Mac game industry-heavyweight Macsoft is enjoying the release of its country-building simulation Tropico as well as the announcement that the company will publish Duke Nukem Forever.

Tropico, which shipped last Wednesday, puts you in control of a small "remote Carribean island. (No, we did not say Cuba, thank you very much.) Playing the role of Fidel Castro - excuse us - the role of local dictator, you are responsible for the income, prosperity, and happiness of your people, as well as the tourism and the heft of your Swiss bank account. Fans of the Sim-city/ant/tower/et cetera franchise will definitely want to check this one out.

In Duke Nukem Forever, you enter the role of, well, Duke Nukem, a dirty-talking, violent, womanizing tough guy who blows up a lot of stuff. We havenit heard about the storyline, but we conjecture that it will involve saving the world. Did we say you get to blow stuff up?

The rights to the Duke Nukem franchise belong to Take Two Interactive, which, as we have reported previously, appears to be positioning Macsoft as their clearing house for porting Mac games. Other Macsoft ports of Take Two Titles include Myth III and Max Payne.

More generally, Product Manager Al Schilling had some interesting comments about Macsoftis continuing commitment to the casual games market. When we asked if the company was pleased with how titles like Wheel of Fortune, Casino, Monopoloy, and Risk II had performed in the marketplace Mr. Schilling replied, "Theyive done fairly well; weid certainly like to see them do better. What weid really like to see is a retailer like a WalMart or a K-Mart step up to the plate and carry Macintosh software."

Macsoft is trying to achieve just that:

We always speak to those retailers, and have been for years, and Iim sure all the other Mac publishers [do] to. Itis simply a matter of volume....They run the numbers. I think if Apple continues the success that theyive been enjoying over the last couple of years...weill see the installed base grow, and hopefully weill get to that point where weill see mass-market retailers...carrying Macintosh software.

Regardless, Macsoft is continuing to announce and release titles at a dizzying pace, and we at the Mac Observer are trying to keep up. Stay tuned for reviews of their upcoming titles, and of course, for further coverage of the MACWORLD Conference and Expo.