French Touch is a newly created game company, born from the meeting on [the] Internet of five French people: one programmer and four graphic designers,
French Touch develops real-time 3D games on and for Power Macintosh. For
this purpose, French Touch developed an exclusive 100% RAVE 3D engine
(Infinity) which is compatible with the ATI 3D chips of the latest Power
Macs G3.

French Touch also developed its own software such as Fusion for example,
which is a unique 3D editing program entirely in real-time dedicated to the
creation of the models for our games.

Some of the more impressive qualities of their Infinity engine include support for 32-bit color (on Rage 128 cards) and support for older ATI chipsets such as the Rage II chips found in early iMacs and Powerbooks. French Touch currently has two games in the works: WaterRace, a blazingly-fast boat racing game with an extensible architecture that will allow custom terrains, boats, and music to be added; and Lords of Steel, a "mech" battle simulation set in a distant future where the code of law has reverted to feudal times. WaterRace will be released soon as shareware. [Eilers]





Game Updates Galore
Just our luck, eh? As soon as we take our holiday weekend break, three major game updates are released. Grr. For those of you who are just getting back online after your Easter-egg hunt, here's what happened:

Unreal: Westlake Interactive, one of the premier porting houses in the Mac world today, sent out Unreal 2.2.0b3 for public consumption. Please note that you must have Unreal 2.2.0b2 already installed before you use this updater. It fixes a few critical bugs:

• Many crashes when hosting net games, switching levels in net games, and starting bot matches have been fixed. For the technical-minded wondering what this bug was, it turns out to be a memory overwriting bug that was in the original PC 220 script code.
• Speech synthesis works again (it was broken in previous versions of Mac 220).
• The "LightModify" parameter in 3dfx mode works again.

Unreal 2.2.0b3 Update (200k)
Unreal 2.2.0b3 Update (mirror site)

Dark Vengeance: MacSoft posted Dark Vengeance 1.2 for download from its FTP server. These improvements, among others, were made:

• New MouseLook option added
• Added camera control options
• Multiplayer: skins now easier to use, menus have been enhanced
• Enhanced input support
• Character combat transparency
• GameSpy and other Master Servers supported

A new "Net Pack" was released also, which contains additional multiplayer maps and a skin-making tutorial.

Dark Vengeance 1.2 Update (2.8 MB)
Dark Vengeance Net Pack 1 (1.5 MB)

Descent 3Dfx: Duane Johnson released a new version of his phenomenal Descent 3Dfx. The Descent 3Dfx Web site was also moved for the second time in its history. Version 1.18 includes the following fixes, all of which apply to both games in the Descent series:

• Realistic powerup lighting (no more glow-in-the-dark missiles...)
• Translucent energy weapons & powerups
• Adjustable explosion animation length, can smooth out battles considerably
• Mines remaining counter & better drop logic
• Cloaked Mines at hotshot, ace & insane difficulty levels
• Even better Sound Sprockets
• Fixed weapon pickup next/prev misselect
• Command-P or Escape required to end pause

Descent 1 3Dfx V. 1.18 (1.6 MB)
Descent 2 3Dfx V. 1.18 (1.6 MB)

And if you haven't already, take the time to read IMG's interview with Duane Johnson. It contains information about his day job as a NASA rocket scientist, as well as the possibility of Descent 3 coming to the Mac.

One last note: when looking for the latest game updates, the first place to check is IMG's Updaters page. It is updated immediately whenever a new version of a game comes out, including weekends. [Daranciang]





Sims Strike Back!
Maxis chose a humorous way to announce the next title in their extensive line of "sims"—it was announced by the Sims themselves. No longer content with being the anonymous pawns of sprawling metropolises and omnipotent mayors, they demanded their own game. Thus, The Sims was born—a simulator on the household level, where instead of controlling the dynamics of traffic and water systems you control the dynamics of refrigerator use and bathroom privileges. You get to design a house, fill it with Sims and then manage their everyday lives through various stages of evolution and life events (job loss, promotion, marriage, etc.) No word as of yet on either a release date or a Macintosh version, but looking at the history of Maxis products that have made it to the Mac platform (soon to be joined by Sim City 3000) a port to our favorite OS looks likely. Buying lots of copies of SC 3000 (when it comes out) couldn't hurt! [Eilers]





