iGame Radio

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Corey Tamas of MacGamer talk about the week’s news in Mac and iOS gaming. Apple held another “event” this week, introducing iLife 11, OSX 10.7 Lion, the Mac App Store, a new MacBook Air, and more. After Omaha snored through the iLife demos, she and Corey talk about the impact a Mac App Store might have on the Mac gaming community. Also, can you game on the MacBook Air?
• Civilization V for the Mac was finally announced by publisher Aspyr Media…after everyone else already knew. Notwithstanding, Omaha and Corey talk about some of the new aspects of the game, and Corey admits his secret shame.
• EA has admitted to purchasing iPhone publisher Chillingo. What will this mean for EA? How will the purchase change the iPhone games out there? And why are the Angry Birds so angry?
• Phillip Rosedale of Second Life’s Linden Labs has stepped down as interim CEO to pursue a new startup, while the board searches for another CEO. What’ll you hear the name of that startup…
• Omaha and Corey talk about games released, soon to be released, and they’ve played.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Zach Young for featuring music from The Great Tree.
• Tomas Dvorak for featuring music from Machinarium.

The rumors had been flying fast and furious regarding a possible acquisition of iPhone games’ publisher Chillingo by Electronic Arts. So I guess it wasn’t a huge surprise when the rumor was confirmed this morning by EA itself. Though EA declined to release much additional information (such as a price), the amount quoted by Reuters is $20 million.

What’s even more interesting in this deal is the large number of assumptions that analysts and some media have been making about the relationship between Chillingo and Rovio, the developer of Angry Birds. Some analysts questioned why it was that EA didn’t purchase the IP to Angry Birds itself. Chillingo is probably best known at this time for being the publisher of Angry Birds on the iPhone and iPad. Or at least, they were. After the initial publication, Rovio went independent, and has been publishing their IP under their own publishing arm, Rovio Mobile (though looking at Angry Birds HD for iPad on the iTunes store still lists Chillingo as its publisher). Rovio has been working like mad the past few hours on its Twitter feed to assure everyone that the Angry Birds IP is still with Rovio.

So, what does this mean for EA? Last year they purchased Playfish, a start-up social gaming company, for $400 million. Along with Chillingo, they seem poised to attempt a full-on social games takeover. But since that purchase of Playfish, not much has been heard. In fact, if you go to the Playfish site, the biggest change is that EA has introduced sports titles right next to the casual social games that is the Playfish fair…rather incongruous. Somewhat like slapping EA’s label on top and hoping that things will change.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Omaha reviews Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena by Virtual Programming. Strong on story, voice-acting, and use of shadow and stealth, weak on AI and scripting, you get two games for the price of one.
  

Show Notes:

• Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Corey Tamas of MacGamer talk about the week’s news in Mac gaming. You never know where you’ll hear about a game announcement, but there’s no stranger place that hearing about the Mac development of Mirror’s Edge…in a legal brief.
• Tim Langdell (that’s DOCTOR Tim Langdell to you!) is a hurtin’ puppy after the court has deemed him a troll.
• Omaha and Corey talk about games released this week and soon to be released.

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

Nobody who is anybody doesn’t know Tim “I own anything with the word Edge in it” Langdell. He’s almost as notorious as Jack “video games will eat your soul” Thompson. So when I heard that he’d been soundly slapped by a district court (Langdell, not Thompson) I had to read the verdict. Boy, did I not expect what I read!

Hidden within the long, laborious text of the verdict is this statement:

Finally, a Mac version of the original “Mirror’s Edge” video game is currently under development and is slated for release later this year (Hershberger Decl. ¶ 13).

Holy cow! You just don’t expect to hear about a game announcement through a legal brief, but there it is. Unfortunately, there is no detail on release date and such. Apparently, the judge didn’t consider that necessary to determine that Langdell was a troll.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Omaha reviews Bob Came in Pieces by Ludosity, a delightful puzzle game with dated graphics and music that will still break your brain.

