Aspyr has released a demo of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, the fourth title in the extremely popular skateboarding series of games. Players take on the role of legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk and 13 other athletes as they skate through enormous free roaming levels, choose from 190 progressively harder goals and build their skills to perform 14 of the greatest skateboarding stunts of all time.

Here are the system requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.1.2 or later
• Power Mac G4, iMac G4, eMac, or PowerBook G4
• 733MHz G4 processor or faster
• 256MB of RAM
• 700MB hard drive space
• 3D Graphics Acceleration required (minimum of ATI Radeon or NVIDIA GeForce 2 series card)
• 32 MB of video memory (VRAM)

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Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (add to watch list)

MGF: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 Demo

Buy Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

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IMG has posted a review of Aspyr's vampire and WW2 based action game, Bloodrayne. IMG's Richard Hallas gives an in-depth look at the game, along with noting various performance issues with the game. Here's a snippet from the review:

BloodRayne is a game in three parts. There's even a story that runs right through it, though it's so ludicrously implausible and badly thought-out that I can almost hear Bram Stoker's coffin spinning like a tumble-dryer. This game does not represent classic vampire fiction. I won't embarrass you with the details, but the first part of the game, set in Louisiana, involves Rayne running around a flooded village, killing all the people who have caught a plague which turns them into zombies. She also has to hack up a number of very nasty spiders that pop up from under the ground, and at the end of each level she must destroy a 'biomass' mother-creature thing that spews more spiders at her.

Being a dhampir rather than a full vampire, Rayne is not hurt by being in the light, and she is not killed by water. It does makes her sizzle a bit, though, so she needs to avoid bathing as much as possible. Needless to say, this means that many of the levels in Louisiana are amply filled with the wet stuff.

Once the unpleasantness in Louisiana has been dispatched, that's it. You finish with that game and start on the next one. That's what it feels like, anyway: there is no credible story link to join the Louisiana stage with the Argentina and Germany stages that follow it. I'm all for variety in a game, but there does need to be at least some semblance of continuity.

IMG Review: Bloodrayne

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BloodRayne (add to watch list)

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The Gaming section of Apple.com, known for its articles featuring today's rising Mac game titles, has been updated once more, with a new feature on the upcoming Star Trek: Elite Force II. The full article gives readers a look at the game's Star Trek inspired gameplay, from weapons, to characters, even to the 12 player online deathmatches. Here's an excerpt:

Aside from the usual capture the flag and deathmatch (here called holomatch) game types, you can choose from 11 others that include: disintegration (everyone gets sniper rifles that kill with one hit); action hero (one player has all the weapons, fully loaded, and the ability to regenerate health; the player who kills him gets five points and becomes the new action hero); and bomb defusion (each team tries to successfully plant and detonate a bomb in the other team’s base; tricorders are required for bomb planting and defusing).

Apples Games: Elite Force II

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Buy Star Trek Elite Force II

Armagetron, a free, open-sourced computer game inspired by the arcade classic Tron, is now available for OS X, thanks to Macintosh developer Ben Hines.

Ben Hines made it! Version 0.2.5.2 is available for Mac OS X. Get it and spread the word.

Armagatron

Alchemic Dream has signed a deal to publish HonourBound's upcoming MMORPG, Adellion for the Mac, PC, and Linux. Currently in development, Adellion is set in medieval times and features impressive 3D graphics.

Here's more from the official press release:

Adellion will be a diverse and vast world with many possibilities and options for the player. In fact anyone with enough dedication should be able to directly affect Adellion's future. Founding a town, leading an army and farming land and many more things will be possible for the player to do.

The permadeath, the building of Empires, the technology tree and the
multiple innovations are some of the unique and original elements of
Adellion.

Adellion

As featured in their August newsletter, prolific Mac gaming publisher MacPlay has announced another of their popular "Five Dollar Games" sales.

From now until midnight of August 31st, gamers can purchase a large number of MacPlay's titles for five dollars a game through the MacPlay online store. The games on sale include:

Zork: Grand Inquisitor

Players wanting to take advantage of this offer should click on the link below:

MacPlay: $5 Special Deals
MacPlay (add to watch list)

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Neverwinter Nights 1.31 Released
9:00 AM | Johan Hansén | Comment on this story

BioWare has released a new version of their highly praised role-playing game Neverwinter Nights, that recently was released to Mac by the publisher MacSoft. The PC, Linux and Mac versions were released at the same time so that there will be no problems joining cross-platform network games.

