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The Apple games web site has posted feature on two recently released Ambrosia Software games, Darwinia and GooBall. The article compares the two games and gives thoughts on the respective qualities of each game.

Here's a clip from the feature:

Despite their outward differences, Ambrosia Software’s Darwinia and GooBall share the same well-known motif found in Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ character Tarzan, among others: The outsider who finds himself in a culture alien to the way he was raised but who must come to understand it if he wants to thrive. Both games place you in that role.

You find yourself inside Darwinia. Dr. Sepulveda’s alarm over your arrival soon turns to the hope that you can help him. A virus, represented by insect-like red creatures that slither across the landscape, has infected Darwinia, and Dr. Sepulveda wants you to help him destroy it.

You play yourself in Darwinia, but in GooBall you step into the gloppy boots of an alien from another world. No matter which you choose, both games require you to learn as you play, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Remember, though, that you have amassed a wealth of knowledge while playing previous strategy and arcade games. Use that experience to your advantage.

Apple Feature: Darwinia and GooBall

Apple

Unity Technologies

Ambrosia Software

Introversion Software

GooBall

Darwinia

Recently Inside Mac Games launched Macgamestore.com, a brand new online store dedicated for Macintosh gamers that ships Mac games worldwide. In celebration, MGS is offering 10 percent off all orders until Friday, May 6th, 2005. Use coupon code "10 off" to get 10 percent off all Macintosh games.

To check out the brand new store, follow the link below.

Macgamestore.com

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IMG has posted a review of the JBL Encounter 2.1, a subwoofer and 2 speaker system. Here's a clip from the review:

First Contact with the Encounter was tentative; I was awestruck at the suave shape of the subwoofer and its space-borne orbiting satellites, but the novel design made setup only slightly more difficult than usual. It was a small amount of time plugging the satellites, computer, and power into the sub.

IMG Review: JBL Encounter 2.1

Harman Multimedia

JBL Encounter 2.1

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iEntertainment Network today announced that their massively multiplayer online simulation, WarBirds 2005 will be released on May 10 for both PC and Mac. This new version of the popular online sim will include new airplanes, terrains, flight models, an upgraded ballistics system. The company will also host a free WarBirds 2005 Weekend on May 20th through May 22nd, where all new players can play all TotalSims games for 3 day free of charge.

Here's more from the press release:

WarBirds 2005 includes the addition of a new C-47 Paratroop Transport for field capture missions, new Russian planes from the Lavochkin series, several updated terrains and new features including a brand new Military Rank System for improved game play and depth. Improved Terrains include the Battle of Britain terrain, an extremely detailed tanking terrain based on the rolling hills of southern Belgium and an upgraded, large European Theater of Operations terrain. New flight models are being created using an advanced system developed by the iEntertainment Network Team that provides a higher level of fidelity to all aircraft. Extensive study of World War II documentation has resulted in a totally revamped ballistics model that leaves the competition in the dust.

New players can download and try WarBirds 2005 by going to http://www.warbirdsiii.com/ to experience the fun of combat flying. On May 20th 2005 through May 22, the Download and the Play is FREE. For new players, full, unlimited, no hourly charge WarBirds: 2005 is only $13.95 per month.

iEntertainment Network

WarBirds III

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Blizzard has released two new information pages on the World of Warcraft community website. The pages feature information on in-game events and real-life events.

For many of Azeroth's inhabitants, combat on both a grand scale and at the level of individual skirmishes has become ritualistic and in some ways even ceremonial. This page documents the ongoing confrontations and celebrations in the game - and those events in between which the line has blurred.

In-Game Events Page

Real-Life Events Page

Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft

Buy World of Warcraft

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Flagship Studios' Chris Lambert has released a Developer Diary for the studio's latest project, Hellgate London. The diary covers the randomized landscape, the progress on the graphics, and a few problems that the developers have overcome.

Like many games, Hellgate: London requires close cooperation between the graphics engineer (enter: me, stage right) and the small, dedicated platoon of 3D concept artists, modelers, animators, riggers, texture artists and technical artists to bring the designers' vision to life. Our game design has many challenges common to conventional graphics engines and then brings an extra barrel of enraged, starving monkeys to the dinner table just in case we get too comfortable.

Take the moon. This is a pretty standard task in 3D engine design: keep the settings required to draw the object (called "states") with the object itself, to make sure it can be drawn correctly when the time comes. In this case, a few of the states were implicit; because the moon was rendered at the beginning of the frame, certain states tended to have a "good" setting. Then the fullscreen change caused a few one-time renders to take place (inventory thumbnails -- more about those later) and they screwed the states. Boom! Transparency (alpha blending) fails and the giant square moon comes out.

Hellgate Diary

Hellgate Official Site

Flagship Studios

The gaming website 1up.com has recently posted a preview of the next generation Unreal Tournament game. This preview takes a look at the way the game is being made, the new features planned, and where the developers are getting their ideas.

It's not that these guys have pulled UT2K4 apart. They're rebuilding the game altogether. No wonder there's no art in the demo -- we're looking at the frame of the house before the Sheetrock has even gone up.

This is not an iteration, it's an entirely new game -- which is why it's entirely possible it won't be called Unreal Tournament 2006. "Yeah," Steve says, "It's a real generational change."

"We use the gameplay of 2004 as a base," Jim explains. "We wanted to start off with a known quantity so that as we made changes to it, we knew that they were [quantifiable] improvements -- it's not just different, it's different in ways we can point to specifically.

New Unreal Tournament Preview

Digital Extremes

MacSoft

Epic Games

Unreal Tournament 2004

Buy Unreal Tournament 2004

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