Mac

How do you expand on the same-old, same-old symbol-matching gameplay of Bejeweled and make it fresh? Games like Puzzle Quest do admirably by providing an overarching storyline and adding cumulative elements like experience to help your character level up. Red Marble Games' Magic Match Adventures doesn't go quite that far, but it's closer to that than it is to Bejeweled. What's it all about, Alfie? Read on to find out!

Mac users get ready to stand up and cheer or ... at least smile. InstantAction, the 3D browser-based online gaming site, has extended its current beta to Mac users. Established in late March 2008 by developer GarageGames, InstantAction treats PC users to a collection of free "console-quality games," all within a web browser.

Launching with four titles, the Mac version of InstantAction doesn't have as robust a library as its PC counterpart but is expected to expand. Users are required to sign up to play but registration is free. Available now for InstantAction Mac is: the first-person shooter Fallen Empire: Legions; future-sport, Rokkitball; the tank warfare title ThinkTanks and fan favorite Marble Blast Online.

Wild Tangent's Fate is either an offline version of Flagship Studios' MMO Mythos, or a graphics-updated version of Diablo; I'm not sure quite which. There is scant difference between the two to begin with, a fact that amused and consternated fans of Blizzard's top-down click-and-slash adventure game. At the time, Mythos was thought of as the closest that Diablo fans would get to a true Diablo MMO -- not surprising, since several members of the original Diablo development team founded Flagship Studios. At least, until Mythos get closed down before it even had a chance to crawl out of veta.

Like it or laugh at it, however, the one thing that Mythos proved was that people still love that particular type of gameplay. This is a point in the favor of Fate: now that it's nearly impossible to play either of the Diablo games on OS X without jumping through some arduous hoops, if you're in dire need of an isometric dungeon crawl, then Fate is your game.

Don't let the opening screen fool you: Miriel the Magical Merchant is no kiddie game. In fact, it's an actioner that's hectic enough to keep you doing the One More Level dance for far too late into the night. Brought to us by GameHouse, this title is based entirely on mouse clicks, and managing a steady stream of customer orders. How, exactly? This shall be revealed after the jump.

SketchFighter 4000 Alpha, from Ambrosia Software, is a fiendishly difficult game. It's a top-down shooter in the style of the old vector graphics-based games like Asteroids, Gravitar, and Omega Race. However, the standout element (at least at first) is its graphic style: the game is rendered as though drawn in a grade-school student's tablet of graph paper. This extends not merely to the background (gray grid against plain white), but to the player's ship, the game's enemies, the obstacles, everything. This isn't just a refreshing change of pace -- the retro feel is inherent it the game's actual gameplay as well. How? Read on!

With all of the raves about Spore's easy to use tools to make characters and structures, it's ironic that the week of Spore's release yet another game announcement involves its own simple-to-use creation tools. The game and editor is called Atmosphir, developed by San Fransisco based Minor Studios and was revealed as part of the TechCrunch 50 conference today.

The game itself looks like Super Mario 64; it has the same kind of low end graphics and platform based gameplay. However, as the above intro trailer shows, it's really the level creation tools that are the star of Atmosphir with drag-and-drop tools that make creating levels look as much fun as playing the game, if not more so. Levels created in the game can be shared online with others. Atmosphir is scheduled to be released as a free download in late 2008 and Minor Studios is currently signing up beta testers.

Most of the Mac Monday downloads are, besides being great games, downloads for both Mac and PC. While there's nothing wrong with this, the ideal is the Mac-only title. Who better to bring it to us, then, than Freeverse, creator of many fantastic games for the Mac, including the previously-covered Neon Tango. Wingnuts 2: Raina's Revenge is a top-down arcade shooter in the style of the classic Time Pilot. However, it's much, much more intense and complex, even at its easiest level. How, exactly? Read on, O Learned Audience!

The Macintosh version of Spore is releasing day-and-date with the PC version but most games made to run natively on Apple's platform usually take months to head to stores, well behind their PC counterparts. Today we got a huge example of that formula when Aspyr announced that the Mac version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has now gone gold.

