Macgamestore and WildTangent on Friday announced the release of FATE, a 3D fantasy action role playing game for the Macintosh. It costs $19.95 and is available for download as a demo version now.

In FATE, you play as a boy or a girl accompanied by a dog or a cat as you travel through caverns, dungeons, mines and tunnels on a quest for adventure. Each level is randomly generated and populated with magical items and weapons to discover. The game features more than 100 different monster types with 400 item types.

You can cast spells, buy and sell treasure to improve capabilities, transform your pet into powerful creatures and gain fame by completing quests and defeating legendary creatures.

System requirements call for a G4 or better (including Intel) and Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.

Link: Macworld

Truth be told, there's also a PlayStation 3 version coming, and another for the Xbox 360... but these platforms are used to having combat titles. What makes this worthwhile is the fact that you'll be able to play this game even if you're a serious (cough) personal computer user.

The game will be developed in full 3D glory, as couldn't be otherwise, but looking at the arcade version, the gameplay will be mostly 2D-like, which means that the 3D elements will be there for visual purposes, not for playability ones. All the characters from Street Fighter II are to be kept, as well as their special moves.

No release date yet, but the Japanese arcade has already been spotted. With this franchise, Capcom breathes new life into the most forgotten of all PC game genders. Can you remember the last title?

More information here.

His face says it all - what the f**k

Mother of pearl makes great adornments for boxes, guitars, jewellery and such. Well thanks to Big Daddy Bill, one hundred Xbox 360s have been given the mother treatment. Bill's idea was to make the xbox 360 an extra special gift for important people - sort of like hey I'm a billionaire but you won't be getting a swish rolex from me, I'm too cheap so here's a crappy Xbox we had left over with some fancy mother of pearl on, now kiss my ass Sony. 

The first of these limited editions which was given to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak earlier this month. Anyone guess his response? Probably what the heck is this piece of plastic crap and why are the lights flashing red instead of green. Okay maybe we are being a bit hard on the old fella but really, mother of pearl on an xbox. What were you thinking of Bill.

Well it's not out till the 29th, but already the reviews are rolling in and Grand Theft Auto IV looks set to take the game of the year title by a mile. Gorgeous graphics, incredible detail, stunning 16 player multiplayer and strippers. What more could your trigger fingers ask for. The new cover system looks to work really well with the ability to use any object for dodging bullets. Drive your car into a mob fight, jump out and use it for cover as you blast away the enemy. Pretty cool stuff.

Here's a round up of the scores:

 IGN - 10/10 Masterful

Official XBOX Magazine - 10 Perfect

CGReviews.com - 9.3

We don't even need to ask if you are buying this game - we went down to the local blockbusters to reserve a copy and they said they were completely sold out of the first truck load and to come back for the second shipment and they might have some then.  If you've already played the game fill out the comments box and make us drool.

And if you know where we can lay our hands on a copy, even better!

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Flash based games are big business on the internet and used to entertain surfers in between more serious browser sessions. Itch.com recently contacted us to have a look at their new Tower Defense Game, one of the most popular casual flash games you can find online and for good reason. They are highly addictive. This version features a great adaption of the classic game with several different maps, loads of weapons and weapon upgrades and some unusual baddies and end of level bosses.

The basic idea to the game is to stop the evil creeps (random objects) crossing from one side of the map to the other with the use of weapons that you purchase. The weapons can be upgraded and you'll certainly need to do this as the baddies get faster and tougher as the levels progress. To start with you have a limited amount of cash to spend and in order to earn more you have to kill the creeps. Saving up for bigger towers and upgrades allows you to kill the enemy quicker but if you save for too long the creeps with break through your defenses and you'll lose the game. Timing when to put a new tower down can make all the difference and if you can hang on to your cash till the end of the level a nice interest bonus will be added. 

The flash interface is simple to use with weapons accessible in the top left corner of the screen. The game loaded superfast for us - Itch.com obviously have some good servers powering their system - and worked perfectly in IE and Mozilla. You might want to make sure your popup blocker is turned off if you want to access the instructions - Mozilla didn't announce to us it was blocking this at first and it was only when we tried it in IE that we realised it was blocking the popup instructions window.

If you've yet to discover Tower Defense on your browser, Itch.com have a really nice version to play. They even provide a highscore service so you can see how good you stack up against fellow surfers.

To play this game and a whole host of other flash games, head on over to the Itch.com website. 

The Futuremark announcement can be seen in this page, and means that your wishes as a 3DMark user will finally be granted: a game that looks just that good. Let's be honest, we all lusted over those gorgeous graphics they've been feeding us all these years, but games of comparable beauty always took their time to catch up. No more.

The project, imaginatively called Futuremark Games Studio, will give birth to not one but several AAA titles. One of them, at least, already being developed. They promise that the games will look good and that they will run smoothly on your average PC, but for those used to building engines that don't have to worry about frame rates, it will constitute quite a challenge.

I would even say more, these guys found some special pleasure in bringing the best hardware to it's knees, and now they are forced to take into consideration something other than SLI or CrossFire configurations. They will also have to learn when to leave some visuals out, in favour of faster rendering, so give them some time here. But if you are of the impatient kind, you can try here from time to time, to see what's cooking.

Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Nintendo Wii has sold over 1.4 million units in its first week. Now we all know that since the game is very successful, it also means it’s very good. But how good?

Rainbow Six Vegas 2

The first edition on the Xbox 360 took gamers to new heights with outstanding graphics, gameplay and one of the best cover systems ever developed. Co-op and multiplayer were a joy to play - the use of split screen was beautifully implemented and saw us loosing many a nights sleep to Vegas fuelled with nachos and beer. New features include an enhanced version of the "Persistent Elite Creation" system. Players can now customize their character with experience points earned in both single-player and multiplayer. There is also a new stat-tracking feature which observes how players choose to play, unlocking new weapons and equipment based on their playing styles. All of the old weapons from Rainbow Six Vegas will be in Vegas 2. There are 11 new weapons, 13 multiplayer maps, 2 new game modes, and a tweaked ranking system, as well as improvements to the online functionality to make it easier to find online sessions. In addition, players can now join matches that are already in progress.

Expected release date - March 18th, 2008

Move up ladies and get ready to say goodbye to reality, loved ones and life as you know it. Rockstar games has given the word that the official release date for Grand Theft Auto IV is the 29th April. It will ship on the PS3 and Xbox 360 simultaneously with exclusive Xbox 360 downloadable episodes to follow.

The trailers look amazing and it's hard to imagine a game this big and good looking can run at decent framerates on the consoles. Mind you Rockstar are wise guys and we are sure they'll have a trick or two up their sleeve. Now try and get some sleep in before the 29th if you can.