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Feral Interactive has announced that F1 2012, the FORMULA ONE racing simulation game, is available now for Mac. Developed by Codemasters Birmingham and published by Codemasters for consoles and PC, F1 2012 is the follow-up to F1 2011 and F1 2010.

The official game of the 2012 FIA Formula One World Championship™, F1 2012 features all the teams, drivers and circuits from this most hotly contested season. All 20 tracks are recreated in meticulous detail, including classics such as Silverstone, Monaco, Hockenheim and Monza, along with more recent arrivals such as Singapore’s Marina Bay Circuit and the brand new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

F1 2012 offers thrilling gameplay that, in an intense and extensive Career Mode, accurately simulates motorsports’ most demanding competition. Players get to pursue a Formula One career and battle the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel for the FIA Formula One Drivers’ WORLD Championship. They can also take on the role of race engineer as well as driver, fine-tuning their car set-ups according to the circuit, weather conditions and their own handling preferences.

In addition to Career Mode, F1 2012 features several other modes; Season Challenge condenses the Formula One season into just ten short races. Quick Race allows players to choose any car, track, driver and weather condition. Champions Mode pits players’ skills against each of the six former FIA FORMULA ONE DRIVERS’ World Champions competing in the 2012 season in events that showcase those drivers’ exceptional talents, such as Kimi Räikkönen’s prowess in bad weather.

F1 2012 also supports split-screen, LAN multiplayer, and online multiplayer.

System Requirements:

Minimum
• Processor: 2.0Ghz
  
• OS: Mac OS X 10.7.5
  
• RAM: 4.0GB
  
• Free Space: 12.0GB
  
• Graphics: 512MB
  
• Accessories: Keyboard
Recommended
• Processor: 2.4Ghz
  
• OS: Mac OS X 10.8.2
  
• RAM: 8.0GB
  
• Free Space: 12.0GB
  
• Graphics: 1.0 GB
  
• Accessories: Game Pad
Notes
• The following graphics cards are not supported: ATI X1xxx series, ATI HD2xxx series, Intel GMA series, Intel HD3000, NVIDIA 7xxx series, NVIDIA 8xxx series, NVIDIA 9400 and NVIDIA 320M

F1 2012

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Mac Game Store is celebrating the holiday season with a daily Christmas sale. Continuing through December 25th, the store will be putting 12 awesome Mac games up for sale each day for 24 hours only.

Today's games are on sale (some at 50% off the regular price!) until 12 Midnight, Pacific time. Then a new round of 12 games will be on sale right after midnight. Be sure to visit often!

For the full list of games check out the link below.

Mac Game Store

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Mac Game Store has added another title to its list of games available for download and purchase, Cargo Commander from Digital Tribe LLC. The game puts player in the role of a new recruit to the Cargo Corps who must salvage priceless cargo from alien infested containers by punching and shooting deadly mutants.

Alone in space, light years away from your family, armed with only your Fistcannon™, Platform Drill and the meanest cup of coffee in the sector; you are Cargo Corps’ latest recruit, a Cargo Commander. Your responsibilities are simple: travel through the vast reaches of wormhole-filled space salvaging priceless cargo from alien infested containers. The work, however, is hard, honest, and hairy:punch and shoot deadly mutants in the face, while traveling between your ship and containers. Jockey for promotions with thousands of other Cargo Commanders in the galaxy, collect over 80 different cargo types, all the while earning your way back home.

Features:

• Randomly generated levels based around names. Choose any name to generate a new custom sector and share with your friends to compete for high score!
  
• Fully destructible environments; create your own path with your Platform drill and explosives
  
• Compete with other players for promotions; each sector has an online leaderboard
  
• 2 different play modes: Career and Journey
  
• Loot the dead corpses of other players' vain attempts at beating your score
  
• Upgradeable weapons and tools

Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later
  
• 2 GB RAM
  
• 120 MB HD Space

Cargo Commander

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Winter Wolves has released the third chapter in the Heileen series, in the the form of "a funny life simulation game with a light-comedy setting." Heileen 3: New Horizons continues the story from the end of Heileen 2 and takes place in the Caribbean islands.

After being rescued by Captain Morgan and his pirate crew, they set off to find and reunite with her old friends. Aboard the ship, the Morning Star, Heileen ponders on what she'll like to do with her life.

Along the way she will meet new characters, discover additional things about her old friends and maybe learn a profession thanks to the new skills system. The Virtues/Sins gameplay introduced in the second game is also present: every choice in the game will change Heileen's personality, in a wide array of possibilities. Saint or sinner? That will be up to you to decide!

GAME FEATURES:

• Four dateable romances: during the game you can romance Morgan, John, Jonathan or the new face Sebastian. Each new romance comes with unique scenes and a special ending image.
  
