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| 09-26-07 / 10:29 PM : Kotf : release date in october (cjed) |
| Knights of the Force will finally be out october, following the discovering of bugs in multiplayer mode (the single player mode is fine). The lead designer is working hard on the levels 15 hours per day, that gives hints on the polished level of the mod ! |
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| 09-24-07 / 11:17 PM : Halo 3 available : video, review (cjed) |
 Halo 3 is finally out (xbox version only for now) and Gamespot provides yet a full review.We can also watch a long video (12 mn) there and a shorter one. UPDATE: a new very long HD video (60mn) is also available here. About Forge mode, that allows to alter/add objects in Halo 3 levels (but not the level design), it is a reminding of old Forge editor for Bungie's Marathon (only compatible with OS9). We can download a new level builder for OSX, named Pfhorge (source code here), however it doesn't manage visual texturing (see Anvil application for OS9). |
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| 09-18-07 / 10:05 PM : Fable The Lost Chapters : preview (cjed) |
| IMG provides a preview of Fable: The Lost Chapters from Lionhead Studios (ported by Feral Interactive). The game may not require huge resources, however hardware vertex shaders may be necessary to achieve acceptable performance on G4. |
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| 09-17-07 / 10:48 PM : Interview : Peter Molyneux (cjed) |
 The site computer and videogames provides an interview of Peter Molyneux, creator of Populous, Theme Park, Syndicate, and later B&W 1 and 2 and Fable the Lost Chapters at Lionhead. He gives details about games realization conditions, and Lionhead buy (by Microsoft). |
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| 09-14-07 / 11:31 PM : Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 2x/4x for G4 (cjed) |
| ATI is producing again the Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 2x/4x Mac Edition, the most powerful graphic card available for all G4 (from Sawtooth to MDD). This version onboards 128 Mb memory instead 256 Mb, but it is said to give the same performance level. The card can be buyed here, and is sold 235$. |
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| 09-14-07 / 11:26 PM : Penumbra: Black Plague (cjed) |
| Frictional Games announced the sequel to Penumbra: Overture, named Penumbra: Black Plague (second and final episode). It should ship in the first quarter of 2008. |
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| 09-13-07 / 10:55 PM : Enemy Territory: Quake Wars : trailer (cjed) |
 Gametrailers presented a new trailer of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, the new Id Software game. The atmosphere and graphics seem very well done. |
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| 09-13-07 / 10:51 PM : GL Golf 2.0.5 (cjed) |
| A new version of GL Golf, the 2.0.5, is available at macgamefiles. It notably brings new water texture and animated reflections |
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| 09-11-07 / 11:09 PM : EVE Online soon on mac through Cider (cjed) |
| IMG announced that the multiplayer game EVE Online will be ported on Mac thanks to Transgaming's Cider. |
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| 09-07-07 / 11:09 PM : Unreal Tournament 3 due in two months (cjed) |
| A new site on Unreal Tournament 3 provides the last trailers and informations. The game is due this year, November.s |
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| 09-07-07 / 10:33 PM : Penguins Arena (cjed) |
 Penguins Arena is a new shareware game (19,95$) where penguins fight together, and even offers a multiplayer game mode (through LAN or internet). It is resources friendly (1 Ghz processor, 256 Mb ram, 32 Mb video card) and a demo can be downloaded here (for OSX and Windows).s |
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| 09-06-07 / 11:08 PM : All about Myst game (cjed) |
 Myst Masterpiece shipped as an enhanced version of Myst in 1996 on PC and 2000 on mac. In fact it might be an enhancement (color depth, audio resolution) of the PC original version of Myst, that shipped later than the mac version (the PC porting was made by Broderbound). However this PC version is told to have been worse than the original mac version : clipped musics, some ambient sounds removed, sounds do not gradually change volume depending on the position, animations/transitions are less smooth, image quality isn't as good.Finally the Masterpiece edition could be even worse as the added color depth makes more evident the lack of details in computed pictures (few polygones, as the rendering was made on Mac IIfx), in fact the original 8 bits dithering allowed on the mac version to smooth the images. I remember that the files used indexed colors (that is a different setup per image), and only used one hundred indexes over the 256 available. "A brief history: Myst was originally created by Cyan Inc. on Macintosh systems using Macintosh programming tools. It masterfully exploited the Mac multimedia capabilities of 1993, squeezing the highest possible quality out of 8-bit sound (akin to a good AM radio) and 256-color video. It was later adapted for Windows -- not by Cyan but by Broderbund, who gave their best shot at porting the program but ran into technical limitations: The full-length soundtrack songs were cut short, the scene-to-scene transitions became rougher, the sound effects lost some atmospheric subtlety, and the images weren't quite as good as on the Mac. When Mattel (then the owner of what-had-been-Broderbund, in the middle of a dizzying series of corporate buyouts) created the Masterpiece Edition for Windows, they based it on the previous Windows version. They used almost none of the master full-length songs and sounds available from Cyan. Nonetheless, Myst Masterpiece for Windows *is* much better than the "original" Myst for Windows, because it has clearer graphics, smoother animation, and the online help system. Myst Masterpiece for the Mac is a straightforward transfer of Myst Masterpiece for Windows -- a port of an update of a port. The end product does have more-detailed pictures than the original Mac version, using full 24-bit color images. Ironically, these often look *worse* than the original's 8-bit images! In technical terms: Because they didn't have high-end graphics workstations when they created Myst, Cyan had to render the scenes from simplified, relatively low-resolution 3D models -- fewer polygons and lower-resolution texture images. To fit all the pictures on one CD, they downsampled the 24-bit master renderings to 8-bit dithered images, and the dithering added just enough noise to mask the lack of design detail (with the approximate effect of photographic film grain, not at all offensive to the eye). Conversely, the 24-bit images show every little technical and artistic shortcut in stark detail, giving many scenes a pronouncedly less realistic appearance. Even if you do prefer the greater picture detail, nothing else about this version is an improvement. Some players may appreciate the added help system; in my opinion, it gives away hints too easily. But Mattel STILL didn't go back to the audio source material: The songs are the same clipped Windows versions, so you don't get the whole musical experience. (Until I played Myst Masterpiece for the Mac, I never realized what the PC users had been missing all these years! The songs truly lose their character when cut so short. It's a shocking difference.) The soundtrack audio was cleaned up to remove noise, but it became muffled in the process. And a particularly effective subtlety of the original -- sounds are quiet at a distance and grow gradually louder as you approach the source -- is gone: Now the music or sound effect just comes on full blast, as if someone suddenly cranked up the dial. The wind on Myst Island, for instance, sounds as if it's always about to knock you over, even when you're standing inside a building. I've played this and the original side-by-side, and I can't believe they call this one the "Masterpiece." The original still looks and sounds superior." |
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| 09-01-07 / 01:20 PM : IMG : Penumbra: Overture preview (cjed) |
 InsideMacGames provides a preview of Penumbra: Overture, an adventure game that uses a 3D engine (with physics engine). It is the first episode of a serie of 3 games (19,19$ each). |
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