Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Illegal would be running a Steam game outside of Steam which you need to do in order to run in OSX, clumsy would be the drop in performance by emulation and virtualization.

No, I play games under XP I'm well aware of what a Mac can do thank you very much :).

But just to clarify I thought the poster meant a non-Windows native method when they said "so all PC games will run on Macs with the proper graphics card".

I think it's a safe bet that he meant boot camp...
 
Anyone know of some good ones?
Mac seem to be very limited with choices for games.

There really isn't that much to pick from. If you're a casual gamer, you'll probably find enough to keep you happy, but honestly, if you're looking to blow open the doors to a wide variety of games, either buy a console or set up a Bootcamp partition with Windows and use that for gaming. Macs are great, but gaming on them is an exercise in frustration.

And most of the games that exist on Windows and Mac play better on Windows. I've played Doom3 on Mac and Windows on the same machine and the Windows version plays much more smoothly. The Mac version isn't as optimized for the platform, stutters at weird points and borders on being unplayable.
 
If you like strategy games, MythicFrost, don't miss one of the best ones of all time: Sid Meier's Civilization. All of the Civilization games have come out for the Mac, including the latest one, Civilization IV.

I have had Civilization IV for months and months now, but the fact is that I love Civilization III so much that I still haven't opened it. (To be fair, I did the same thing with Civilization III -- bought it and then continued to play Civilization II for the next six months). Warning: these games are highly addictive!

I'll reiterate what others have said. On a Mac with Boot Camp, you can play all the Windows games natively and with a reboot can then play all the Mac games natively. You can do anything that the standard PC gamer can do, plus some things they can't.

Having said that, I don't personally choose to do that because I just can't bring myself to fork out money for a Microsoft OS, and I'd rather support companies that make Mac native games so that they can continue to do so.

Have fun gaming!
 

OK so either you're one of the developers or somehow affiliated. We get it. You joined Macrumors today and all you've posted about is Braid. The game sucks on the Mac. Sorry, but it does. I expect a flawless framerate at 800x600 on my new unibody 2.66ghz 17" MacBook Pro, and I get something VERY far from that, which, for a platform game, is unacceptable.
 
OK so either you're one of the developers or somehow affiliated. We get it. You joined Macrumors today and all you've posted about is Braid. The game sucks on the Mac. Sorry, but it does. I expect a flawless framerate at 800x600 on my new unibody 2.66ghz 17" MacBook Pro, and I get something VERY far from that, which, for a platform game, is unacceptable.

Wait what? I run at a higher resolution on my unibody Macbook (not pro) and get flawless framerate...what are you doing wrong 0.o?
 
...if you tend to like rpg and strategy best (as I do!):

Civ IV (strategy) - can't beat it!!!!! Literally. Good luck trying! The depth of this is mind-boggling. Stunning. Fantastic. Unbelievable. Amazing. I'll run out of praise before this game runs out of possibilities.

Don't forget to eat and sleep (as Baldur's Gate always reminds you).

Which brings me to Baldur's Gate II - Shadows of Amn (rpg). I know in the rpg genre that Neverwinter Nights was/is very popular for Macs (I have not tried Neverwinter II) but, for me it was an exceedingly redundant snoozefest. BGII, however... I keep my G4 mac to support my non-intel OSX and Classic needs. BGII is definitely one of those needs. I'll be 90 yrs old taking yet ANOTHER stroll around Amn! Infinitely rich and engaging.

Star Wars KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) - rpg/fps

Call of Duty 2 - fps

P.S. I am SOOO curious about "Goo"... is this a physics-based game? puzzle game? What's up with "Goo"?
 
Warzone 2100 (Ressurection)

WARZONE 2100 was a legendary RTS game in its time, and is still extremely good even by todays standards.

Better still - the original makers discontinued it and made it available for the public to maintain.

Google "Warzone 2100 ressurection", and you can go to the support site which has updated the game, and it even runs natively on mac.

