I sat down with Rob from Bare Feats last week and had a chat about the best graphics card for OSX, the future of OpenCL and of course, games and performance.
Ah, finally the review of Aquaria - Bit Blot’s most wonderful underwater side scroller. And done by none other than The Mac Gamer’s first writer not to be me! Hooray!
A big hello to M. James Peders (lots of spam and viagra offers please), a welcome member to the crack team of, er, reviewers working over time, full time, part time to bring you the best reviews and shoes in the Mac world…
Interesting post on 25 years of Apple at The Register:
Most Macs are, in general, closed systems that aren’t meant to be upgraded or customized, despite the fact that an entire third-party ecosystem exists to do just that. Most Mac users, however, don’t exploit upgrade possibilities other than RAM - and except for the top-of-the-line Mac Pro and the hard drives of the MacBook and MacBook Pro, Apple doesn’t make it easy for them to do so.
That said, if you buy the right Mac, it’ll do pretty much what you want it to do right out of the box - unless you’re a devoted gamer. Despite the fact that Apple continually tries to assert that it’s got game, the truth is that no Mac can carry the jockstrap of a fully hot-rodded Windows box when it comes to PC gaming.
A big meh.
…we’ll brace ourselves for January 24, 2009. There’s no telling what the Jobsian cult might do.
A glimmer of hope, maybe? If it’s anything regarding games, I’ll eat my own head.
“The truth is Steve Jobs doesn’t care about games.” *
- John Carmack, 2008.
When you have a company so secretive as Apple, who knows what they’re working on? The latest iDevice, a new online service, a time machine? Sadly all three of those seem more likely than anything to do with games.
For years, the Mac has been considered a laughable platform for games. Hell, the Mac gamer as a statement is still an oxymoron…
John from Wolfire lets us know that Overgrowth, their upcoming rabbit fighting game, is in alpha:
Wolfire Games just released an official alpha for its new game Overgrowth. Overgrowth is the sequel to the classic indie title Lugaru which achieved fame for its fast-paced, physics-based melee combat. While Overgrowth will inherit Lugaru’s tried and true fighting system, it will also be exploiting every cutting edge feature that Wolfire’s new Phoenix Engine has to offer. The alpha includes the beginnings of Overgrowth’s map editor and showcases the game’s terrain with advanced effects like, multi-sampled HDR framebuffer objects, dynamic blurred cube maps for ambient lighting, object and tangent space normal maps and atmospheric haze (just to name a few).
Even though Wolfire is just a small independent games company, Overgrowth’s graphics seem to be on par with AAA titles. Screenshots of the Phoenix Engine are available on the Wolfire Blog and updates are coming fast.
I’ll be sure to get my man-size paws on this asap and kick some rabbit scum ass. Tufty rabbit scum ass, too.
Not Fallout 3, CoD4 or even Spore - World of Goo. Maybe it’s the balls, maybe it’s the goo - who knows? But cats love World of Goo. Meow.
No news is good news, right? Well, maybe not when it has to do with games for the Mac. When there’s no news about games for the Mac, there’s nothing happening. Usually. It’s entirely possible that Apple have bitten into the Way It’s Meant to Be Played by NVIDIA and are securing ports of Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3 and Mirror’s Edge, but I somehow I doubt it. More likely Apple is discussing what colour iPod would make the world a better place.
So where does that leave me? Me being the worlds largest (not meaning I’m fat) Fallout fan evar? Roaming the post-nuclear holocaust landscape, that’s where! How? Because I can boot into Windows, that’s why! I’m a dirty, dirty Boot Tramp! I don’t need my stupidly expensive Mac Pro for Mac games, that would be stupid!
It’s a been a long time coming, but Aquaria for Mac has finally been released by Ambrosia Software.
Aquaria: A massive ocean world, teeming with life and filled with ancient secrets. Join Naija, a lone underwater dweller in search of her family, as she explores the depths of Aquaria. As players navigate through Aquaria’s richly textured surroundings, Naija learns to defend herself, heal, and to change her form for combat, stealth, speed, and more … skills she will need to defend herself against the perils of the deep.
Naija’s story, narrated fully with voice overs and a lush soundtrack, will become yours as you join her on this magnificent adventure.
Check out my interview with John Champlin from Ambrosia about Aquaria (and other things) and stay tuned for a review soon.
Wired have some super too-cool-for-school images of the launch of Wrath of the Lich King:

If World of Warcraft is your medicine, today is a big day. If, like me, you’re a recovering addict: it’s temptation. Sweet temptation.
Ah, obscure in-joke article titles. Everyone loves them. You see, John ‘Magnus’ Champlin (yes, in his spare time he is the World’s Strongest Man) from Ambrosia was kind enough to chat to me for 3% of the day about Aquaria, Multiwinia, Ambrosia, smoking jackets and other goodies. He’s called Champlin, for some reason we talked about champing at the bit, Bit Blot developed Aquaria, which is similar to champing (or chomping, depending on your region) at the bit. It all makes sense! Perfect sense! Onward, to Madness!
Continue reading ‘Champlin at the Bit Blot: Aquaria, Multiwinia, Ambrosia think mash up’
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