• Dating sim gameplay: the third chapter of Heileen plays like a dating/stat-raising sim, with lots of different skills to learn
  
• Sins/Virtues system: the Sins/Virtues system is back! Each choice in the game matters, every choice is important to shape Heileen's personality
  
• 14 unique Profession Endings: decide Heileen's future by learning one of the 14 available professions and unlock a special ending image for each of them.
  
• Level Up: like in a RPG, you need to level up your basic skills to have access to the advanced skills, requiring more strategy to play
  
• Lots of unique scenes: featuring a game story much longer than the previous two titles combined together!
  
• The game also includes an original theme song composed by Matthew Myers and performed by Kathleen "Irulanne" Boucher.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Mac OS X 10.4 or later
  
• 1.6 GHz Processor
  
• 1 GB RAM

Heileen 3: New Horizons

Winter Wolves

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Overhaul Games recently released another new story segment featuring a character from Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. Once again the focus turned to Neera the Wild Mage, with a second chapter in her origin story. BGEE is an updated version of Bioware's fantasy role playing game set in the Forgotten Realms. The game will feature an enhanced version of the Infinity Engine, the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion pack, new adventures, and new party members.

Neera raised her staff. For an instant, all the orcs flinched. Neera wanted to say something dramatic and intimidating like, Fear the power of my magic unleashed! But she was afraid she'd stutter or sound childish. Besides, she needed to save her breath for a spell. The only question was, which one?

The forest was already burning, she decided, and the orcs had run from the flames. What's the harm in a little more fire?

Neera reached deep within her connection to the arcane. The border between her world and that of the Weave felt like a gossamer veil, a curtain she could part not with her hand but with her will. She opened it as wide as she dared, willing-and hoping-for fire.

Fire she got.

BGEE: Neera The Wild Mage, Chapter 2

Beamdog

Overhaul Games

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

CodeWeavers, developer of CrossOver software which enables Mac and Linux users to run Windows software on their computers without the need of a Microsoft license, recently released the newest incarnation of the software, CrossOver 12. The company has also included an experimental Mac graphics driver in C12 which the company promises will "lead to smoother, faster, more native Mac performance as it’s perfected."

“Like our previous versions, CrossOver 12 gives everyone the most-affordable solution for accessing to thousands of Windows applications on Mac and Linux, because with our product, you don’t need a Windows license,” said CEO Jeremy White. “Version 12 continues our steady progress in terms of more Windows applications just working under CrossOver. If you haven’t tried CrossOver recently with your favorite Windows application, it’s worth taking the 5 minutes to give it another look.”

“But what’s even cooler,” White continued “is what our new “The Mac Driver” is going to do for our Mac porting customers. Now that we have The Mac Driver, we’ll be able to move Windows applications over to the Mac platform even more rapidly. It will help us deliver a final ported application that looks, smells, and feels more like a native Mac application than ever before.”

“It is actually a really cool feature,” confirmed Jon Parshall, CodeWeavers’ COO and head of Marketing, “But this just goes to show what happens when you let software developers name something. Next thing you know, they’ll want to rename CrossOver ‘That MacWindows Compatibility Program’ for our next release. If you’ll pardon me, I think I need a drink.”

About “The Mac Driver”
The Mac Driver supplants CrossOver’s current X11 windows driver technology. This new driver format will be an optional feature in CrossOver 12, allowing users to enable/disable it at need for specific applications. It will also allow CodeWeavers to gather useful feedback from its distributed cadre of testers in order to hone its features for future releases.

About CodeWeavers
Founded in 1996 as a general software consultancy, CodeWeavers focuses on the development of Wine –the core technology found in all of its CrossOver products. The company’s goal is to bring expanded market opportunities for Windows software developers by making it easier, faster and more painless to port Windows software to Linux. CodeWeavers is recognized as a leader in open-source Windows porting technology, and maintains development offices in Minnesota, the United Kingdom and elsewhere around the world. The company is privately held.

CodeWeavers

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A New Beginning - Final Cut from Daedalic Entertainment is available now for purchase at Mac Game Store. The interactive adventure thriller challenges players to stem the tide of a global climate cataclysm, and features more than 100 backgrounds, over 20 hours of gameplay, and 52 voiced characters.

A New Beginning is a cinematic, interactive adventure-thriller that deals with the defining issue of our time. In a story ripped from today’s headlines, an impending global climate cataclysm threatens the world. At locations all around the globe, players will have to try and stem the tide – with the whole world hanging in the balance.