Should particularly be interesting for those who play command and conquer and dawn of war.
 
Baldur's Gate II easily wins the RPG competition. Never played another RPG that comes close. Haven't played it in a couple years since it's such a massive game, but I look back on it fondly.

Civ 4 wins the strategy contest. Multiple years after I first got it and I'm still playing it (and now BTS has finally come out for the Mac, so I'll probably splurge on it again). Alpha Centauri was great too but isn't nearly as polished as Civ 4 (but the unofficial Mac OS X port works quite well).

Several good RTS games - Starcraft and Warcraft 3 are the two that come to mind.

Haven't been much of an FPS player over the years, but off the top of my head I'd say Deus Ex.

Oh, and I have to list Oni as an under-appreciated gem of a game.
 
Check out "Hearts of Iron II, Armaggedon"

. . . if you like strategy games. This plays well on my black MacBook, although I suspect that it gets the fans going. The game has lots of replay value, and is less abstracted than Civ IV (which excels in other ways, to be sure).
 
All games are available to Intel Macs

.
Most people have Intel Macs these days.
That means almost all games are available for Macs if you install Boot Camp and Windows.

The only game I play is X-Plane.
I found that that my GTX 285 Mac Edition video card has a frame rate increase of 36 percent when operating under Windows than with OS X.
And there are a lot more third party add-ons for X-Plane running under Windows than with OS X.
I've made the smart move, I run X-Plane with WinXP (Boot Camp).

If you have an ATI video card, games will probably run better with OS X than with Windows.
But again, there are many, many, many more games available for Windows.

Benchtest.jpg

.
 
racing games rock

get need for speed most wanted for mac
Mac version of NFS is great
& no need of instaling windows on mac
& it works perfect;y on my 2008 macbook:cool:
 
+1 for Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

+ SW Galactic Battlegrounds

+ Return to Dark Castle

And the all time classics, that you can run via MinivMac:
+ The Ancient Art of War
+ Dark Castle
+ Lode Runner
+ Pirates!
+ Shufflepuck Cafe
+ etc...
 
- Dragon Age Origins (Mac) is excellent!

I purchased DAO from Direct2Drive for $49.99 (I believe it's a 9gb download, keep in mind D2D does not have a download manager for OS X, so you'll need to use something like iGetter to download all of it since Safari and most browsers will not download a file over 4gb, though I think FireFox can-- it has at times not resumed stalled downloads.) There was a 50% sale recently on all Mac games at D2D (grumble); I was able to get X3: Terran Conflict for $19.99 during that sale, great game though a steep learning curve.

Some other noteworthy games at D2D:
- Shaun White Snowboarding
- Command & Conquer 3
- Flatout 2
- Puzzle Quest

The sites I use to look for Mac games are:
- Direct2Drive
- MacGamesStore
- (Steam for Mac) When it comes out. ;)
- Aspyr: They apparently have a "gameagent" for mac coming soon, and I just noticed they have Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Mac, as well as many other noteworthy titles such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

On the MMO front- Fallen Earth (a post-apocalyptic MMORPG) now has a Mac Beta Client, it runs alright on an MBP, though much better on my iMac. The rest of the games I play are under bootcamp Windows.

TIP: I found that Dragon Age Origins (Mac) runs much smoother in windowed mode, in "configure" select a resolution just under your native one (i.e. 1280x800 if your running in 1400x900); while in-game press cmd+enter to go into windowed mode.

I just recently picked up the higher-end of the 21.5" iMac's, and Dragon Age Origins runs impressively smooth on medium to high details. It will run in 1920x1080 alright, but best to use something like 1280x720 or 1366x768.
 
I always recommend getting a self contained DVD of a game vs using a download service if you can help it. With D2D can you back your game up to DVD?
 
If by 'Mac', you specifically mean while running under the Mac OS, I think you should go old school and play A-10 Attack.

My personal favorite and still is a favorite to this day is Oxyd.

Good call!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.