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Gamers interested in trying out Warbirds III may be interested in an upcoming offer. During the weekend of May 23-25, the iEntertainment Network will be opening up Warbirds III free of charge. In addition, free credit and online time will also be randomly awarded:

Join us in the FPA or MAIN arenas in WarbirdsIII for FREE this weekend. Sign up here if you don't have an account - NO CREDIT CARD REQUIRED - https://www.totalsims.com/sign-up/signup.php

FREE account credits and free online time will be awarded randomly to new and veteran pilots!

WBIII FREE Weekend

iEntertainment Network

WarBirds III

Warbirds III Review

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IMG's Zack Lipowski has posted a review of BraveTree Productions' third person tank blaster game ThinkTanks that is available for Mac, PC and Linux from the publisher GarageGames.

From the review:

The basic premise of the game is to, in short, obliterate anything that moves. To accomplish this ever-important task, you are given a tank to use. However, this is no ordinary M1 Abraham. Situated where normally a human gunner would be is instead a giant brain with eyes encased in a glass jar. Now, if you haven't already spit your drink onto the screen in bewilderment, it gets even more surreal. A tank is no fun unless you have something to destroy, right? Well, Garage Games gives you "Brain-Bots" as meat bags for your destructive ambitions. Unsurprisingly, they belong to Alien Mind Control, an organization that once had you enslaved by their brain rays, but now that you have been mentally freed, you must escape and rescue your fellow comrades-and stay alive in the process.

GarageGames

BraveTree Productions

ThinkTanks

IMG Review: ThinkTanks

MGF: ThinkThanks Demo 1.0

Buy ThinkTanks

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Apple Games has posted a trailer of the recently released action focused RPG Dungeon Siege from MacSoft. The game features a stunningly beautiful 3D engine that is designed so that you will be able to travel through the whole world without ever having to halt the gameplay to load new areas.

From the MacSoft website:

Assemble and control a party of up to eight heroes at a time as you battle your way through the seamless and expansive 3D world of Ehb. From warriors and archers to wizards, and even Packmules to carry your treasure, you and your party will wreak vengeance on an ancient evil. Whether you're playing alone or in multiplayer mode, victory is within your grasp. Let the battles begin.

Apple Games: Dungeon Siege Trailer

Bold

Westlake Interactive

Dungeon Siege

Buy Dungeon Siege

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Gamespot has posted their first reaction to the single player part of the soon to be released Warcraft III expansion set, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Being developed simultaneously for the Mac and PC by developer Blizzard Entertainment, the expansion has been in closed multiplayer beta for some time now. Gamespot admitted that the multiplayer portion of the game had significantly improved since its initial release, but they didn't know how the single-player campaigns were shaping up. When they traveled to E3, however, they were able to get their hands on the single-player portion of this game for a little play-testing.

The hands-on impression gives a quick overview of what new features are to be included, from the new naval units, heroes, brand new campaigns, and an all new RPG style single player campaign.

Here's a quick clip:

The orc campaign follows its own story arc, with the orcs setting up a new nation called Durotar on the continent of Kalimdor, where they fled after the events portrayed in Reign of Chaos. You'll start out controlling a nomadic beastmaster named Rexxar, who ends up joining Thrall's fledgling government in the city of Ogremar. There's absolutely no base building in the orc campaign, making the combat and gameplay style a lot more reminiscent of Diablo than an RTS game. You'll explore huge maps and take on larger groups of creeps and enemies than you would normally see in a Warcraft III mission, and buildings have also been scaled up in size to give the campaign a more RPG-like feel.

Gamespot's Impressions of WCIII:TFT

WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne

Blizzard Entertainment

Buy WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne

On tonight's broadcast of The Gamesome Mac, the weekly Mac gaming radio program, host Sean Smith returns from Los Angeles to report in depth on the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2003, the mammoth trade show of the computer and video game industry.

Sean and co-host Omaha Sternberg also talk with Justin Mette, founder of 21-6 Productions, the developers of Orbz (published by GarageGames).

