Amy Torres of Aspyr Media sends word that Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast has reached the final candidate stages. This means that the game is essentially finished with porting and testing by Aspyr and Westlake Interactive, and they only need final approval before moving it into duplication and shipping. Aspyr hopes to have the title available sometime in October.

[Update] IMG has just confirmed with Torres they are also in the process of working on a demo for the game now. While they don't yet have a tentative release date for it, we'll keep you posted with any new information regarding the demo.

This is great news for the highly anticipated game, which gives you the ability to play again as Kyle Katam in the Star Wars universe. Along with the many standard weapons, the biggest feature of Jedi Knight II is the lightsaber and Force Powers. Jedi Knight also features a multiplayer with two modes, training and team-based play. Here are the final system requirements for the game in an accompanying September Aspyr newsletter:

• Mac OS 9.1 or later (with virtual memory on)
  
• Mac OS X compatible, version 10.1 or later
  
• G3 or G4 Processor at 400 MHz or faster
  
• 128 MB of Memory (256 MB recommended)
  
• 4X CD-ROM (16X recommended)
  
• Hard Drive, with 665 MB minimum free space
  
• Hardware 3D Acceleration required (ATI Radeon/NVidia GeForce card)
  

Elsewhere in the Aspyr newsletter, they recap some other recent good news, including the expansion for Star Wars Galactic Battlgrounds, called Clone Campaigns also reaching Final Candidate status. Another title currently in beta, but "rapidly approaching the FC" is Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. Finally, The Sims Vacation is now in stores as well.

Be sure to sign up to the Aspyr newsletter for all the latest info about the company, as well as word on many contests and specials through the Aspyr store. If you haven't yet pre-ordered Jedi Knight II, Clone Campaigns, or Ghost Recon, be sure to do so now either at Aspyr or the IMG Store.

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (add to watch list)

IMG Preview: Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

Aspyr Media (add to watch list)

Westlake Interactive (add to watch list)

Raven Software (add to watch list)

Buy Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

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Inside Mac Games is now taking pre-orders for GraphSim's Ultimate Anthology which includes a whopping 8 CD's! Included are full versions of Red Faction, F/A-18 Korea Gold, Baldur's Gate, and the Baldur's Gate Expansion: Tales of the Sword Coast.

Red Faction revolutionizes next generation gaming with Geo-Mod technology, the ability to completely alter and destroy the environment in real-time. The player assumes the role of Parker, a worker toiling in mines run by the Ultor Corporation far beneath the surface of Mars. The miners are suffering from inhuman living conditions and a strange, deadly disease called the Plague that is suddenly sweeping through their ranks. The miners' anger and resentment are ready to boil over, and the player provides the spark that starts a rebellion against Ultor. The player's goal is to stay alive long enough to bring down Ultor and solve the mystery of the Plague. This journey takes him from gritty subterranean mines to Ultor's pristine science and nanotech labs to the surface of Mars and even onto satellites orbiting high above the planet.

F/A-18 Korea Gold for Mac OS includes F/A-18 Korea 1.1 and F/A-18 Hornet 3.1.Ê Features include support for OpenGL graphics, USB joystick support, native internet multiplayer capability, and support to the GameRanger internet gaming service.

Also included in the Anthology is the award-winning Baldur's Gate, and Baldur's Gate Expansion: Tales of the Sword Coast.

The Ultimate Anthology will be shipping sometime next week and is available through the IMG Store for just $29.99.

GraphSim (add to watch list)

When Mac OS X was first released, games for Apple's new operating system were nearly non-existent. In the year since its release, though, a steady stream of OS X compatible games have been released. Today we finish up IMG's OS X Week with a look at the top games for Mac OS X.

Here's a snippet from the article:

Mac gamers wanting to make the switch to full-time OS X use can now do so without the fear of a small library of titles from which to choose. Nearly every genre is represented in the ever-growing library of OS X games, with a number of top-shelf titles coming soon. Whether your genre of choice is of the shooter, action/adventure, strategy, puzzle or sports variety, Mac OS X will likely have games that you want to play now as well as others you will be looking forward to in the future.

Monday: Making the Switch

Tuesday: Essential Hardware

Wednesday: Essential Software

Thursday: Multiplayer OS X Games

Friday: Must Have Mac OS X Games

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IMG desktop guru, Brad Custer, has once again updated his section with a brand-spanking new desktop. This week's desktop pays tribute to Freeverse's fast-paced 3D racer, WipeOut 2097.

