iGame Radio

The Razer Blade, Razer’s entrance into the world of hardware systems, was announced last weekend. Not content to produce peripherals, Razer has created what they call the “World’s First True Gaming Laptop”. Measuring at 0.88 inches thick and less than 7 lbs, the Razer Blade is intended to be a light weight machine despite the 17 inch wide screen. And it may just be Apple’s lesson in high-end gaming for laptops. Read more…

 

We talk with Tyler Carbonne and Mike Odem of SRRN Games about Archibald and Remus: Minor Lords, an iPad game coming out soon. Archibald and Remus will be a freemium game that includes in-app purchases, some of which are quite amusing. We also talk about Monster School, a tamagotchi style game geared towards kids, the work they are doing on the sequel to Ash (their first big hit) and hints of a game to come.

 

We had a great conversation with Josh Veloria of Telltale Games. iGame Radio’s Omaha Sternberg talked with Josh about the soon to be released Jurassic Park: The Game, the recently released episode two of Hector: Badge of Carnage, and touched upon the recently signed Walking Dead. Also, Josh hints at new projects for 2012.

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to give you any feedback about Jurassic Park: The Game. Despite the fact that Telltale had demos running at PAX Prime, the only peripheral to interact with the game was an Xbox 360 gamepad. One wonders why Telltale would use such a device for a game that will be running on machines that will be using keyboards and mice, but there you go.

With the news that Feral Interactive is bringing Batman: Arkham Asylum to the Mac, the next question on many Mac gamers’ minds is, “Can my Mac run the game.” We don’t have any final system requirements to go by yet, but we can make some assumptions based on another game released by Feral that also came out for Windows about the same time: Borderlands.

Borderlands was released for Windows in October of 2009, and Batman: Arkham Asylum was released in September of the same year. Both have similar gameplay mechanics: action gameplay, fighting mechanics, with Borderlands having more of a first-person shooter bend and Batman leaning towards action-adventure. Both were built on the same game engine, the Unreal Engine 3.

The Windows version of Batman: Arkham Asylum required a 2.8 GHz machine, while Borderlands required 2.4 GHz. When Feral released Borderlands for the Mac, their minimum requirements were for a 1.4 GHz Intel machine, though a 2.8 GHz machine was recommended. We’re currently playing Borderlands on a 2.66 GHz machine and find that it runs fine, though we do experience a little slowing in the beginning when the game starts each time. Chances are that Batman will have a similar spread of minimum/recommended, most probably bumped up slightly such as 1.6 GHz/3.0 GHz or something similar.

RAM should be increased, as Borderlands for both Mac and Windows needs 1 GB minimum, but Batman for Windows requires a minimum of 2GB for Windows XP (3GB for Vista or Windows 7…wow, memory hogs). So we’ll probably see 2 GB for Batman: Arkham Asylum for the Mac, though whether that will be minimum or not is iffy.

The biggest question is the graphics cards. Borderlands needed a minimum of NVIDIA Geforce 8600 GS or ATI Radeon HD3000 Series, which translated to the Mac version as graphics cards above the ATI X1xxx series and NVIDIA 7xxx series. But Batman: Arkham Asylum for Windows needs Nvidia 9800 GT or ATI HD 4850 or higher. Will this mean that the graphics card requirements for the Mac version will be increased? Hard to say, but since the graphics requirements for Batman are higher than Borderlands by an entire series for both Nvidia and ATI, we may see a bump in graphics requirements.

If that is the case, we may be looking at the following spread of machines to run the game: Mac Pro from 2008 and later, iMacs from early 2008 or later, Macbook Pros from 2009 or later, and if you’re lucky and the minimum requirements are that low, you might be able to run it on a later Macbook Air. But don’t count on it.

We’ll wait and see whether the official requirements match our speculations.

Cause you can never get enough talking unicorns, PopCap Games has announced the launch of Peggle HD for the iPad. Peggle HD includes Game Center support and an in-app purchase option for the complete Peggle Nights.

Peggle combines elements of pinball, pool and pachinko to create a completely different kind of game experience. The game challenges players to use skill, strategy and luck to clear progressively more difficult levels of orange pegs by firing a small silver ball from the top of the screen. Stationary and moving obstacles along with numerous power-ups and special effects combine with dynamically-assigned peg colors to make each level unique every time it’s played.

The Game Center support includes 29 achievements, with cutesy names like First Bjorn. There’s also a Trophy Room that you can win awards and build a shrine to yourself.

A quick jump onto the App Store reveals that players are complaining, however, about the graphics, declaring them to be fuzzy or blurry and difficult to see or read the fonts. Hopefully PopCap will have a fix for this issue very quickly.

For a limited time, Peggle HD will be available for an introductory price of $2.99 with the in-app purchase option of Peggle Nights for $0.99, meaning you can get two games for $3.99. Thereafter, the games will be available for $4.99 and $1.99, respectively.