Scientist Bent Svensson has had to give up on his life’s work of trying to bring an eco-friendly alternative energy source to reality. But his existence as a reluctant retiree is interrupted by a very strange visitor: The young Fay claims to have been sent from the future to prevent an impending environmental catastrophe. The only remaining hope is Bent’s research which is about to fall into the hands of an unscrupulous energy magnate. Bent decides to trust the young woman – but could she really be telling the truth?

• The masterpiece from the makers of The Whispered World and Edna & Harvey: The Breakout
  
• A mature adventure-thriller that deals with the defining issue of our times
  
• The greatest 2D adventure game of all time: More than 100 backgrounds, over 20 hours of gameplay, 52 voiced characters
  
• Unique graphic novel art style with more than 40 minutes of animated comic book cutscenes

Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.7 or later
  
• 2 GHz Processor
  
• 2 GB RAM

A New Beginning - Final Cut

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Mac|Life has posted a new review of Feral Interactive's Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year Edition. Developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for consoles and PC, Batman: Arkham City GOTY features all previously released downloadable content, including the Harley Quinn’s Revenge pack.

From the review:

As fun as Arkham is to explore, it’s the building interiors that offer up the game’s most memorable moments. Instead of a few notable villains, Arkham sets twisted nightmare versions of most of Batman’s rogue’s gallery breathing down our necks. The Joker, Bane, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Harley Quinn, and Ra's Al Ghul are just a few of the antagonists you'll encounter, and each one has a separate story arc and a distinctive, hazard-filled lair. Getting through these requires a mix of puzzle-solving and fighting, with the latter improving on Asylum’s near-perfect system of martial-arts beatdowns and carefully timed counters. And if you’re feeling devious, there are plenty of opportunities to mess with each villain’s attendant thugs by hiding in the shadows and knocking them out, one by one, as the “survivors” grow increasingly (and visibly) terrified.

While adopting a "throw in more stuff" approach can sometimes lead to confused, obligatory-feeling sequels, in Arkham City it works beautifully. The story, action, and exploration all come together to create something that stays interesting throughout, and because this is the Game of the Year edition, it's all supplemented with even more content. All of Catwoman's story missions, every optional character skin, and even the short-but-fun Harley Quinn’s Revenge add-on episode are included and ready to play. 

Mac|Life: Batman Arkham City GotYE Review

Feral Interactive

Batman: Arkham City Game Of The Year Edition

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Muse Games has announced the release of an update for its post-apocalyptic airship combat game, Guns of Icarus Online. Version 1.1.2 offers a variety of additions including a new weapon and a new map. The co-operative airship combat game mixes together first-person shooter action with team-based strategy, and is available now for Mac and Windows PCs.

Muse Games is excited to roll out version 1.1.2, which introduces a new heavy weapon: The Lumberjack Mortar, an excellent long range balloon killer. Additionally a new map, Canyon Ambush, is available with a Grand Canyon-eque feel and lots of rock walls to crash into. Finally, 21 new costumes with free unlocks for completing achievements and a special holiday gift just for logging in!

Those are the new features, but there's also a variety of changes and improvements as usual with every update. In 1.1.2 the capture modes have been reworked to make a better experience in Resource Race and King of the Hill, bugs have been fixed, performance has been improved, and the UI has been polished a little further.

Guns of Icarus Online is the first co-operative airship combat game mixing together first-person shooter action with team-based strategy. Up to four people will crew a ship, taking on one of the key roles of Captain, Gunner, or Engineer joining a team and fighting against other ships above the post-apocalyptic waste. In Guns of Icarus Online, it will take teamwork and tactics to dominate the skies.

Muse Games

Guns Of Icarus Online

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Blizzard Entertainment has just updated its StarCraft II game guide with the seven new units from the upcoming Heart of the Swarm expansion for the sci-fi RTS. The new guide pages feature a description of the unit, statistics, matchup and counter information, and a close-up 3D model.

Here's a description of the Terran Hellbat:

The original Hellion has proved its effectiveness in recent years and throughout numerous combat campaigns. No surprise then that the Dominion has opted to provide an upgrade to this versatile off road vehicle. Designs for the Hellbat make use of its predecessor’s base platform but add a complex, state of the art new feature set: robotics. The most striking advancement comes in “battle mode,” which reconfigures the buggy into a mechanized walker.

In battle mode, the Hellion’s napalm-spewing Infernal Flame Thrower transitions for immediate use, while a thick layer of heat shielding beneath the Hellion’s chassis expands and re-forms to protect both robot and driver. By combining the original vehicle’s speed, agility and firepower with the new battle mode’s strength, armor and durability, the Hellbat represents the future of tactical assault technology.

Heart Of The Swarm Unit Spotlight

Blizzard Entertainment

StarCraft II: Heart Of The Swarm

Buy StarCraft II: Heart Of The Swarm

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