Here's an update from Custer about his latest desktop:

Wipeout 2097 is a game I have been receiving a lot of requests about. With the help of Freeverse Software and nice selection of artwork I was able to create this desktop. In this week's offering I tried to capture the speed and futuristic feel of the game. I entitled it "Synergy" and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it.

Custer's Desktops

Virtual Programming (add to watch list)

WipeOut 2097 (add to watch list)

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Spiderweb Software has updated their Carboninzed beta of Avernum 3, improving the software's compatibility with Mac OS X. The new version of the OS X demo weighs in at just under 12MB and fixes a number of smaller bugs found in the earlier beta.

Here's the explanation of v1.1, with the standard beta warning:

You can now download a newer version of the public beta of Avernum 3, newly Carbonized to be fully compatible with Mac OS X. It will also run on Macintosh System 8.1 and up. This is beta software, so it may not function perfectly.

Spiderweb Software (add to watch list)

Avernum 3 (add to watch list)

Download Avernum 3 OS X 1.1 Beta

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Glenda Adams of Westlake Interactive was nice enough to step into a conversation on Usenet and explain the current situation with how texture compression works in games and the Mac. You may recall the issue first arising in a post from Mark Rein, talking about the need for OpenGL to support texture compression on Mac OS X in order for the port of Unreal Tournament 2003 to proceed. IMG confirmed at that time with ATI's Chris Bentley that the feature was on the way and would be available in an upcoming patch to Mac OS X.

Adams helps clear up any lingering confusion about the two different kinds of texture compression; on-the-fly compression and pre-compression. According to Adams, the Mac has had the former for a while (Return to Castle Wolfenstein already makes use of it), but both accomplish the same goal of radically compressing textures which are then pumped to the video hardware. Upcoming games like Unreal Tournament 2003 and Adam's own project Everquest will make use of this latter mode of pre-compression once it's available:

The method that UT2003 and many other games like EverQuest use that hasn't been in GL on the Mac is pre-compressed textures. In this mode, all of the textures are stored in a standard compressed format on disk (kind of like a jpg). They are loaded and sent straight to the video card through GL without having to be uncompressed or recompressed. This helps with load times, and doesn't use as much system memory as loading raw textures and then compressing them on the fly.

Texture compression is a great advantage to games that have LOTS of textures. For instance, many zones in Everquest upload 160MB or more of textures to OpenGL. If you compress those with texture compression, you can fit the same amount of textures in 20MB. Obviously with a 32MB video card, your performance will be a lot better with 20-40MB of textures instead of 160MB :)

Glenda Adams Post on Texture Compression

IMG News: Mac UT2003 Really Underway?

Sony Online (add to watch list)

Digital Extremes (add to watch list)

Unreal Tournament 2003 (add to watch list)

Buy EverQuest

Buy Unreal Tournament 2003

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The PC 1.02 version of Tenebrae, the modification of the original Quake which adds many new hardware features like stencil shadows, was updated recently with even more features and speed improvements. Here's a partial list of changes:

• Runs faster (25% on my system)
  
• Radeon support (Thanks to Jarno Paananen)
  
• Reflections
  
• Glares
  
• Animation interpolation
  
• Luminance textures (local light for texture)
  
• "Modern" particle engine
  
• Uses lights from the original maps (less dark)
  
• Flashlight and flares

Fruitz' member "awe" notes they have the newest 1.02 code and will be adding support for more ATI Radeon cards after overcoming a few hurdles:

1. I got a source update from the original author. The good news: the new source includes an ATI Radeon single pass optimized driver. The bad news: The ATI Radeon driver requires at least 4 texture units [ATI Radeon 8500 only] and it uses extensions that are not available on the Mac side ["GL_EXT_vertex_shader" and "GL_ATI_fragment_shader" ]. Looks that I'll have to rewrite the ATI Radeon driver with a combination of "GL_ARB_vertex_program" and "GL_ATI_text_fragment_shader".

2. The clipping problem still persists, I didn't have enough time within the last week to have a look. I'll have a look within the next days.

Tenebrae Quake

Fruitz of Dojo Forum Post

id Software (add to watch list)

Download Tenebrae Mac Public Beta

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