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A post was recently made on the InfoGrames forum by a member of Quicksilver Software, regarding the status of the long awaited space strategy game, Master of Orion III. For those unfamiliar with the game, in Master of Orion III, the player becomes the leader of one of 16 different races and then goes on an epic quest to become the ultimate leader of the galaxy.

In the post, producer Constantine Hantzopoulos notes the game is not quite yet ready for release due to some outstanding bugs. In the hopes of getting a clean product out, they are delaying its release for a final round of regression testing. Here's the full update:

Folks.

I'm going to keep this brief. The game has *not* gone gold yet, as I’ve said before, when it does, we'll let you know.

PLEASE stop the speculation. The game is SIMPLY NOT READY ACCORDING TO IG STANDARDS. We're very pleased that *some*, NOT ALL, of our beta testers feel it can go; that says a lot about the state of the game. However, there ARE crash bugs and we want them fixed. This is a collective decision made DOWN THE LINE by QA, PD, Marketing, Sales and QSI. Period, end of story.

MOO3 Status Update

MacSoft

Quicksilver Software

Master of Orion III

Buy Master of Orion III

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Inside Mac Games has posted a review of Aspyr's tactical shooter, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon.

Here's a clip from the review:

Rather than the Hitchcockian style of minutely planning out every single move before being put on the field, Ghost Recon allows players to make up their strategy on the fly. This time round, you're in charge of three teams; Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. You can equip each team any way you like, however you cannot play with more than three members per team and six members total. Typically your Alpha team contains your riflemen (and women), your Bravo team contains your demolition types, and Charlie team contains your sniper(s); however you're completely free to equip and set up your teams whichever way you please.

When the missions begin, you're placed on the field with a set of primary objectives and one secondary objective. Completion of the primary objectives is crucial to winning the level; secondary objectives, while not necessary to gameplay, unlock special ability players that you can use in future missions. These special ability players, which come with higher ratings and more powerful weapons than your current team members, come in extremely handy when facing some of the more challenging missions as the game progresses. Successful completion of a level is also rewarded by the doling out of combat points to the surviving members of our team, which can be assigned to one of four player characteristics: Weapon, Stealth, Endurance, and Leadership. Careful fulfilling your objectives however; if all three of your primary objectives get completed BEFORE your secondary objectives, or if you kill all the enemies on the map before completing all of your objectives, the level ends and you move onto the next challenge.

IMG Review: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon

Aspyr Media

Red Storm

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The latest version of the ProMod for Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast has been released. The ProMod 3.0 alters Jedi Knight 2 multi-player to incorporate some class-based game play. You are able to change around your skillset to include gun skills or jedi skills, or both. The mod also completely rewrites Lightsaber combat, fixing some aspects of it that many people saw as major flaws.

Here's a description of the changes made to Saber Combat:

Saber Combat has been completely rewritten in ProMod 1.0. Your ability to hit, be hit, break defenses, parry and knock away your opponent's saber are all now based upon a factor inherent to the player and not a random number generator: your aim. Read this twice: AIM IS LIFE. All aspects of physical combat, including front- and sideflip-kicks and some aspects of Force-powered combat have been linked to how accurately you are aiming at your opponent. Saber Duels in ProMod will always be won by someone with better Strategy, Timing and/or Accuracy. There will be no fluke victories.

- Level 4 Gunnery skills now enhance the abilities of their respective weapons with an additional +25% damage, +25% firing rate and +25% charging time reduction (where applicable). Also, the increased firing rates make it more difficult for Jedi to block your shots.

- An all new Dual-Thruster Jetpack allows the Gunner classes excellent maneuverability in combat and the ability to quickly gain altitude. A regenerating fuel gauge regulates this ability. Level 4 Gadgets skill is required to use the jetpack.

- New dual-glow RGB saber coloring system assures that your saber color will be unique to you.

- Enhanced Duel gametype allows Jedi and Gunners to compete on even terms, with the Gunner spawning with all weapons that he has a level 4 skill for. He also will spawn with a Force Field Generator with level 3 Gadgets, and a Seeker Drone with level 4 Gadgets.

- Enhancements to team games such as CTF and Team FFA that encourage teamwork and strategic play, such as spawning players with level 3 Gadgets skill with a free Force Field generator to hold off rushing enemies.

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed bug in 1.04 that allows the saber of a fallen player to deal damage equal to that of a normal swing.

- Fixed bug in 1.04 that allowed blaster shots to be Force Pushed. Shots from the Bryar Pistol, E11 Blaster Rifle, and Wookie Bowcaster are now non-Pushable.

- Fixed saber combat bug from Beta 2 that prevented special attacks from breaking defenses properly.

JK2 ProMod 3.0 released

Aspyr Media

Westlake Interactive

Raven Software

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

Buy Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

The uDevGame Contest, an amateur game programming contest hosted by iDevGames, has posted a postmortem report on one of its contest's winning entries, Raptor-Air Superiority Fighter. The author, Holmes Futrell, describes the creative process, his collaboration with a number of his friends to make the game, and his development through a completely new IDE (Integrated Development Environment) to him, TNT Basic.

My approach to making Raptor followed a pattern something like this: I would ask myself, "I wonder if I could program a scrolling landscape made from map tiles." Then I'd do it. Then I'd say to myself, "That's pretty cool, I wonder if I could add a plane that flies around." Then, of course, I'd do that. Afterwards, being very proud, I'd ask myself if I could program a map object of a cloud and have it be read from the map file into the spawning code. The process would continue for a long time. Since I didn't even know what I was programming would become, there was no chance of me producing a design document.

Raptor Postmortem

Download Raptor (9.7mb)

UDevGames Contest

iDevGames

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Colin Lynch Smith, a personage usually associated with either burning monkeys or Freeverse Software, has recently posted a forum message asking Mac gamers for their support.

As reported earlier, both 3D Hearts Deluxe and 3D Spades Deluxe have recently made it to store shelves. Apparently, getting both those titles out has been a bit of a fight for Freeverse, and Colin has asked that Mac gamers raise their voices a little at their local retail chains:

At CompUSA the games may be in the PC section. If your CompUSA has a Mac section please tell them how great the games are and ask them to move a few, (not all), copies to the Mac shelves. This would be a HUGE help. You could also mention that these are the only OS X native card games on the market.

At Electronics Boutique, if you could just mention that you enjoy the games or ask for them if you don't see them that would be great!

Thanks so much folks; without your support and encouragement we'd have moved on to making accounting software a long time ago!

Freeverse - Help Freeverse!!!

Freeverse

illumineX, makers of OS X games such as BabelBloX and MarbleX, have recently released their latest puzzle game. Titled RuniX, this game features several sets of marked tiles and challenges players by asking them to match them with clear paths:

Of course, the tiles must be the same design in order to match them and remove them from the game. However, there must also be a clear path between the tiles. The definition of a clear path is: you must be able to draw a line between the two tiles that have no more than two bends in it. The game will show you the path choosen after a valid match -- it won't take long to get the hang of it!

Those interesting in sampling this title can find it for download at illumineX's site, along with registration info. It requires Mac OS 10.1 or greater.

illumineX - RuniX

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