Monthly Archive for September, 2009

BioShock for Mac announced

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Ken Levine’s 2007 classic BioShock has been announced for Mac by London based developer Feral Interactive, with release likely scheduled for the end of the month:

On October 7th, prepare to descend to the depths of the undersea city of Rapture when Feral Interactive releases the critically acclaimed BioShock® for Mac. Developed by 2K Boston and 2K Australia, and originally published by 2K Games, BioShock introduces gamers to an exciting world filled with fascinating characters, intelligent enemies and complex moral choices that define the foundation of the game’s world. With its rich story, meticulous attention to visual detail, tense action and infinite replay value, BioShock delivers the perfect blend of storytelling and first-person action.Barely surviving a plane crash, the player lands in icy uncharted waters and discovers the undersea city of Rapture, a failed utopia whose citizens had embraced genetic engineering before descending into pure anarchy. Power and greed have run amok and the city has succumbed to civil war. To survive, gamers must turn everything they find into a weapon, use their powers of observation to piece together what happened and make the difficult decisions necessary in order to escape a paradise gone badly wrong.

Fans have embraced BioShock’s mysterious world filled with powerful technology and creative gameplay. BioShock is also renowned for its rich visual detail depicting a gorgeous Art Deco world set deep beneath the sea.

“The look and feel of BioShock is breathtaking,” said Feral Interactive’s David Stephen. “Combined with the remarkable depth and sophistication of the storyline, as well as the pure adrenaline rush of playing, BioShock will set new benchmarks for Mac gaming.”

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Free plants and zombies at PopCap

PopCap have announced a free flash version of Plants vs. Zombies, playable via their website:

PopCap Games…announced that it has launched a free Flash-based online version of Plants vs. Zombies on www.popcap.com. Available exclusively on PopCap’s website, the new Flash-based Plants vs. Zombies provides consumers with a way to enjoy endless undead-battling plant-based action and strategy at no cost. A front-runner for game of the year, Plants vs. Zombies has met with greater initial sales success than any previous PopCap title.

In Plants vs. Zombies, players use over 40 zombie-zapping plants like peashooters and cherry bombs to slow down, confuse, weaken and ultimately destroy more than two dozen types of zombies before they can reach your front door. Each zombie has its own special skills, and each plant has its own combat and/or defense mechanisms. As players battle the fun-dead, obstacles like a setting sun, creeping fog and a swimming pool add to the challenge. With four modes of play (Adventure, Mini-Game, Puzzle and Survival) the game is never the same twice — and the frightening fun never ends!

The Flash version of Plants vs. Zombies includes:

  • 3 available game modes (Adventure, Endless Survival, Vasebreaker)
  • 14 levels of Adventure mode
  • A zombie not found in the PC version!
  • 6 zombie types and 12 plants with which to stop them
  • Graphics and gameplay faithful to the PC version
  • Unlike most of our web based games, PvZ streams in the music of the PC version as you play
  • Enhanced performance features of Flash 10

What do I gain by gaming on a Mac?

Every now and then I look at the range of Macs you can buy. I weigh up the pros and cons of owning a laptop on a stand iMac. I look at the laptops, usually reasonably priced, but I don’t need their portability. I look over the the Mini, the cheapest Mac, but gasp at the paltry and expensive specifications. As always, I decide on the Mac Pro. It’s the only Mac that can be expanded beyond memory and hard drive. It’s the obvious choice for gaming, but the barrier is cost. Your ticket to upgradeability? £1899.

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HD4870 for Mac

In the UK the HD4870 from AMD is the most powerful officially supported GPU for Mac OS X. The GTX285 from EVGA, while comparable, is currently only available in the US (for benchmarks head to BareFeats).

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EFiX: illegal?

I tried EFiX earlier this year, a boot loader by Art Studios Entertainment that allows the install of Mac OS X on generic PC hardware, and it worked largely as advertised. Many users have reported serious problems with the company’s practices and now there are allegations over the illegal use of open-source software in their boot loader. Tom’s Hardware has posted a follow-up on their experiences with EFiX:

When we tested our module, everything did work as claimed. However, not all users were able to get a 100-percent working system. Eventually, ASEM released a new firmware, but then things started breaking. For example, our onboard LAN no longer worked with Apple’s Bonjour protocol. This meant that it couldn’t see other Macs on the network (unless you directly connect), and iTunes couldn’t share music. This problem, existed for a considerably long time. While there were solutions around it (like obtaining another standalone network card), it was frustrating.

As time went on, more problems were introduced while others were fixed. ASEM customers grew increasingly frustrated and voiced their concerns onto the forums. Unfortunately, many forums posts ended up being removed by the ASEM moderator team. Many users, also complained that their EFI-X 1.0 modules were dying after some time of use. Some customers were experiencing intermittent booting problems. Sometimes the module would be detected by the system BIOS, other times it wouldn’t. After a while, the modules themselves would no longer be detected at all. Unfortunately, this also happened to three of our modules.

On the other side of the net, members of the OSX86 community suspected that the EFI-X module was nothing more than a repackaged Chameleon/Boot-132 bootloader placed onto a USB stick with DRM to prevent reverse engineering. Telltale signs included problems that also existed with the software bootloaders, as well as the same compatibility charts. Coincidentally, issues that were patched up in the OSX86 community became available on the EFI-X modules shortly after. Throughout all this, ASEM still denied any connection to Chameleon or Boot-132.

There is now hard coded evidence that even the firmware updating utility used by the EFI-X module steals code under the GNU Public License without proper attribution, and in fact, replaces all refrences to the original libary with its own name.

For more information head to the EFiX Users Forum, Aserebln’s blog and MacLifer.