Monthly Archive for October, 2008

City of Heroes for Mac

By Alex McLarty on October 30, 2008 in News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Transgaming just sent out a press release about City of Heroes for Mac:

SEATTLE and TORONTO, Ontario, October 30, 2008 – NCsoft®, the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), today announced a partnership with TransGaming, Inc. (TSX-V: TNG) to bring their award-winning City of Heroes® franchise to the Apple® Macintosh®. The game has been enabled for the Mac by TransGaming, a leading developer of portability technologies for the electronic entertainment industry. City of Heroes for Mac will be available for public beta testing with the release of the game’s thirteenth expansion, Issue 13: Power and Responsibility later this fall. The official launch will occur pre-holiday this year with a special digital-only Mac edition of City of Heroes, available across all NCsoft West consumer territories.

City of Heroes for Mac was made possible using TransGaming’s CiderTM Portability Engine, which acts as a “wrapper” around the game software, enabling it to run seamlessly on Intel-based Macs.  The partnership with NCsoft to develop and publish City of Heroes for Mac offers the Mac gaming community its first opportunity to do battle in the streets of Paragon City™ and the Rogue Isles™ in a persistent universe with no differentiation between the PC and Mac.  “NCsoft’s City of Heroes MMO is an incredible franchise and TransGaming is thrilled to provide Mac gamers the ability to demonstrate their creativity by building their own heroes and villains and immersing themselves in the battle between good and evil,” commented Vikas Gupta, CEO & president of TransGaming.  “Through Cider, the Mac version will parallel the developments of the PC version, providing all game updates, new features, and storylines simultaneously on both platforms.”

 

“Players will soon be able to join the battle of good versus evil in the most popular comic book MMO on both the PC and Mac platforms…and in the same game world,” commented Brian Clayton, executive producer of City of Heroes for NCsoft West. “Given Mac’s fame as a platform for creative people and City of Heroes’ unprecedented character customization options, I think City of Heroes is a perfect fit for the Mac gaming community.”

In City of Heroes, the most popular comic book inspired MMO on the market, players craft their hero or villain identities and join millions of other player created characters in a constantly expanding universe. Unparalleled character customization is a hallmark of the City of Heroes franchise. Players can choose from hundreds of different powers and thousands of costume options, resulting in near limitless personalization. Players may go it alone or band together with others in super groups.

The past three Transgaming titles have been digital download only. Probably because there is no market (here in the UK at least) for Mac games in store.

Fallout 3 for Mac

By Alex McLarty on October 27, 2008 in News. 41 Comments Tags: , , .

That’s a lie. There is no Fallout 3 for Mac. But, but! there is an interesting retrospective on Fallout on Eurogamer. With interesting facts such as:

Practically nobody bought the Fallout games. Lifetime sales in the UK, for instance, barely topped 50,000 units for the pair of them. Commercially, they were utterly disastrous. But if you can find one person whodid play them and talks about them with anything other than near-rabid devotion, it’d be quite a feat. 

Which is both shocking and secretly pleasing as it means that I’m in a minority of TRUE FANS. Ian’s burst mode? Dogmeat? Harold? Gizmo? Videogame brilliance that’s yet to be bested. Or bettered. Or hell, buttered. I personally feel there should be some sort of test before you’re able to play Fallout 3. I really don’t want the hordes claiming they know what Fallout is about after they’ve played Fallout 3. To be a TRUE FAN you must have played Fallout and Fallout 2 and spat upon the bastard Fallout Tactics. Only then are you worthy to install Fallout 3. Only then…

I will be playing Fallout 3 on my Mac this Friday, unfortunately via Windows, where I will be a true and proper Boot Tramp. Bethseda - get working on a Mac port, eh?

Boot Tramp

By Alex McLarty on October 24, 2008 in Boot Tramp. 9 Comments Tags: .

