Thanks to everyone who read what we wrote and took the time to comment. Hats off to all the writers of the last three years who took time out of their mortal lives to contribute. I think we wrote some pretty cool things.

There’ll be no more comments and no more content, but the site will stay live as long as Western civilisation prevails.

Thanks and all the best,

The Mac Gamer Staff.

My complaints against Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy are simple and very fixable:

• Allow me to save my camera position so I can toggle back to tactically advantageous perspectives;
• Give me a topographical overlay that represents the ground a unit can see when I click him;
• Improve Mac performance ever so slightly. (The Combat Mission camera pans better through Boot Camp than it does in OS X.)

Otherwise, I’m fairly enamored with the game. In fact, I created a slide show to communicate this pleasure with you.

Enjoy.

(To start, click the first image. To progress, click the title at the bottom right of each slide.)

By the time you all see this, dear readers, Mr. Macgoo will have his copy of EVE Online: Incarna, and my brain will likely have melted out my ears from overexposure. I am super-stoked for this new build of EVE, and I am eagerly awaiting almost every aspect.

First and foremost is walking in stations. This is by far the biggest and most fanfare-ish new feature of Incarna. The new characters released in Incursion was a lead up to this, and soon people will by wandering around their captain’s quarters or stations in their full carbon-powered, graphics-card-murdering glory. I mean, generating the models in the character creator took my computer nearly 15 minutes, and so imagine what it will be like in Jita where the in-station population routinely numbers in the hundreds or even thousands! I can just imagine watching in horror as the titanium body of my iMac melts into a pathetic silver puddle at my feet and then quietly weeps to itself…but back to what I was talking about.

The captain’s quarters is also a new feature, and it’s where you will likely spend most of your time in stations. These quarters will have a nice balcony for viewing your ships, lots of necessities like a couch, a mirror, and a big, low-quality viewscreen for watching irrelevant news shows. If they let you surf the web or access files from your computer, I will totally play games while playing a game.

Other new things we be included with the Incarna release. No doubt the war on lag will continue, as will the need for more explodey explosions. In the fun department, the new turret graphics are due to release with Incarna, as is a new skin for the Maller, an Ammar cruiser. Due to the fact that I fly a Maller (and that I take pride in my turrets) this is a big improvement for me. I always thought the Maller looked mundane for an Ammar ship, but I flew it for its effective armor bonuses, and now that they look awesome, well…bonus!

The last thing that will be coming with Incarna is forewarning that an unprecedented link of game genres will be just around the corner. Dust 514, CCP’s pending console-based MMO/FPS will be linked to the EVE Online universe, allowing the two games to effect each other. I have no idea how this will work, because it has never been done before, but the potential for awesomeness is limitless. I have attempted to research other precedents, and the only hits on Google and Yahoo are simply not related or are about Dust 514. There is quite literally nothing of this scale that has been done before. This could turn out the be the biggest flop in history, but, knowing CCP, this will likely be the most awesome combination of games since…well, okay, it has no precedent.

More updates will come as I play with the new build, but until then, good luck, fellow capsuleers. Have fun with the new features!

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

At this point in the tournament I must say I feel deeply sorry for Unaffiliated and Ushra’Khan. They got the short draw and were placed in a group with last year’s finalists, neither of whom have lost any skill whatsoever. Since only the top two teams from each group advances, neither Unaffiliated nor Ushra’Khan had any realistic chance of making past the first round, no matter how badly Pandemic Legion and HYDRA RELOADED beat each other up in their match this coming Saturday.

So far, these teams have sealed themselves a spot in the next stage: Paisti Syndicate from group B, HYDRA RELOADED and Pandemic Legion from group D, Black Legion and B A N E from group E, and White Noise from group G.

The next Alliance Tournament matches are on the 18th, this coming Saturday. The matches you shouldn’t miss are Pandemic Legion vs. HYDRA RELOADED (this will be a rematch of last year’s finals and will likely decide who is the top seed heading into the next stage), The G0dfathers vs Wildly Inappropriate., The Kadeshi vs Get Off My Lawn (Group A is still up in the air, and so The G0dfathers, Wildly Inappropriate., The Kadeshi, and Get Off My Lawn still has a shot at the next round), and RvB – Red Federation vs SOLAR FLEET (this will be a deciding match; the winner continues and the loser goes home).

Watch matches live on EVE TV. Watch a recap of B A N E vs Unaffiliated on YouTube.

And have fun!

