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PC to Mac to PC

One of the frustrating things about being a Mac user and a gamer, is the near-lack of games for Mac OS. Sure, there are some, and I even own a couple of them. But I make no claims that my dual 1.25 GHz G4, even with its full gig of RAM and ATI 9500 card is anything resembling a game machine. For that, I keep a separate Windows PC. Otherwise I'd be stuck waiting for games to be released for Mac, which can take anywhere from a month to a year (or possibly even much longer, as was the case with the two Fallout games which were only just released for Mac last year). And being a hardcore gamer, this was never a consideration for me.

Blizzard took the lead by releasing WarCraft III as a hybrid Mac and PC disc from day one, but that's really very rare. As much as I'd love to see that happen more often, I'm not going to hold my breath. What I would like to see more of, is what id's done for years, and that's to make the only native portion of the game the actual executable file, allowing you to download the playable demo and use the files off your PC disc to get the full game on a Mac (or Linux box, for that matter). This can be done with any Quake game, and some of the third party Quake engine titles as well.

There are two games I can see myself wanting to do this with: Unreal Tournament 2003 and HOMM IV. In both cases I already own the PC version, but would like to use 'em on my Mac, and don't feel like going out and buying them all over again. Of the two, I'm much more likely to buy UT2k3 again, since I miss being able to jump into a quick game on my server and then get back to work without having to get up and walk across the room (not to mention the fun of multitasking!). I mention this now, as I face the prospect of having to pack up my computers for the move, and am trying to avoid doing this, as I'm still desperately addicted to HOMMIV. While I do have Heroes III Complete for Mac, I'm enjoying the storyline of part IV, and don't want to regress until I've seen this thing to its conclusion.

All of this would be moot, if Virtual PC were able to run games, but sadly it can't (believe me, I've tried). My iBook doesn't do VPC so well, but my desktop does it perfectly, and it made a world of difference for me during my recent switch from a PC to a Mac desktop. There is some hope on this front, as RealPC is back from the dead, and claims to be able to run games. Apparently they signed a non-compete agreement with Connectix, which became null and void when Microsoft acquired Virtual PC. So we'll see. In an ideal world I could effortlessly glide from one OS to another, taking my games with me as I did it. It probably won't happen, but that doesn't mean I can't hope for the best.

Posted by jason at April 21, 2003 04:00 PM | TrackBack | Read more: Apple , Games