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America's Army 2.5 for Mac might be released as soon as this week, according to a new .plan update from developer Ryan Gordon. Gordon said he was hopeful but wouldn't give a more definite timetable than "soon."

2.5.0 is probably going to stay in beta through the weekend. Hopefully there will be a Linux and Mac OS X client release next week. We were aiming for a simultanous release, but it just didn't work out that way. Soon.

Ryan Gordon's .plan file

U.S Army

Epic Games

America's Army: Special Forces 2.4

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Today IMG has released the Inside Mac Games Podcast, the podcast of Mac gaming. Each week the IMG Podcast will be covering all the news in Mac gaming in one tight package. This week's show features Blake Buck, a writer for IMG, Justin Ficarrotta, author of Kill Monty, and William Miller, an artist for Freeverse Software.

On the show this week, the IMG podcast guys talk about the Apple releases, Freeverse announcement week, Devin Moore's sentencing, Battle.net renovations, TeemSpeex for OS X, and Peter Jackson on the Halo Movie. The show weighs in just under 17 minutes in length, and 20 megabytes large.

To download the podcast or view the shownotes, head over to the IMG Podcast page by clicking the link below.

IMG Podcast Homepage

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Today Big Huge Games released a new screenshot of their latest game, Rise of Legends. Rise of Legends is the sequel to popular Rise of Nations released last year for the Mac by Macsoft. The sequel is more fantasy-based than the historically accurate original, and features realtime fully-3D graphics, unlike the 2D terrains of the original.

While the game has not yet been announced for the Mac, due to the popularity of the original, a port by Macsoft is a possibility.

To view a huge version of the screenshot, or to visit the Rise of Legends website, click the links below.

Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends

Rise of Legends Screenshot - Booyah Sized

Today Freeverse brings its week of new products and news items to a close with two final announcements. First, Freeverse will be the principal sponsor of The OMG Cup, a Mac game programming contest to be held by iDevGames.com. The first prize winner will receive $300 and a contract with Freeverse to turn their winning game entry into a finished product.

Ian Lynch Smith, President of Freeverse has said, "We're very proud to be the sponsor of the first annual OMG Cup. Encouraging new Mac game development is more vital than ever, and no one has done more to foster that development in recent years than Carlos Camacho and the community at iDevGames.Com."

"Freeverse Software's support of our annual Mac game development contest, uDevGames, has been great for independent Mac game developers and gamers alike. The OMG Cup is an extension of the spirit that both Freeverse and iDevGames share -- Original Mac Games (OMG) are just more fun!", said Carlos Camacho, Editor-in-Chief of iDevGames. "Through this new contest, we hope to encourage even more Mac programmers to produce games that focus on engaging gameplay."

Today is also the last chance to take advantage of the 25% off sale at Freeverse. The offer continues until midnight tonight Eastern time.

For more information follow the links below.

The OMG Cup

Freeverse

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