Fans of puzzle games have had much to rejoice about lately. In addition to the well-recieved Tiny Bang Story by Colibri Games released a few weeks ago, we gamers are also greeted by Lume from State of Play Games. Shortly after stumbling upon this indie title, I found myself charmed by its implementation of real-life backdrops mixed with CG animation. However, since aesthetics alone do not make a good game, I set out to determine if Lume could maintain my initial interest or if this would be yet another shiny trinket cluttering up my list of games on Steam.

Lume’s story aims to capture the awe and wonder that a child has about the world by placing you in control of Lumi, a young child off to visit her grandfather. Upon reaching his house, Lumi discovers the lights are off and the doors are locked. Attached to the door is a note from her grandpa saying that he stepped out for a bit to run a few errands. Knowing that Lumi is a fan of challenges, her grandpa has scattered some puzzles throughout his home in the hopes that she will find a way inside and restore its power before he returns.

The first aspect I noticed about Lume was its innovative art style. Instead of relying solely on 2D or 3D modelling, State of Play decided to physically create each scene in Lume out of cardboard cutouts which were photographed and used as backdrops within the game. Each landscape element was therefore painstakingly created, and the effort shows. Everything from Grandpa’s house to the distant trees share a unified artistic perspective based on simple design and a clean color palette which I found quite endearing.

In my experience with puzzle games, I feel that they often suffer from confusing sceneries that make part of the game’s challenge finding the puzzle itself. Lume’s clean aesthetics alleviated this issue by providing obvious cues where I could go, what was usable on each screen, and where each puzzle was located. This was a delight given that I could spend less time lost and more time focusing on the challenging puzzles.

Were I a judge at that fair, I would certainly being giving Lume first prize.

Lume’s aesthetics were not only beautiful, but they were also a wonderful compliment to the game’s theme of child-like exploration. The clean art style immersed me into a world where I felt as though I was a child again, lost in a diorama thanks to my overactive imagination. As I watched Lumi playfully scale and hunt through the world, something resonated with a part of me that, not long ago, would turn an activity as simple as turning on the lights into an adventure. Lume created a sense of childhood curiosity and innocence that I’ve not seen in a game since I reviewed Windosill. I also enjoyed how the diorama-esque setting combined with exploring for alternative energy sources to restore power to Grandpa’s home turned the game almost into a science fair project. Were I a judge at that fair, I would certainly being giving Lume first prize.

Once I got past ogling Lume’s aesthetics and moved onto its gameplay, I found a rich and rewarding set of puzzles to test my intellect. Each puzzle was well-crafted to be straightforward enough to solve while still providing me with a few ‘bang my head on the desk’ moments before I found the correct solution. It was also a pleasant surprise to find that no two puzzles ever felt the same. I found myself switching between finding keys, number manipulations, and music memorization all within the course of the game, and it felt natural as every puzzle complimented the overall goal of restoring power to Grandpa’s house. I would have appreciated a built-in hint system, a la Machinarium and Tiny Bang Story, for those moments I was completely stuck, but this is a minor issue.

Lume’s puzzles were challenging and addictive, but there were unfortunately far too few of them. In fact, the entire game was shorter than expected as I managed to complete it in little over than an hour. Although the developer has already made it known that Lume is just the first part of a series, its short length made it feel like a proof of concept rather than a full-fledged title. Considering that it also costs $7 at the time of this review, Lume feels overpriced for the amount of gameplay it provides.

Were you only mildly interested in purchasing Lume, I recommend holding off until the price drops to a more reasonable level. However, if you’re like me and want to see this title continue to develop into a full series, I say pick up Lume now at its current price and consider it an investment for the promising future of puzzle games.

Riven (1997).

Kyle Chayka over at Kill Screen discusses photorealism in videogames:

…what happens after [photorealism] is achieved? The photorealistic approach seems to me to be a dead-end street, an aspiration that, once perfectly achieved, leads to a death of possibility.

According to Chayka, photorealism in videogames is a limiting factor that stifles artistic innovation and when videogames reach their zenith we will be left with a world already explored by other art forms. Chayka paints a romantic and convincing picture, that we shouldn’t settle for the cold, hard structures of realism, instead gamers should demand, and developers should deliver, new worlds in new ways, not just facsimiles of our own world, no matter how pretty they may be. Chayka prompts the reader to look at Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2 as examples of videogames striving for photorealism.

I don’t think photorealism in videogames is a dead-end, and I think it’s unfair to label it as such. In traditional art, photorealism is one of a number of artistic movements throughout history that have contributed to new ways of seeing. While a movement is easy to label, it’s not so easy to understand, especially when trying to understand it’s effects on the larger movement of art. Labelling one of these individual movements within the continuous exploration of art a “dead-end” doesn’t seem to make sense.

Battlefield 3 (2011 TBA).

