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Europa Universalis II, the historical empire management simulator ported to the Mac by Virtual Programming Ltd., is now shipping from MacPlay to the North-American market.

This highly-awaited title first saw the light a week ago when the United Kingdom-based Virtual Programming released it in Europe. Today, MacPlay, the publisher in charge of shipping Europa Universalis II to the US and Canada, made it available for order at their online store.

Also, the IMG Store will begin shipping this award-winning strategy simulation tomorrow.

For more information on Europa Universalis II, check Virtual Programming's web site through the link below.

Also provided are links to the MacPlay and IMG stores, for those who want to order their copy today. European customers can do so at the Virtual Programming web site.

Virtual Programming

Europa Universalis II

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GamersEurope recently got a chance to take a look at the upcoming game from Lionhead Studios, Black and White 2. The sequel to the hit god simulator Black and White, the game promises to improve upon the weaknesses of the first game, including the micro-management system. B&W2 will also put a heavy focus on combat, allowing the player and their creature to lead whole armies.

Here's a snip from the preview:

B&W2 takes a turn towards the RTS with a large slant on war. In fact, one of the first things you'll do is learn how to defend your people, how to attack and how your creature can help. The emphasis has shifted from bringing up your creature on the side of good or evil to either bringing a tyrannical reign of terror upon the world by joining up with a few other evil gods or attempting to bring peace. I say attempting to bring peace because now there are particularly aggressive enemies you've got to deal with, ones that would be happy to tear down your defenses and kill all your people. To help you with this, walls can be built as a defense and people can be trained as soldiers. Of course walls won't help you if that's all you're relying on: other gods could easily pick up a few large rocks and knock them down, or send their creatures over to smash them up. As you've probably gathered by now, Black & White 2 is a far more violent game than the original, mixing fierce attacking with the ever-present struggle between good and evil.

While no Mac version of this title has been confirmed, the great commercial success of the previous installment of the series should make the port a likely event. Stay tuned to Inside Mac Games, as we will be releasing any information on this subject.

Black and White 2 Preview

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Diabloii.net has posted an interview with Bill Roper from Blizzard Entertainment regarding the upcoming 1.10 patch to the popular Action-RPG Diablo II. The website recently got a chance to chat with Roper at E3 Expo in Los Angeles last week and for people that are eagerly awating the patch, they have some great news.

When asked about the release of the patch, Roper replies:

We were trying to get everything done by E3, but we had a couple of bug things, a couple of balance things, so actually, if you look around at E3, not everybody is here every day, since we QA in shifts. We're still testing even during E3. We're hoping and praying, crossing our fingers that our final release candidate for v1.10 is ready on Monday.

Then it takes about two or three weeks to go through a complete test cycle on it, and then hopefully it's out. So we're really close. Everybody's been playing it, even all the old school guys and they're like, 'Wow, this is really cool!' So we're really excited to get it done. It's so close we can taste it big time.

Blizzard Entertainment

Diablo II

Diabloii.net: Bill Roper E3 Interview

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Readers may remember a previously published article discussing legislation that was passing through the Washington state government machine concerning the banning of violent videogame sales. This Monday, Governor Gary Locke approved the bill, which makes it illegal for vendors to sell games depicting violence towards law enforcement officials to minors.

While this isn't the first law to be passed that regulates games, it is the first statewide law of its kind. The penalty for breaking this law carries fines up to $500.

The law is not without its opponents. The Interactive Digital Software Association, which continues to lobby against game regulation, intends to file a lawsuit countering the recently passed law. Here's a quote from a CNN article containing their statement:

"We're confident that our position will be affirmed in court," said Doug Lowenstein, president of the IDSA. "At a time when the state faces a massive budget deficit, it is unfortunate that taxpayers and parents will see critical funds diverted to defend a bill which is patently unconstitutional. In January 2002 in a similar case, the City of Indianapolis spent $700,000 covering its own and the arcade industry's attorneys' fees on a bill which was unanimously ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit."

CNN - Wash. bans 'violent' game sales

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Tactical gaming site *DAMNR6 has noted the recent release of Frostbite for the Mac. A mod for the squad-based FPS Ghost Recon, Frostbite introduces a host of new additions to the game itself:

Massive GR expansion featuring a full campaign with new maps and missions, new multiplayer maps, new uniforms, new weapons, new vehicles and much more. Frostbite is like an inofficial 3rd expansion pack for Ghost Recon.

Players interested in more information on Frostbite can find it at the official site. Download links and conversion information can be found at *DAMNR6's site.

*DAMNR6

Island Thunder Mac Conversion Tutorial

Frostbite - Mac Version Download

Frostbite Official Site

Aspyr Media

Red Storm

Jungle Warfare, an Unreal Tournament 2003 semi-realistic modification of class-based guerrilla warfare, has been confirmed as Mac bound. Sporting multiple modern weapons from the M4 carbine to the SVD (Dragunov) sniper rifle, 8 different player classes and multiple new maps, this add-on for UT2K3 provides a bit of realism and close combat suspense for those who dislike the futuristic setting and extreme range of the standard UT2K3 deathmatch fare.

Here's the post from the Jungle Warfare official forums, confirming the Mac version-

Yep!
A Mac version will be available, our old UT version even worked on a mac!

Oli.

If you like the idea of Jungle Warfare in UT2K3 and want to check out more about this established PC mod, head on over to their website at the link below. Also provided is the link to the forum post where the Mac version was announced as forthcoming.

Jungle Warfare Homepage

Jungle Warfare Mac Version Forum Post

Unreal Tournament 2003

MacSoft

Digital Extremes

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Apple has posted a new addition to their gaming section. This time they look at Unreal Torunament 2003, the highly-awaited first-person shooter developed by Digital Extremes in collaboration with Epic Games. In the article they speak with Mark Rein, Vice-President of Epic Games, letting him give his view of the game. Unreal Tournament 2003 offers a more sport-oriented gameplay than most other action games out there. It does not offer a story-driven single-player mode, but rather a ladder-driven championship challenge. The idea is the same as in the original Unreal Tournament, but this time both gameplay and graphics has been highly refined.

From the article:

Rein backs up this statement with some hard data: "The characters in UT were (comprised of) maybe 800 polygons," he explains, "and the characters in UT2K3 are 3,000 to 3,500 polygons. The world environments are 100 to 200 times more detailed in terms of polygons."

Digital Extremes

MacSoft

Unreal Tournament 2003

Apple Games: Unreal Tournament 2003

MGF: Unreal Tournament 2003 Tech Demo

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Westlake Interactive, the well known and highly appreciated company that has brought so many games to the Mac has updated their Current Projects Page. First off, they reveal that the project named Zoot Suit was in fact Zoo Tycoon, which will be published by Aspyr Media and is slated to ship in June.

The multicolored project named Renee has reached First Playable stage of development and in addition to that Westlake has added a new project, code-named Webber. Speculations have already started on our forums as of what this new project might be. Follow the link below to see the current discussion and maybe add your own voice to the discussion.

Westlake Interactive

Aspyr Media

Zoo Tycoon

Westlake Interactive: Current Projects

IMG Forum: Webber?

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