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An update to the Master of Orion III home page Friday afternoon announced the game was now officially declared Gold Master. This means the PC version is finally code-complete and ready to ship off to be duplicated and distributed to stores. An accompanying press release from Infogrames and developer Quicksilver notes the game should be in stores sometime around February 25.

As far as the Mac version is concerned, at the Macworld expo earlier this month IMG confirmed with MacSoft the Mac OS 9 and OS X versions of the game were literally hours behind the PC version. This is largely thanks to Quicksilver's many Mac fans within the company who kept the Mac port current. We were told to expect one more round of Mac-specific testing before declaring the Mac version good-to-go as well, and we are attempting to confirm this now.

This third strategy title in the popular series has had a particularly tough development cycle for its creators, with a number of delays and restarts. There are many things for fans of the space series to look forward to, though. Here's a clip from the press release explaining more:

In Master of Orion 3, the sequel to one of the best-loved strategy games of all time, players assume the biggest role ever. No longer do players merely represent petty interplanetary dictators. Players become the controlling power behind an entire galactic civilization; the dictators, presidents, councils, and overlords that come and go are merely pawns in the player's arsenal. One must use these governments, their citizens, and their leaders to secure the destiny of their civilization, to manipulate policies of freedom and oppression in both foreign and domestic arenas. It is not enough to be an able economist or a great starship captain to succeed in Master of Orion 3; considerable political, administrative, research, and espionage skills must be applied to claim the title of Master of Orion.

Featuring a robust Single Player game and up to 8-player simultaneous turn-based Multiplayer, Master of Orion 3 is the definitive 5X Space Strategy game; Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate and now Experience grand strategy as you never have before.

[Update] Peter Cohen at MacCentral has confirmed with Quicksilver the Mac version will be ready in a matter of days. Check out the story for more and watch for more word on the game soon.

Master of Orion IIII PC Game Goes Gold

MacCentral Report on Master of Orion III

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An IMG forum reader recently posted a small inquiry regarding the possibility of an OS X port of the open-sourced game, Freespace 2. Interestingly enough, he was answered by a forumgoer by the name of "placy," who posted a link to a picture of what appears to be Freespace 2 running under OS X.

For those unfamiliar with the title, Freespace 2 is a space-oriented flight game by Volition that features over 70 vessels, multiplayer capabilities, and fast-paced dogfights.

While we have yet to confirm anything, this would definitely be great news for the Mac community if this project were to come to fruition. Rest assured we'll make our inquires about this one and bring more news as we get it.

[Update] The Mac developer of Freespace 2, "tigital", followed up with a forum post regarding the progress he has made in the past several months. Here is an excerpt from the post:

...there are two major projects using the freespace 2; mine is based on the icculus.org code base, which ported the code to opengl and SDL, which made it fairly easy to get going (almost)...I started working on it last august, mainly working on byte swapping, and was initially impressed with the ease in which the sdl port made my effort! I very quickly got the game running, then realized that it wasn't showing any models...this was a big problem that was shelved until late november, when I started hanging out in the hard light productions forums (they're doing the other major project, but seem to be more focused on improving the directX implementation...): a coupla helpful guys pointed out the incredibly labyrinthine model parsing code, and after a week or so, the models were showing up!

IMG - Any chance of a Freespace 2 open-source port for OS X?

IMG has posted a review of F1 Championship Season 2000. Published by Feral Interactive, F1 has the unique distinction of being the first game ever to support force-feedback on the Mac.

Here's a clip from the review:

Even those who consider themselves expert racers might consider taking a turn or two in the training school to get a handle on the game's controls and calibrations. Outside of the school, there are five game modes to explore: quick race, test day, Grand Prix, championship and multiplayer. Each of the modes offers a sequentially more difficult challenge to the budding racer, as well as adding formalities like qualifiers and warm ups.

Formula One is an amazingly intricate sport, which depends entirely on your intimate knowledge of the track, as well as your ability to successfully pull off a number of tricky turns and maneuvers. Those who are used to arcade racers where you can hold the throttle to the floor and steer your way around your opponents to victory need not apply. Cars in F1 Championship can and will become damaged in spin-outs, and the pit crew is your friend in these times of need. You quickly learn the seemingly simple lesson that if you hear your tires squealing, you're not going to be able to steer. Traction is a good thing.

