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Aspyr this morning released a demo of Homeworld 2, its epic action-strategy game set in space. The demo offers three tutorial missions plus the first full single-player mission. The Homeworld 2 demo, which weigns in at 161 MB, is available for download from our sister site, Macgamefiles.com.

Homeworld 2 continues the epic struggle of the Hiigarans and their leader Karan S'jet. Many thought their hardships would end when they returned to Hiigara, yet fate has not been so kind to the Exiles. Now the Hiigarans face a new and bitter enemy, a renegade clan from the eastern fringes of the galaxy, who wield the power of the ancients. Homeworld 2 chronicles the valiant journey of the Mothership and its crew into the oldest regions of the galaxy to confront their new foe and discover the truth behind their exile.

To download the demo, head over to Macgamefiles.com. If you are an IMG Pro user, be sure to download the demo using your exclusive Hot Downloads server.

Aspyr Media

Beenox

Homeworld 2

MGF: Homeworld 2 Demo

IMG Pro: Hot Downloads

Buy Homeworld 2

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Hell has frozen over. The IMG store has begun shipping GraphSim's F/A-18 Operation Iraqi Freedom. The game is available for $39.95.

Jump through your television directly into the cockpit of the Navy/Marine workhorse fighting machine-the F/A-18 Hornet. Now you can fly the most prolific carrier-based aircraft in the Coalition arsenal. Load up with precision guided munitions and bring the forces of freedom to bear on the Iraqi regime of terror.  Fly above thousands of square miles of stunning satellite image-based terrain. Look through your canopy and see the same environment that Coalition fighter pilots navigated during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

To place your order, please follow the link below.

GraphSim

F/A-18 Operation Iraqi Freedom

Buy F/A-18 Operation Iraqi Freedom

Freeverse Software has announced that it will be publishing Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood in North America. Originally developed by Spellbound and ported to the Mac by e.p.i.c. Interactive, Robin Hood is currently in the final beta testing phase and should be released soon.

About the game:

Take on the roles of Robin Hood and his Merry Men and lead them to the battle field against the nasty Prince John Lackland. In doing so you are able to enjoy the fabulous English landscape of 1190 as well as the giant castles and funny characters.

The thrilling story is features by an award-winning introduction and transfers you directly into the hero’s body with the first mission, in which you have to set your captive comrades free. Take up the battle against the oppressors and free the farmers from the evil Prince’s reign! Be smart, be fast! Be Robin Hood!

Freeverse

MGF: Robin Hood Demo

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The annual IndieGamesCon has come and gone, and the official IGC site has a slew of photographs from the event to prove it. Included in the screenies are shots of Jeff Tunnell and Mark Frohnmayer, Marble Blast on the Xbox, and row upon row of gaming machines, including a line of G5s.

GarageGames also revealed a new addition to the Torque lineup - a series of third-party developer content packs. The ones showcased at IGC included Timothy Aste´s Content Pack, Synapse Lighting Pack, Torque RTS Starter Kit, Forest Pack, David Wyland´s Looking Glass, Torque 2D, BraveTree´s Girl Pack, Troy McFarland´s Mocap libraries and the release of the Maya Exporter.

Here's a little from the press release about Torque 2D:

Torque 2D brings the world of 2D gaming back in full-force. Build on the Torque Game Engine, Torque 2D provides hardware-accelerated 2D routines, allowing developers the ability to unleash the full power of today´s hardware in 2D game worlds. Torque 2D is designed for ease of use and flexibility, so both novice and experienced game-makers can take advantage of its systems to create their own games.

IGC 2004 - Photos

3rd Party Developer Content Packs Announced at IGC

GarageGames

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Strategy First and Guild Software have recently announced that Vendetta Online is now available for pre-order. Set to be shipped November 1st, VO will be going for $29.99 and can be pre-ordered from several major retailers, including GameStop, EB, and Apple.

VO is an MMORPG that starts players as spaceship pilots, allowing them to branch out into a variety of possible jobs, allegiances, and cultures.

If the user wishes to be a peaceful trader, military pilot, guard for hire, dastardly pirate, or whatever the player imagines, this is all up to the behaviors and play style of the user. There are both lawful and lawless places in the universe and many different factions (including a pirate faction) with differing motives and shifting alignments. Choose your friends carefully and watch your enemies closely!

