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One day after Vivendi Universal Games announced that the PC version of the upcoming first person shooter Men Of Valor had gone gold, publishers Aspyr Media announced yesterday that the Mac version of the title will be shipping in mid-December -- just in time for the holiday season.

Men Of Valor is a new first person shooter developed by Oklahoma-based 2015, creators of the award-winning Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault series. The new title is a Vietnam-based shooter in which players battle through the jungles of Southeast Asia either as U.S. soldiers or Viet Cong guerillas. The single player campaign places players in the shoes of U.S. Marine Dean Shepard, seeing him through most of the major battles of the conflict, from the early stages of the police action to the Tet Offensive.

The title, built on top of Epic's Unreal engine, is based on real tours of duty of U.S. troops from 1965 to 1968. The new title features a whole arsenal of authentic weaponry and detailed environments, created for the game under the supervision of military advisors.

In an effort to bring the Mac port to market in an unusually short turnaround period, Aspyr Media's internal development team is collaborating closely with Vivendi, the publisher of the PC and Xbox versions of the game, in order to make the Mac version of the game available to the public before the end of the year. The game is expected to be released in less than six weeks.

Click on the links below to visit Aspyr's Men Of Valor website, and stay tuned to IMG for further news regarding this new title, the first Vietnam-based shooter to be released for the Mac.

Aspyr Media

Men of Valor

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Inside Mac Games has posted a review of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, the long-awaited stealth action game from Aspyr Media. Here's a clip from the review:

Thanks to Aspyr Media we finally have Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell on our wonderful platform. Yes, it has been a couple years since UbiSoft launched it for the Xbox console system. Do not worry though, the years have been kind to Sam Fisher and the Third Echelon because even playing the Xbox version cannot compare to the level of detail that you will get owning the Mac version. Just how great is this game you ask? Well, not better than sliced bread, if that’s what you are looking for. But for you carb friendly readers out there that don’t eat the bread it’s pretty damn good.

IMG Review: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

Aspyr Media

Splinter Cell

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Aspyr Media and Inside Mac Games are teaming up for another special giveaway to celebrate the upcoming release of MTX: Mototrax. To enter the giveaway, you must upload a picture of something related to the game. Paste in a picture of yourself on a supercross bike. Or draw your own dream bike. Basically anything goes. The only stipulation is that the Aspyr logo MUST appear on the bike.

The winner of the contest, which will be chosen by Aspyr Media, will receive an autographed authentic motocross jersey signed by champion rider Travis Pastrana. In addition, the winner will receive a free copy of MTX: Mototrax.

The contest runs from now until October 27th.

IMG Giveaway: MTX: Mototrax

Aspyr Media

MTX: Mototrax

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Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of World War II, the latest expansion pack for Battlefield 1942, has gone gold. In an announcement this morning, Aspyr also announced that it begin shipping to online and retail stores on Monday, October 18th and should be available nationwide by October 23rd.

Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII introduces all new weapons, vehicles and tough, new battle maps. Players can now defeat their enemies with a variety of experimental firepower and vehicles. These powerful new weapons and vehicles are rooted in World War II history, but never saw
actual combat – until now.

Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII requires Battlefield 1942 to
play, Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later, PowerPC G4/G5, 867MHZ or faster, 256MB of
RAM, 1.6GB free disc space, 3D Graphics Acceleration required (ATI Radeon
7500/nVidia GeForce 2 or better), 32MB of VRAM, and DVD drive to install and play. Multiplayer requires Internet and LAN (TCP/IP) play support and a
56Kbps or faster connection.

Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII is currently available for pre-order from the IMG Store.

Aspyr Media

Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII

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The audiophiles over at music4games.com have posted a quick Q&A with Tom Hays, audio director for Treyarch, and Tim Riley, music supervisor for game publishers Activision, regarding the audio for the latest web-crawling adventure to hit the pixelated screen - Spider-Man 2: The Game.

The interview focuses on the challenges the team faced in creating and producing the unusually large orchestral score for the title, and the creative decisions taken during the creation of the game's audio content:

M4G: Some critics raised issue with the lack of music during gameplay. What would you say to these reviews - do you agree/disagree?

Tom Hays: I have never been a fan of wallpaper music that plays incessantly when nothing is happening. I'd rather have music in a game reinforce the emotion of what's going on, and let the background sound effects fill in during the quiet times. We decided that when music played in Spider-Man 2, we wanted it to indicate to the player that something was happening.

Almost any time a mission or specific goal comes up, a piece of music will start, which I think helps give the player a sense that it's time to do something. I get the feeling that some of the reviewers may have had the game sitting on their machine not doing much, swinging around and maybe looking for some detail, as opposed to doing missions and moving the story forward. I'm not sure this is representative of the typical gamer's experience.

Having said that, it's a definite challenge to balance out the ebb and flow of things in a wide-open world like we have in Spider-Man 2, and it's possible that there are moments that could have benefited from music that didn't have them. All in all, though, I think the game's music works nicely.

Q&A With Spider-Man 2 Audio Directors

Spider-Man 2: The Game

Aspyr Media

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