Gaming News Round-Up: December 8th, 2004

Today's round-up includes news of an Operation Flashpoint mod being used by the military, the results of an intriguing Mac-specific gaming competition, and the NRA making its long-awaited move into the gaming arena. - R&D software company BN Technologies has announced that a PC-based convoy team trainer developed in cooperation with Total Immersion Software for the Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Training Superiority Program, is now being deployed in Iraq after extensive testing with troops at Ft. Lewis, Washington. Called DARWARS Ambush! this networked, multi-player PC-based convoy trainer is designed to save lives and improve soldiers’ effectiveness in Iraq, Afghanistan, and future conflicts. BN comment that the company "acted as the 'executive producer' connection between the gaming community and the military training world" in development on this FPS trainer, which is apparently a modded version of Bohemia Interactive’s popular PC military strategy title Operation Flashpoint. - Independent gaming site iDevGames has announced the results of its uDevGames 2004 Mac gaming competition. The competition was founded in 2001 to 'encourage innovation in Macintosh game development', and attracted a large amount of custom game entries from the amateur and hobbyist field. The entries are now freely downloadable from the uDevGames website, and the overall winner of the competition was ShineBug by Charles Gowan, a game where you must "Collect bubbles of moonshine to keep your buzz!", with a Best Gameplay award going to Kill Dr. Cote by Justin Ficarrotta, handily billed as "Relentlessly insane top-down shooter. With zombies." - In a unique deal aimed at certain U.S. consumers, PC developer Speedco Shooting Sports Inc. has announced a licensing deal with the National Rifle Association to release a series of NRA-approved PC videogames. Apparently, the marvelously-named NRA Varmint Hunter is the first of 15 NRA licensed titles, and, according to the official press release: "The National Rifle Association was instrumental in the development of this game and supplied a great deal of the educational and safety materials necessary to bring the project together." Going forward, there are three releases scheduled for 2005, NRA High Power Competition (Spring 2005), NRA American Big Game Hunter (Fall 2005) and NRA Air Gun Competition (Mid 2005).