Feral Interactive announces ToCA Race Driver 3 for Macintosh

Section: Software + Apps, Games, Mac + Computers, SoftwareIn their never ending pursuit to guarantee that every game involving wheels should find its way to the Macintosh (those Brits do love themselves some racing), Feral Interactive has announced they will be bringing ToCA Race Driver 3 to our platform. The worldwide release of the exciting, wheel-to-wheel, single-player and multiplayer racing game developed by Codemasters is set for October 24th. With 70 licensed cars and 80 licensed tracks, ToCA Race Driver 3 is the racing game for the Mac and offers the greatest range of motorsports of any game; GT, Off Road, Touring Cars, Classics, Open Wheel, Rally and Oval are just a few of the more than 35 types of racing featured. And the quality is just as impressive as the quantity with real-world physics giving players an authentic handling experience for each individual car. With its online, multi-player capability, ToCA Race Driver 3 for Mac delivers an added dimension of live competition with other drivers across the globe. Now, I’m not much of a racing fan—I had to look up ToCA to see if it actually had anything to do with racing (it’s either Touring Car Association or Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association, so take your pick)—but the variety of cars, tracks and racing styles available in ToCA seems like it’ll compensate for the abundance of left turns one generally has to make in order to succeed in racing. The game will retail in North America for US $49.95, £34.99 (inc VAT) in the UK and €39.95 (inc VAT) throughout Europe. It is currently available to pre-order from Feral’s online store. Minimum system requirements call for a 1.8GHz Intel Mac only, 512MB RAM, 128MB graphics card, DVD drive and Mac OS X v10.4.8 or later. The game does not support Intel GMA processors...but you all should be used to that by now. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Preview: GTS World Racing for iPhone / iPod touch

digg_url = 'http://www.tuaw.com/2008/08/08/preview-gts-world-racing-for-iphone-ipod-touch/'; If there's one company in the world that is in the business of keeping people happy, it's Astraware. They're a UK-based development firm that excels in writing games for handheld devices. In the past, they've published games like Bejeweled 2, Cubis, and Zuma for Palm and Windows Mobile, and now they're entering the iPhone market with a splash. GTS World Racing is an arcade-style racing game licensed from Pazzazz Games that, like Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D, uses the accelerometers in the iPhone / iPod touch for control. Tilting the iPhone left or right steers your car, tilting forward accelerates the car, and tilting back applies the brakes. The game provides 64 different track layouts, so you're not likely to get bored going around the same track again and again. There are 16 different worldwide locations for backdrops, as well as three different car types and four different levels of difficulty (I hate to admit that I'm still stuck at the "Easy" level...). You can also play your own music in the background if you tire of the built-in soundtrack.This post will be updated when GTS World Racing appears in the App Store at a US$7.99 price. In the interest of full disclosure, the author has had a long-term reviewing relationship with Astraware. Gallery: GTSWRRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Macintosh/iPhone software update round-up - October 22, 2008

Section: Software + Apps, Miscellaneous, Third-Party, iPod + iTunes, iPod touch, iPhone + Communications, iPhone, iPhone SDK & Apps, Mac + Computers, SoftwareMacintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 22, 2008: 99Games has made its debut with the games Chess Lite and Chess Pro for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Both editions make use of a professional strength Chess engine with playing strength over 2750 ELO. Intuitive controls make the user-experience a lot more electrifying thus gripping the user to the game totally! Highlighting previous move, next move and legal move hints are user-friendly; while options like save, load and resume allows users to play the game on-the-go or during their spare time. seyDesign and Vortex Themes have announced the OS Designer RapidWeaver theme for RapidWeaver 4. OS Designer, from Vortex Themes, captures the Mac OS X experience with a window and several desktop backgrounds that feel like the real thing. The simple grace and beauty of the Mac OS X desktop can now be applied your webpage. With many OS flavors to choose from, there will be one that is just right for you. MileBug, the premier iPhone mileage log application, helps those driving their own vehicles for business, charity, medical, or other reasons receive their reimbursement and/or tax deduction. In the U.S., IRS business rates are up to 58.5 cents/mile. MileBug for the iPhone/iPod Touch helps people track their miles and provides emailed reports for easy submission to employers, accountants, and the IRS. FurrySoft has announced their College GPA Calculator for iPhone and iPod Touch. This first of its kind, College GPA application makes predicting GPA easy for the student whose future depends on their college success or students on probation. College students predict GPA by entering cumulative GPA, grade points, current term courses and predicted letter grade. College GPA does the rest to calculate predicted cumulative GPA. The latest release of The Big Mean Folder Machine adds the ability of making the creation of deeper hierarchy levels dependent on the number of files per level. It is an essential tool for anyone who works with large file collections, including digital photographers, content creation, post-production, system administrators, and other creative professionals. Easily merge files from several folders into a single folder, or split files into several folders according to a wide variety of criteria. 24x7digital has introduced PhotoCopy 1.0, their iPhoto to Flickr mirroring utility for Mac OS X Leopard. Designed specifically to help protect media assets, PhotoCopy combines iPhoto’s ease of use with the great sharing features of Flickr. It uploads all of the photos in the selected album(s) to Flickr and arranges them in matching sets. PhotoCopy also copies important image information from iPhoto, such as title, date, time, rating, keywords and description. Arriving in time for Halloween, Phelios, an independent Mac and PC game developer, has released their second game for iPhone and iPod Touch, called Whack the Dead, which is also available for Mac OS X. Whack the Dead was created with the PTK game engine. Readdle has just announced the release of A.I.Disk, a new and much needed iPhone application that lets MobileMe subscribers access documents on the iDisk online storage service, and save them to their iPhone and iPod Touch. A.I. Disk allows people to view saved files and documents on the go and even email friends and colleagues. equinux has released CoverScout 3, the ultimate software to complete album covers in iTunes. With its sleek and intuitive user interface, CoverScout searches the Internet to find missing album art and can automatically apply its findings to your music library. CoverScout’s integrated editor and automatic workflow complete every music library. Smule has released their newest complementary product, Sonic Boom, on AppStore. Sonic Boom turns your iPhone into a virtual firecracker that can be ignited using your finger as a virtual match or a second phone running Sonic Lighter. Strike the match, ignite the fuse, wait...boom! IGG Software has announced iBank 3.3, the latest upgrade to its flagship application for personal and small business finance management. Among the most important changes in iBank 3.3 is improved migration of Quicken data for new users making the switch to iBank. iBank 3.3 also improves keyboard-based transaction entry to be faster and more efficient, and direct consultation with Apple has restored full functionality to iBank’s iPhone/MobileMe integration. After an afternoon shopping at the mall or catching a game at a baseball stadium, it can be a hassle or even a challenge to find the car. For women especially, knowing where the car is parked can turn into a matter of safety in a dark parking lot or on an urban street. With these two considerations in mind, iPhone 3G application developer Su Lee embarked on creating Car Spotter—an easy-to-use vehicle locator that uses the iPhone’s navigational GPS system. It is one of nine iPhone applications that Lee’s company, GP Apps, has released this month. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Article: iPhone Gems: The Best First Racing Games

