Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition – Shipping Date Moved to November 2012

Overhaul Games has announced that Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition’s ship date has moved from September to November 2012 (including the Mac version). It’s a modern cross-platform remake of the original Baldur’s Gate (1998) and its Tales of the Sword Coast (1999) expansion pack, and will be available for $19.99 US through Apple’s Mac App Store.

It’s high on my list of most anticipated OS X games for the year – I loved the original Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II games, and while BioWare has strayed very far from those days, Overhaul Games appears to be trying hard to capture the spirit of those original D&D computer roleplaying games as well as bring them up to the modern era. I hate that they made this announcement so close to the original ship date, but better to release a solid game from the start.

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RIP Sean Smith, aka Vile Rat

There was a lot to talk about in the world of Apple/Mac gaming today, but I’ve had a hard time getting around to posting about it. I’ve avoided the internet and TV since early this morning, when I learned of the death of Sean Smith, aka Vile Rat or Vilerat, from EVE Online and a couple of internet forums. He was killed yesterday in Libya, along with the US Ambassador and I believe two others. He leaves behind a wife, two children, and a helluva lot of friends.

One of the nice things about having your own little site on the internet is being able to write just about anything you want, but I’m finding it hard to write about this.

I knew him first from an online forum, but I better knew him as a player in EVE Online, having chatted with him online quite a bit while I was active in EVE. I even met him briefly in real life at gathering as well, and he was one of those rare types – somebody who was the same person online and offline – a really nice guy, really sharp. Surprisingly, or maybe not, the media outside of the gaming world is covering his link to the gaming world.

Many knew him through the Council of Stellar Management, which is an elected group of players who meet with the developers of EVE Online. He was best known for being a diplomat and spy in EVE Online, two things that many try, and most fail at – it requires a helluva lot of patience, nerve, and self-discipline, while at the same time being able to put things that you had invested a lot of time in behind you when they didn’t pan out. He was considered among the best, if not the best, of players, in those professions.

Due to the nature of his actions in EVE, a lot of things he did on behalf of the groups that he was a part of were never mentioned publicly. If you read the nearly 50-page tribute thread in EVE Online, you can get a glimpse of the kind of player he was – many players/groups who were on opposite sides to him still respected him, and more than a few developers/support at CCP/EVE Online talked about him as well.

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Chris Roberts Getting Back into Space-Based Games

Chris Roberts, of Wing Commander, Privateer, Freelancer, and Starlancer fame, looks to be finally getting back into video games, and space-based games at that. Roberts has a new company it appears, and has been working for around a year.

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