Yes, that is the title. Penny Arcade's game has been released, and is now available for sale or demo over on the Greenhouse site. What's perhaps most amazing about this game is that on Tuesday, developers Hothead Games released the thing simultaneously on as many platforms as they could, including PC, OS X, Linux, and even the Xbox Live Arcade. That in itself is almost admirable enough to pick it up on principle alone.
But is it any good? Reviews have been middling, though word on the street says that if you're a fan of the webcomic, you'll probably enjoy the game. Jerry Holkins, writer of both the comic and the game, spoke with our sister site Joystiq about the grueling process of putting it together, and gameplay is basically a mix of old-school RPG, Call of Cthulu, and Sam & Max. Play, in other words, at your own risk.
Or just try the demo. The game itself is only $20, but it's the first of four episodes, all priced that way, so it might be pretty costly by the end. Still, especially if you're a Penny Arcade fan, it's worth a look. And any developer that goes multi-platform including OS X on day one, complete with demos, gets a TUAW salute from us.
The iPhone continues to impress in terms of gaming possibility. Raging Thunder isn't actually done yet on the iPhone (obviously -- judging by this video there are more glitches on this thing than a Matrix full of black cats), but once it gets rolling, the award-winning game, put together by Polarbit, looks like a pretty sweet racing experience. The accelerometer actually serves as a nice wheel (with a little help from the Wii wheel), and the graphics aren't too shabby, either.
We've already seen a few different games like this floating around at TUAW (including one from a big developer that we can't tell you about), but with a little bug fixing and optimization, the right tuning, and a horizontal mode, the iPhone could easily have a great accelerometer-controlled racing game available at launch. And that's just launch -- we can't wait to see what happens when a game like the Wii's latest Boom Blox (which lets you push and pull Jenga-type block structures around -- multitouch, anyone?) makes its way over to our little Apple handheld.
Racing Thunder is available right now on Installer.app, but this kind of stuff is what we're really looking for in the SDK when it comes out in June.
Wow. I don't know who hadn't bought NetNewsWire yet, but if you haven't, consider your wait vindicated: most of Newsgator's products, including NNW, Newsgator Online, and FeedDemon (the Windows version of the popular RSS reader) have all gone free with version 3.1.
Brent Simmons, NNW's creator, is reportedly happy about the change, to say the least, and Newsgator isn't any less thrilled themselves-- they say that not only are they excited to spread the love around to everyone, but that they'll also be using "attention data" collected from the software (which hopefully sounds more ominous than it is... right?) to "deliver a better experience for everyone." Not so happy might be the folks who've paid for the products in the past-- Newsgator is offering an automatic refund to anyone who purchased them in the past 30 days, but anyone before that just has to live with the fact that they paid $30 to use the software at the time (not that it was a bad deal back then anyway). Those who subscribed to the Newsgator Online service will run out their current subscriptions, and then continue on without charge.
Version 3.1 of NetNewsWire features an updated interface with new toolbar icons, some performance and memory enhancements, and the ability to archive news items as HTML files, viewable in any browser. It is now available, for a completely free download, over on Newsgator's site.
Boy, it seems like everyone was waiting for me to write up my gift guide before releasing some interesting Mac games this year. First Horde of Orcs comes out, then Sonic of all things appears on the iPod, and now here's two more fun gaming experiences appearing on the Mac.
First, our sister gaming blog Joystiq reports that PopCap's crack casual game Peggle has appeared for OS X, and just like most of PopCap's games, it's so addictive it should probably be regulated by pharmacologists. It's a universal binary, too, and right now it's only $10 (50% off from a sale on PopCap's site). Be prepared to disappear from your relatives for long stretches of time over the holidays, though-- anyone who can only play one round of this at a time is either not human or just in serious trouble with their spouse.
And MacNN reports that Bomberman has now appeared on iTunes as well. Hudson Software has produced an official port that features an "intuitive control scheme" (that I'd be interested to see), an exclusive boss stage for the iPod, and the option to play the game's music or your own during gameplay. Wild. That game is $5 and available as a download from iTunes.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas for Mac gamers-- turns out there may be more underneath the tree than we hoped earlier in the year.
There are a few hitches-- it's Intel processors only at this point (though a Universal binary is due next year), and like most 3D games lately, GMA video cards are out. 10.4 is listed, there's no indication of whether the game works in Leopard or not. The good news is that while a lot of Tomb Raider games lately have been terrible, this one is supposed to be a nice return to the spelunking of old. The Windows version got reviewed favorably, but there's no word yet on exactly how the Mac version looks. We've heard good things about other Feral ports-- maybe this kind of release is just what Mac gaming needs a lot more of.
