Ubisoft sends word that the first Heroes of Might and Magic V expansion has shipped to retail: "Today Ubisoft, one of the world's largest video game publishers, announces that Heroes of Might & Magic® V: Hammers of Fate, a Heroes of Might and Magic® V expansion pack, has released and will be at North American retailers this week." The dates of availability vary greatly from one location to another, so give your favorite store a phone call before you drive to the mall. Or shop online.

Meanwhile, Inside Mac Games posted an early preview of the base game for the Macintosh. We learn that the Mac version is going to use Cider, "a sophisticated portability engine that allows Windows games to be run on Intel Macs without any modifications to the original game source code." That decision will allow Freeverse able to ship this year, at the expense of a couple of performance issues. Other concerns include the availability of the map editor, the changes introduced by the recent PC patches and the fact that custom maps don't work on the Mac at the moment. IMG will have a final review following the game shipping.