Slog
News & ArtsWednesday, May 12, 2010
Games Mac Gaming Gets a Little Less Lame Today
Posted by The Stranger Testing Department on Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:52 PM
What was once prophesied has since come to pass: Valve is finally bringing Steam to the Mac. Which, sure, you can think of as iTunes for games. Wired has a list of all the launch titles.
And hey, holy crap, look: You can get the dark, funny, weird, awesome Portal for free until 5/24! (For Mac or PC.) That's not such a bad loss-leader.
The Stranger Testing Department is Rob Lightner and Paul Hughes.
2
Unfortunately the Weighted Companion Cube(TM) cannot follow you throughout the rest of the test and must be euthanized.
3
In other news, looks like a few more publishers are ditching Flash for HTML5, so my iPad will be chock full o' games.
That plus the WoW client ... now to see about pushing for The Sims ports.
That plus the WoW client ... now to see about pushing for The Sims ports.
5
Oh, no. This is terrible news. This will cause me to loose even more hours wasted away playing games. The only thing that has saved me in the past was the relative lack of games for the Mac.
There goes my weekend.
There goes my weekend.
6
Portal is just about the best game I've ever wasted my life on. Now I can play it on my Mac too? NICE!
Hey Valve! Port it to my iPad next!
Hey Valve! Port it to my iPad next!
8
Not a fan of steam. State of the art games are already extremely taxing on your computer's resources and with steam you're required to have ANOTHER program running in the background in addition to the game. Even if you play the game offline, it still forces you to run the steam platform.
Apple users can have it if they want... I'd be happy to be rid of it completely.
Apple users can have it if they want... I'd be happy to be rid of it completely.
9
@8: Absolute horseshit. State of the art games are taxing on your GPU - but aren't likely to max out your CPU or memory unless you have a crappy computer. And Steam isn't taxing on the GPU at all.
It's sort of like someone driving a golf cart complaining that the Yugo in front of him is holding up traffic.
It's sort of like someone driving a golf cart complaining that the Yugo in front of him is holding up traffic.
10
@9,
Not entirely true. I'm not a hardware expert but some games do tax both the GPU and CPU. GTA 4, for example, when it was ported was performing lousy on even on systems with the highest end vid cards. Rockstar's excuse was "well, you only have dual core and should really have quad core..." Yeah, so the problem could have been a shitty port on Rockstar's part but still, how do you define a "crappy computer?" Something older than 6 months?
Yes, steam isn't really a problem, it's not a hog or anything, but what about future stuff where it needs 2 progs running? Or 4? Or 15? The trend in software is to keep draining and taxing and hogging every bit of power available (and Apple applications are extremely guilty of this). They don't try to make the best product using the least resources... they try to make godzilla every time.
Game designers seem to target a demographic that is probably less likely to actually be playing games... that is, people with the cash to get a brand new Alienware system twice a year. Those kind of people don't play games because they have to work full time to make that cash. Those who can't afford it but want it are more likely to just pirate a copy. It's a strange business.
Ok I'm sorta ranting... I'm get off the soapbox now.
Not entirely true. I'm not a hardware expert but some games do tax both the GPU and CPU. GTA 4, for example, when it was ported was performing lousy on even on systems with the highest end vid cards. Rockstar's excuse was "well, you only have dual core and should really have quad core..." Yeah, so the problem could have been a shitty port on Rockstar's part but still, how do you define a "crappy computer?" Something older than 6 months?
Yes, steam isn't really a problem, it's not a hog or anything, but what about future stuff where it needs 2 progs running? Or 4? Or 15? The trend in software is to keep draining and taxing and hogging every bit of power available (and Apple applications are extremely guilty of this). They don't try to make the best product using the least resources... they try to make godzilla every time.
Game designers seem to target a demographic that is probably less likely to actually be playing games... that is, people with the cash to get a brand new Alienware system twice a year. Those kind of people don't play games because they have to work full time to make that cash. Those who can't afford it but want it are more likely to just pirate a copy. It's a strange business.
Ok I'm sorta ranting... I'm get off the soapbox now.
11
@10: Yeah, but unfortunately GTA IV is just a shitty port. It runs better on an XBox 360 than on my computer, even though every single relevant spec on my computer is better than the XBox. That's just a programming problem. Getting rid of Steam wouldn't help with that.
12
I get this error message on my doddering old G4:
"Steam is only supported on Intel-based Macs."
Which is probably a good thing for me, since I already waste too much time sitting in front of my computer.
"Steam is only supported on Intel-based Macs."
Which is probably a good thing for me, since I already waste too much time sitting in front of my computer.
15
@8: Screw resources, I hate Steam because it's another layer between me and playing my games that can fuck up and break.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
Hating People Doesn't Make Them Thinner by Jen Graves
-
Los Angeles Gay Bar Bans Bachelorette Parties Until Marriage Equality Is Attained by David Schmader
-
Fill in the Blank by Grant Brissey
-
This Reminds Me of the Great Calculator Scare of the Late '70s/Early '80s by David Schmader
-
Idiot Tries to Defend Bigoted Anti-Gay-Marriage Preacher on Anderson Cooper by Paul Constant
-
Six Moms with Too Much Time on Their Hands and a Shitty Website Decide to Fight Gay Superheroes by Paul Constant
-
Why Mayor McGinn's Wife Canceled Her Family's Seattle Times Subscription by Eli Sanders
-
What the Hell Is Wrong With Seattle's Pride Parade? by Dominic Holden
-
The Saturday Morning News by Unpaid Intern
-
NYC Man Ticketed for Not Riding in the Bike Lane by Jonathan Golob
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (16) RSS