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Victoria: Revolutions, an expansion to the original strategy title, Victoria - An Empire Under the Sun, has been released for Mac OS X by Virtual Programming. The add-on gives player extra years to play, as well as a much expanded tech tree and military system.

Here's the scoop on what's new:

* 15 extra years of game play. Lead your nation through the challenging interwar period!
* An expanded tech tree to cover the interwar period, including aircrafts and carriers
* A revamped election and politics system, adding a new level of realism to the game
* An overhauled military system, which will be linked with the player’s policy decisions
* A new economic system that brings more realism through various economic models

Virtual Programming

Victoria: Revolutions

Buy Victoria: Revolutions

Macgamestore.com today began shipping Age of Empires III, the long-awaited epic strategy game from MacSoft. The game is available for $49.95.

Age of Empires III offers gamers the next level of realism, with advanced battle physics and unparalleled visual detail.

The new game picks up where Age of Empires II: Age of Kings left off, placing gamers in the position of a European power determined to explore, colonize and conquer the New World.

This time period features stunning scenes, from towering European cathedrals to courageous tribes of Native Americans, and spectacular combat with Industrial Age units like rifled infantry, cavalry and tall ships bristling with cannons.

Macgamestore: Age of Empires III

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Inside Mac Games has posted a review of FizzBall, the newest Mac game from Grubby Games. Here's a clip from the review:

The graphics of Fizzball are absolutely amazing for a game that runs as fast as it. Everything is drawn slightly cartoony, but it all is quite detailed and I can't truly remember a single effect that looks bad to the casual eye. The landscapes are pretty, the world map is easy on the eyes, and all the members of the world make beautiful effects when destroyed.

Inside Mac Games Review: FizzBall

FizzBall

Buy FizzBall

Tonight on iGame Radio, host Omaha Sternberg chats with the president of Shrapnel Games, Tim Brooks. Shrapnel is responsible for the popular Mac game Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space.

Shrapnel Games has a history in the Mac gaming community of publishing unique and original real-time and turn-based strategy and wargames since 1999. Publishing such greats as Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, the Dominions series, and Salvo!, Shrapnel Games has shown that the niche of 2D strategy and wargames still lives and thrives.

Omaha will also offer Mac gaming news, commentary, and giveaways, and will take questions live from listeners in the iGame Radio chat room (AIM/iChat room name “iGameRadio”) and on the air (using the VoIP software Skype; see the rules regarding this method on the iGame Radio home page).

Shrapnel Games

iGame Radio

Digital Eel

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space

Gamedev.net reports that two new OpenGL releases are slated for release in 2007. Details are available in the recent official OpenGL.org newsletter:

The first one, code named OpenGL "Longs Peak", slated for summer 2007, will offer a new "Lean and Mean" profile, and a substantial refactoring in terms of the new object model. The second one, code named OpenGL "Mt. Evans", targeted for October 2007, will be a continuation of OpenGL Longs Peak, with a lot of new functionality added that will only be implementable on the newest hardware available.

Gamedev.net Announcement and Discussion

OpenGL Pipeline Newsletter Issue 2

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Guild Software has updated Vendetta Online to version 1.7.8. This update features an all new user friendly interface and balancing issues. As space pilots in Vendetta Online, players will be able to explore the Vendetta universe, fight in space battles, and much more.

Fixes/Changes

• An all-new user interface has been added, with special emphasis on tutorials for new players. Beyond the tutorials, new mission trees have been added to provide more friendly introductions to the universe and varied gameplay.
• Ship repairs now cost money for everything other than the baseline EC-89. Radar is now limited to 500m in ion storms, and storm jump points are common to everyone. Capital ships, Hive Queens and the Leviathan now have recharging shields.
• Experienced users may now apply to the Player Contribution Corps and gain access to the game's mission editor. Using this they can create, test and submit missions for actual production game usage.

MGF: Vendetta Online 1.7.8

Guild Software

Strategy First

Vendetta Online

Macworld's Game Room has posted a review of Scrabble, the computerized version of the ever popular word building game. Much like the original board game, Scrabble allows players to compete against each other or computer opponents in creating words on the playfield from randomly drawn letter tiles. The Game Room gave Scrabble a score of 4 out of 5 mice.

From the review:

There’s also a time-based speed version—Blitz makes you race against the clock, forcing you to lay down words within a set number of seconds; Tournament mode, in which you play as long as possible within a set number of minutes; and Custom Tournament, which lets you set time and word assistance options yourself.

Scrabble has some nice features to simplify game play, like automatic pause if you click in a window in another application (it hides the tiles on the board so you can’t cheat in timed play) and an automatic save feature that saves the current game in progress if you quit for any reason. There’s also a hint feature (it doesn’t give it completely away, just shows you the approximate area you can make a word using your letters), as well as the official Merriam-Webster Scrabble Player’s Dictionary built in.

Macworld Game Room: Scrabble Review

Scrabble

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Planewalker Games' latest article about The Broken Hourglass offers an in-depth look at wscript, the WeiNGINE scripting language. In addition to its mod friendly game engine the upcoming RPG will feature a 2D isometric viewpoint, detailed character development, and a rich storyline.

Here's a bit more about wscript:

The WeiNGINE scripting language wscript is a strongly-typed functional programming language with parametric polymorphism, first-class functions, and variable updates in the style of Objective CAML.

Don't worry--you don't have to understand all of those terms in order to successfully edit and compose scripts in a WeiNGINE game. (Although it certainly doesn't hurt.)

Two important concepts to know and understand are:

·wscript is object-oriented. Every thing in the game can have a number of predefined engine attributes (such as location on a map, or a Strength statistical value) as well as any number of arbitrary variables attached to it.

·wscript is event-driven. Scripts are evaluated and run whenever a script hook event takes place. There are dozens of script hook events in the game, ranging from the manipulation of doors and containers to the computation of an attack roll, to a creature joining or leaving a party.

The Broken Hourglass: Intro To wscript

The Broken Hourglass

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