Of course, you can find out for yourself-- Purple Violets is available right now in iTunes for $12.99. At that price, I might (ironically?) wait for rental, but then again, huddling around an iPhone and sharing earbuds in a nice Italian restaurant would make a pretty cheap date.
Ian of Feral Interactive kindly dropped us a note that Colin McRae Rally for the Mac has gotten a release date: this Friday, October 26th. I'm not sure if he's aware that he's got a little bit of competition that day (because, as we all know, Dan in Real Life is releasing on Friday, too-- what? Leopard?), but then again, maybe the big OS release will give a little boost to the latest rally racing game, PC editions of which have been reviewed pretty well so far.
And if you don't trust reviews for other systems (probably a good idea), worry not-- we're told a demo is imminent, so you'll be able to try the game out for yourself. Find out more about the game itself over on the minisite. Apparently the game features more than 30 cars, 300 tracks in nine locations around the globe, and realistic physics and handling. Throw in a few muddy curves, and you've got a recipe for a fun Saturday night.
Here's another thing you may have heard on last week's talkcast (which again, I'm told, is this close to being edited and posted): we were talking, of course, about the new iPhone/iPod touch SDK, and knocking around ideas for how Apple might implement apps on the iPhone. Someone in the Talkshoe channel suggested something exactly like this suggestion, sent to us by reader Thomas. They'd like to see apps distributed through iTunes, just like podcasts. Choose which apps you want (submitted by their creators to Apple), dock the iPhone, and voila, apps on the iPhone.
Not really a new idea, and it is pretty obvious in its implementation (I had the same idea about games for the Mac a while back). I'd love to see it happen. But the problem, of course, is just how open Steve wants to (or can be) with the iPhone SDK. I really doubt we're going to see something freely distributed, and I know for sure that we probably won't see anything that anyone can place unsigned content on. I'd love to see a quick, easy way for anyone to simply publish apps for the iPhone, but from what I've heard, there are so many security holes in the system right now that that's not really a possibility.
Jobs clearly wants to fix things (if his iPhone SDK note is to be taken honestly), but unless Apple starts plugging holes fast, I don't see it happening. More likely, I'd see a few trusted developers given SDKs, and asked to create applications of their own which might then be listed on iTunes, for sale or download. Other developers could probably apply, but Apple will likely try to keep control over the whole thing, pulling an application off of iTunes (and possibly even the iPhones themselves) when a problem is discovered.
It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. As I said, it would be great to see apps on the iPhone from anywhere and everywhere, but the concern we're hearing is that security is far from tight, and Apple is watching its back as closely as it can.
What the? Reader Dean O. sent us this shipment notice from the Apple Store in Canada, and says that he ordered Leopard as part of Apple's up-to-date program (he bought an MBP last week), and yet was surprised to see that even though it doesn't come out until the 26th, his delivery date is October 18th-- tomorrow.
Interesting. I was under the impression that even though Apple had announced a formal release next week, they still hadn't finished the OS-- they were working on the last bugs, or QA-ing the last beta copies, or even printing the gold masters, or whatever else you do when you're about to make a gigantic software release. But according to this (as long as it's not just a typo-- Dean says he lives by a Canadian warehouse, so it's probably a shipping mistake), Leopard is currently boxed up and ready to sell. Very interesting. I guess Dean will know by tomorrow whether he receives his package on time or not.
If you listened live to our TUAW talkcast last night (and you should have, because we were on fire, if I may say so myself), you heard us doing the same thing all Apple fans are doing this week: speculating on the (hopefully impending) release date of Leopard. Most of us still hold out hope for October (and we did realize that coming out around Halloween would make for some excellent Apple-related Halloween costumes), but personally, I'm still betting on October 26th. As we said last night, not only would that make for a weekend full of Leopard-y goodness, but the full moon is on the 25th, so the stars will be aligned just right for Time Machine.
And Thinksecret agrees with me (that's awfully nice of them). Their sources (although I can tell you that I wasn't asked) say that Leopard is still on track for an October 26th release. I said last night that I expected Apple to actually announce a release date this coming week, but apparently it's still too early for that-- a new (and final) Leopard build is expected this week, and once that gets final approval, Thinksecret says October 26th is the day.
However, time is definitely running out. Let's not forget that Apple announced Tiger a full 17 days before release, and that deadline passed last week. If they're not done debugging Leopard, there's a good chance we won't see it in October at all anyway. Not even the witches and goblins of Halloween will make Jobs do something he doesn't want to do.
