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Mac gets more games for 2008

Published on 16th January 2008 by Joe Martin

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Spore will both be coming to the Mac later this year.

MacWorld is go and, naturally, we're therefore seeing an awful lot of Apple related announcements. Fortunately for gamers, it's not all IPhone-this and Mac Air-that - there's also some cool new gaming news.

Not only has Aspyr confirmed that a Mac version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is in the works, but EA has announced a Mac version of Spore to be released in 2008 as well - dismissing our latest vapourware predictions.

Aspyr has said that the Mac OS X version of Call of Duty 4 will be available in May this year and that it'll go at the 'normal asking prices' (Read: $50 or £30, hopefully). However, the release doesn't clear up if the Mac version will be a possibly dodgy port of the PC brilliance, or if it'll be a remade and re-optimised affair.

Electronic Arts has been more specific with the Spore details however, confirming that the PC and Mac versions will both be out later this year. The Mac version will be powered by TransGaming technology which should handle the port flawlessly. EA has also pledged that it'll be only one of several EA games to see side-by-side PC and Mac releases.

"Part of the appeal of the Mac is that it allows you to do creative things very easily. And we think that lines up very closely with what you can do with Spore ... So it just feels like a natural place for Spore to be, and we're thinking about it up front rather than as an afterthought" said EA Maxis VP of marketing Patrick Buechner in a statement.

What's your gaming platform of choice and why? Does the Mac really hold potential as a gaming platform, or is Marathon highly overrated? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

18 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

DXR_13KE 16th January 2008, 13:25

http://www.transgaming.com/products/cider/
basically you can make the same game CD work on both platforms.....

mikeuk2004 16th January 2008, 13:31

Macs play games?? only kidding :)

Jamie 16th January 2008, 13:39

You can run Steam and Team Fortress 2 using Wine in OSX.

lewchenko 16th January 2008, 13:40

I know you can use boot camp to launch windows on Macs... but sometimes the drivers are buggy (eg. trackpad stops working properly on macbook pros under boot camp's XP)... so this news is a good thing.

If only Supreme Commander Forged Alliance came out for OSX... Id buy a mac pro then for sure.

Bauul 16th January 2008, 14:02

I wonder if being able to make a photo album whilst in game will be an added feature of OSX Call of Duty 4...

DarkLord7854 16th January 2008, 15:22

Oooh.. Spore? Awesome! :D

DaveVader 16th January 2008, 15:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeuk2004
Macs play games?? only kidding :)

didn't you pay attentions to the Mac/PC ad's and how Macs are so much better at the fun stuff?

completemadness 16th January 2008, 15:47

Wont macs have problems, i mean, whats the best gfx card you can get in a mac?

And, wheres the linux port ;)

Cupboard 16th January 2008, 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by completemadness
Wont macs have problems, i mean, whats the best gfx card you can get in a mac?

Well the MBP has an 8600GT (which is better than a lot of PC laptops) the iMac has an HD2600/2400 (worse!) but the Mac Pro can have an 8800GT or a Quadro FX 5600 (this says it has 1.5GB memory, so is that like 2 8800GTXs, but optimised for work?)

devdevil85 16th January 2008, 19:13

wow, "Mac gaming"...didn't think there was such a thing.....

willyolio 16th January 2008, 20:30

will it be locked to one or two resolutions and only mac-approved video cards? options, upgradability, and customizability aren't exactly mac's strong points. and neither are powerful graphics.

C-Sniper 16th January 2008, 22:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by completemadness

And, wheres the linux port ;)

+1

they should start up some linux ports soon. getting tired of using cedega

chiper136 17th January 2008, 00:13

I used to be a mac gamer...because all my computers were my dads hand me downs. They were oftern good ports, but all the mods and such like would be for PC, and you couldn't play PC v MAC on some games. Add this it the fact that mac games never seemed to go down in prive even years later.

Da Dego 17th January 2008, 00:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by C-Sniper
+1

they should start up some linux ports soon. getting tired of using cedega

++

*grumble grumble*

As a user of all three operating systems, the only reason I really turn on my Windows PC anymore is for games. The further we go towards mac and linux, the happier I am. Now if only some of the 'nix users would show some extra love for the more obscure stuff and port it over to Darwin... That's a lot easier than from windows, and there's still not enough love. What I wouldn't give for a proper Leopard version of Aircrack-ng...

C-Sniper 17th January 2008, 00:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Da Dego
++

*grumble grumble*

As a user of all three operating systems, the only reason I really turn on my Windows PC anymore is for games. The further we go towards mac and linux, the happier I am. Now if only some of the 'nix users would show some extra love for the more obscure stuff and port it over to Darwin... That's a lot easier than from windows, and there's still not enough love. What I wouldn't give for a proper Leopard version of Aircrack-ng...

lol i feel for ya on the aircrack-ng mac support (or lack thereof). I mainly use windows for gaming as well and linux for everything else. (AC-NG actually introduced me to linux), although a MAC does get some use every now and then, but that is mainly for video editing.

Nix 17th January 2008, 05:03

Only if game manufacturers started making games for Linux aswell, thats the only thing that stops me using Linux as my primary OS

devdevil85 17th January 2008, 05:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nix
Only if game manufacturers started making games for Linux aswell, thats the only thing that stops me using Linux as my primary OS

well Nix, considering (from what I've read) programs/games run faster/better even on less-advanced hardware than a Windows PC, Linux would seem like the way to go for gaming.....yet for some reason it isn't catching speed......

Just take this OpenGL 2.1 vs DX9/10 comparison and you can see that (being open source and available to Linux) it still looks just as good as DX9/10 graphics.....

I wonder how long you'd be "future-proofed" w/ a $2000 gaming rig running on Windows vs. on Linux?

Ninja_182 5th February 2008, 08:35

There used to be a problem (not sure where I read it) with the PPC based macs and games where there is a performance issue with converting between integers and floating points, which apparently was a well used method of reducing hardware requirements, hence the usually higher requirements to run the same game on a PPC mac than a x86 PC. Thats clearly irrelevant now and as far as consumer (not enthusiast) systems go, macs get pretty high spec hardware. They are a bit annoying to upgrade (imacs being damn hard) but graphics cards are changeable from what I gather, you just need Mac edition ones, which are hard to find. The Mac Pros arnt underpowered in the slightest and neither are the Macbook Pros. Hardware wise they are fine, its just convincing developers to program OSX native applications when they could just leave it up to mac gamers to dual boot with windows and do it that way. I suppose this has the advantage of having both operating systems but the disadvantage of being the more expensive / tedious way with naff driver support.

I do game on my mac, its getting old now though, plays C&C Generals fine, AOE3 is laggy but playable at full settings... I guess the fact that I have a new Athlon X2 sat under my desk (this is typed on the mac however) answers the question as to wether macs are any good at games.