I admit it. I’m a Boot Tramp. I use Windows on a regular basis on my Mac. Sometimes, I switch on my Mac Pro and hold down the ALT key on start-up. Sometimes I don’t even know I’m using a Mac, sometimes I boot straight into Windows without knowing it! Oh god, sometimes I forget what I’m using - is it OS X or Vista?! It’s gone too far to be stopped, I’m a Windows user now. Might as well face it. I am a Boot Tramp.

I’ve been a Mac user for ages. I used to be a fan boy. Not anymore though. Now I’m level headed. Well, I’m less of fan boy and more level headed, I wouldn’t go as far to say level headed. Anyway, when Apple moved to Intel it was a bit of a shock. But that gave way to the ability to boot into Windows. To play Half Life 2 on my Mac. To STALKER on my Mac. Dreamfall on my Mac. Mass Effect, Crysis, BioShock, and more. Boot Camp opened my eyes to the world of games. I’d never owned a PC until Apple released Boot Camp.

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Multiwinia for Mac

By Alex McLarty on October 23, 2008 in News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .
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Ooo, Multiwinia for the Mac!

One of the most interesting looking games for the PC by Introversion is coming to the Mac, ported by the lovely people at Ambrosia. 

Long ago a computer scientist called Dr Sepulveda created a beautiful digital world existing entirely within a computer network of his own invention. This world was called Darwinia and it was inhabited by a peaceful, law-abiding digital life-form called the Darwinians. 

As the years wore on however the Darwinians became ever more aggressive and autonomous. They divided into factions, squabbling over Darwinia’s limited natural resources. Tribes began to roam the fractal voids hell bent on each other’s destruction, drunk on power and unswerving in the pursuit of world supremacy. 

Far and wide, they became known as the Multiwinians….”

Welcome to Multiwinia: Survival of the Flattest – the ultimate retro-arcade multiplayer experience! Choose from a selection of six hilariously fun, action-packed game modes, set in one of the most beautiful game environs you will ever set eyes on. 

Challenge your opponent to a game of stick-man slaughter, and watch digital-war unfold, as your Multiwinian army struggles to complete a chosen task faster and better than your rival’s. It’s fast, it’s furious, and only the flattest will survive!

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Stick man slaughter. Marvellous.

Ambrosia is my favourite Mac developer for the sole reason that they made the Escape Velocity series, now sadly dead (No, I can’t say that! Dormant, not dead! It’s coming back - mark my words!). I like them for other reasons too; they take their time, they do things right, and they deliver a kick ass game. I’m not just interested in their assets, but their methods too!

As for Multiwinia, I’ve never played. Just stood at the sidelines, crying that there wasn’t a Mac version. But there will be. Soon! Stay tuned.

Apple Heart NVIDIA

By Alex McLarty on October 23, 2008 in Articles. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .
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NVIDIA invited me to their press event in London for their new mobile GPU - the 9400M. Unfortunately as I live in the wilds of England and have only small sums of hard cash to hand, I had to leave early and travel on the cheapest form of transport. In the 21st century it’s not robot cars or teleportation, it’s flying. Yes, the train was more expensive. Daft, eh?

I left my house at 5:10 in the morning. That’s too early. It was dark and a warm breeze blew autumnal leaves down the street. I shuddered at the early hour and the thought of the long day of traveling and waiting ahead of me. The taxi driver was cheery and chatted all the way to the airport. After a twenty minute conversation about computers, jobs in the North East and the decline of our home town, we arrived at Newcastle Airport. Strip lightning, horribly bright for 5:30AM, make me blink and probably look dead. If I was an airport worker, I’d bring a shotgun to work. Just in case the hordes of sandal wearing flyers and binge drink horrors turned into the undead. But then again, this is why I don’t work at the airport. Airports don’t like their staff carrying illegal firearms around. Goodness knows why. The zombie apocalypse is coming. The buggers at check in made me take my shoes off too, just in case I’d hidden all sorts of fun things in there. Luckily I’d flushed the huge quantities of cocaine stuffed in my moccasins in a fit of panic prior to check in. Onward!

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