Show Notes:

• Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Peter Cohen of The Loop talk about the week’s news in Mac gaming, starting with the stunning announcement that Apple quietly rolled out a website about Mac gaming. Yeah, the one that came out 10 years ago. Apparently, the rest of the world just noticed.
• Epic Games announced Unreal Engine 3 and Unreal Developer Kit for iOS. Great. Now where’s my UE3 and UDK for the Mac??
• EA and Unity announce a lovefest.
• Omaha and Peter talk about games released this week and soon to be released.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Michael Hu-wong for featuring music from Fizzball.
• Steven Johnson for featuring music from Escort Wing.

When OnLive went live a couple of months ago, they made a large number of Windows only games available to the Mac with their streaming gaming service. All but one: Mass Effect 2. This popular game developed by Bioware and published by EA was the one game that Mac gamers were not allowed to play on OnLive with their Macs. At the time, I speculated that this could only mean that Mass Effect 2 was actually being ported to the Mac platform.

At PAX, I got confirmation.

Speaking to an OnLive representative, I talked about the games available and mentioned that Mass Effect 2 was still the only game not available for Mac players. He said that this was due to contract requirements for restrictions regarding which platforms the game could be on. I said it was mighty strange that for a company whose goal was to provide platform agnostic gameplay that this one game would be negotiated in this fashion.

At that point he admitted that the game would have a Mac port. “They are making Mass Effect 2 for the Mac,” he said.

Though this doesn’t come as a complete surprise, it is terrific confirmation of a rumor, and acceptable justification for why the game cannot be played with a Mac using the OnLive service. I have contacted both Electronic Arts and Transgaming regarding this article. EA has not made a response as of the posting of this article. Transgaming’s reply was, “No comment.”

At this point, the real question is whether the port is being performed in-house or with another company. My guess is that they are using Transgaming’s Cider technology, as was used for the Dragon Age: Origins and subsequent DLC. I’m also guessing that they will be trying to get this ready in time for the Christmas rush, as waiting until early spring would
make less sense from a business standpoint.

However the story plays out, it is great to hear that this game that we Mac gamers have been wanting will finally be coming out.

According to a Gamasutra article, Mythic Entertainment now wants to be referred to as Bioware Mythic, sticking to its need to redesign it’s name every few years.

Though having merged with EA last year and merged with Bioware, the company still referred to itself on websites and to the public as Mythic Entertainment after a brief stint as EA Mythic. But, according to Joystiq, internally Bioware has been referring to them as Bioware Mythic for a while now.

The company has gone through a number of name changes since its founding in 1995, including Interworld Productions, Mythic Entertainment, EA Mythic, and now Bioware Mythic.

Despite the name change, Bioware’s GM Ray Muzyka says that Mythic will continue to support Warhammer Online, and retain its brands, corporate culture, and other projects. There are also hints that Mythic…’scuse me, Bioware Mythic…could co-develop future titles with one or more of Bioware’s other three studios.

Wolfire Games has posted a wonderful discussion regarding the OnLive streaming game service that launched officially (for some definition of “officially”) yesterday at 6PM PT/9PM ET. Jeff from Wolfire Games has been participating in the Beta for OnLive, and had some very good and smart insights into the service that detail the merits and downfalls of OnLive well.

However, during the post, he let slip an interesting tidbit that lead to some exciting thoughts.

From the OnLive FAQ:

Unfortunately, because of licensing restrictions, we can only offer Mass Effect 2 for play under Windows. So, if you do not have access to a PC, your only option to play it on a Mac is under Windows using Boot Camp or a similar system. We apologize for the inconvenience. OnLive has no other games in the pipeline that are Windows-only, and we do not expect to have any others.

