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Aspyr this morning announced that True Crime: Streets of L.A. has gone gold and is scheduled to begin shipping on Monday, March 14th. The game was developed by Trihedron under license from Activision. In the game you drive, fight and shoot your way through a massive array of unpredictable missions.

Here's more from the press release:

With stealth techniques, vicious martial arts moves and impressive new weapons, as Nick Kang you experience the gritty, seedy underbelly of a vicious Los Angeles crime wave. Cruise the city taking down or harassing the scum of the streets. Bust drug dealers and prostitutes, shakedown informants and confront gang members to get the job done.

True Crime: Streets of L.A. has a branching storyline that allows you to determine your next move while maneuvering through 240 square miles of L.A. Players can also go into “Dogg Patrol” mode and unlock Snoop Dogg to fight against crime, rolling through the streets in a customized convertible. The title’s soundtrack enhances the action with more than 25 hard rock, metal and alternative tracks.

Aspyr Media

True Crime: Streets of L.A.

Buy True Crime: Streets of L.A.

If you're a fan of mahjong solitaire, you'll want to check out IMG's review of Burning Monkey Mahjong Solitaire 2, the latest game from Freeverse Software. Here's a clip from Michael Phillips' review:

For those unaware, Burning Monkey Mahjong Solitaire 2 is a game of matching and removing ornate tiles from a game board. The tiles are arranged and stacked in various Layouts, each Layout containing varying amounts of tiles and challenges. The game’s object is simple, yet deceivingly tricky. The player must find matching pairs of tiles and remove them from the pile. However, if a tile is sandwiched between 2 tiles, or is covered by another tile it cannot be removed. So, one really needs to think 2 or 3 moves ahead, rather than toss tiles aside willy-nilly. Players can choose to play to simply remove every tile from the board, or in one of BMMS2’s 5 new game modes. For example, in Tile Pick Up players must, as the name implies, pick up (or click) the tiles as quickly as possible. Sure, it’s simple, but strangely compelling. For something more complex, players can choose Flowers and Seasons Match mode. In Flowers and Seasons Match, players must match tiles suited to represent various flowers and seasons. Flowers can only match with other flowers and seasons with other seasons. While the new modes are interesting, I still prefer old school Classic mode. I’m all about old school.

IMG Review: Burning Monkey Mahjong Solitaire 2

Freeverse

Burning Monkey Mahjong Solitaire 2

The IMG Store has a few great specials running this month. Be sure to check them out.

2) Close Combat Pre-Order Offer: Pre-Order MacSoft's upcoming Close Combat: First To Fight and get IMG Pro, IMG's popular subscription based service for free. Simply pre-order First To Fight and subscribe to IMG and $19.95 will be deducted from your order when we process it. Please note that if you order IMG Pro with one of the free game offers, you will be charged $5 for the shipping of the free game.

2) MacGames DVD Special Offer: Subscribe to the MacGames DVD today and we'll send you a free 5 game pack consisting of full versions of Activision Anthology: Remix Edition, Another War, Fallout 2, Text Twist/What Word, and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. That's nearly $70 worth of games, absolutely free when you subscribe. While supplies last.

3) Buy Three Games, Get Star Trek: Elite Force II For Free: The IMG Store is giving away free copies of Aspyr's Star Trek: Elite Force II when you order three or more games. To take advantage of this order, simply buy three games and we'll include it in your shipment. Offer available while supplies last.

If you're a MacGames DVD Subscribers, you can an additional 10 percent off ALL orders (not just these sales items). IMG Pro users get an additional 5 percent off ALL orders. Want to save money? Consider a subscription to one of these cool IMG products.

IMG Store

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GarageGames recently announced the first release of a new version of their famous Torque engine, called Torque 2D. This new engine provides a robust 2D game engine, for putting together quality 2D games much quicker. Here's a snippet from GarageGames's announcement :

Over the weekend, GarageGames pushed out a stealth launch of the early adopter source version of Torque 2D. A full-featured, next generation 2D engine that shares the Torque Game Engine's powerful development platform helps you cut straight to the chase and get your game running quickly.

Torque 2D offers a robust set of features, including animated sprites, flexible tiles, particle system, swept-polygon collision, rigid body physics and hardware-accelerated 2D rendering and more.

• Hardware-accelerated, scenegraph-driven framework


• Full support for sprites (translate, animate, flip, rotate and zoom)


• Static and animated tiles - Scrollable, zoomable and rotatable


• Fast, accurate swept-polygon collision detection


• Full Rigid-Body Dynamics simulation


• Physics-based object mounts


• Animate texture, scale, visibility, color, intensity,
• motion forces, rotation, etc.


• Multi-channel prioritized SFX manager


• Multi-Platform support for Windows, OS X and Linux
  
• Royalty-free technology - Full publishing rights to do what you want

GarageGames Releases Early Torque 2D

GarageGames

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Macologist has noted the release of a presentation video featuring Tactical Ops 3.5. In addition, they have some information regarding the updated UT mod in relation to Mac users.

One of the things they note is performance gains for those using the UTX Preview app:

Due to the poor performance of the UTX Preview 3 the decreased net traffic in TO 3.50 should bring a deserved improvement on the UTX in performance and smoothness. During beta testing, one of the most noticeable things is the increased smoothness. Resolution and texture quality can be increased, with a smoother game than in the old 3.40.

A link to the video can be found at the Macologist article.

Macologist - Tactical Ops 3.5 patch update

Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror

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Blizzard has bumped its RTS Warcraft III to version 1.18. Applicable for both the original WC3 as well as The Frozen Throne expansion, the update contains new maps in addition to various tweaks and balance changes to each of the races.

Some of the notable changes are as follows:

• Six new maps from our Bonus Map program, including Excavation Site (4 players), Echo Isle (2), Hinterland Raid (6), Ruins of Stratholme (6), Azeroth Grand Prix (8), and Extreme Candy Wars 2004 (8). The six-player map, River of Souls, has also been updated to allow AMM play.
  
• Balance changes, including reduced build time for the Undead Banshee, increased gold cost for the Staff of Teleportation, and changes to the abilities of several neutral Heroes.
  
• New environment and floating text functions for the world editor, as well as new triggers and unit states.
  
• Numerous fixes to units and abilities for all four races.

Those interested in downloading the patches as stand-alone packages can find download links for both WC3 and TFT at Blizzard's site as well.

Blizzard - Warcraft III Patch Information

Blizzard Entertainment

WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne

Buy WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne

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