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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends

Warhammer Online coming to the Mac

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jul 31st, 2009

More good news for MMO players on the Mac: Warhammer Online has joined the ranks of EVE and of course World of Warcraft by announcing the release of a Mac-compatible client. Most of you already interested were probably playing with Boot Camp, but that hasn't stopped Mythic from working on a Mac client. It's in beta now (and free to current players, with a free trial available for those who haven't stepped inside the MMO yet), and they're aiming for a release in the Fall. And how nice is this: Mac players will get two titles of their own, as well as an exclusive in-game trophy.

Unfortunately, the client doesn't run truly natively -- Mythic is owned by EA, so, you guessed it, Transgaming's Cider is behind this port, too. Cider isn't always the best way to run games (native would be the way we'd like to see it), but many of the problems we've seen with the technology are a few years old now, so hopefully it's gotten better (and that's likely what this beta is all about) -- hopefully they can work out all the kinks before the official release in the Fall.

Warhammer Online is an excellent MMO, especially notable for its heavy PvP elements and its innovative Public Quests and Tome of Knowledge feature (kind of like achivements, but even more in-depth). It's a little late coming to our platform, but it's good to finally see another big game take on Mac support.

Tags: boot-camp, cider, ea, eve-online, mac, mmo, mythic, port, tome-of-knowledge, transgaming, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, SDK, iPod touch

The Wolfenstick app can send and recieve data through the iPhone audio port

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Apr 9th, 2009

This is interesting -- Alex Winston, Ltd. has come up with what they call the Wolfenstick, a little iPhone app that can control Wolfenstein 3D Classic with a second iPhone through the audio port. Obviously this isn't a very practical setup, as buying a second iPhone just to control games on the first one probably isn't in anyone's interest. But it does open up a whole slew of possibilities for how a connection like this might be used -- as you can see in the video above, not only are controls and the accelerometer able to be transferred, but even game and app information can be sent across the cable.

Of course, the 3.0 update casts a nice large shadow across ideas like this -- we know for sure that there will be more hooks for accessories to work with apps on the iPhone, so having to go through the audio port may end up being more of a novelty, as it'll likely be much easier to go through the connector on the bottom of the iPhone. But if you want to play while the unit is charging (or just want to connect two iPhones with nothing more than an audio cable), there's definitely some promise here.

Tags: accelerometer, accessories, app-information, controls, iphone, iphone-3.0, port, transfer, wolfenstein-3d, wolfenstein-3d-classic

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Internet, Developer

City of Heroes comes to the Mac

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jan 9th, 2009

Along with EVE Online and World of Warcraft, Mac users have another popular MMO to play with. It took a while, but NCsoft has finally brought their superhero massively multiplayer online game, City of Heroes, to OS X. When we heard the game was ported over by TransGaming, we flinched a bit, but NCsoft has assured us that there is no funny DRM on the release, and our colleagues over at Massively have tried out the client early, and put to rest any major questions about the quality of the port, saying that it runs well, save for a few bumps when the action gets crowded on screen.

As promised, the Mac "Special Edition" is a digital release, and comes with both the City of Heroes and the City of Villians expansion, as well as a month of game time (after that there's a subscription fee to play along), and two exclusive items: a Mission Teleporter power, to get you directly into missions, and a special "Valkyrie" costume set. The game is available for $19.99 over on NCsoft's site right now, so if you've been waiting to get some superhero MMO action underway, now's your chance.

Tags: city-of-heroes, coh, eve-online, mac, massively, mmo, ncsoft, osx, port, transgaming, world-of-warcraft

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends

Transgaming makes deal with Ubisoft

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jul 3rd, 2008

First EA, and now gaming giant Ubisoft has inked a deal with Transgaming to wrap their titles in Cider and port them over to the Mac. Which seems like great news -- Ubisoft has a huge number of quality titles, and bringing those to the Mac must be great for gamers who appreciate a better operating system. But not so fast.

First things first, Cider hasn't exactly proven itself in terms of making great games, or even ports for that matter. And apparently Ubisoft is taking it slow -- rather than bring us games like Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed or the great Rainbow Six Vegas series, we're getting... wait for it... Catz and Dogz. Oh, and CSI: Hard Evidence, which was hardly a blockbuster on game shelves.

It's definitely good news that Mac gamers are getting more to play, but if this is all we're going to get, they can keep it. If they wanted to port us Far Cry 2 when it comes out, or maybe even the long-awaited Beyond Good and Evil 2 whenever it's done, awesome. But if all we're going to get is years-old bottom-of-the-barrel crapware, we'll stick with original Mac game developers, thanks.

[via Big Download]

Tags: catz, cider, csi-hard-evidence, dogz, emulation, gamers, gaming, mac, petz, port, transgaming, ubisoft

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Multimedia, Open Source, Leopard

XBMC being ported to Leopard

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jan 3rd, 2008

Xbox Media Center (or XBMC) is an open source media program designed to run on an original Microsoft Xbox game console-- for an open source app designed on a "hostile" platform, it's actually got one of the better media center interfaces around (and it's easy to plug into-- you can even use your iPhone to control it remotely). And so the crew over there has recently been porting it back to work with Linux itself-- all of the Xbox Media Center, none of the actual Xbox.

If it's on Linux, it shouldn't be too hard to get it back running on OS X itself, right? At least that's what elan on the XBMC forums thought-- he hacked together a close-to-working XBMC port on Leopard. They haven't released it in any fully workable form yet (if you want to dive in as a developer, you can probably start here, and good luck, you're going to need it), but as a few people say, there's definitely a call for a terrific open source media center for OS X, because Front Row doesn't cut it for everyone.

Thanks, floris!

Tags: leopard, linux, media-center, open-source, port, xbmc, xbox

Filed under: Software, Productivity

Give thanks and praise: native OpenOffice arriving next month

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Aug 31st, 2006

No, you aren't hallucinating: Macworld UK is reporting that a truly native version of OpenOffice (not the java-powered NeoOffice port) will be shipping next month. OpenOffice's journey to running on Mac OS X in a native format has been a rollercoaster ride over the years, with a post on their site in January of '05 basically nixing a native port altogether.

However, the stars have realigned and the port will see light of day after all. If you need visual proof, one of OO's developers posted some native screenshots on his blog. As far as when we can get our hands on a non-X11 OpenOffice package, we're tossing our chips in with Macworld UK's that we'll most likely see this release at September's OOoCon. Stay tuned.

Tags: mac, openoffice, os x, osx, port, porting, x11

Filed under: Gaming, Odds and ends, Freeware

Blast from the Past: Lemonade Stand

by Damien Barrett (RSS feed) on Feb 17th, 2006

Okay, this is the part where Damien gets ridiculously excited about something extremely silly because it reminds him of one of the very first times he used an Apple. Someone has ported the ancient but classic game Lemonade Stand to Mac OS X.

By today's standards, this is a pretty boring game that doesn't stand even the remotest chance of captivating a young kid today, but back when I was a littlun, this game was incredible!

Tags: lemonade stand, LemonadeStand, mac os x, old game, OldGame, port

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