Battlefield 2142 is already on the Apple Store, along with all the other games EA has released on the Mac, but we haven't heard anything official about Battlefield 3 yet, for any platform. That's why DigitalBattles was so surprised to find a list of Battlefield 3 features in a document meant for investors. And the most interesting "feature" on the list was this: "Windows Vista and OS X." That's right, if the leaked document is true, it appears EA wants to release Battlefield 3 simultaneously on OS X and Vista. And not on XP. That's what I'm talking about!
Of course, EA wasn't real happy with all the speculation, but they didn't actually deny anything. And as DB points out, the investor document didn't say that XP wouldn't be supported, it only specified Vista and OS X.
But still, if you told me earlier this year that Battlefield 3 would be released on OS X and not XP, I would have laughed in your face. If EA really is planning to bring out a top tier, anticipated title like this simultaneously on OS X, they might be able to redeem themselves to Mac gamers yet. Sure, I'm still angry at them for buying out BioWare, but brand new games on the Mac is good for everyone.
Does anyone else think it's a little crazy that we're already 1/4 of the way through October and we still don't have an official release date for Leopard? It'll almost assuredly be at the very end of the month, but in terms of date and time, no one has an official clue.
For a Piper Jaffray analyst, however, all signs point to October 26th (and gwhiz adds 6 p.m. on that Friday afternoon just like the iPhone launch). Makes a lot of sense to me-- Friday is clearly a great day to launch a product, as it gives Apple the weekend to claim sales figures, as well as gives us consumers a chance to break open the box and get it installed right away. Analyst Gene Munster says, also, that it's the end of the first month of a fiscal quarter, which Apple likes for boosting sales-- Tiger released in the same situation.
Plus, you know, the 25th is a full moon, so there's even more fuel for the speculatory fire. I agree that the 26th sounds pretty convincing, but of course we won't know for sure until Steve wants us to.
This blew by us earlier in the week, but in case you haven't grabbed it yet, the Joost beta 1.0 is now available for download to the public. So all of us plebians who haven't gotten invites to try it out yet can now inspect the groovy IPTV viewer that everyone's been talking about (and running on AppleTV) for months.
There is one catch that will trip up a few of us newcomers: Joost is still only for Intel Macs, so our PowerPC brethren are left out in the cold watching TV the old fashioned way-- on a television (and at normal quality with no lag-- whoops, low blow?).
The latest release also adds a few new features, including faster streaming for low bandwith connections (touche), and a few other interface tweaks. Joost is available for free, now to anyone, over on the website.
QuickBooks 2008 apparently was released this week by Inuit-- unfortunately, this makes the release of the Windows client only. Macworld, however, is reporting that if QuickBooks is your thing, you've only got a few more months to wait. Intuit is still planning to release a version of QB 2008 for Mac... in 2008 itself.
The quote comes from the Intuit FAQ for Mac, which says basically that they're waiting for Leopard to reveal itself before they release their own software. Not a bad reason for delay, I guess, but I really wonder what extra features Inuit might include in their software that would require Leopard to work. Will QuickBooks really be using any of the Core Image stuff to beef up their presentations and spreadsheets? Doubtful, but it would be awesome if they did.
At any rate, Intuit says that if you need QuickBooks right now, there's always the 2007 version, and to stay tuned for everything else, including a release date for 2008.
France Telecom, Orange's parent company, says they won't subsidize the iPhone, but also didn't say anything about price, according to CNN Money. They also didn't give a release date other than November-- the UK and Germany are getting it on 9th November, so it should be close to that point.
Reader Samuel, who sent us this French article (all I know is "sacrebleu," sorry), also notes that Apple seems to be signing with the national operators in each country, so the prediction for Italy is TIM, Belgium is predicted Belgacom (although reader Jelle says he saw the iPhone on Base's website, so who knows), KPN in the Netherlands, and so on.
I'm clueless about French wireless providers-- is Orange good? Does this deal have you Francophiles saying oui or no?
Wow. I don't know who hadn't bought NetNewsWire yet, but if you haven't, consider your wait vindicated: 
Boy, it seems like everyone was waiting for me to 
Here's another thing you may have heard on 
If you listened live to 
Battlefield 2142 is already on the Apple Store, along with 
Does anyone else think it's a little crazy that we're already 1/4 of the way through October and we still don't have an official release date for Leopard? It'll almost assuredly be at the very end of the month, but in terms of date and time, no one has an official clue.
This blew by us earlier in the week, but in case you haven't grabbed it yet, the Joost beta 1.0 is 
QuickBooks 2008 apparently was released
It's official: 
