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By Brad Cook While Apple iCEO Steve Jobs’ keynote address is a major event at every Macworld, he usually doesn’t take the stage alone. In New York he was joined by Ed Fries, Microsoft’s vice president for games, who made a surprise announcement which sent ripples of excitement through the Mac gaming community. The news: MacSoft founder Peter Tamte is starting a new company which will work closely with Microsoft to bring many of its games to the Mac. The new operation—which has no name and has only one employee (Tamte) so far—will release Age of Empires II, Flight Simulator 2002 and Links LS 2002 sometime next year. While Age of Empires II will be a port of the already-successful game for Windows 95, Flight Simulator 2002 and Links LS 2002 are new titles which will arrive for the Mac and PC simultaneously. Gamers were also happy to hear that the highly anticipated game Halo will be available both on Microsoft’s up-and-coming videogame console, the X-Box, as well as the Mac. A Major New Trend Simultaneous—or nearly simultaneous—release of games on both of the major computing platforms is an important development in the videogame industry. Macworld offered plenty of evidence of this new trend and gamers are thrilled about it. Blizzard Entertainment showcased its major new release Diablo II, which arrived for the Mac less than a month after the PC version hit store shelves. An intense fantasy role-playing game, it’s the sequel to the best-selling Diablo, which was published for the Mac in 1997. The company also announced that Warcraft III, the third installment of the popular fantasy battle game series, will hit the Mac and the PC at the same time in late 2001. Meanwhile, copies of The Sims, Aspyr Media’s new game (released for the Mac just in time for the Expo), sold prodigiously at the show, as did copies of the highly anticipated Deus Ex, which was published nearly simultaneously on Mac and Windows by ION Storm. |
 Aspyr will also bring Sim Theme Park to the Mac in September. In this variation on the Sim theme, player create an amusement park and try to manage every aspect of its existence—from setting ticket prices to hiring employees. Another best release selling at the show was GraphSim’s Baldur’s Gate. A fantasy role-playing game, Baldur’s Gate is set in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons world Forgotten Realms. Variations on a Theme As the number of games released for the Mac increases, so does the variety of genres represented. While popular titles at Macworld were many of the kill-or-be-killed type, many family-oriented games were also announced. MacSoft led the way with an assortment of releases slated for publication in 2000 and 2001: Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Risk II and Monopoly Casino should be well-known to everyone who has watched TV or played board games. As part of a deal with Hasbro Interactive, MacSoft is also porting updates of several old Atari games to the Mac. Look for new versions of Centipede, Pong and Breakout to hit store shelves sometime in 2000-2001. Asteroids 3D shipped during the show. Parents will be happy to hear that MacSoft also added the compilations Mac Kids Pack and Mac Tonka to their upcoming release list. The former includes such kid favorites as Candyland Adventures and Play Doh Creations while the latter includes Tonka Search and Rescue and Tonka Construction. |
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