Take a look at Battlefield 3, one of a number of videogames that use radiosity engines to create photorealistic lighting. Rather beautifully, radiosity has it’s basis in the theory of thermal radiation. The highly realistic visuals that videogamers enjoy are not just surface details but dynamic effects based on our understanding and simulation of natural laws. A videogame isn’t a picture, it’s not film or a work of literature. A videogame is a dynamic, changing thing with rudimentary laws and intelligence.

If we’re treading in the territories of art and wanted to talk about Battlefield 3, what could we say? Maybe that the soldiers, the weapons, the environments are all figurative, representations of objects from the world. Since we’re dealing squarely with representations of our world, surely it makes sense that we try and represent these things as accurately and realistically as we can? I’m not saying photorealism is the only route, just that it’s a route, and a perfectly understandable route given the subject and subject matter of many videogames.

But it’s here that the language we use begins to breakdown. The language and terminology we use to discuss art doesn’t seem to apply to videogames. Do the terms we use for art mean anything to a videogame? Chayka asks the reader what an abstract-expressionist videogame would look like. An interesting proposition, but I’d argue that this term doesn’t apply, especially to a figurative title like Battlefield 3. Does it even make sense to ask what an abstract-expressionist videogame would look like?

Crysis 2 (2011).

Chayka paints a romantic picture of videogames decoupled from photorealism. Here’s mine: in a sense, a videogame is more similar to our own world than other more accepted art forms. Step away from a videogame and it continues; characters move on, time passes, variables increment. Instead of photorealism being a dead-end, I see it as a door, a visual expression of simulation and scientific understanding. Videogames and science are like two galaxies slowly colliding. We’ll be dead long before it’s over.

Let’s not label things, let’s see where the path takes us.

The splash image for the original GOG.com Public Beta launch, circa 2008.

As hard as it may be to believe for some, gaming on the Mac has a long and storied history. Some of the biggest and most well known names like Electronic Arts, Interplay, Blizzard, Lucas Arts, and Sierra, began with games for the Macintosh. Times have changed since the heady days of the 1980s, not just for Mac gaming, but for computer gaming in general. With radical changes in production budgets and technology, the electronic and computer games industry has transformed from its crude, yet ambitious 8-bit beginnings into a multi-million dollar business. Games have evolved into something more than just another form of entertainment, with a growing emphasis on character development, social commentary, and narrative that have started to elevate gaming into an art form.

The original Deus Ex - one of the gaming industry’s finest examples of the argument of games as art.

It’s always worth taking a look back through the history of computer games, not just to try to learn from past successes and failures, but to enjoy games that have really shined as examples of excellence and fun. However, the march of technology has not made this easy. On the Mac, Apple’s transitions from the Classic Mac OS to Mac OS X and from PowerPC to x86/Intel has left gamers stranded. Many games, published by companies either uninterested or unable to provide continued long-term support, were neglected, left un-patched, and often suffered from poor performance and subpar stability. Meanwhile, Windows gamers experienced similar woes. Microsoft’s transition to Windows Vista led to many games falling into obscurity from compatibility issues, leaving them uninstalled and unplayed.

GOG carried the promise of offering some of the industry’s greatest and most important games, many of which were seemingly impossible to obtain even through illegal means.

In 2008 a small Polish company by the name of CDProjekt emerged on the Internet and promised to change the dire situation regarding classic games. Their project, Good Old Games, was unprecedented in the gaming industry: a place where you could legally buy classic gaming titles, fully patched to work on modern operating systems, complete with bonus extra content like soundtracks, concept art, desktops, and manuals. All DRM-free. All with unlimited downloads. And all under $10. Sound too good to be true? It certainly did. GOG carried the promise of offering some of the industry’s greatest and most important games, many of which were seemingly impossible to obtain even through illegal means. And yet, three years later, GOG is arguably the best place on the Internet to buy older computer games. However, there’s a catch, and for Mac users it’s a potential deal-killer: GOG officially only supports Windows.

Looking Forward

Ironically it was Apple’s decision to look to the future that allows us to take our trip into the past. When Steve Jobs made the public announcement that the move from PowerPC to Intel, Mac gamers treated the news with a mix of trepidation and enthusiasm. Four years after the Intel switch, Mac gaming is alive and well, and thanks to Apple’s transition to x86, GOG’s games now have a chance of being enjoyed by Mac gamers as well. For some, GOG’s catalog is a chance to relieve some Mac classics left behind by the march of technology. For others, it is a chance to experience some true gaming gems for the very first time.

Apple announces its transition to Intel processors at WWDC 2005.

