To read the full updates head over to Westlake's news page.

Westlake Interactive

Westlake Interactive: News

Westlake Interactive: Project Status Page

Westlake Interactive: Civilization III Game Editor v1.32.1

MGF: Civ Edit 1.32.1

IMG Pro: Hot Downloads

Buy EverQuest

Click to enlarge

After years in development, MacSoft's Master of Orion III (Moo3) for the Macintosh is finally here. Whether you're a novice or a hard core gamer, Scott Winn has put together for us a few hints and tips for those who need a little help getting started with this unique, complex, and in-depth game.

Part of Master of Orion III Beginner's Guide - Part One is now available. Part Two will be posted tomorrow. Follow the link below to head over to Part One.

IMG Feature: Master of Orion III Beginner's Guide - Part One

MacSoft

Quicksilver Software

Master of Orion III

Buy Master of Orion III

As is customary right around this time of the month, Aspyr has released their latest newsletter with updates on several of their games. Although we've recently covered some of these updates in recent news items, the newsletter does include some important updates including news that SimCity 4 is now in beta.

Here's a summary:

Aspyr's Amy Torres wraps up the newsletter with hints that more announcements are on the way. "As for March being the month of announcements....I told you so. Just taking a peek at all of these, April just might see a slew of titles hitting store shelves and mailboxes. Oh, and April also promises a few more announcements. What the.... Yes, we've got more great news!"

Aspyr Media

Aspyr Newsletter

MacMAME, the Mac port to the popular MAME arcade emulator has reached version 0.66.2. The update adds a few minor features and fixes several bugs. Here is a complete list of changes from the official website:

Start and Select were accidentally removed from the HID configuration dialog. [Brad Oliver]

MacMAME now can configure up to 12 joystick buttons per player. [Brad Oliver]

Screenshots are now rotated properly. [Brad Oliver]

Fixed bad colors in Sega System32 games. [Brad Oliver]

Added ability to wipe replay, cheat and language file selections. [Brad Oliver]

Language files work again. [Brad Oliver]

Cleaned up some auditing issues with hard disk images. [Brad Oliver]

Clones for which no parent ROM set is found now show up in the front-end. [Brad Oliver]

For more information and downloads, you can follow the links below.

Download: MacMAME v0.66.2

MacMAME

iDevGames has posted yet another postmortem from uDevGames 2002, the website's Mac game developer competition that took place late last year. The latest update spotlights Karl Becker's golf simulator KGA Golf.

The article gives readers an inside look of the creation of a Mac game, including the planning process, what tools and other applications were used to aid in the game's creation, user's feedback, and much more. Here's a sneak peak of what to expect:

3. Easy-to-implement graphical and sound touches
After releasing one of the first betas of the game, I realized that my graphics and overall presentation were quite shoddy. I decided to experiment with implementing textures in the game by writing script for about ten minutes. Though doing this essentially negated the ability to choose custom colors for ground types in the course editor, it provided a much better player experience, making the course actually pop out at the player rather than appear to be construction paper cutouts. I also implemented most of my sound quickly, near the end of the development cycle, using some sounds from iDevGames' library.

KGA Golf Postmortem

iDevGames

Click to enlarge

The massively multiplayer online game World War II Online has been updated to version 1.8.2. The new update mainly fixes issues with keyboard controls.

Notes on the update:

With v1.8.1 we moved to a HID compliance standard for input under OS 10.2. This feature will be removed today as there are issues with keyboard recognition in certain platforms.

Players may notice that some systems will not recognize the modifier keys independant of other keypresses. We are still working to address this issue.

If you are experiencing issues with the shift and ctrl keys (used in the first person infantry for sprint and crouch) you may need to remap these in the keymapper. This is accomplished by opening the keymapper and selecting troops from the drop down menu. From there you can highilght the control to change and input another key to use.

Don't forget that as an IMG reader, you can sign up for a 2 weeks free trial of WWII Online. This is a special arrangement with the developers and publishers of the game, so be sure to check it out.

IMG News: PlayNet and IMG Team Up for WWII Online Free Trial

Strategy First

Cornered Rat Software

World War II Online

MGF: WWII Online 1.8.2

Click to enlarge

Racer , the free racing game project for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, has reached version 0.5.0 final. The update, as stated on the game's official website, features enhanced multiplayer prediction when compared to the earlier v.0.5.0 beta 13 build. Here's the official word:

Finally! v0.5.0 final (for Windows, Mac and Linux) has been uploaded. See the download page. Enhanced multiplayer prediction compared to v0.5.0 beta 13.

Download: Racer v0.5.0 final

Racer

Click to enlarge

AlanSoft has updated their demo for the upcoming F1 racing game Virtual Grand Prix 2 to v1.4. The new version has added the option to turn full screen anti-aliasing (FSAA) on and off, to help improving performance for people with older machines.

Virtual Grand Prix 2 is currently in development and will be published by Virtual Programming when completed. The game is an original title developed for Mac and thus is highly optimized to run on Mac OS. This makes the system requierements pretty low:

An Apple Macintosh with a PowerPC processor

64Mbytes of RAM

Accelerated 3d video card with at least 8Mbytes of graphics RAM

CD-ROM drive (any speed).

MacOS "Classic" operating system 8.x/9.x

MacOS "X" 10.2 or better.

MGF: Virtual Grand Prix 2 Demo 1.4

Virtual Grand Prix 2

IMG Pro: Hot Downloads

KiGB, a Mac emulator for Nintendo's GameBoy handheld system, has been updated to version 1.2.5 by programmer Richard Bannister. Fixes for the lastest version of KiGB include:

KiGB, which is freeware, can be downloaded from Bannister's website.

