This is the first of a multipart series to discuss BioShock, Feral’s recent Mac port of the PC and console hit. I’ve just received my review copy and I’m installing as I type.
My plans are to avoid common review bullets and to create a continuous discussion on things I find interesting while I play the game, such as its narrative. For what it’s worth, I’ve yet to play BioShock. Its 360 release coincided with me finishing some education. I put it on my list of things to play, but I’ve yet the opportunity to really see it till now. In fact I even dodged reading its reviews; perhaps you can revisit your past experience alongside these new eyes.
My background centers around language and narrative, so I’m most interested in what BioShock does as a vessel for story more than anything else. I realize that much goes into story and that even user interface should at least augment the mood of a narrative’s delivery, but I’ll try to steer away from praise of its atmosphere, graphics, and audio—all of which it clearly excels—because, frankly, I wouldn’t be able to add much here nor would they be interesting to you, having already experienced it.
I’ll be running this on a 2.8Ghz iMac, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD2600 (256MB VRAM), a wireless keyboard and the new Magic Mouse. As some of you remember, I realized how defunct I was at Mac shooters without my number pad or a functional middle mouse button. When I played on PCs I mostly played shooters, and I had developed this rather arcane but significant way to map my controls so that (1) movement was key and both axes of movement were distributed between the natural rest of my fingers, and (2) shooting came after I could move (which, if you’ll allow me to indulge, is clearly derived from death-match and arena-type shooters rather than the slower, tactical ones that I’m more attracted to now).
That said I’ll use the default WASD setup, but upon failure I’ll plug in my wired keyboard for some heavier configuration. I’ve read of ControllerMate and even Colin Munro’s drivers that allow xBox 360 controllers on OS X. Feel free to post your advice on customizing controls for any Mac game that you heavily enjoy.
As Alex pointed out — which I noticed but didn’t even think to mention — BioShock has a menu item for the 360 controller. Unfortunately I have neither a wired controller nor the Wireless Gaming Receiver so I’ll stick to the mouse and keyboard for now, else use ControllerMate to configure the one, non-Microsoft USB gamepad that I own.
As a side note, BioShock seems to easily confuse my left and right mouse click on the Mighty Mouse, the Magic Mouse, and my older Logitech M500, all of which I’ve confirmed functional within the OS, ControllerMate, and another FPS. I’ve checked Feral’s site though I don’t see a support forum listed for BioShock as of this post. While frustrating, this is probably easy to fix.
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I have bought this game and noted the support for the Xbox 360 controller too. I have a Logitech “Dual Action” USB game controller. I also have several games controllers for my PS3.
Sadly I have found no way to get these to work with BioShock for the Mac.
I have contacted the makers of Bioshock about this and I was informed that support for other controllers, including my LogiTech, was a work in progress. That was several months ago however. The automatic update check is on but no updated for this game have been found to date. I hope that they weren’t ‘blowing me off’ when they said support for more game pads is being worked on.
I have bought this game and noted the support for the Xbox 360 controller too. I have a Logitech “Dual Action” USB game controller. I also have several games controllers for my PS3.
Sadly I have found no way to get these to work with BioShock for the Mac.
I have contacted the makers of Bioshock about this and I was informed that support for other controllers, including my LogiTech, was a work in progress. That was several months ago however. The automatic update check is on but no update has been found for this game to date. I hope that they weren’t ‘blowing me off’ when they said support for more game pads is being worked on.
PS – I think I should have mentioned that I have played the first level of this game as a demo on the PS3. I used the game controller for the PS3 of course. I have a Magic Mouse for my iMac but I find it way too sensitive – too rapidly switching weapons thus making it difficult to select the weapon one wants when at the same time dodging the baddies.
I wound up buying ControllerMate and then using a wired Logitech in place of my Magic Mouse. The setup worked rather well. I created several macros that toggled my weapon groupings. Also, I don’t like a toggled crouch, so I created a macro to allow a press-release crouch system.
It looks like ControllerMate may have rudimentary PS3 controller support. I did a quick search and found something at the bottom of the following thread.
http://www.orderedbytes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3372
Best of luck!
You’ve tried this, right?
http://tattiebogle.net/index.php/ProjectRoot/Xbox360Controller/OsxDriver
If Feral haven’t replied, send them another email. They’re a helpful bunch.