This is ridiculous on so many levels and a great example of why OnLive is so fascinating and controversial. I might be able to virtualize OnLive in Parallels, so that I would be playing Mass Effect 2 through OnLive on Windows running inside of Parallels virtualized on Mac OS X. It feels bad enough when publishers don’t make the effort to support Mac OS X and Linux, the fact that EA has actually gone out of their way to make ME2 inacessible to Mac OnLive users is worth examining in its own blog post.

Worth examining indeed. So I’ll beat Jeff to the punch and examine it now. Why would Mass Effect 2, amongst all the other games available on the OnLive service (such as Assassin’s Creed 2, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction from Ubisoft, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Just Cause 2 from Square Enix, etc) be unavailable on the Mac through OnLive?

I think it’s because EA, or a Mac publisher in conjunction with EA, has Mass Effect 2 for the Mac in the pipeline right now.

OnLive right now is still an experimental service. Let’s face it, most of the people who are going to sign up for it are early adopters (like me) who can’t wait to try out something new and cutting edge. My neighbor next door isn’t going to try it out now (Mac user though he is). And certainly my older friend whose laptop I just helped fix won’t. It’s going to be another year or more before this service is going to be anything other than early adopter fodder.

We early adopters are also the biggest source of revenue for a new game on the Mac that requires a higher end Mac. Like Mass Effect 2. If EA were to bring Mass Effect 2 to the Mac in another 1.5 years or longer, those “higher end Macs” would start to become lower end Macs. A wider audience would be picking the game up.

Except that biggest group would have already played it. They’ve played it on their boot camp partitions. They’ve played it on their Parallels/VMware Fusion/Crossover virtualized Macs. They’ve played it on their PCs (horrors!). If any buy it at that time, it’s for nostalgia and because they want to see what it’s like to run a native game on their Mac.

Why wait if EA can get in the high-end, early adopter range to buy the game now, from OnLive? Then they could bring the game to the Mac natively later, if they still want to, for the lower end machines.

That would work…only if they didn’t have a Mac version in the pipeline now.

I dunno…maybe I’m dreaming. But this certainly seems to be the most logical answer to that question to me.

The next expansion in the Sims series by EA, Sims 3: Ambitions, lets you control the career path of your Sims. Will they be heroes, fighting fires or policing the riff-raff? Will they become bumbling mad scientists or ghost hunters? Or maybe they’ll live on the edge as tattoo artists…wait, what? A tattoo artist is “living on the edge”?

Well, be that as it may, for the first time, you get to put your Sims to work making money. Your Sims can find jobs through the job and opportunity tracker, fill their experience bar, then get better jobs as they climb to the top of their career. They can even find jobs the traditional way, through the newspaper or locations around town. Keep track of your Sims professional progress under their Career tab, and even check their mailbox for articles on clothing and work related to their profession.

Sim career choices can also affect their town and other Sims. And your Sims can earn Simoleons to buy that perfect house, car, or outfit they’ve been wanting.

There are 16 careers to choose from, including firefighter, ghost hunter, tattoo artist, and owning a junkyard. You can even be self-employed, cause your Sim doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do (well, except you).

The Sims 3: Ambitions for Mac is available by Transgaming for pre-order for $39.95, and will launch as a digital download on June 1st.

System requirements:

• Mac OS X v10.5.7 Leopard or higher
• Intel Core Duo Processor
• 2GB RAM
• At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space, with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games.
• ATI X1600 or Nvidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100 (This game will not run on the GMA 950 class of integrated video cards)
• The SIMS 3 for Mac required

The iPad games lineup is getting long and luscious, so we thought we’d post about some interesting titles that you can get your hot hands on come April 3, otherwise known as “Saint iPad’s Day”.