IMG Review: F1 Championship Season 2000

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Tonight on The Gamesome Mac, the weekly Mac gaming radio program, hosts Sean Smith and Omaha Sternberg talk with Jeff Tunnell, founder and chief creative officer of GarageGames.

Before founding GarageGames, Tunnell founded Dynamix and designed, produced, or directed some 80 games, including such diverse and groundbreaking titles as Red Baron, 3D Ultra Pinball, The Incredible Machine, and Tribes.

Tunnell's GarageGames is set to reshape the independent game development and publishing landscape, licensing its cross-platform 3D game engine, Torque?the same engine used in Tribes II?for only $100. Using the Torque engine enabled the company's own development studio to bring its just-released Marble Blast to the Mac with only a few weeks of additional effort.

Sean and Omaha will also offer Mac gaming news, commentary, and reviews, and together with their guest will take questions from listeners in The Gamesome Mac's live chat room and give away two copies of Marble Blast.

You can hear The Gamesome Mac live on Mondays from 6 to 8 pm Pacific Time, 9 to 11 pm Eastern (Tuesdays at 0200 UTC) at its web page on MacRadio.com. Afterwards, you can listen to the program on demand; you'll also find complete archives of past broadcasts. QuickTime 5 or 6 and a 28 kbps or faster Internet connection are required.

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Ambrosia has updated the progress logs for it's realistic racing simulation, Redline. Below are the major changes made since the last developmental version:

• reworked AI to be a much tougher competition
• RegTool 3 support
• Multiplayer changes - now possible to kick players, to password protect games, and the game will verify that all players have the same cars/tracks installed (needed for plug-in support).
• Career mode races may now depend on other races to be completed before (this also allows us to add license tests for certain races).

Redline Progress Log

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PlayMyth recently posted a status update on their Myth 3 server project. According to the update, they are now able to connect and play games on the PlayMyth server, but there are still a lot of bugs to iron out. Some of the remaining bugs include not being able to chat, along with some hosting and connection problems.

Here's the full update from PlayMyth:

I think it's time to start talking once again about Myth 3. We're getting close to a solution for getting Myth 3 on the PlayMyth.net game server and by looking at the screen shot above, you can see we're getting somewhere! :)

As it stands now, we're able to get Myth 3 to connect to the server, we're able to see who is in the room, what games are in the room and see in-room chat. We're not yet able to actually talk (chat) yet, but that is coming very soon. We're also able to host games even though there are some minor issues to be fixed with actually being able to host, play and re-connect to the server.

We do not have a timetable yet, but we hope to have some more news soon so we can begin getting people online with us to begin testing.

Myth 3 Server Status

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As part of their promotional offer, ABC News has just released a brand new mission to their recently released title Alias: Underground, the third person adventure game inspired from the television series, and available now for both PC and Mac. Below is a brief description of the new mission, titled Return to SD-6, from the official website:

Sydney and Vaughn team up to steal crucial intel from the SD-6 facility. Will Vaughn get caught? Will Sydney blow her cover? It's all up to you...

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Download: Alias Underground Mission: Return to SD-6

Alias: Underground Registration

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Bill Roper of Blizzard Entertainment recently sat down and talked with Blizzard Insider about the upcoming expansion to their hit Real-Time Strategy game, Warcraft III. Entitled The Frozen Throne, the expansion features many new units and gameplay elements, including new heroes and player controlled shops. Roper goes into these elements in the interview, including how the player-controlled shops will work.

Here's a sample of the interview:

Insider: The StarCraft: Brood War expansion set really altered the way the game played. How does The Frozen Throne affect the way Warcraft III is played?

Bill: With new Heroes and units for each side, there are hundreds of new, intricate strategies available to players regardless of their level of expertise. The Frozen Throne will be introducing numerous items, player controlled merchants, neutral Heroes and even interface enhancements - such as queued building commands - all of which are focused on increasing and extending the playability of the game. We are also fine-tuning the play balance of the current units as well as the computer AI to make Warcraft III a fresh experience, even for players who have mastered all four races. Just as StarCraft became a new game in many regards with the addition of the Brood War expansion set, we expect The Frozen Throne to invigorate and excite players of Warcraft III.

Insider: How will neutral heroes benefit players?

Bill: As with mercenary units, each type of Neutral Hero can be hired to fight for any race. Each of these Heroes has unique spells and abilities that the player's Heroes do not possess, making them a fantastic addition to any army.

WC3X Q&A

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