Download KiGB v1.2.5

Bannister

Click to enlarge

Puzzle lover and game designer Cliff Johnson has taken time off from his busy schedule designing the upcoming game, The Fool And His Money, to host his first ever Internet-based metapuzzle treasure hunt.

The First Annual April Fool's Day Treasure Hunt Errand, based on the structure of his previous metapuzzle games, The Fool's Errand and Three in 3, is open to all members of the public. The clues for the treasure hunt will be posted on his website starting at 12:01 AM Eastern Standard Time on April Fool's Day (Tuesday morning). The Grand Prize, which will be awarded to the first player to email in the correct answer, consists of free copies of all of Cliff's previous, current, and future games, as well as an autographed copy of the book of magic, Mysterious Stranger.

Here's a taste of what players can expect to tackle, as well as a few advance hints for interested hunters:

The First Annual April Fool’s Day Treasure Hunt Errand is fast approaching, and as promised, it’s an example of a treasure hunt metapuzzle, designed to be solved in a couple hours rather than a couple weeks, understandably.
The metapuzzle, a term coined by Scott Kim in describing The Fool’s Errand, is a tale, a set of puzzles, a set of clues revealed by those puzzles, and a mapping device in which to organize the clues, leading to the final “ah-ha!”.
In The Fool’s Errand, the mapping device is the Sun’s Map, and in 3 in Three, the device is split between the organization of the Letter Legislature and the answers for the Inside Track. Even Blaine’s $100,000 Challenge has X puzzles leading to Y clues with a unique mapping device that organizes the final solution.
TFAAFDTHE takes place at dusk on the day The Fool’s Errand ends and The Fool and His Money begins. The Sun invites the Royal families of the four Kingdoms to the palace of the Empress and the Emperor to await the return of their Treasures, once enchanted by the High Priestess and now restored by the Fool.
As night falls and the hours ebb toward midnight, the full Moon appears through the clouds and delivers a message from the Fool to the assembled Royalty.
The solution to the Treasure Hunt are the exact words of this speech. There are 16 clues and 16 pieces of a Map to be printed out and correctly assembled. The puzzles are, well, you’ll see.

Cliff Johnson's First Annual April Fool’s Day Treasure Hunt Errand

The Fool And His Money

Fansite JediKnightII.net has uncovered plans and details for a sequel to Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Currently going under the title Jedi Knight III, it appears to be another collaboration between LucasArts and Activision and may be currently scheduled for a Fall 2003 release.

The title also appears to have major differences from its predecessors. No longer putting players in the role of Kyle Katarn, players can now create their own Jedi, picking from several races, cosmetic attributes, and lightsaber styles. In addition, missions will now be largely selectable rather than presented in a linear fashion, allowing players to pick and choose their battles and paths.

Force powers and the choosing of a path are also getting a makeover:

This is where a new feature of JK III comes into play: you can now combine your force powers! For example, you can fight one enemy with one of your sabres, and at the same time throw the other saber at the next foe! Of course, Raven is adding new force powers to keep the experience fresh for us long-time fans of the series. Other than in JK II, you will now once again be able to choose what skills to advance in one of three levels. And you can choose if you want to follow the path of the light or dark side! This being more than a little touch, Raven promises that the last few levels of the 30-hour campaign will be different for the two sides; same goes for the final cutscene.

Those interested in more information can find it at JediKnightII.net, along with some screenshots taken from various sources. As for a Mac version, it's still too early to tell, but as usual, IMG will pass on the news as soon as we hear word.

JediKnightII.net

JediKnightII.net - Jedi Knight III Revealed

Click to enlarge

Freeverse Software's MMORPG, Arcane Arena recently received an update, bringing it up to version 1.06. The version bump adds a list of changes and fixes, including the following:

• Fixed a problem in the Client where the player list could get screwy after a Host re-connection.
  
• Added help to the Client when a '?' is typed.
  
• That '?' help message is displayed in the Client when a new character is created now.
  
• Fixed a problem in the Client where players logging in with the same name could cause the player list to have problems displaying peoples tats when clicked on.
  
• Changed the Client so that if it fails to load the view plugin, it resets the preferences to use the default view plugin name.
  
• Created a loop when connecting to the Host so the Client will attempt to connect 30 times before giving up.
  
• Fixed a Client bug where using the "Join" button would exit the arena interface briefly before the battle started.

Arcane Arena features a persistent online world ready for exploration, and features a unique battle-timer system, open-source monster AI, and plug-ins that allow for custom skinning. Those interested in more information or wishing to try out a demo can find it at Freeverse's site.

Freeverse

Arcane Arena

On tonight's broadcast of The Gamesome Mac, the weekly Mac gaming radio program, hosts Sean Smith and Omaha Sternberg talk with Austin Meyer of Laminar Research.

X-Plane is the company's highly-regarded, astonishingly comprehensive flight simulator that models aircraft from the Hindenburg to helicopters, propeller planes, jets, helicopters, flying wings, the Saturn V, and even the Space Shuttle. Young's Modulus features giant fighting robots, and the new Space Combat may well be the only such game to offer realistic physics.

Sean and Omaha will also offer Mac gaming news, commentary, and reviews, and together with their guest will take questions from listeners in The Gamesome Mac's live chat room.

The Gamesome Mac can be heard live from 6 to 8 pm Pacific Time, 9 to 11 pm Eastern (Tuesday at 0200 UTC) on MacRadio.com. You can tune in at The Gamesome Mac's web page, where you'll also find archives of past broadcasts. QuickTime 5 or 6 and a 28 kbps or faster Internet connection are required.

Laminar Research

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