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

The Gamesome Mac can be heard live on MacRadio from 6 to 8 pm Pacific Time, 9 to 11 pm Eastern (Tuesday from 0100 to 0300 UTC), and on demand thereafter. 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.

21-6 Productions

E3 2003

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Austin Meyer of Laminar Research has released version 6.70 of his general-aviation flight simulator X-Plane. The new version, among the last for the 6.xx series, incorporates some new features and optimizations found in the beta 7.00 release. The complete list:

• New plugins.


• Some speed optimizations from Version-7 applied for higher frame-rate.


• C key to bring up sectional chart.


• FADEC failures now available.


• Failures now outputtable by udp selection.


• DME avail to carriers and frigates.


• Beta prop option in Plane-Maker to get thet reverse just right.


• World-Maker auto-grid option stays away from the env edges so the env edges are always perfect.


• In Plane-Maker, put the new water gage in the supplementary folder on the panel of your water bomber... then skim the ocean to pick up water to drop on fires!


• World-Maker apt/nav search improved... now finds apt and nav ids of even non-standard length.


• Support for more OS-X joysticks.


• More fine-tune control over the view in world-maker when using the SHIFT +/-/arrows to really get those runways positoned perfectly.


• No more crashing when pulling the mixture on lift-fans.


• Cars and houses and stuff do not turn on their lites quite so easily.. they were turning on their lites even on a cloudy day.


• Fires can be put out by dropping flame-retardant on them.

X-Plane 6 is the current version of Laminar's massive flight simulator which allows players to take up a seemingly endless number of aircraft around the Earth and into outer space. Meyer is currently working to release the next generation of his simulator, X-Plane 7, while continuing to support version 6.

Laminar Research

X-Plane 6

Download X-Plane 6.70 Beta/Demo (99 MB)

An enterprising programmer by the name of Darrell Walisser has recently made available a HID driver that allows use of a standard XBox controller in OS X. The driver can be downloaded free of charge, though optional donations to support future development can be made. The driver also comes with the source code for interested parties to tinker and test.

While the current set only supports gamepads, Walisser notes it could be further developed:

While it currently only supports gamepads, this driver can be extended to support other XBox devices, including wheels, IR receivers, headsets, and memory units.

XBox HID Driver for Mac OS X

Use Your Xbox Controller with Your Mac

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Gaming networks IGN and Gamespot both recently posted hands-on previews of the upcoming PC version of Bungie's Halo. Gearbox, the company in charge of the PC version of the game, recently showed of the fruits of their labor at E3. The previews focus mainly on the look and feel of Halo on the Xbox, and both are quite positive about the results.

Here's a snip from Gamespot's preview:

Jumping into a familiar single-player level gave us plenty of opportunity to see just how good the game feels with PC mouse-and-keyboard controls. Aiming with a mouse seems to make the game a little easier, given that the lock-on reticle system is the same. The elegant Xbox control scheme translates over to just a handful of keys, with the grenade throw assigned to the right mouse button. Perhaps the one moment we missed the Xbox analog controls was when we climbed into a warthog, but the driving controls were still quite intuitive.

The first thing to note is control. Mouse and keyboard play makes the game substantially more enjoyable to play (simple aim, leaping shots to the face, better precision for shooting under and around obstacles, more fluid vehicle control, etcetera). This is all pretty obvious. Even though a gamepad option will be included, mouse and keyboard play is all that's needed and all that should be used. Perhaps not so obviously apparent is that for single player, the game can get pretty easy. Randy believes that because there is now no auto aim and you thus have to take more time to lead targets and figure out the ballistics system, that it'll be somewhat more difficult, or at least difficult enough to be a comparable experience to the Xbox version with auto aim, but lacking mouse control. In practice, it doesn't always work out like this.

IGN Halo PC preview

GameSpot Halo PC preview

Microsoft

Bungie Studios

Westlake Interactive

Halo: Combat Evolved

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