Aspyr Media Games Update--More Gamerhood Details, Coming Patches

The Gamerhood application will allow a user to purchase and download a game directly to their Macintosh using a standard Internet connection. A wide range of Mac games, from very casual titles to some of Aspyr's AAA titles, will be made available through The Gamerhood.

Over the next few months, Aspyr Media will be releasing more specific information on The Gamerhood's capabilities and a list of the titles, which will be immediately available upon the application's launch. A broad range of features already being implemented in The Gamerhood include:

• Purchase games and download them online
  
• Play games without physical CD/DVD media
  
• Check user compatibility by comparing machine's hardware against a game's minimum system requirements before purchase
  
• Alert users to current Aspyr projects and new games
  
• Allow users to register games online
  
• Alert users to game updates and provide installs for updates
  
• Provide a user-friendly interface and convenient way to organize personal gaming catalogue
  
• Allow parents to restrict game play and online game store material based on ESRB ratings
  
• Provide users opportunity to take advantage of special offers

Downloading The Gamerhood will be free to all Mac users and will be available to North American customers only at launch.

Aspyr has been busily working on a large group of patches that should be released by the end of August. These include a Civilization IV Mac patch to address performance and sound issues, a Civ 3 Mac patch that adds Universal support for Intel and several bug fixes, Universal Mac versions of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, Jedi Knight 2, and Jedi Academy, an update for Tiger Woods 2005 Mac that fixes a conflict with the latest version of QuickTime, and an update for Call of Duty 2 Mac to bring it up to the latest PC version 1.3.

Unfortunately, a universal binary for Call of Duty appears to have been abandoned. We have seen nothing from Aspyr regarding this patch since its initial mention in a monthly Aspyr report. Counter-balancing that is the 1.3 patch for Call of Duty 2, which has easily supplanted Call of Duty as our overall favorite first person shooter. Still, the original Call of Duty has some terrific multi-player maps not reproduced in Call of Duty 2. [Bill Fox]