A short summary of the changes

fixed up some SoU vs. non-SoU compatibility issues

added 7 scripting commands

fixed Monk Glowing eyes not showing up at level 20

numerous small fixes

added the option to backup a character file on export

To see a full list of changes and download the patch, follow the links provided below to BioWare's homepage to find what you want.

If you still haven't purchased the game from the IMG Store for $48.99 ($42.99 for MacGames CD/IMG Pro Subscribers).

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MacSoft (add to watch list)
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Changes in Neverwinter Nights 1.31
MGF: Download Neverwinter Nights 1.31
Buy Neverwinter Nights

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New World of Warcraft Screenshots
9:00 AM | Zack Lipowski | Comment on this story

Blizzard Entertainment recently released three new screenshots for their upcoming MMORPG, World of Warcraft. For those of you who are behind the times, here's a quick recap of the game:

Four years have passed since the aftermath of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and a great tension now smolders throughout the ravaged world of Azeroth. As the battle-worn races begin to rebuild their shattered kingdoms, new threats, both ancient and ominous, arise to plague the world once again.

World of Warcraft is an online role-playing experience set in the award-winning Warcraft universe. Players assume the roles of Warcraft heroes as they explore, adventure, and quest across a vast world. Being "Massively Multiplayer," World of Warcraft allows thousands of players to interact within the same world. Whether adventuring together or fighting against each other in epic battles, players will form friendships, forge alliances, and compete with enemies for power and glory.

A dedicated live team will create a constant stream of new adventures to undertake, lands to explore, and monsters to vanquish. This content ensures that the game will never be the same from month to month, and will continue to offer new challenges and adventures for years to come.

World of Warcraft is set to be released for both the PC and Mac, though no official release date has been set as of yet.

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WoW Screenshots
Buy World of Warcraft

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uDevGame 2003: 58 Entries And Counting
9:00 AM | Jean-Luc Dinsdale | Comment on this story

A quick visit over to Macintosh gaming resource center iDevGames.com will reveal that this year's uDevGame 2003 programming contest promises to be the biggest contest yet.

Since the contest officially opened in the first week of August, fifty-eight games have been registered. This year's entries currently range a wide gamut of genres, from puzzle games to sports games to 2D scrollers to full-on 3D OpenGL frag fests. The current list of games represent only the entries that were registered in the first ten days since the contest opened.

The uDevGames contest was created "to energize game development on the Apple Macintosh platform, encourage innovation in Mac games, and to recognize the best Mac independent game developers", according to the organiser's website. In an incredible show of support for the contest, a large number of Mac product vendors have signed on as sponsors for the event. Amongst the many sponsors, Apple Developer Connection is offering a free Select Membership, the Xtreme Game Developers Xpo is offering one free pass to the next XGDX Conference; and programming tools such as a license of the REALbasic Professional Edition and a copy of the CodeWarrior Development Studio are being given away. In addition the prizes listed here, over seveteen thousand dollars worth of hardware, software, and resource materials will also be awarded to the winning contestants.

Registration for new contestants will remain open until October 24th of this year, with voting taking place between November 5th and 19th. Contest winners will be announced Monday, December 1st.

uDG 2003 Official Entries List
uDevGame 2003 (add to watch list)
iDevGames (add to watch list)

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Mac Games News for Tuesday, August 19, 2003
• Unreal Tournament 2004 Q&A	10:12 AM
• 21-6 Productions Updates Orbz 2.1	8:11 AM
• DOOM III Multiplayer In-Depth	8:11 AM
• Feral Offers Warrior Kings Demo Help	8:11 AM
• KnightShift Mac Bound	8:11 AM
• New Halo PC Interview	8:11 AM
• Phelios Launches PTK for Game Dev	8:11 AM
View all of the Mac games news for Tuesday, August 19, 2003 on one page

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Recent Mac Games News Monday, August 18, 2003 Friday, August 15, 2003 Thursday, August 14, 2003 Wednesday, August 13, 2003 Tuesday, August 12, 2003

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