Telltale Games and Straandlooper have released the second episode of Hector: Badge of Carnage. If you didn’t get enough of the raunchy, rude, repugnant lawman from the first episode, now’s your chance to double your fun.

Senseless Acts of Justice has launched across PC, Mac, iPhone and iPad, with a PlayStation Network release coming in the near future. Follow Hector as he hunts down a psychopath while he’s pulled down a twisted trail of meat, sin, sleaze and….more meat. Fans can also now take on the role of the hapless Lambert and be approached by new and unnecessarily distasteful characters like flaming strippers and street urchins…yum!

To celebrate this launch, Telltale is offering Hector Episode 1 HD for iPad We Negotiate with Terrorists for a discounted price of $2.99, and for iPhone for $0.99, through September 1. Telltale says the final episode, Beyond Reasonable Doom, should release in September.

Hector: Badge of Carnage – Senseless Acts of Justice can be downloaded from the Telltale website, for iPad for $6.99, and for iPhone for $4.99.

With so many Angry Bird clones, it’s nice to see a game in the same genre take a new turn. Enter Sprinkle by Mediocre Games. Inhabitants of Titan are burning, and need you to man a water canon to put out the fires. Realistic water physics and clever puzzles make for some intriguing gameplay with this little puzzler. You can pick the game up for $0.99 on iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and get 22 levels of play. Unlock more levels for $0.99 or by earning enough points on each level on the previous world.

Com2uS has decided to go the way of the Tamagotchi, and released MiniGame Paradise. Play with 35 different cartoon animals in over 70 mini-games with one-touch control schemes. Games range from puzzle to arcade style games, and features include clothes for your characters and decorations for their houses. MiniGame Paradise is $2.99 for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and includes some in-app purchases as well.

Lastly, Nevosoft has released Landgrabbers, a real-time medieval strategy game for the iPad and claims to be recognized as the Best Casual Game of the Year at the 2011 Russian Game Developers Conference. The game features 36 levels in four locations and is free. However, the game page also states that the full version can be purchased for $4.99, implying that the free version is really just a short demo.

• LandGrabbers: real time medieval conquest strategy
• MiniGame Paradise
• Sprinkle: Water splashing fire fighting fun!

PAX Prime is starting in 0 minus 1 day, 17 hours, 51 minutes, and whoknowshowmanyseconds and counting. And that means iGame Radio will be there, covering your favorite Mac and iOS games here and to come!

We’ve already got a slew of meetings and interviews scheduled, so you can look forward to a bunch of great podcasts not just about specific games and hardware, but daily podcast summaries as well.

To give you some ideas of what is to come:

EVE Online: interviews with developers and why EVE is so hard to get into (OR is that a myth?)
Topware Interactive: updates about Two Worlds II, and the upcoming games Scivelation and Raven’s Cry (YUM!)
Runic Games: Torchlight 2…need we say more?
Red 5 Studios: Covering their game Firefall. (Gosh, I wonder why we’re meeting with them? ;)

And many more, both Mac and iOS.

Will you be at PAX Prime? If so, let us know so we can hook up. We’d love to know what your thoughts are on the Mac gaming scene in general and the PAX scene in particular. You can post a comment here, on our Facebook page, or email us to connect.

Today Steve Jobs tendered his resignation at Apple as their CEO. Like so much of Jobs’ communications, his resignation letter was simple, clear, and to the point. We could come up with all kinds of weepy tributes, or farcical puns…but we won’t.

Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Mike Markkula started Apple in their garage because they loved what they did. Jobs continued with Apple, and many of the other work he did (founding NeXT, acquiring the graphics division of Lucasfilms and spinning it off as Pixar, etc) because he had a passion for creating things. And though his biggest passion wasn’t gaming, he still created one of the most legendary platforms for casual gaming…the iOS.

We wish Jobs’ the best of luck in everything he does. And we’ll know every time we play a game on our Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, he made it possible.

Thanks, Steve.

Funny thing about the ESRB ratings…sometimes the ratings are released before the game is announced. Witness today’s find: Batman: Arkham Asylum for the Mac by one Feral Interactive. Cool find, huh?

Yes, indeed, it does seem that our Mac friends in the UK are bringing the critically acclaimed game about the dark psychiatric hospital to a Mac near you. When is unknown, as is the system requirements and other details. When we contacted Feral Interactive, we were told, “Un-announced and have no details yet.”

As a refresher, Batman: Arkham Asylum exposes players to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes them to the depths of Arkham Asylum – Gotham’s psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Gamers will move in the shadows, instigate fear amongst their enemies and confront The Joker and freaks. Arkham Asylum is based on the long-running comic book mythos, so comes from the source material.

We’ll post further information from Feral Interactive as it is released.