iGame Radio

Virtual Programming has announced the release of Heir to the Throne, an expansion to Europa Universalis III. The third expansion pack for the popular strategy game, Heir to the Throne will focus on the diplomatic side of things.

Features include:

• Ability to establish dynasties of monarchs with arranged marriages.
• A new Casus Belli system, where wars have specific aims from start to finish.
• Peace treaties with more options.
• More powerful options for the Holy Roman Empire, including reformations enacted via imperial authority.
• Diplomatic options for merchant republics, including trade leagues.
• Cultural Tradition function that improves advisers the same way Military Tradition improves generals and admirals.

Heir to the Throne is currently available for $19.95 (£14.95, €19.95).

I have a Mac Pro. It’s not a brand new Mac Pro, but a 2007 version. It has an Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT video card. Tonight, I pulled up Portal for the first time to play it. I got this error:

Your video card does not meet the minimum system requirements that we have set for the game. This game cannot be run on this hardware.

Say what?? This game was originally released October 2007. The card was originally released around 2006. And the game doesn’t support the card??

But here’s the kicker. My husband runs Linux on an old, beatup Windows box under Wine. He’s been playing Portal for years. His video card?

An Nvidia GeForce FX 5500.

Valve. You suck.

…To give them some feedback. On the GameAgent NonBlog, Aspyr asks the following:

Friends, foes, followers – we come to you to find out more about your favorite Mac games. We often are asked “Where is ___ game? The last one is one of my favorites!” or “why aren’t you guys doing _____.” The truth is, we’re probably working very hard on getting ____ to our friends and followers. To help our cause tell us why a native Mac version of the latest game is ESSENTIAL for our partners to support. We want to hear what you [sic] thinking

So, how about it, peeps? Hop onto the site and let them know why it is that you want to see a particular game on the Mac. Like Modern Warfare 2!

Skelanimals, cute, loveable, and very dead creatures, are looking for a new life. Or a new undead life, as it were. And very soon, on your iPhone, they’ll find it. Skelanimals Dance Party, a new rhythm-based game, was announced this week for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Developed by Hardcore 3D Wireless and set to be published by Flying Penguin, Skelanimals Dance Party brings ten of the most popular of the undead critters looking for human companionship to dance the night away.

Most likely inspired by the popular dance contest held in 2008, the game challenges players to tap and slide along to songs performed by some of today’s up-and-coming bands. The game is set to release sometime this summer.

True Games Interactive has released the line tower defense game Mytheon: Assault of Gaia for iPhone and iPod Touch. Players must protect the temple of Gaia from the powerful forces of the Greek Gods Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus who seek to dominate the Earth Mother. Players take on the role of Stonecasters, powerful humans imbued with special powers, such as casting spells and erecting structures that aid in battle. At the end of each level, players receive a new tower to increase their combat capabilities.

Three different settings are offered, including Kraken, set within temple ruins; Hades, a lava-filled underworld; and the Greek Parthenon. Numerous tower combinations, enemy types, and character classes round out play.

Mytheon: Assault of Gaia is a complement to Mytheon, the online multiplayer Action RPG in development by Petroglyph that is currently in open beta, with similar storylines. Mytheon: Assault of Gaia is available on the App Store worldwide for $2.99.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• A review of Farm Frenzy 2 for the iPhone by Alawar Entertainment. An addictive time management game that let’s you raise animals, refine their goods, then sell them on the market and buy more. Beware of the bears falling from the sky. They come to kick your chickens around!
• Also Corey covers the issues with ngmoco’s We Rule, the iPhone-based MMOG. Server downtimes, app crashes, level caps, lack of help files, and difficult touch screens haven’t stopped Corey from becoming addicted. He just wishes ngmoco would, you know, fix some of these issues.