The adaptation of the best selling modern day themed shooter from developer Infinity Ward and publisher Activision was handled in-house at Aspyr's own dev studios. The port will require a Mac running an Intel-based processor and Mac OS X 10.5.4. Also, integrated video chips are not supported. The game will ship on September 15.

[Via Blue's News]

Getting people together to chat about games is nothing new but the co-founder of the Xfire game messaging client believes he has a new solution that will cross both PC and console platforms. Raptr is the new company from Dennis "Thresh" Fong, the former pro gamer who co-founded Xfire which was later sold to Viacom for a whopping $102 million.

According to a press release we were sent, a gamer who signes up for Raptr will let his friends know he is playing a game on the PC, Mac and Xbox 360 along with Flash based and Facebook games. There's also some PS3 and Wii games that support Raptr as well. Facebook, Twitter and other applications will alert friends to what you are playing as well. It can also automatically download patches for some games. Raptr has released a PC beta client and even Mac user can download an alpha client.

Larva Mortus is billed as a "retro horror action game" by developers Rake In Grass, and it more than lives up to its name. Calling it a cross between Smash TV and the X-Files would be too facile a comparison, but it's a decent starting point. Combining an intuitive interface with addictive gameplay, Larva Mortus will keep you saying "Just one more level" until the undead cows come home. Let's take a look after the jump!

Will Wright's heavily hyped alien life simulation Spore is getting ready for its September 7 launch but if you own a PC and don't want to fool with buying the retail copy of the game you can go ahead and pre-load your copy on your PC right now via a download from Electronic Arts' online store.

The pre-loads will allow you to have nearly all of the game on your hard drive before September 7. When the game launches it will take about 30 minutes to decrypt the game from your hard drive and then you can start evolving your creatures to your heart's content. Keep in mind that this is for the game only; you won't get any of the extras in the retail Spore Galactic Edition. Mac owners can get their copy by going to the Green Tree Online web site where they state that pre-orders will get their download link and activation key via email. There doesn't appear to be any pre-loads for the Mac version.

On today's MacMonday, we're going seriously old school, to the tune of 1993, when Ambrosia Software sold their first game, Maelstrom. Just as it's easy to dismiss last MacMonday's Big Kahuna Reef 2: Chain Reaction as a Bejeweled clone, Maelstrom takes as its source the classic coin-op Asteroids.

Yet the differences between the two titles are vast indeed, going beyond the color palette and updated graphics. We'll go into detail and examine why Maelstrom is just as addictive and playable today as it was 15 years ago.

Bioware's action-RPG Jade Empire was released originally for the first Xbox console in 2004 and in 2006 a "special edition" was released for the PC with some extra content. Now that PC special edition version has finally been ported over to the Mac platform via TransGaming's Cider tech and is now available via digital download.

In case you are unfamiliar with Cider, it basically acts as a "wrapper" that enabled the game to be run on Intel-based Mac computers. Unfortunately, Jade Empire for the Mac is a rather expensive title to download compared to the current price of the PC version. Transgaming is offering the title via its own download service for $39.95.

Now, before you get all reactionary and declaim this title as "yet another Bejeweled clone", let me just say two things right up front: 1) It is a Bejeweled clone, and 2) There's more to it than the standard Bejeweled swap mechanic. What's the big difference? Explosions. Read on for the full scoop!

Folks have been waiting three and a half years for this announcement so now here it is: "Spore has gone gold!". Yes, the life simulation game from Sims creator Will Wright and his Maxis team at Electronic Arts is officially finished and is heading for disk duplication.

The game, which will ship to stores on September 7 for the PC and Mac, will come in two flavors; the regular edition and the Spore Galactic Edition with lots of behind-the-scenes content and other content. If you pre-order either version of the game, EA will give those folks a $10 coupon for use at the Zazzle.com Spore store which gives folks a chance to put their custom Spore creature on things like t-shirts, mugs and more.