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Continuing their ongoing string of announcements at Macworld this week, Aspyr Media has revealed they will be bringing two popular expansion packs to the Mac, Medal of Honor: Breakthrough and SimCity 4: Rush Hour.

Breakthrough is set in the 1943-44 campaigns in Africa and Italy and is being developed internally with their own team. Aspyr has the game at "first playable" now and is hoping to have it released sometime in March.

A quick rundown of features in the add-on pack is available from the EA web site now:

• Eleven single-player levels ranging from the fight for Kasserine Pass to the battle of Monte Battaglia.
  
• Nine new multiplayer levels including the Monastery at Monte Cassino, the streets of Messina, and Anzio Beach.
  
• Improved multiplayer battles including new Liberation Mode in which defeated players become POWs, Tug-of-War Mode, and Objective Mode.
  
• Access to historically accurate World War II era weapons.
  
• Enter and exit vehicles at will including the M4 Sherman Tank.
  
• Call in artillery and air strikes against the enemy to save your squad from certain defeat.
  
• New soldier models, skins and voices including American, British, Italian troops.
  
• Sound effects by the award winning Medal of Honor sound design team at EALA.

Rush Hour expands your transportation options in SimCity 4 with hundreds of new structures, and even the option to take control of cars, planes, and boats. Here's a clip from their site:

Your city is on the move with the new SimCity 4 Rush Hour Expansion Pack. Get your Sims on the road to happiness by taking control of your city's transportation including roads, rail, air, waterways, and even cars. Take complete charge of vehicles on the streets of your city. Is the fire department stuck in traffic on its way to a four-alarm fire? Take direct control of the "hook and ladder" and pursue the quickest route to the blazing inferno. Solve missions from chasing down bank robbers to catching car-jackers, and earn reward buildings and other vehicles.

SimCity 4: Rush Hour

Medal of Honor: Breakthrough (add to watch list)

Maxis (add to watch list)

Aspyr Media (add to watch list)

i5works (add to watch list)

SimCity 4 (add to watch list)

Buy Medal of Honor: Breakthrough

Buy SimCity 4

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On day two of MacWorld Expo, IMG staffers got a chance to check out some cool hardware, cool software, and spoke with many of the game developers working the Expo floor.

Click on the link below to check out round two of our MWSF photo diary.

MWSF Photo Diary - Day Two

MWSF 2004 (add to watch list)

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Inside Mac Games has posted a review of Freeverse's Active Lancer. In the game players join an elite team of flight capable soldiers, on their current mission to defeat the diabolical war machine of an alien army bent on taking over the universe.

Here's a clip from the review:

Active Lancer’s graphics are crisp and clean. The game is a 2D vertical scroller and the graphics are very suitable. Your lancer and enemies have a nice roll effect when moving left and right giving it a subtle 3D look. Also, the terrain, though completely irrelevant to game play, has some nice features that creates a compelling alien environment. It is a nice planet, too bad it has to be destroyed.

IMG Review: Active Lancer

Freeverse (add to watch list)

Active Lancer (add to watch list)

Buy Active Lancer

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Apple today has posted a feature of Aspyr's Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray. In the game you'll rip across a lake behind a screaming speedboat, tricking through dangerous terrain with only a sliver of wakeboard between you and the blistering water below. Catch mind-blowing air in 9 exotic locations around the world-from Lake Powell to Hong Kong Harbor.

To check out the feature, follow the link below. Be on the lookout of a demo of Wakeboarding Unleashed soon.

Aspyr Media (add to watch list)

Wakeboarding Unleashed (add to watch list)

Buy Wakeboarding Unleashed

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Following up yesterday's announcement of Bionicle for the Macintosh, Feral today announced it would be bringing ChessMaster 9000 to the Mac, the popular chess simulation created by Ubi Soft.

ChessMaster 9000 is the latest in a best-selling series (the last version to appear on the Macintosh was ChessMaster 6000 in the late 90s). The player is given the choice of different boards and different opponents of different strengths. ChessMaster will also allow the player to enjoy and learn from more than 800 classic games, including the best of 2001 and 2002 Grand Master games.

