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Ars Technica has posted benchmark tests featuring Quake 4, the Universal Binary version vs. Windows XP version on an Intel Mac with Boot Camp. In the tests, the Universal Binary still lagged behind the Windows XP version, with only a few exceptions.

There were also tests on the dual PowerMac G5 for comparison. Additionally, the author mentions drawbacks using Boot Camp to play Quake 4 under XP such as lack of official support and no anti-aliasing, among others.

If you're thinking of trying out Bootcamp and games, the main drawback of Bootcamp (other than having to reboot) is the dithering problem. It's not really noticeable when doing most tasks in Windows but it is pretty bad when you're playing games and it looks just a bit better than ATI's infamous 16-bit dithering. I'm not certain that everyone's seeing this problem though, so feedback in the discussion would be appreciated. That said, Quake 4 is very playable on an AGP first-gen dual G5 with 6800 Ultra and it's great on the MacBook in OS X. There are still issues though

Quake 4 Universal Binary vs. Bootcamp

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Quake 4

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Charlie's Games has released Bullet Candy, a fast-paced arcade shooter for Mac OS X. Viewed from a top-down perspective, Bullet Candy allows for a true 360º shoot-em-up experience. With all of your enemies in view at all times it's easy to see and, more importantly, shoot them into tiny little pieces.

Bullet Candy's controls allow for great precision of movement and aiming. Using the mouse and keyboard to aim and shoot, Bullet Candy always keeps you in control of the on screen action.

Alternatively, use a dual analog control pad for a better, more natural control method.

Gameplay Features
Bullet Candy's game mechanic is inspired by Williams classic Robotron, vertical shooters such as Treasure's Ikaruga and Capcom's Gigawing, and Jeff Minter's awesome Llamatron and Tempest 2000.

Huge particle explosions, masses of enemy bullets, and beautiful feedback effects combined with power-ups, score multipliers, collectable friendly ships, laser upgrades and un-lockable bonus games all add up to make a great gameplay experience.

Macgamestore: Bullet Candy

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IMG has posted a review of Titan Attacks. Here's a clip from the review:

Titan Attacks is a fixed-screen top-down shooter or "Space Invaders" clone. It goes much further than the average clone, though. The variety of enemies isn't too great, but is certainly good enough to keep you happy for the entire 100 levels and beyond. The bosses are generally easy to defeat, but are still a challenge for the average gamer. Throughout the levels, you can purchase various upgrades to your ship like more shielding, smartbombs, and a bigger gun. The game's main purpose is to survive as long as possible and save the world as many times as you can.

IMG Review: TItan Attacks

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Titan Attacks

ClubMac has deals on a wide variety of Mac compatible products including; project a great image with the Canon LV-7250 XGA LCD ultra-protable multimedia projector for only $989.99!; or choose the 4.9lb. Viewsonic PJ458D XGA LCD DLP projector for only $919.99!; increase your camera, PDA or cellphone memory with a choice of the US Modular 2GB Secure Digital (SD) card for only $72.99!; or choose the Lexar 2GB SD card for only $96.99!; go wireless with either the Buffalo Technology WHR-HP-G54 802.11g wireless cable/DSL Smart Router w/AirStation One-Touch Secure System (AOSS) for only $72.99! or choose the Hawking Technologies HWR54GU 802.11g kit that includes a mini USB adapter for only $94.99!; get ready for summer vacation with the hot new Canon EOS Digital SLR camera kit with an EF-S 18-55mm zoom lens for only $1499.00!; and much more.

MacZone has deals on a wide variety of Mac compatible products including; don't get caught without a backup with the EDGE 80GB FireWire/USB 2.0 3.5" external hard drive for only $99.99!; give your work that ultra-professional look with the world's fastest desktop business color printer from Hewlett Packard OfficeJet Pro K550DTN for only $298.98!; thin is in with the ultra-cool, ultra-thin Sony DSC-T9 6MP digital camera for only $399.99!; and much more.

Publishing Perfection has deals on a wide variety of Mac compatible products including; produce digital engravings & woodcuts or convert gray scale images to a wide variety of line-art screens & more with Artistic Screening Tools from Andromeda Software for only $199.95!; realize your ideas quickly and powerfully with Adobe's Illustrator CS2 for only $495.95!; shot like a pro with the Nikon D-200 10.2 megapixel digital SLR camera for only $1699.95!; digitize your 35mm film images with the PrimeFilm 3650u dedicated 35mm film scanner for only $289.95!; print your photographic treasures with the Epson Stylus Photo R2400 printer with 8-color Epson UltraChrome K3 pigment inkset for archival color and black & white photos for only $849.95!; and much more.

Ramjet has Hot Deals exclusive deals on Mac compatible memory including; 512MB DDR SDRAM DIMM for your PowerMac G4 MDD (Mirror Drive Door) for only $48.00!; let your dual-core PowerMac G5 really show it's stuff with a 1GB RAM Kit upgrade for only $106.00!; 512MB DDR SO-DIMM for the iBook G4 only $63.00!; 1GB DDR2 DIMM module for iMac G5 for only $88.00!; 1GB RAM upgrade kit for the Intel-based Mac Mini for only $143.00!; and much more.

Runtime Revolution and Derbrill Software today released Arcade Engine 2.0, a major upgrade to the add-on component for all Revolution-based products on MacOS X and Windows.

Arcade Engine is a useful library and reference for adding arcade and simulation features to Revolution's rich media feature set - especially designed to handle tasks specific to fast arcade action games. In addition, Arcade Engine enables complex, asynchronous animation along paths - completely under the control of the developer or designer. 

