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Freeverse has announced the upcoming release of Neon Tango, a new game exclusively for the Mac. The company has revealed little about the mysterious title other than a teaser image and the following system requirements. The game is scheduled for release this holiday season.

- Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
- G4 , G5, or Intel Processor
- 800 MHz or faster
- 32 MB VRAM minimum
- 512 MB RAM minimum
- 500 MB hard drive space minimum

Freeverse

Neon Tango

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Team Phobic recently announced the release of a limited beta for their new game, Electropy. The limited beta contains 30 playable levels of the sidescrolling arcade action title. Players move across the playfield by grappling floating polygons and swinging from one to the next. A variety of powerups and levels will be available in the final game.

About Electropy - Electropy is a side scrolling action arcade title with a fundamental game play twist. Rather than directly moving your character, the idea is to grapple on to floating polygons in order to swing your way to the goal. The game features a wide selection of power-ups such as gravity change, invincibility, and flight thrusters to diversify game play. The title also includes over 120 levels of varying difficulty as well as the same fully functional editor we used to make all the levels in the game. Players are ranked via online scores that are uploaded through the game or on Electropy.com and can download replays of any submitted score. All scores and online profiles will be available on Electropy.com soon!

About Team Phobic - Team Phobic is a group college students who have been working together on games for many years. They are based in Boulder, CO, but have many friends in many places around the world. They develop games using as much free software as possible.

Click over to the Electropy website for more information.

Electropy

Team Phobic

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Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the release of Fallout, an award winning RPG set on a post apocalyptic Earth. To celebrate the event No Mutants Allowed has been offering interviews, images, and other bits of nostalgia related to the game. The most recent addition to the list is a retrospective Q&A with commentary from Fallout designers Leonard Boyarsky, Chris Taylor, Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, and J.E. Sawyer.

6. Any idea why there were almost no more turn-based cRPGs after Fallout?
Leonard Boyarsky
I’m sure people were intimidated by its enormous financial success. Seriously, though - marketing, PR and even execs in the game industry are convinced that you can’t make big money with a turn based game, so no one tries. Now, I don’t know whether you could actually go huge with a turn based game (on the PC) anymore, but, unless someone actually puts out a good one with proper marketing and PR support we’ll never know, will we?

J.E. Sawyer
I think a lot of it has to do with the perceived acceptability of certain play modes among PC gamers and retailers. Games like Darklands showed that real-time with pause RPGs could be pretty fun. The Baldur's Gate series was such a huge financial success that it must have seemed like real-time with pause was the inescapable evolution of RPG combat.
I think ToEE was the last strong showing of any turn-based PC CRPG, but it was plagued by two problems: it was pretty buggy, and low-level D&D combat in a CRPG is incredibly dull. After patching, learning the D&D rules, and getting to about 4th level, it was great fun. Still, I doubt it made a lot of random shmoe gamers jump up and declare that turn-based combat was the most rad thing they had ever experienced.
To be honest, I don't think most gamers actually care a whole lot about whether combat in a CRPG is turn-based or real-time. They just want it to be fun and interesting. I think that convincing retailers that you can have fun and interesting turn-based combat is more difficult than convincing the mythical average gamer. Retailers and publishers get locked in cycles of self-fulfilling prophecies about the viability of certain game elements.

NMA: Fallout Anniversary

NMA: Fallout Retrospective Interview

MacPlay

Omni Group

Fallout 2

Buy Fallout 2

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Runesoft, in cooperation with dtp entertainment, will soon release Pet Doc for the Apple Macintosh. The port to the Mac is almost completed and the game is expected to start shipping by the end of October. In Pet Doc players take the role of vet who must work to become the best vet in town and grow a clinic into a thriving business. To succeed players expand existing buildings and learn to treat and heal a variety of animals.

Did you ever dream of being a pet doctor? With "Pet Doc" this dream might come true. Start up your own practice and treat all those four-legged and feathered pets. Each day people will come to you with their pets: guinea pigs, rabbits, budgerigars, cats, dogs and even horses. Soon you will learn more about treating and healing animals and you will decide when to build which building.

Sometimes it might become necessary to accommodate the animals and take care of them for a couple of days, so that they get well again. You can build extra stables and accomodations for them. Playing with the pets and bear company are among your daily duties as well as feeding them, cleaning up and the daily treatment of your little patients. But although working with these lovely pets is a lot of fun, even the best pet doc needs some time out. You can go to town and buy yourself a new outfit. Or you can saddle one of your horses and go for a long ride at the beach or through the nearby forest.

So, what are you waiting for? Grab your stethoscope and prove to everyone that you are the best pet doc out there.

Runesoft

Pet Doc

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Blizzard Entertainment has released another of its weekly Q&A sessions providing answers to fan questions about the upcoming StarCraft II. The 16th in the series, this Q&A offers some information about changes to the Terran bunker, as well as discussion of the new Time Bomb ability of the Protoss Mothership.

Chat with Devs:
Since BlizzCon, the Terran Bunkers have been increased in size (to 3x3) and given added hit points, making it a more viable defensive structure for the Terrans. The Dev Team really wants to further define the uniqueness of how each faction plays, giving Terrans a strong character of defensive type tools. Watching the Firebats flame from these Bunkers sure do bring back memories!

1. Does the Time Bomb ability of the Mothership stop a Nuclear Missile (just like other missiles) when used on the area where the Nuclear Missile is about to explode?
The Time Bomb ability of the Mothership is designed to stop a Nuclear Missile if used at the right time, making a powerful counter in the hands of a skilled Protoss Player. This ability has still yet to go through the needed balance to make sure this is not over powering, but it is our intention to try and get that ability in the final version as designed.

3. Does Drop Pads make new units or use this recruited before?
There are plans to have the drop pods be manually loaded with units created by the player, to better allow the player to adapt to their current tactical needs.

4. What was the design team's rationale in adding a second siege style unit (Thor) to the Terran race?
The Thor's role compared to the Siege Tank, is more of an assault unit rather than a siege unit. The Thor is much more exposed when attacking an enemy location, while the Siege Tank has a much larger range and is able to hit the enemy at a larger distance.

Most carriers have no weapon batteries of any kind, but their deployment of interceptor flights makes them devastating in a ship-to-ship battle. However, a handful of heavily armed "super carriers" exist, most famously the Gantrithor. This was the flagship of Executor Tassadar when he led a protoss expeditionary force in its attempts to eradicate the zerg in terran space. The Gantrithor was powerful enough that it single-handedly defeated an entire terran battlecruiser squadron under the command of General Edmund Duke. Tassadar later sacrificed himself and his ship to destroy the zerg Overmind when it manifested on Aiur.

StarCraft Forums: SC 2 Q&A Batch 16

StarCraft II: Protoss Carrier

StarCraft Forums: Ask Your SC2 Questions Here

Blizzard Entertainment

StarCraft II: Wings Of Liberty

Buy StarCraft II: Wings Of Liberty

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