The News section is maintained by Jonathan Dreyer. Please send any comments or submissions to him.

MacMAME Update
As first reported by Tikkabik, MacMAME, the mac arcade emulator, has been updated to 0.30.1, you download this update and find more info on MacMAME at the MacMAME Web site

New Mac Bargain Pack
Also reported by Tikkabik, Aztech, famous for rereleasing older Mac games in bundles such as the Mac Attack Pack and the Mac Counter Attack, their new release includes Command & Conquer, SimTower, and more. Visit there web site to learn more

Altor Systems announces Nightfall is being shown at MacWorld San Francisco
Altor Systems announces their game, Nightfall, is being shown at the ATI booth at MacWorld San Francisco. It appears on the XClaimVR video wall, which shows the capabilities of the RagePro chip. Due for completion in the second quarter of 1998, the game features a rich virtual environment set in Egypt with unprecedented freedom of action.

The current version demonstrates underwater interaction, dynamic lighting and fog effects as well as hundreds of detailed textures. The physics allows you to both push objects around as well as be pushed around while you are doing something else. All this in hundreds, thousands or millions of colors.

The final product will also include the ability to select and move objects, pick them up, throw them and stack them. All this can be used to interact with complex puuzzles never before seen in a realtime environment.

OVERVIEW OF THE GAME
The Story
You are an eminent archaeologist exploring an Egyptian tomb for signs of a wonderful secret. Suddenly an earthquake hits the area. You are stunned by rocks and blackout. When you wake up you are trapped, the entrance covered with rocks. Still stunned, do you wait to be rescued, and risk more aftershocks, or gather up your notes and find another way out? Has anyone been this way before you, and who or what lies in the chambers beyond?

The Environment
Based on a real myth and actual characteristics of ancient Egyptian culture, experience a depth of game play that could only come from real life. Explore a vast array of tunnels and rooms, solving puzzles which have taken months to design. At the same time, these puzzles use the best of 2D and 3D environments to provide new ways of playing as well as new types of problems to be solved.

The Experience
A custom 3D engine has been specially designed for this game. In all, hundreds of megabytes of textures are used to create an environment rich with detail - images on objects and walls provide critical information for your survival, and add to the feeling of really being in an ancient complex. High quality real time lighting, dust and mist effects contribute to unique puzzle designs. Combined with ambient music and 3D sound effects these help to provide a dream like environment .

You have a virtual hand allowing real and subtle control of your environment. Click the switch you choose to, or move that object just a fraction to the right to line it up. Move a stone to climb up to a ledge, run and jump across huge chasms. Favorite aspects of 2D and 3D control are combined to give you freedom of motion and action. At the same time, all this is easy to control - point the hand to use something or go somewhere.

Carmageddon News
MGA staffer Marty Dodge had some info for you Carmageddon players out there:

"I have discovered that you can use all the patch files (for cars and peds) kicking around the net. There are also two different sets of extra tracks. All this and more can be found at http://carmageddon.allgames.com/files.htm#art All you have to do is follow the directions the read me, making Mac allowances, ex: instead of dir think folder.
It makes games a lot more fun and some of the improvements really make a difference to the cars.

Also remember that as long as the host of an Appletalk LAN game is fast enough you can use any PowerMac to play against. I use a 200/32 604e(host) vs 60/24 601e and it works fine."

>From SCI: 3DFX patch within two weeks.

Marty Dodge

Logicware News
Some of you out there may have noticed that Logicware has taken down the Redneck Rampage references from it's site but, we have no need to worry, Logicware is still bringing Redneck to the Mac, both Redneck Rampage and the game Defiance have a guesstimated summer release according to Logicware.

Keep an eye out for our review of Riven: The Sequel to Myst in the next few days...
Also, I'm working on a few new surprises for 1998, included are the begining of the MGA's giveaway contests and hopefully (If we can get the programming right) a exclusive MGA online game!

New Bumbler Bee-Luxe FAQ
Dadgum Games has released a new comprehensive FAQ for it's very cool arcade game, included in the FAQ are hints and a new invincibility cheat previously un-released

source: Tikkabik

New Version of Minesweeper Released
Squeem Software has released the new version of their Minesweeper game, it's based on the same Minesweeper included with Windows 3.1 or 95, check it out, it's way better than the Windoze style minesweeper...

Falcon 4.0 coming to the Mac in 98?
Nate Birkholz of MacSoft, posted the below in comp.sys.mac.games.flightsim the other day
We hope to have Falcon IV out in 1998. We _will_ be porting it, but we have no definite timeline at the moment. I'll be sure to keep everyone up-to-date as I get more info.

Tomorrow Never Dies Quake Level Out
A couple weeks ago we reported news about this interesting new Quake level, well, now it's out. Go to the official Tomorrow Never Dies Web site and head to the downloads section to pick up the 3.4mb file

source: Tikkabik

More Shadow Warrior 3Dfx News
Mark Adams posted the following on his Maverick Software News Page;

A 3dfx patch for Shadow Warrior Mac has been started, although I'm still missing a couple source files from 3dfx, so it may be a little while before I really get going full steam. Hopefully the new files will be here after the holidays.

Sorry for the late news, everything will be back to normal on January 4th