Arcade Engine 2.0 includes several new features for creating compelling games and simulations:

Ease in/ease out motion effects. Tell objects to move from one location to another with flexible motion easing - acceleration/deceleration of objects.

Isometric drawing. Enhanced line and box objects in isometric view can be easily generated for isometric games, simulations and charting.

Callback messages for constrained controls. Constrained controls can accept callback messages - allowing interactive, customized visual controls such as sliders that change while dragged.

3D Wireframe objects. Display wireframes built from 3d points with a single call, and manipulate them along the X, Y, and Z axes.

Minor improvements to image-based collision handling, constrainted controls and also easier to use documentation.

Runtime Revolution products allow fast visual creation of media projects, applications, and client-server or n-tier solutions on all major operating systems: MacOS X, Windows, Linux and Solaris. Drag-create visuals - buttons, windows, information boxes, lists, players and more. All Revolution products feature easy, English-like scripting, stunning blending and transparency effects, fast vector graphics, support for playback of video, audio, text-to-speech, video/audio capture and more.

Revolution Media ($49) includes several focused starter projects including a slideshow presentation, kiosk or artist's digital portfolio, and point-and-click adventure game creator -with source code! Revolution Studio ($299) and higher add multi-platform compilation, database connectivity and enterprise features. Learn more about Revolution Media revmedia.runrev.com. Media can also be upgraded to Revolution Studio and Revolution Enterprise.

Arcade Engine 2.0

Phelios has updated their best-selling shoot'em up game, Kaijin, to support Intel Macs. The new universal binary version of the game will now play natively on Intel Macs as well as older Macs running Mac OS X 10.3 or later.

Here's a brief description of the game:

For too long, genetically modified grown food and pollution from the ocean and environment created
a harmful impact on the natural food chain of Planet Terria. Over time, the insects and ocean dwellers mutated in wildly unusual ways and became stronger and more intelligent. Some began to develop brain abnormalities, which resulted in an increased aptitude of 5000% in their IQ’s. As their new intellect grew, so did their appetite for planet domination. They now feel that Terrians are their Public Enemy Number One. So, they developed a secret army and are now ready to eradicate theTerrians with all of their mutant force.

MGF: Kaijin

Bit Tech has posted a preview of Wil Wright's latest world building project, Spore. The creator of Sim City and The Sims is working on the new god sim which will allow players to build single celled organisms and take them from the primordial ooze to the lofty reaches of outer space. At each stage of evolution the game will open up new options for play, eventually leading from simple survival to city building and galaxy conquering.

Here's a snippet from the preview which describes the ability to add other players' content to a game:

"And now we can pull away and see our entire solar system. This is our home star. We want some planets to be realistic, other ones we wanted to be very creative, so there's a great diversity in the universe. Now one of the things I want to do is come out here and start looking at the wildlife. and I might want to test an ecosystem on this planet."

"What I can do is scan these guys, and I can add them to the database of the Sporepedia. Every piece of content I come across is added to the Sporepedia, and the metaphor here is of a trading card deck. Everything in the game has a trading card. I can actually see other people's creatures, creations, look at the trading card and decide I like it, and I can have that added to my own planet deck. There are going to be collectable aspects of this, like a card game.

"As I said, this has several thousand stars and several million worlds and the reason we can do that is that the players are basically building these automatically as they play the game. And that's basically the gist of Spore."

Bit Tech: Spore Preview

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Prairie Games has announced another large update for Minions of Mirth, their popular fantasy role playing game. The patch brings the game to version 1.02 and includes a host of new additions and bug fixes.

Here are a few of the new additions to the game:

+ Added over 80 new high level spawns with many new high level drops!

+ Added the new Efreet and Turtle models. Thanks to Magnus Blikstad of WIT Entertainment.

+ A monster village has been established in Hazeroth Keep. Monsters can train in other classes, shop, and craft!!! Thanks to Citrine.

+ Monks have 6 new fist weapon rings with multiple procs!!! Talk to Colavri Arda in Trinst to learn more. Thanks to Kbro.

Minions of Mirth Update Info

Prairie Games

Minions of Mirth

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Firing Squad has posted a preview of Unreal Tournament 2007, the next generation action shooter from Epic. The latest impressions out of a demo seen at the E3 expo event were gameplay, vehicles, and graphics.

The live demo, controlled by an Epic team member, showed off one of the new gameplay modes in UT 2007, Warfare and yes that name is apt for the actions we saw in this presentation. Your eyes immediately look at the graphical goodness that is the Unreal Engine 3. Super high textures, incredible character, weapons and vehicle models and awsome lighting effects. Unlike the Battlefield series which doesn't have as colorful an art style, the UT artists, modelers and effects programmers are clearly having a lot of fun designing cool sci-fi content for the 2007 version of the game.

E3 2006 Unreal Tournament 2007 Impressions

Epic Games

Unreal Tournament 3

Bare Feats has benchmarked the latest Intel Macs and a G5 to see how much of a difference the new Quake 4 SMP Patch makes. This was a patch to allow Quake 4 to be aware of multiple processors and therefore take advantage of them.

The Intel Macs outperformed the G5/2.0 Power Mac with the Radeon X800 XT when Low and Medium settings were used. However, when we bumped things up to High quality with Shadows ON and SMP ON, they not only fell behind the G5 tower but they failed to benefit from SMP mode.

BareFeats: Quake 4 with SMP Patch Benchmark

MGF: Quake 4: 1.2 Patch

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