Click to enlarge

Feral Interactive has announced that Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year Edition, the critically-acclaimed action adventure game, will be released for the Mac this November. Developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for consoles and PC, Batman: Arkham City GOTY will arrive on the Mac featuring all previously released downloadable content, including the Harley Quinn’s Revenge pack.

“Swooping above rooftops and using the grapnel to zip between buildings gives the player an incredible sense of freedom,” said David Stephen, Managing Director of Feral Interactive. “Arkham City is complex, sinister and surprising: the perfect playground for Batman.”

Batman: Arkham City builds upon the intense, atmospheric foundation of Batman: Arkham Asylum, sending players flying through the expansive Arkham City – five times larger than the game world in Batman: Arkham Asylum – the new maximum security “home” for all of Gotham City’s thugs, gangsters and insane criminal masterminds.

Arkham City is a vast, open world, gothic metropolis hiding a deep assortment of side missions, secrets and puzzles that Batman will need all of his skills and gadgets to discover and solve. Along the way, players will use Batman's signature Free Flow™ combat system to square off against countless thugs and a nightmarish rogue's gallery including The Joker, The Riddler, Two-Face, Harley Quinn, The Penguin and Mr. Freeze.

The Harley Quinn’s Revenge mission, a standalone story set two weeks after the events of the main game, sends players back into Arkham City as both Batman and Robin. Players must utilize each of the characters' unique combat and investigative skills to uncover Harley's vengeful plan and shut the gates on the urban mega-prison forever. Additional DLC includes the Catwoman pack, in which players become Catwoman in a subplot that takes place alongside the main story, and the Nightwing and Robin bundle packs, which allow players to become Robin and Nightwing as they take on the game’s challenge mode.

Feral Interactive

Batman: Arkham City Game Of The Year Edition

Buy Batman: Arkham City Game Of The Year Edition

This weekend marks the start of the EB Games Expo in Sydney, Australia. This fan-event is not only Australia's largest, but the largest in the southern hemisphere. With AAA developers such as Activision, Ubisoft, and EA, along with other studios such as Disney Interactive, showcasing their line-up for the holiday season, the local and global gaming community has a lot to look forward to.

Even though the Mac won't see some of these games, as they are scheduled to release on other rival platforms, this event serves as a sort of sneak-peak preview of what might be in store for the Mac. And I am very happy to announce that Inside Mac Games will be there giving you a Mac platform perspective of all the latest game offerings. We will also be releasing some video coverage of the event. Since we are still finalizing the shooting list we can't reveal what's in store, but hopefully you all will like the result!

Since the last post a few weeks ago there have been a number of developers who have confirmed their attendance, including the Associate Producer and Mission Director of Assassins Creed III from Ubisoft, Phillipe Bergeron and Julien Laferriere. These and others will be seeking to give gamers a sense of the artistic and technological achievements behind the latest games.

Tickets are still available for General Admission, however the exclusive Express and Ultimate Gamer's passes have already sold out. If you are still thinking of whether to go or not, make your decision soon as tickets will likely sell out quickly.

A new thread has been started on IMG's forums asking for reader input on what we should cover at the event. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them there or as a comment on this post.

EB Games Expo

IMG Expo Coverage Discussion

Click to enlarge

October marks the beginning of Sillysoft's annual Luxtoberfest event. Throughout the month the company will be hosting tournaments and contests in celebration of its strategy based world domination game, Lux. The contests enlist players to face off against one another in a war to win prizes.

The first Luxtoberfest tournaments have started! This week the Rookies, the Old Timers, and the Ladies battle it out for online global supremacy.

Many more multi-player online contests are happening throughout October. View the 2012 Tournament Schedule for the full list.

You have until October 28th to cast your votes for the 2012 Lux Awards, rewarding the best players and maps of the year.

There's a variety of forum games happening this month, including another LuxShoppe Showdown! Come play in the Luxtoberfest 9 Forum.

Luxtoberfest Tournament Schedule

2012 Lux Awards

Luxtoberfest 9 Forum

Sillysoft

Lux Delux

Buy Lux Delux

Click to enlarge

Seamheads and OOTP Developments have announced the OOTP 13 "Laundry League," an online simulation league that uses Out of the Park Baseball 13 to stock 30 teams with "the greatest players of all time." Those teams' managers include four ex-Major League pitchers (Don Stanhouse, Jeff Mongtomery, Lary Sorensen, and John D'Acquisto), one ex-minor league pitcher (Vance Tucker), ESPN's Eric Karabell and Jerry Crasnick, and others drawn from the ranks of bloggers, Internet radio hosts, and authors.

The OOTP 13 Laundry League is the brainchild of Seamheads.com founder Mike Lynch, who came up with the idea that each team owner would only know what “laundry” they would represent (which team), but not the players. He said: "I've run online OOTP leagues in the past, so this time I decided to mix it up and let my owners pick their teams but not their players. We'll have the game run the draft and fill the teams, but we'll allow trading, so I'm sure there will be a lot of back-and-forth as everyone tries to lock up their favorites."

The first few rounds of the draft were conducted live on Twitter on October 1, on the @seamheads Twitter feed. The entire draft log is now online – unsurprisingly, Babe Ruth was the first player chosen by OOTP for the St. Louis Cardinals. As the Laundry League gets underway and the schedule starts, its home page will fill with news. The four ex-Major Leaguers who are participating had virtual versions of themselves drafted too (none of them by the teams they’re managing):

Jeff Montgomery, drafted by the Los Angeles Angels
Don Stanhouse, drafted by the Cleveland Indians
John D’Acquisto, drafted by the Chicago Cubs
Lary Sorensen, drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers

Lynch combed through baseball history to find 1,200 players (720 position players, 480 pitchers) for the Laundry League draft; each team has a 40-man roster. He painstakingly chose the best overall season for each player and used it as the basis for that athlete's OOTP ratings. He explained: "Using Hank Aaron as an example, his 1965 season earned his best ratings, barely edging out his 1959 season. Aaron was very good in 1965, but I chose his '59 season, which was arguably his best."

"Mike worked harder on the Laundry League player list than I did when I was pitching," quipped Lary Sorensen.

"OOTP is such a versatile game that you can do just about anything you want with it, as Mike has shown with his Laundry League," said lead OOTP developer and lifelong baseball fan Markus Heinsohn. "We're thrilled that he chose our game for this endeavor."

“I had the pleasure of working with the very talented OOTP Baseball team when they sponsored my MLB podcast, ‘The Payoff Pitch,’” said Jay Ferraro, who has taken over the New York Yankees. “I was very honored when Seamheads asked me to be a part of this amazing project with some of the finest baseball minds as we celebrate the game’s rich history.”

As the Laundry League season progresses, Lynch will cover the American League action at Seamheads.com while OOTP Developments PR and Marketing Manager Brad Cook will cover the National League action on the OOTP 13 forum. Lynch and Cook will also cross-post articles on each other’s web sites.

OOTP 13 Laundry League

OOTP 13 Forum

OOTP Developments

OOTP13

Buy OOTP13

Search for other Mac games news stories or browse our Mac Games News Archive.