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Bioshock coming to Mac OS X on October 7

Bioshock, the 2007 game of the year (at least according to a ton of game reviewers), will be coming to Apple’s Mac platform early next month, courtesy of developer Feral Interactive, which has previously ported games like The Movies and Rome: Total war to OS X.

Bioshock, the “Game of The Year” version, will be available on Macs on October 7, and will certainly improve on the meager games lineup that the platform has, which is essentially… pretty much no games lineup. At least they care enough to port them for the few that enjoy gaming on their pretty Mac laptops and desktops. As for PC users, we can wait for Bioshock 2 in early next year.

Rage runs poorly on the PS3, 360 and PC superior

id Software’s very own John D. Carmack had a few words to say on the performance issues Rage is seeing on the PlayStation 3. According to Carmack in an interview with Edge Magazine, the post-apocalyptic FPS runs better on the Xbox 360 and PC than its console counterpart.

“The PS3 lags a little bit behind in terms of getting the performance out of it,” John Carmack told Edge. “The rasteriser is just a little bit slower – no two ways about that.

Unfortunately, it’s unclear if the PS3 version will be fixed. The alleged framerate is only 20-30fps, as opposed to the full 60fps the PC and 360 are getting.

“The RSX is slower than what we have in the 360. The CPU is about the same, but the 360 makes it easier to split things off, and that’s what a lot of the work has been, splitting it all into jobs on the PS3,” he said.

Rage will be out sometime soon next year. The Mac version is currently under development.

Read (ComputerAndVideoGames)

Force Unleashed for PC and Mac this fall

Aspyr Media announced today that they will be bringing Star Wars: Force Unleashed for the PC and Mac. The recently announced Ultimate Sith Edition will be the only version released, so we won’t be seeing the original title be ported. But it is obviously inferior, so what does it matter anyways?

Star Wars: Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition will be out this fall.

Read (CinemaBlend)

The Sims 3 sells 1.4m copies during first week

EA reports that The Sims 3 has sold over 1.4 million copies during its first week on the market, making it the fastest selling Sims game ever. The original Sims game sold more than 16 million copies, while the sequel, The Sims 2 sold over 14 million units worldwide, excluding all the expansion packs.

EA Invites British To Rewrite Commandments

The Ten Commandments, basis of moral law for both the Jewish and Christian faiths alike have often come under fire by comedians. I can recall one bit in particular where George Carlin whittles down/condenses the list into a mere two or three general guidelines. Even some Christians will acknowledge that while certain commandments still make a lot of sense (murder, theft, etc.) others might be a little out of date.

It seems that despite the country’s long history of Christianity the British aren’t very well informed regarding the ten commandments. In celebration of the the release of god simulator The Sims 3 EA did some polling and found that more than a quarter of British youths 11-16 can’t recall even a single one of the commandments and only six percent of British children and adults can recall all ten.

The revised and updated list of commandments has been assembled and will be carved into two limestone tablets (the same type of stones Moses had been given) and presented to the Houses of Parliament this week as a benchmark of where public opinion stands regarding common moral standards in modern Britain.

Here’s what the 1,000 British citizens polled came to an agreement on regarding the commandments:

Modernised Traditional Commandments (ranked in order of importance to the British public)
1. Do not kill
2. Do not steal
3. Do not cheat on your partner with another person
4. Do not envy others
5. Respect your parents
6. Do not accuse a person of something they did not do

New Commandments
7. Respect all people regardless of race, religion or sexuality
8. Do not commit acts of terrorism
9. Respect and protect the planet
10. Do not be motivated by greed

Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online coming to a browser near you

EA has recently gone ahead and announced a new play-in-your-browser game entitled Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online. No, this won’t be an MMO based around golf but instead a regular run of the mill golf game that you play in a web browser.

There isn’t news much in terms of gameplay but EA let us know that courses like St. Andrews, Pebble Beach, and TPC Sawgrass will be featured.

Tiger Wood PGA Tour Online is apparantly scheduled to launch sometime in the fall with subscription based pricing. However, if you want to get in on the action early you can sign up for the beta here.

Up Game Review–Tired and Repetitive Platform Gamer

So Pixar’s releasing its newest movie in a matter of days—you know it better as Up.  It’s a foregone conclusion that, at this point, the only thing that could possibly stop it from having an eight-figure opening weekend is a nationwide power outage.  Thus it’s probably an equally foregone conclusion that it’s going to get merchandised out the yin-yang, and I mean that in the literal AND figurative senses.  Of course, this includes a video game, now available for Wii, Xbox 360, Playstations 2 and 3, PC, DS, PSP and of course Mac, and I only hope that the movie isn’t nearly as predictable or as repetitive as the game is.

The game’s plot is, at least in passing, somewhat similar to the movie.  I say somewhat because it’s been rather compressed.  You’ll actually start out flying a plane as Dug the dog, and from there you’ll segue into a series of platformer action sequences where you jump and run and do a few character-specific moves to get from one place to another, while being pursued by a millionaire industrialist who’s spent years in seclusion and emerged only because you kidnapped his “trophy bird”.

I spent an ungodly amount of time as an old man, running through a jungle being trailed by a chubby boy scout-analogue.  And under normal circumstances, I love Pixar movies…but seriously, I truly, truly hope that the movie is a whole lot better than this second-rate wreck that they tossed onto my every system.  Gameplay is almost insultingly limited, with sequences like “Run Through the Jungle”, “Get Jumped By Attack Dogs Every Three Minutes”, “Slide Down A Waterfall”, and my personal favorite, “Repeat”.  You think I’m being funny there, but truly, I’m just being the best kind of accurate that I know how.  Anyone who tries to play this misery detail of a game will be subject to a whole lot of more of the same.  I spent like five consecutively levels just running through a jungle, whacking things with a cane, and occasionally, with a backpack.  The only thing worse than that was that I had to regularly switch from one character to another so that I could do some ridiculous character-specific activity so that I could actually advance.  This was probably intended to provide variety, but what it really provided was a series of massive speed bumps that slowed down the pace of the game to something resembling…well…an elderly gent trying to run the Boston Marathon.

