Yes, most of us think that SCEE London's Beats is awesome, and it's about time that someone from the homebrew community thought up of letting PSP owners play the game with their own customized "beats." Yes, here's Beats Off, where you can load and play custom compiled BJS files. Important details in the full article!

Download: Beats Off v0.1

After helping out in ports of PC games to other platforms with its products, TransGaming Technologies rolls up its sleeves once more with the release of SwiftShader 2.0. Video game developers in need of a 3D rendering system based entirely in software for their projects on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X may want to consider licensing this engine. Find the details at the full article.

 

FIFA 08 had remained on the top spot of the Chart Track UK ladder ever since it dethroned Halo 3 (for the week ending October 6). Now, the football mogul is finally kicked right out of the top spot by... drumroll, please... another football game. Sega's Football Manager 2008 for the PC and Mac OS X platforms has debuted at #1 for the week ending October 20.

Former king FIFA 08 (PS3, PS2, PSP, Xbox 360, PC, Wii, and DS) landed not so far away at the second spot, which is followed by two new entrants in the UK charts. The Orange Box (Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal) from Valve and Electronic Arts takes the third spot, while the Nintendo DS' The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass clocks in at fourth place. Halo 3 caps the top five spots.

1. Football Manager 2008
2. FIFA 08
3. The Orange Box
4. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
5. Halo 3
6. Project Gotham Racing 4
7. Ratatouille
8. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
9. Resistance: Fall of Man
10. Crash of the Titans

Yes, it seems that Europeans do love their football. Heck, the sports simulation title is even scheduled to hit the PSP sometime this Christmas in the form of Football Manager Handheld 2008. Anyone wanna place their bets as early as now that the PSP version will eventually claim the top spot once it gets released?

Computer solutions providers have reported that preorders for the Apple's Mac OS X Leopard have doubled, as compared to the release of the previous OS Tiger. The supposed culprit? Overall dissatisfication of the consumers over Windows Vista.

"More than anything, it has to do with the biggest growth coming from 'switchers' - people switching from the Windows platform," said Chirs Gore, a marketing director for Macforce, an Apple specialist.

The release of Apple Leopard was actually scheduled for last Spring, but was pushed back to this month to make way for the iPhone. Computer suppliers said that the delay didn't affect the expected sales of the Mac OS, however.

Other suppliers reported having a hard time ordering stocks of Leopard, while the rest of the solution providers are excited about the unveiling of Apple's newest OS, with some even giving out computer mice covered in leopard skin-prints.

Headplay is probably every couch potato's dream. Imagine a TV. Now imagine being able to take it anywhere and everywhere you go (except perhaps in the shower), and being able to watch movies or play games on it anytime you want. That's the concept for the new "Personal Cinema System" device, Headplay.

Headplay is a head-mounted device; basically, a TV you wear on your head. You can connect it to your gaming consoles, your DVD Player, your iPod, your PC, and maybe your Betamax player if it hasn't choked on dust yet. If it has a video out function, Headplay can most probably display it. You can also plug in a memory stick and Headplay can run the media files - movies, videos, and images - with its own built-in player.

Once you're behind the lenses of Headplay it's pretty easy to just relax and go dead to the world around you. It's nothing but you and the screen, with the stereo sounds blocking off everything else. It's like your own movie screen inside your living room.

To read the complete review of Headplay - what it is, what it does, how it plays on Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, and Nintendo' Wii on it - click on the link for the full article.

Following the announcement of *takes a deep breath* Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (boy, that's a mouthful) heading to the Xbox Live Arcade, Hothead Games and Penny Arcade just launched the official website for their upcoming episodic title.

The website will give the fans of Gabe and Tycho some game-related content and news. You can even view some trailers, screenshots, and fact sheets about the game. The website will also be used to launch the individual episodes in the series once they become available for purchased download.

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One is scheduled to roll out later this year for the PC, Mac OS X, Linux, and Xbox 360 platforms.

Click the Read link below to check out the official Rain-Slick site!

Electronic Arts has finally made good on one of its promises as it announced that four EA titles are now available for Mac users to play and enjoy. EA's offering includes the following four titles:

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Need for Speed: Carbon
• Battlefield 2142
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

The four titles listed above are the first games ever published by the company for Mac OS X. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 and Madden NFL 08 are also being readied for release sometime in the next two months.

Here's hoping that this trend continues and that more and more developers and publishers give Mac gamers some much-needed love. All of these games are now available for purchase at the Apple Store.

There seems to be confusion with regards to publishing rights on id Software's upcoming Rage (PC, Mac OS X, PS3, Xbox 360). id Software's mainstay publisher is Activision, and many have assumed that they (Activision) will be the ones to release the game, especially its console versions.

It turns out though that the publishing rights still haven't been determined. Shacknews was able to get a hold of Tom Hollensend of id during the QuakeCon. He clarified that no deals have been signed yet between id and Activision. Now, despite this, a non-existent deal doesn't directly and automatically mean that Activision won't publish it. There still is the chance.

We're just hoping that they settle things already so that, finally, we get to even more footage of the game as it goes through development.

Just because global warming is an inconvenient truth doesn't mean learning about it has to be an inconvenient bore. French independent game and software developer Midori has just announced the release of its new game, titled Global Warming.

This game will put players behind the control of one of several characters, as a landfill is about to be set up beside their home.

Players must find a way to save their home from the dump by choosing an action card, which will affect their character's various stats (finances, morale, and health) in the next few rounds. These action cards will further have an effect on the character's surroundings (C02 emissions, waste, chemicals, etc). Further adding to unpredictability are the appearance of "accident cards,"  which randomly occur to add a degree of complexity to gameplay.

Global Warming runs under the Phelios game engine (PTK), and is compatible with both Mac OS X (10.3.9 or higher), and Windows (95/98/ME/2000/XP/Vista) OS. Here are the technical requirements:

• 512 MB of RAM
• 450 Mhz Processor
• 3D openGL video card

A free game demo should be available for download over at the Midori site (read link). Or if you're interested, the game's full version can also be purchased and downloaded for US$ 9.95.

Soon, Apple fans waiting for months on end to see big PC games get ported to their platform will be a thing of the past. Electronic Arts, the world's biggest game publisher is cooperating hand in hand with Apple to make porting that much faster.

EA COO Bing Gordon was with Apple CEO Steve Jobs as the two announced this exciting development at the Worldwide Developer's Conference hosted by Apple in San Francisco.  Big EA game franchises Command & Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be the first to ship on the Mac OS X platform followed by Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08.

To make the porting process easier, an engine called Cider developed by TransGames will be put into use. This will cut the development time significantly and keep Apple units in stride with their Windows counterparts.

TransGaming CEO Vikas Gupta says "traditionally Mac users had to wait to play the latest blockbuster games. "We're thrilled that TransGaming's Cider engine will dramatically decrease the time it will take to bring EA's hit portfolio of games to a thirsty Mac market."