Unreal Tournament Gives You Some (Custom) Skin
For those who believe it's never to soon to get psyched about an upcoming game, Shane Caudle has created a tutorial for creating skins for use in Unreal Tournament. This sequel to Unreal boasts amazing model detail and realism, as shown by the impressive images on this page. While the technical details will only appeal to those who really want to make their own custom "skins" (the textures that determine your character's appearance in Unreal or Unreal Tournament) the screen shots will astound those anticipating the release of this game. [Eilers]





Another Unreal Tournament Preview
4-Gamers.Net has a new preview of Unreal Tournament that gives a bit of new info on the title and how it stacks up to the other big name games being released in the same time frame (early Spring - early Summer). It also includes a few unreleased screen shots of the game in play. Here is a small clip from the preview:

"UT is based on a story, where by miners simply get bored of their job and start fighting, to help curtail this the UT is bought in and well you get the idea. The levels are keenly designed for multiplayer, very clever, while at the same time they have an essence of single player (ohhh looks so nice I want to explore). The game itself contains different varients, DM, CTF, Domination and Assault. Assault seems more like a standard Team game but with a few extras and we all know DM and CTF. Domination is a capture the holding point type game which comes with some very large levels (as you might expect). All these are extremely fun and complimented with the usual added extras (grenade turrets and sniper bunkers etc.). "

Unreal Error on IMG's Part
On Friday we posted an article with tips and tricks for the new Unreal Beta. Sadly, a typo crept into the article which may have confused some of our readers. In order to correct the bots skill bug (in which the skill of the botnach opponents is set at 255) you must type

set bots skill x (x being any number between 0 and 3

not "set bot skill x" as we printed in our Friday edition. That missing "s" is ciritical! Sorry for any confusion... [Eilers]





Dave's Classics Pulls the Plug
In a development that might distress both MacMAME fans and those using Connectix's Virtual Game Station to play PlayStation titles, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. has filed suit against Dave's Classics, an excellent emulation site. An article on GameCenter details the suit, which focuses on the fact that Dave's Classics offered an electronic copy of the PlayStation BIOS (the operating system of that console) online without permission. As a result of Sony's action, Dave's Classics has been taken off-line pending a review of the lawsuit.

Those who are fans of emulation and Dave's site in particular might remember that this is the second time Dave's has had its wings clipped; a previous lawsuit forced Dave's to remove their extensive collection of videogame ROMs from the website. No word on whether Sony's two suits have any effect on Bleem, a shareware PlayStation emulator that will soon come to the Mac OS. However, the loss of Dave's Classics is a blow to fans of emulation, and a dark sign of trouble ahead for that controversial area of gaming. [Eilers]





Clan Lord Very Near Commercial Release
Clan Lord, an online RPG from Delta Tao, is currently at v70. Although the CD-ROMs are now available to be ordered, Delta Tao is still extending the public beta stage for two more weeks—this means that this may be your last opportunity to check out this game before it goes commercial!

Clan Lord prides itself on being on-line only. There are few NPCs (non-player characters), because you are constantly interacting with your fellow players and developing a unique culture. At times there can be as many as two hundred players running around the world of Clan Lord, forming hunting parties, rescue teams or just standing around and having a good chat. [Simon]





Redneck Rampage Almost Gets Out of the Barn
Logicware's Bill Heineman updated his .plan file this past weekend to announce that Redneck Rampage has gone beta. Here is the whole update:

"Redneck Rampage is now beta, those Logicware playtesters out there please contact me for the forbidden ftp access so you can start testing it. The current problem is that is needs 100 Meg of memory for now. This will be fixed in the next revision." [Wertz]





Descent III Petition Ends Phase One
Matthew Diamond let us know that his Mac Descent 3 petition is ending "phase one" of its existence, after topping 800 signatures in less than a month. During "Phase 2" of the petition, Diamond will continue to collect signatures until an appropriate time (such as the release of PC Descent 3). Note that you have until April 8th to get in on the Phase 1 version of this petition, so stop by and add your support for a Mac version of this impressive sequel. [Eilers]





IMG News Hounds Wanted!
Have a nose for news? Do you scour the sites, wander the web, nose the newsgroups in search of tasty tidbits of information about your favorite games and gaming platform? If so, IMG wants you, because you are already trained for the job! We need reporters for our news page who can crank out short articles on upcoming Mac games and game events. You'll receive the honor and prestige of having your name emblazoned on the proud pages of our fine online magazine, as well has having your words etched for time eternal on our CD-ROM edition. And you might even get paid! Contact Senior News Editor Michael Eilers for details; a writing sample is greatly appreciated, though no experience is necessary.



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