Show Notes:

• Omaha Sternberg and Corey Tamas talk more about Steam for the Mac. about yesterday’s launch of Steam for the Mac. More games, speed issues, Portal bugs, and stability are all discussed.
• Corey complains about Blizzard’s remote auction house app. The end of the world? Well, ruins the strategy at least…
• Latest games released, delayed, and updated.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Digital Droo featured music from Active Lancer; pick up the Active Lancer soundtrack
• John Gatti for featuring music from El Ballo; pick up the El Ballo soundtrack

I came home the other day to spy a package on my doorstep. A tall, thin package that obviously (from my perspective) held papers. Not knowing who would send me paperwork in something that measured 18 inches tall by 14 inches wide, I opened it with some trepidation. Inside, I found…a vinyl record.

Little yellow squares housed Nightmare Before Christmasesque avatars of rock stars. The vinyl I pulled out was orange; Side A said Manager–Party at the Office, and Side B was Paintron–Live at Madison Round Garden. And in the center, MTV Star Factory by GameHouse.

Ah, a game! Wait, isn’t that disk a bit big to fit into my Mac??!

MTV Star Factory is GameHouse’s latest iPhone game, a time management game around building your band. Manage your bands, down to selecting the members and their music, then manage studio sessions, live gigs, and even parties.

The website has some fun stuff to play with in the lounge, including listening to sample music from the game. Music runs the gamut of sound, including rock, jazz, and even a piece with a Spanish guitar (probably the best piece I heard, actually).

The game will be available for the iPhone and iPod Touch soon (despite the fact that the website currently says that the game isn’t available for the iPhone, the publisher assures me that this is an error and that it is).

In time for George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead, hitting theatres on May 28, comes App of the Dead for the iPhone and iPod Touch. You too can take pictures of your friends, turn them into zombies, then shoot them! What person wouldn’t want to do that?!

Using App of the Dead, you can take photos of your friends with the iPhone camera (or import them from your photo gallery), then add over 20 zombie features, from a gallery of open wounds, weapons, and deformed eyes and mouths. Woot! Once done, you can save or email your zombiefied creation out.

Better, you can enter the “kill mode”. This is where you can wreak awesome vengeance show your friends how much you love them by shooting them over and over in bloody, gory splashes using a custom-built shooting engine. There’s no info on whether you can enter kill mode before you’ve zombiefied your friends, tho.

Seriously, who isn’t going to use this app to take pictures of their hated enemies, turn them into zombies, and shoot at them over and over and over and over and over….

Though I hesitate to call this a game (it’s more like a toy), it will become available soon at an App Store near you.

This is a first! Slitherine, known for developing historically-based strategy games for Windows (which sometimes show up on the Mac via Freeverse) is developing a new game for the iPhone. History Egypt Engineering an Empire has been released for the iPhone, and will appear later this month for the PSP Mini.

First in a series of turn-based strategy games based o the History television series Engineering an Empire, this game will allow players to build their own empire in Egypt from the ground up. Players will manage all aspects of the rise of their empire as the leader of an Egyptian territory, including the economic and political growth, development of the military, and expansion into other regions by using either war or diplomacy.

Players use three different windows for controlling actions within the game. The Campaign Map reveals the entire game world for planning means, the City Map shows the structure cities within the empire and helps with economic decision-making, and the Battle Map is used for beating your enemies into oblivion when diplomacy fails.

Features include:

• City development with over 50 buildings to construct
• Army management with more than 25 unit types to recruit
• Each nation has its own unique units and buildings
• 9 historic campaigns with each with different objectives
• Diplomacy, wars, peace and tributes: use your skills to fight your enemies or make other countries your friends

The game costs $3.99 and can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store today.

TellTale Games has released the second episode of Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse. The Tomb of Sammun-Mak is now available for download from the TellTale website.

Catch up with Sam & Max as they encounter the most bizarre and dangerous characters they have yet to encounter…their own great-grandparents. They travel across ten decades, possibly with some chemical help, and visit many continents to determine what is causing all of the problems and Max’s latent psychic powers to suddenly come unto their own.

If you are looking for the Mac or Windows version, look no further. The PlayStation 3 version will be released in North America later today, and in Europe next Wednesday, May 26. You can pick up the entire series for a mere $34.95, and start playing the first two episodes today.