Filed under: Gaming

Boy, if you had to choose one company (including Apple) that has really led the charge for Mac gaming recently, I'd have to say Valve takes the cake, and that's no lie. Not only has the company brought an unprecedented set of quality titles to the Mac with Steam, but it's now announced that it will be sharing some of its graphical code for the Mac with Steamworks developers. That graphics layer coding is apparently the "real hard work" in making a game for the Mac, and Valve is trying to make that as easy as possible for its partner developers.

Why? Because -- and get this -- games sell more when they're on the Mac. Games that have added a Mac version since Steam went live on the Mac are seeing a 15 to 20% sales increase. That's actually for both platforms -- most Steam games available for the Mac share ownership on both Mac and PC, so they're not really tracking sales of one platform or the other. Still, having a game available on the Mac is a big bonus, as not only does it make Mac players possible, but it drives attention for both platforms (as you may have even seen here on our site -- when we post that a game has finally come to the Mac, even PC gamers consider going back to check it out).

Excellent news for developers already working with Steam, and also good news for those of us who enjoy running our favorite games from the dock rather than the start menu. Even Apple hasn't put the kind of work into reviving Mac gaming that Valve has in just the past few months.

[via Joystiq]

Stick with me on this one -- it's not strictly Apple-related, but I think it will have a big effect on the App Store in the future. Last week at Comic-Con, I saw the head of Disney's mobile gaming division, and I had to congratulate him; the company's Toy Story 3 app nabbed over 1.7 million downloads from the App Store.

That's huge for them; as he'd originally told me at GDC earlier this year, the Toy Story app was part of a test to see if "selling" an app for free would increase its audience (which could then be sold on in-app purchases and add-on content). That test was apparently passed with flying colors.

Then, of course, Disney purchased Tapulous a while back, and now they've picked up Playdom, an online social game developer, for a whopping $563 million. Connect the dots there, and it's pretty apparent that Disney has big plans for both gaming and the App Store. Social networking games are the hottest thing around in terms of in-app purchases, so I would not be at all surprised to see Disney combine its brands and marketing experience with Playdom's online gaming savvy and Tapulous' iPhone development talent in order to go big on some major free-to-play titles for the iPad and iPhone.

And let's not forget that a certain black-turtlenecked CEO happens to be on Disney's board of directors, too. I doubt that he's solely masterminding any of these purchases, but Jobs would definitely have the access and intelligence to see the power of free downloads on the App Store, and how those apps can use programs like iAds and in-app purchases to make a big splash. I expect we'll see some really big initiatives by Disney thanks to these Tapulous and Playdom purchases -- it's only a matter of time.

Dear Aunt TUAW,

PopCap Games recently released an update to Plants vs. Zombies boasting "multiple performance enhances and bug fixes" (sure, but I never had an issue on my 3GS). Now, the King of Pop Zombie is nowhere to be found! He's replaced with a zombie with an orange Afro, white 70s leisure suit and orange shoes.

Why? Why remove the King of Pop? Was there a threatening lawsuit? Can you all find out for us and get the scoop? I won't be updating anytime soon now.

Thank you from your loving nephew,

Alejandro

Gameloft isn't the only company having a sale this week -- Capcom has also put most of its iPhone titles on sale for Comic-Con: You can pick up the great Phoenix Wright for just $2.99, Ghosts 'n' Goblins, Dark Void Zero and Mega Man 2 for just 99 cents, or Street Fighter IV for $6.99.

Good set of deals to choose from there. I think that big EA sale a while back set a precedent for price drops like this -- a nice discount on a game quite a few people have been waiting to play can definitely send it catapulting into the top lists on the App Store. Phoenix Wright is definitely worth $3 if you've never played it before, so that title specifically should really benefit from a sale like this.

One more classic Steam title has been added to the Mac lineup -- Day of Defeat is now available on the OS X version of Steam. It's a Source-engine WWII multiplayer shooter that's not quite as popular as Counter-Strike or Team Fortress 2 (both of which are also available on the Mac at this point), but still provides some Axis and Ally-style fun. Personally, I think I prefer Enemy Territory, but Day of Defeat makes use of the Steam Play feature, so if you already own the game on Windows, you can download and play it on your Mac without paying any extra. If you've never played it before, you can pick it up for just $10 or (even better) buy it along with a few other classic Source titles for $30.