There’s not much sense in commenting on the graphics and sound and such, because this game is so spectacularly broken on the story level as to make the package it’s in, no matter how pretty, utterly moot.

Pixar desperately needs to stay out of the game business, if this is the kind of material they’re turning out.  Oh, sure, they probably had next to nothing to do with it but collect the paychcecks but there’s no two ways about it—Up is easily one of the most awful games I’ve ever played, and considering the sheer amount of foul, buggy crapware I’ve burrowed through in my day that’s saying a LOT.  There are vastly better titles out there than this dreck—I’ve talked about several.  Go enjoy one of those instead.

Resident Evil: Degeneration hits App Store

Game developers everywhere are quite aware that the App Store is a gold mine and Capcom is no different. The Osaka, Japan based game studio has just announced the release of Resident Evil: Degeneration for the iPhone and iPod touch.

You’ll have to part with $6.99 for this one but compared to other App Store games this one seems worth it, as you can see in the above video thanks to TouchArcade. Players will control the game using the onscreen joystick/d-pad combo and onscreen action buttons.

Unfortunately there is no demo for Resident Evil: Degeneration so you’ll have to make the purchase to check this one out.

Flashback hits App Store

It was recently announced that the port of Flashback, which originally made its debut on the Amiga platform, has hit the App Store today.

Priced at $4.99 Flashback will feature everything included in the original with the addtion of intuitive touch controls. Yes, this is one of those classic sidescrollers packed with action, adventure, and guns.

Me? I’ll wait until Manomio (the game’s developer) releases a trial version of the game first.

More than 100 million Spore creations created

EA has recently announced that there have been over 100 million created using the Spore Creature Creator to date which includes creatures, buildings, and vehicles.

Also included in the press release was the announcement that the 100 millionth creator will receive a NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT video card, Spore and the Galactic Adventures expansion pack.

Upon reading this announcement I took the time to flip through EA’s Sporepedia and picked out some creations that caught my eye, included above.

Spore Galactic Adventures will hit store shelves on June 23rd for both PC and Mac.

Spore: Galactic Adventures details emerge

Remember Spore? The game that everyone thought was going to change the way we looked at the gaming industry in general? Yeah, well EA has finally taken the time to reveal some details regarding the game’s Galactic Adventures expansion that was first announced back in January.

In Galactic Adventure players will take the rank of Space Captain as they adventure the galaxy (ironic huh?) unlocking and collecting 30 new “game-changing items and accessories”.

And what’s a game without some sort of achievements, right? Players will be given a Creature Card, that showcases their ranking and accomplishments.

Yep, that’s all we have to go by for now, no release date or pricing.

Read (Examiner)

Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child

Playfirst, Inc. has announced the official release dates of Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child, the third installment to the popular Dream Chronicles adventure game. PlayFirst PlayPass members will have exclusive access to the game for both Mac and PC download from Tuesday, April 14 and the title will be widely available on Thursday, April 16.

The upcoming release introduces a more open world experience for the series which for the first time, allows players to explore the game world in a non linear way. Through the introduction of a new nexus feature, players are now able to travel back and forth to various parts of the dream world as part of an ongoing quest which reveals critical clues and challenges.

The Dream Chronicles series traces the story of Faye whose overarching mission is to find her husband and child after they mysteriously disappear. Set in an ethereal dream world, Faye has trouble recalling the circumstances of their disappearance – a mystery which is gradually unraveled though a series of player quests and hidden object puzzles.

Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child is developed by KatGames and published by PlayFirst. Dream Chronicles, the first game in the series will be available for the first time on iPhone this April. Both Dream Chronicles and Dream Chronicles 2: The Eternal Maze are also available in major retailers. For more information on the game, or to purchase any game in the series.

(Source) Press

EA: No DRM for Sims 3

Electronic Arts received some heavy criticism for using digital rights management software for Spore. The SecuROM software made it so that the game could only be authenticated up to a total of three times, which was later raised to five.

In response to all of the negative feedback, EA has decided to stick to the old fashioned key code authentication system for the Sims 3.

“To play the game there will not be any online authentication needed,” said executive producer Rod Humble. “We feel like this is a good, time-proven solution that makes it easy for you to play the game without DRM methods that feel overly invasive or leave you concerned about authorisation server access in the distant future.”

The Sims 3 will be out June 2, 2009 in North America, and June 5, 2009 in Europe and Australia. It will be available for the PC, Mac OS X, iPhone, and other mobile devices.

Read (Eurogamer)

Rumor: BioShock heading to Mac

At Feral Interactive’s Macworld Expo booth at Macworld this Friday, staff were wearing some interesting apparel. The back of their shirts featured a picture of Big Daddy from the first person shooter BioShock. Macworld reporter Chris Holt asked the Feral Interactive representatitives, and they confirmed that the game will be heading to the Mac.

We’ve contacted Feral Interactive and are currently awaiting a response.

Update: Feral Interactive declined to comment on the rumor. It is to be noted that there was a smiley face accompanied with the response.

Read (Macworld)

Jesus takes over Guitar Hero

Now try not to laugh after you watch the above trailer for Guitar Praise, becuase it is in fact a real game. But what is it exactly?

A Guitar Hero ripoff complete with subliminal christian messages. Yum! Honestly though, Guitar Praise is a PC/Mac game that includes a wireless guitar controller. I bet Activision is going to feel bad sueing the pants off Digital Praise.