As a member of the GOG community, a question I commonly see is, “Can GOG’s games work on the Mac?”. The answer of course is yes, with a copy of Windows and either BootCamp or a virtual machine like Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion. But not everyone has the money, time, or patience to purchase, setup and maintain, a Windows install for the sole purpose of playing GOG’s titles. Luckily, there are alternatives.

Alternative Grounds

The first (and in my somewhat biased opinion the best) of these alternatives is CrossOver Games. CXG is a unique branch of CodeWeavers’ CrossOver ($39.95 USD) that runs on a faster release schedule, taking advantage of newer and more recent changes to WINE, the ambitious open-source project that maintains a compatibility environment for Windows applications within Unix and Linux-based operating systems. The main advantage of CXG is its ease of setup and installation and substantial support from CodeWeavers. CodeWeavers also support the WINE project through sales of CXG.

There have been many freeware alternatives to WINE that have come and gone, but one of the latest and arguably best options is Wineskin maintained and supported by doh123. In many respects the interface of Wineskin has matured considerably, and while it’s not quite as simple to configure as CXG, Wineskin has become a lot easier to manage now that it has reached version 2.0. While Wineskin doesn’t enjoy the same level of official support that CXG does, its greatest strength is its ability to use multiple versions of the underlying engine powering WINE or CrossOver, which is a boon for running collections of games where some titles may work best on older or newer versions of WINE and CrossOver.

Feast or Famine

In combination with other stellar open-source projects like Boxer and ScummVM, these tools are the key that unlock computer games Mac gamers only dreamed of playing. If Mac gaming pre-Intel was a state of famine, we are now in a veritable feast.

GOG has been something of a watershed moment in my experience as a Mac gamer. Many titles I enjoyed in my youth—most of which I thought I’d never see or play again—all of a sudden are available. Many titles that I’d hoped would come to the Mac never did -until now. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be writing about my journey through the banquet of gaming I’ve enjoyed as a GOG member, customer, and Mac gamer. I’ll cover how you too can run many of the titles from the enormous library of games on GOG on your Mac.

Grab your forks and put on your napkins. Let’s dig in.

CCP have announced that DUST 514, their persistent, first-person shooter that shares the universe of EVE Online, will be released for the PlayStation 3 next year:

With DUST 514, EVE’s starship pilots can forge alliances with DUST 514 mercenaries to engage in fierce surface firefights to conquer territories on the planets of New Eden, which are common to both games. The actions of ground troops and orbiting attack fleets are tightly interwoven, with the real time actions of players in one game directly affecting the other. A single bullet fired on the planet below can pivot the balance of power in EVE Online. Every action has consequences, and every reaction has the potential to topple empires.

It’s great to see that CCP are still pursuing the butterfly effect idea they talked about a couple years back, the gist being that any action, no matter how small, has real consequences in the game world. While it’s a little too early to tell exactly how DUST 514 will play, it’s quite clear that CCP are on the edge of MMO gaming, constantly striving for greater, more immersive experiences.

Memoir ’44 Online moved from beta to retail today. Now this baby’s a full 1.0 versions old.

Check out my experiences with the Mac client. And if you haven’t created an account already, doing so will give you a free 50 ingots to start.

iOS 5 will bring an updated Game Center complete with profile pictures, friend recommendations and an overall achievement score (wow, catchy name). While these new features aren’t exactly revolutionary, and seem to be more about bringing Game Center on par with features of other gaming applications like Steam, they are welcome additions. If Apple can make Game Center an integral part of gaming on iOS, somewhere to taunt your friends, socialise and show-off, I’m all for it. I have a sole friend on Game Center, Luis as it happens, and together we’ve used it for exactly nothing. Game Center needs moar centre.

iCloud

iCloud makes sure all your devices have the same apps. And the same books. And the same documents. iCloud also backs up your information.

Clouds are great. I take pictures of them a lot. So floaty and fluffy. But hard, too. Hard with encrypted data, all manly and made of brushed steel. Swoon.

What appeals to me about iCloud is that a player can pick up their progress in their favourite game across all of their devices with zero fuss. This kind of simplicity for the user, not just for information like saved games, will take the chore out of managing devices. Thanks, Apple. You just gave me more time to enjoy my stuff.

AirPlay

Wirelessly transmit your iPad 2′s screen to your HDTV via the Apple TV. I’m thinking Stratergy with friends and late night Infinity Blade with the Mrs. (Yes, I managed to make Infinity Blade sound rude.)

While AirPlay doesn’t immediately grab me, I reckon it’ll be an elegant feature for sharing content. I’ve never outputted video from an iPad 2 to a TV, so I hope it’s not just mirroring on wireless; just look at those ugly black bars on the left and right in the image above.

Are you slavering with nerd rage that Apple missed something or are you readying the credit card? Sound off in the comments!