That just leaves the Left 4 Dead line as the last big Valve title yet to be released on the Mac. They've been pretty faithful with their weekly releases, so by this time next week, you could finally be killing zombies on the Apple OS. Stay tuned!

[via Joystiq]

As I kid I burned up an entire summer playing Wasteland on my Apple II. I spent countless hours playing Fallout many years later. Xenome is clearly inspired by these two games, and promises to chew up yet more of my time. You play a lone wanderer in the desert, searching for something and having a few nasty encounters with mutated animals and people along the way. Xenome: Episode 1 is also the first sliver in a much larger story, with an MMORPG to follow after other episodes (which will be single-player RPGs) have been released.

I had become pretty jaded with iPhone games in general, and words like "immersive" are trotted out so often I rarely believe the claims. But the first thing that struck me about Xenome's in-game world was the large, open landscape. There is a fantastic sense of scale in the game, with beat up old buildings jutting out of the desert landscape, looming over your character. You can go anywhere and do nearly anything, although your character is quite weak at first. The graphics are as good as you can get on the iPhone whilst providing ample geometry, although the game isn't yet tuned for Retina displays. This didn't matter so much to me, however, as the overall polish of the game is impeccable. The 3rd-person camera, for example, floats perfectly. It's clear Nine Pound Studios spent a lot of time on the artwork, music, sounds and in-game graphics because they're as good as anything I've experienced in mobile gaming.

Quite a few traditional gaming companies have made their way on to the App Store -- even companies like Sega, who've been around the block with its own consoles, have sold some games on Apple's platform. Heck, even Microsoft has created an app for the iPhone. But one holdout so far is Nintendo, and according to company president Satoru Iwata, that's not going to change anytime soon.

During a recent investor Q&A, he answered the question of whether the company might ever sell software on another company's hardware by saying that other hardware just isn't good enough. "Other companies don't share Nintendo's values or traditions when it comes to creating devices," he said. "We are absolutely not thinking of doing that."

He was speaking in the abstract of course (the actual question of the App Store wasn't brought up), but it does seem very clear that Nintendo isn't interested in releasing software on anyone else's platform. Until that changes, that means no Super Mario Bros., no Zelda, and no other Nintendo properties on the iPhone.

Of course, there's no shortage of games on the platform, and if you want quality platformers or arcade-style dungeon crawlers, you've probably already got them. But it's too bad that Nintendo is standing so firm -- if you want to play official Nintendo titles, it'll have to be on the DS, not the iPhone.

[via Kotaku]

Developer Aaron Ardiri pulled off the crazy feat last week of porting the classic Lemmings game from Palm OS not only to the iPhone, but also to Windows and the Mac ... in just 36 hours. That's 36 hours straight -- he liveblogged the whole process, and did actually pull it off, sending the iPhone app, which you can see above, into the App Store for approval.

There's just one hitch -- Ardiri doesn't actually own the Lemmings property. Sony does, and as soon as the company heard about his port, it dropped a cease and desist letter on him, commanding him to remove all ports he's hosted and not to port any other Sony games. So there's no way, as of now, that we'll see this app in the App Store.

Of course, if Sony knows what's good for them, the company could pay Ardiri to release the port for them, and we could all play the old version of Lemmings on the iPhone (and pay for the privilege). Ardiri says he'll "open communication" for such a deal, so we'll have to wait and see.

What started out as an April Fool's Day joke has spawned an actual product...sort of. Much like the infamous Tauntaun Sleeping Bag, people were inspired by Think Geek's gorgeous vintage arcade-style cabinet for the iPad. Who wouldn't be?

This working unit -- albeit kind of rough -- was made by the folks at Freekade. They make built-to-order arcade cabinets, as you might have guessed. With the old-school controls connected to this iPad, it looks like a little piece of nostalgic heaven. I get to play the winner!

The PC gaming community has long enjoyed the ridiculously awesome Steam sales Valve loves to break out during holidays and at other fun times of the year. The sales deliver game bundles for crazy cheap prices, even on AAA current titles. Steam's summer sale kicked off a couple of days ago. For the first time, Mac gamers get to join in on the fun thanks to Steam's recent adoption of OS X.