• Plants vs Zombies HD: PopCap’s fabulous casual zombie tower defense game munches its way onto your iPad. PopCap promises exclusive features and functionality for this version, including the Buttered Popcorn mini-game wherein players touch zombies to “butter them up” for attack and four new achievements. The game will go for $9.99. Enjoy our tongue-in-check exclusive preview of Plants vs Zombies HD from yesterday’s podcast!
• Pangea Software Five Game Line-up: Pangea Software is releasing five of their iPhone games for the iPad, including Enigmo Deluxe, Cro-Mag Rally for iPad, Bugdom 2 for iPad, Otto Matic for iPad, and Nanosaur 2 for iPad. Game improvements include more enemies, improved graphics, customization of controls, and improved physics controls. Enigmo Deluxe includes a level editor and over 400 extra free levels. Each game will be available for $9.99.
• Ace Omicron: The survivalist space shooter by ProRatta Factor that will be available for both iPhone and iPad. A 3D update of Asteroids, complete with 3 modes of play and upgrades to your ship. The game is $2.99 for both platforms.
• We Rule: ngmoco’s city-building MMO for the iPhone/iPod Touch now comes to the iPad. Hopefully, the server problems won’t come too. But hey, it’s free!
• CastleCraft: Freeverse’s city-building MMO for the…wait, what? Hey, doesn’t this sound like We Rule? Didn’t these guys merge recently? What’s going on here?? Well, regardless, we reported that CastleCraft was coming to the iPhone/iPod Touch because, well, that’s what info we got, but we also mentioned on the podcast that the site only listed iPad on the screen above (despite the trailer saying otherwise). Today the developer now says “exclusive to the iPad”. And it’s…free.
• Warpgate HD: Freeverse announced Warpgate months ago, even had a contest about naming a planet in the game’s systems. Then we heard nothing. It was always assumed that the game would come out for the iPhone, but suddenly we have the announcement and it’s coming out for the iPad first. The iTunes blurb does say that the game will be coming out for iPhone/iPod Touch later. But there’s no indication of whether there is any multiplayer functionality to the game. The game runs for $7.99
• PartyPad: a new twist on the classic game of marbles from GameHouse. Three modes to choose from, including Space Mania, the classic game of marbles, Table Tactics, which involves more strategy, and Monster Picnic, a more fast-paced game involving feeding a marble munching monster. The game features real-life physics and up to four players can play. $4.99
• Hangman RSS HD: As if the news headlines aren’t damaging enough, now you can hang someone while reading them. Introducing Hangman RSS by Finger Arts, wherein you try to guess the headlines of your RSS feed before you hang the dude. We say that there’s no better analogy for reading the daily news. The iPad version automatically updates the newsfeed over WiFi, then allows the player to access either a summary or the original webpage of the news article when the puzzle is completed. The game sells for $3.99.
• Mirror’s Edge: This is the first of several Electronic Arts titles that are coming to iPad. Mirror’s Edge for iPad will include exclusive head-to-head gameplay in split-screen PvP mode with friends. The price is heftier than any of the other titles mentioned so far, coming in at $12.99. We’ll see if the game lives up to the price.
• Need for Speed Shift: Need for Speed Shift needed to swing large things farther, so the price is $14.99. For that, we’d better be getting a significantly awesome racing game, EA. So far, the screens bear that out, as well as the exclusive features like 8 cars on the iPad you don’t get on any other platform; physics-based, accelerated graphics; and the ability to utilize and access controls and mirrors in the car.
• N.O.V.A.: Gameloft’s highly anticipated game (certainly anticipated since everyone saw a preview of the game on the iPad at the device announcement last year), this SciFi FPS follows the story of the Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance as it seeks to protect Earth from evil invaders. The game utilizes the iPad’s touch-screen technology with 2-finger throwing for grenades and multi-touch targeting for multiple kills. The screens look great, the price lower than I would expect (especially considering EA’s intro prices), at $9.99.

One thing to note is the variation in pricing. They are all over the place. Expect that the pricing will continue to fluctuate for the first month or so as companies feel their way around what the right kind of pricing is for apps on the iPad. Those prices will rise or fall depending on consumer purchases. We will be interested to see where that pricing bottoms out, but don’t expect it to be anywhere close to the iPhone pricing.