The iPhone’s first three racing games sell for $10 each—twice the price of past iPod games. Are any of them worth buying? As serious fans of action-heavy driving titles, we’ve spent the last week testing these titles for this edition of iPhone Gems, and while none was impressive enough to recommend to all of our readers, each had something to recommend it over the others to certain types of players. All three of these games are,…

Macintosh/iPhone software update round-up - October 6, 2008

Section: Software + Apps, Miscellaneous, Third-Party, iPod + iTunes, iPod touch, iPhone + Communications, iPhone, iPhone SDK & Apps, Mac + Computers, SoftwareMacintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 6, 2008: Freeverse has announced they will be temporarily be reducing the price of their popular iPhone racing game, Moto Chaser. Moto Chaser will be available for $0.99, less than the price of a gallon of gas. Developed exclusively for the iPhone and iPod touch, Moto Chaser provides a unique racing experience in the palm of your hand. Utilizing the device’s built-in accelerometer, Moto Chaser features intuitive motion sensitive control, which allows you to steer your vehicle by physically tilting the device either to the left or to the right, giving you the extra precision that you need to make it to the checkered flag in one piece. Berbie Software has announced an update for TrailRunner 1.8, the outdoor oriented route-planning and journaling software for Mac OS X. Among other improvements, the latest update has a full integration with GPSies—a community web site to store, view and share outdoor activities and routes. With this new release, TrailRunner users can easily find routes in their neighborhood and share their own with other hikers, runners and mountain bikers. Subatomic Studios has announced the release of Fieldrunners, an action-based strategy game in the much-loved tower defense genre. In Fieldrunners, you defend and control a field under heavy attack by enemy forces. At your disposal lies a wide array of devastating upgradeable towers, each providing their own unique advantages. You must plan out your strategy wisely in order to stop the oncoming fieldrunners from infiltrating your base. With multiple levels of difficulty, Fieldrunners offers both casual and hardcore players alike a challenging and enjoyable experience. Code Line has a great reputation for outfitting designers with software applications to make their jobs easier. Now, artists on the go can turn to their iPhone or iPod touch for Code Line’s newest creation, Color Expert. Color Expert contains powerful tools to help artists and designers identify, translate, capture and showcase color. And now they can do that anywhere. Opcoders has announced Toolbox 0.8.2 for advanced editing tasks involving bitmap and vector graphics. Toolbox can be used as a texture generator, as a logo editor and more. Focus for this release has been to make Toolbox user friendly. A new Light block has been added that has 12 parameters. The new Light block accepts up to 4 inputs allowing for fine grained control of ambient, diffuse and specular. The Dream Apps has announced Dream Capture 2.2, an update to their video recording utility for Mac OS X. Dream Capture is a simple and intuitive utility to record videos that are perfect for uploading to various video sharing websites, importing into iMovie or GarageBand for the creation of Podcasts or burned to DVD. This makes Dream Capture a great compliment to Apple’s iLife Suite. Dare to be Creative today announced the release of Dragoman 1.4, a universal batch file conversion utility for Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard. Dragoman is a utility application that batch converts images, photos, PDFs, music and archive files with a lightweight drag and drop interface. Big Stone Phone’s audio and photo recorder TalkingPics 1.2 is now available. Create projects with many audio, photos, maps and notes, and make slideshows. Upload files to Mac or Windows via browser. New MP3 compression option. This version adds a new preference to choose either the ultra high quality lossless format or the WAV compressed format. Big Stone Phone’s compelling painting and public art sharing app iGraffiti has been enhanced and is now available at the AppStore. New features include a pick any color from photo option and view the Public Art right from within iGraffiti. Key features include the use Library photos, take snapshots, or use a simple colored canvas. iGraffiti offers unique paint brush controls, choose color from crayons or pick a color from anywhere in the photo and more. Freeverse today announced the release of their acclaimed puzzle game, Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab, for the iPhone and iPod touch. Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab combines multiple game modes that have been enjoyed by millions, all in one great game, and priced at only $0.99. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

Cro-Mag Rally for iPhone

While the novelty of this racing game can wear off quickly, Cro-Mag Rally is a fine game for the iPhone and iPod touch that really demonstrates what this early generation of action games can do on the platform.