While there are hundreds of Mac & PC titles on sale through July 4th, most of the best deals are found on a few select games featured each day. Today's sales have two good selections that Mac gamers may want to check out. For strategy fans Paradox Interactive's deep historical real-time strategy game Europa Universalis III lets the player control a European nation and rewrite history between 1453 and 1820 AD. For adventure gamers, a bundle of all five episodes of the previously mentioned Telltale Games' Tales of Monkey Island is also available at a great price. The clock is ticking -- but thankfully Valve offsets the time for most US timezones so you can get a chance to pick them up in the morning.

If those two games don't belong to any of your favorite genres, there are a bunch of other titles included in the full sale. Right now is a great time to pick up any of Valve's growing list of games released for OS X with first-person shooters Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Portal and Half-Life 2. Better yet, grab the Valve Complete Pack for all of them so you're ready to go when Left 4 Dead 2 arrives on OS X.

Facebook farmers with iPhones and iPod Touches, your wait is finally over. Zynga -- the maker of incredibly addictive and lucrative, Flash-based Facebook games such as Farmville -- has released the much anticipated iPhone version of Farmville. You might remember that the title was touted at the recent WWDC keynote speech, along with the iPhone 4 announcement.

The game features everything you'd expect from the iPhone version of the game, minus the use of Adobe Flash, of course. It even features push notifications for certain events, much like the similar game We Rule. Also like We Rule, Farmville is free to purchase, with in-app goodies fetching prices anywhere from cheap to absurd.

If you were one of those who left Facebook but sometimes miss your beloved Farmville fix, hold onto your hats; you still need a Facebook login to play.

Just in case you missed it yesterday, Counter-Strike is now available ... wait for it ... for the Mac. Yes, possibly the most premiere PC game of all time is now playable (specifically the Source version) natively on the Mac, thanks to Valve's own Steam distribution service. And it's another Steam Play title, which means that if you own it on the PC (which you probably do if you've ever played FPS games in your life), you can download and play it right now on the Mac as well. You can even play cross-platform, so your buddies on the PC can finally let you into their clan -- assuming you're leet enough.

Just in case you don't own it, the game is also on sale right now for under $7. I tweeted on our @TUAW account last night that this might be the last big title in the Source library for the Mac (along with Half-Life and Team Fortress 2), but many of our followers correctly pointed out that we haven't seen Left 4 Dead or its sequel released on our platform yet, so stay tuned for that. A few of you also complained that Day of Defeat hadn't been brought over to the Mac yet, and that's true as well, though I wouldn't quite consider that as "canon" as the other games. But whatever floats your boat -- the more games on our platform, the better.

I met up with Chillingo at last week's E3 event here in Los Angeles, and got to see a few of their upcoming titles in action. Here's a few games they were showing off, and some early impressions of each.

Zombie Escape

This was probably my favorite game of the show -- it's a line-drawing game where you're tasked with drawing routes for survivors of a zombie apocalypse to rescue choppers. As they appear on sides of the touchscreen, it's your job to draw a path through the walking undead, and as the 28 days in the game go by, the difficulty ramps up with more undead and more survivors. Additionally, there are powerups and other items to collect, which give the game some tower defense-style elements, enabling you to defeat the undead from offscreen. But sending your survivors to get the powerups means they'll have to take separate routes and risk more danger.

Zombie Escape was about three weeks out from release when I saw it last week, so it should be on the App Store by the end of this month. It's definitely worth a look, especially if you're a fan of the line-drawing genre.

Here's two big updates to big games on the App Store lately -- first up, the much-loved Canabalt has now gone universal, so if you have an iPhone and an iPad and have already purchased the app, you can now play it in full resolution on your iPad. Of course, if you haven't bought the app yet, what are you waiting for? It's a classic one-button app, dripping with ambience, that's just $2.99 for both platforms.

Ngmoco has released their second big freemium title worldwide -- Godfinger is now available on the App Store for both iPhone and iPad. I got to play an early build of the app at GDC, and it basically combines Ngmoco's We Rule social and persistent functionality with some Pocket God-style gameplay. In other words, it'll likely be popular. I'm a little surprised the app didn't come out sooner -- Ngmoco is supposedly planning to release twenty new titles this year. If that's still true, they better get a move on.