters and obstacles lurking in the shadows.  Incredible new gameplay includes jumping over flaming pits, climbing ropes to fly across chasms, and battling swarms of the wizard's minions with Dirk's sword and crossbow. Other game features include:

-- 18 large, detailed, action-packed levels featuring more than 40 environments to explore and 250+ rooms with numerous puzzles, traps, power-ups and hidden secrets to uncover

-- A real-time, 3D modeled and hand painted, textured world features new next-generation visuals
-- The first Xbox title to feature 1080i High Definition TV graphics mode, along with 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio and 16:9 anamorphic widescreen support

-- New intro and ending movies hand-animated by legendary animator Don Bluth

Dragon's Lair 3D

Dragon's Lair 3D Trailer

Blue Byte

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