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A few more Itadaki Street screens
Any time mascot characters from different game companies converge, it's a big deal. As mascot-converging deals go, it doesn't get much bigger than Itadaki Street DS, which forcefully jams the worlds of Dragon Quest and Mario together onto a game board. There's also the fact that another long-time Square Enix franchise heading to the DS is likely to cause a sales supernova. We enjoy keeping tabs on this game in anticipation of that upcoming cosmic event.While you wait for that June 21st release date, and ponder learning how to read "slime" in Japanese (????????????), why not take a look at some new screenshots?
Nintendo and Sega execs talk about Sonic and Mario at the Olympics
In the spirit of Sonic and Mario uniting for a friendly sporting exhibition, N'Gai Croal brought Nintendo of America Vice President Perrin Kaplan and Sega of America President Simon Jeffery together, ushering in a new age of Sega and Nintendo Doing Stuff Together. In addition to the quite promising info that Shigeru Miyamoto is involved in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games "more ... than sort of the average game," there are some hilarious quotes from Kaplan, who seems to be euphoric in the extreme over the Sega-Nintendo collaboration. On why Mario gets top billing in the title: "He's Italian, he's really sexy, and he can get more women than Sonic." Depressingly, we have evidence to the contrary of that last point (said evidence is a Sonic 360/PS3 spoiler, so be warned ... in fact, be warned in general).
Zap! to power electric version of Lotus' APX crossover concept
Just in case you forgot, Tesla isn't the only electric car game in town, and while the noted manufacturer is said to be working on its own crossover utility vehicle, this here Lotus ZAP-X electric version of the APX crossover is all thanks to Lotus and the Zap! guys. Lotus is, of course, bringing those hip-cool stylings and aluminum frame, but Zap! has replaced the V6 gas engine with in-hub electric motors, which can provide a combined 644hp, and vault the vehicle to 155 mph. Zap! is claiming an impressive range of 350 miles, with a 10 minute charge -- though we're guessing you aren't going to pull that kind of juice out of your regular ol' wall jack. If that's not enough for you, an auxiliary power unit with even more batteries is planned, and since the motors are in the wheels, there's plenty of room in the hood for such add-ons. Says Zap! of the ZAP-X: "The innovative placement of the power train leaves the space previously occupied by the conventional engine and drive train for additional battery capacity and amenities, making it a very consumer-oriented electric car concept. These design features will give the ZAP-X crossover the structural strength, and potentially storage and range that no electric vehicle has yet achieved publicly." Not too shabby at all. Unfortunately there's no word on when you'll be able to get one of these into your driveway, or how much it'll cost you, but the vehicle is definitely planned for a US release, so it's only a matter of waiting.
Crossover Mac to ship this week
Reader Greg Taylor advises that Codeweavers' WINE-based Win32 application runtime Crossover is due for release during Macworld. The release version should be downloadable for registered users sometime this week.It remains to be seen how well Crossover will do up against more traditional virtualization approaches like Parallels and VMWare. It's true that Crossover lets you run Windows apps without the overhead (or licensing cost) of Windows, with varying degrees of compatibility; but with Parallels' new Coherence mode allowing mix-and-match Windows applications 'floating' in the Mac UI, and enough RAM, it may not be an easy sell.
Release Candidate 2 of CrossOver Mac
The virtualization market for the Mac is hot. Crossover, a WINE link environment for Windows apps on OS X, has just released their Release Candidate 2 for public testing. Release candidates traditionally signal that a product is almost ready for primetime. I haven't had a chance to play around with this release yet, but all it has to do is actually work to be better than my experience with earlier iterations of the beta.RC 2 introduces support for Quickbook, improvements to the web browser in Quicken 2007 (who knew Quicken had a web browser?) and several other improvements.The beta of CrossOver Mac is free to use for 60 days, but the final product won't be.
Crossover Mac enters Beta 2 phase
We missed this a few days ago, but Crossover Mac, CodeWeaver's WINE environment that allows you to run Windows applications along side OS X applications, with no need for virtualization, has been updated to Beta 2. What's new in b2? Lots, apparently. There are "dramatic" performance improvements and bug fixes for full screen mode, case-sensitive file systems, CPU detection, and the registration process, to name a few. Now I haven't personally used Crossover yet, since I'm supremely satisfied with Parallels, so I can't confirm that those updates are actually there, but I'm willing to give the developer the benefit of the doubt on this one. If you're using it, please chime in with your thoughts.Thanks, Mike!
Half-Life 2 on Intel Macs
If you've sated your Tetris lust through Quinn and you're looking for something a little meatier to play, you might want to check out this kludge a CodeWeavers forumite has used to get Half-Life 2 running on an Intel Mac.Armed with the beta of CrossOver Mac, user JustinD downloaded Gordon Freeman's alien-blasting adventure through Valve's Steam service and proceeded to shoehorn it onto his MacBook. It isn't pretty since you can't use anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, and there's pop-in, missing video, and other surprises, but, hey, it's Half-Life 2 on your MacBook.I don't have an Intel Mac lying around to try this out, so hit the comments if you get it working.[via Joystiq]
Half-Life 2 on Mac, without Windows
A Mac gamer has been running Half-Life 2 on a MacBook using the public beta of CrossOver Mac, a tool to run PC apps on Intel Macs without Windows. Half-Life 2 and other games previously required booting into XP to work on Intel Macs. The CrossOver gamer documents his process and results; expect glitches and bugs.While CrossOver Mac is still in beta and may never acceptably run PC games, the future of Mac games is uncertain. Will tools like Cider, which let PC publishers quickly port titles to Intel Macs, cause more Mac games? Or will Mac releases slow down because gamers can play new PC titles by booting into XP?[Via Xlr8yourmac.com]
WoW + Second Life Crossover Event?
While browsing the latest WoW news today, I stumbled across this tidbit of info; A faction of players from two of the most popular online games, WoW and Second Life, are apparently planning some sort of unofficial crossover event, to take place in late July, according to this blog posting. No solid details are given on exactly what the event is or how it's to take place, but I'm just curious as to how such an event could happen. Players from one game meeting up in the other, and vice-versa? Ok, fine...but doesn't sound all that sexy right off the bat. Then again, there could be something actually cool going on here that I'm just completely unaware of....it happens. I'll keep my ears open...
YAMTT - Yet another Mail theme for Thunderbird
Hawk Wings has tracked down another Mail theme for Thunderbird by the name of TigerMail. While I know we've blogged one before, I can't track it down. From what I remember though, TigerMail is a much more accurate reproduction of the Tiger Mail look and feel. But if Panther Mail's look and feel is more your style, CrossOver might just be the Thunderbird theme for you.