Strategy First - Pre-order Vendetta Online Today

Guild Software

Vendetta Online

Gamers old enough to remember the classic, mid-80's Sierra Entertainment Leisure Suit Larry graphical text adventure franchise will find it amusing to learn that the latest edition to the series, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, has been banned by Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), due to its, well, questionable content.

In the new title, Larry Lovage, nephew to the original hero Larry Laffer, reprises his uncle's polyester-clad role as a hopeful lover. This time around, Larry's antics see him trying to woo classmates of the opposite sex at his local university.

The OFLC has refused to classify the title due to the game's "obscured and/or implied sexual activity and obscured and partial nudity involving stylised, animated characters". According to the board, the game contains several inappropriate visual and audio sequences.

Although there has been absolutely no word on whether the game's developers are planning to port this new title to the Mac, Sierra Entertainment's original Leisure Suit Larry game, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, was released for both Mac and PC back in 1987. The game was one of the first games to put adult humour into a major game release, and even garnered an award from the Software Publishers Association.

The OFLC ban ensures the controversial game cannot legally be imported, hired, or sold to the public of the island nation. The new ban comes only a week after the OFLC de-classified Rockstar Games' third person shooter Manhunt. Following a complaint from the state Justice Minister, the review board revoked the game's MA15+ certificate, forcing retailers to pull copies of the 11-month-old title off their shelves. The move follows a voluntary ban of the title from two different retailers in the UK after the murder of a 14-year-old was linked to the popular title. The police have since ruled out that the video game had an influence of the murder.

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Aspyr Media's project status web page has been updated with news that the Mac port of the Secret Weapons of WWII expansion pack for Digital Illusions' extremely popular online shooter Battlefield 1942 is at Final Candidate, and is one step closer to being in avid gamers' hands.

Secret Weapons of WWII brings a large new arsenal of experimental weaponry, straight from the research laboratories of both Axis and Allied forces, to the highly-regarded first person shooter -

Horton HO 229 "Flying Wing"

Sherman tank with a T-34 Calliope rocket launcher

T95/T28 Super Heavy Tank

The Sturmtiger - featuring a naval gun mounted atop a Tiger tank

The American AW-52 advanced fighter

The Wasserfall guided anti-air missile

The Natter rocket plane

Top secret German prototype Rocket Pack - fly and fight at the same time

Seven new weapons include throwable one-shot-kill knives, the Bren light machine gun, the Auto 5 shotgun, and the Mauser K98 grenade rifle

The new expansion pack is currently expected to ship by late October, and will require a full version of Battlefield 1942 to play. Readers can pre-order their very own copy of the title for $29.95 USD at the IMG Store:

Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII

Aspyr Media

Aspyr Media Project Status Page

Buy Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII

The programmers over at Spiderweb Software have released a new patch for their fantasy RPG Blades Of Avernum.

The patch brings the latest version of the game up to 1.1.1, and addresses a number of bugs carried over from the previous update in the process. The new patch also makes the following gameplay changes:

Forcecaged creatures can no longer move around in town mode.

Some creatures had the wrong number of hit points on different difficulty levels. This is fixed.

Several small fixes in the commands scenario designers can use.

Scrolling through your inventory in the item info screen now works properly.

Friendly creatures now properly regain health.

Download Blades Of Avernum 1.1.1 Patch

Spiderweb Software

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The next patch for the World of Warcraft closed beta, the highly-anticipated MMORPG that is being simultaneously developed by industry stalwarts Blizzard Entertainment for both Mac and PC platforms, has been released to the game's current beta testers.

The new patch, which includes several pages of gameplay fixes, also addresses changes to the Mac client in regards to specific graphical shader issues. The next build of Apple's Panther operating system - version 10.3.6 - has been seeded to developers, and, according to the official World Of Warcraft website, Apple, ATI and NVIDIA are currently working with Blizzard on the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) drivers:

The Mac OS X client has all shader-based features disabled for this patch. The GUI for those preferences will be grayed out. A number of GPU driver issues are being addressed by Apple, ATI and NVIDIA - when these fixes have been completed and made available to the public we will re-enable these features in the game.

World of Warcraft Patch Information

Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft

Buy World of Warcraft

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