The Macintosh version of ChessMaster 9000 is being developed by Feral’s porting partner Zonic and will be released for Mac OS 9 and X.

Feral Interactive (add to watch list)

In a bit of interesting news, it appears members of id Software's management team, Todd Hollenshead, CEO, and Tim Willits, lead designer, have been granted special honors for their years of hard work. They've been granted ownership shares of ID Software, a huge honor given the continued success of the company. Here's the full announcement:

In further strengthening our leadership and management team, id Software is proud to announce that Todd Hollenshead, CEO, and Tim Willits, lead designer, have been granted ownership shares in id Software, Inc. Todd and Tim join the long-standing ownership team of Adrian Carmack, John Carmack, and Kevin Cloud.

Everyone at id would like to thank Todd and Tim for their years of dedication and congratulate them on their latest accomplishment.

id Software (add to watch list)

Puppy Games, a game developer group founded in 2003 and tightly committed to the open-source movement, recently announced that their addictive shareware game Alien Flux has reached version 1.5, which among other things means that an OSX version has been released.

With a gameplay close to that of classics such as Asteroids, this arcade kill-everything-that-moves title puts the player into the shoes and ship of a space zoo-keeper with the risky mission of protecting cute, furry dim-witted creatures from a throng of aliens through various levels.

Alien Flux has already received very positive feedback from various reviews in indy gaming magazines and web sites, and will no doubt be a welcome addition to the collection of all hardcore arcade gamers who appreciate a simple plot, comfortable gameplay and level after level of mindless alien blasting in a colourful space environment.

A demo of the game is available for download at our sister site MacGameFiles.com, weighng at 10.5 mb. The download link, along with a link to Puppy Games' web site, is provided below.

Puppy Games

MGF: Alien Flux Demo

As promised earlier in the week, Ryan Gordon of Epic Games has given Mac users another treat in the form of a 2.0.0a patch to America's Army. This update to the free UT2003-based shooter is while network-compatible with the previous 2.0 update, as well as adding a few fixed and new map to the mix.

Here's the scoop on the new map (titled "Sandstorm") from the official announcement:

The Mission:
Heavy fighting has caused enemy forces to abandon a cache of biological components. A sandstorm has delayed friendly motorized forces from reaching the site to secure and evacuate them for analysis by U.S. Forces.

Special Forces working with Indigenous Forces must seize and hold all three of these biological component containers. It is feared that enemy forces will return and attempt to reacquire the 3 components before they can be retrieved. This map is set in a desert 'mudbrick' urban setting composed of ruined buildings and adobe walls. Visibility is highly restricted due to the sudden sand storm.

ArmyOps 2.0.0a for GNU/Linux and Mac, now available

America's Army Downloads

U.S Army (add to watch list)

Epic Games (add to watch list)

America's Army: Special Forces 2.4 (add to watch list)

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Blizzard Entertainment has released new information about the testing cycle for their upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online RPG World of Warcraft. An official post in their messageboards notes that while an early internal alpha has been unfortunately leaked, they plan on starting signups for the external beta in a matter of weeks. Here's a clip from the post:

In order to accelerate the testing process, we recently allowed a small group of external testers to play the game. During this process, a collection of files was leaked to the Internet. While these files contain alpha content from the game, they are not fully playable and therefore do not convey the experience that World of Warcraft will provide when it is released.

We are currently investigating this matter and will take serious action against those involved.

As always, we appreciate the interest and enthusiasm that players around the world have for World of Warcraft, and we look forward to delivering a massively multiplayer game unlike any you have ever experienced. Until then, we ask that you refrain from sharing any content that doesn't come directly from Blizzard Entertainment.

Lastly, we would like to announce that sign-ups for the World of Warcraft Beta test will begin at the end of this month. Stay tuned to www.blizzard.com for further details

In somewhat related news, Blizzard has also released a PC 1.14 patch for Warcraft III and its Frozen Thone expansion, and they expect the Mac version of the update to be out soon.

World of Warcraft Alpha Test Update Forum Thread

World of Warcraft Screenshot Gallery

Blizzard Entertainment (add to watch list)

WarCraft III (add to watch list)

World of Warcraft (add to watch list)

Buy WarCraft III

Buy World of Warcraft

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