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Deus Ex: Human Revolution coming to Mac this 'winter 2011/12'
In the future, the world is split between augmented superhumans and boring, meat-based humans. In the present, our technological distinctions are a little more pedestrian: Xbox or PS3? Mac or PC? While the former has already been addressed by the multiplatform release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the latter is a decidedly PC-only affair. But like the original Deus Ex, which was ported to Mac OS shortly after its release, Human Revolution will enjoy a Mac OS release courtesy of the good people at Feral Interactive sometime this "winter 2011/12." Specifics on pricing, date, and system requirements will be announced "later this year." Eidos Montreal general manager Stephane D'Astous says, "We are delighted to partner with Feral, a leading expert in development for the Mac platform, to bring the acclaimed Deus Ex: Human Revolution to Mac players." With two million units already shipped, a Mac release should help Eidos Montreal's surprise hit find an even larger audience.
Feral Interactive offers digital downloads on multiple online stores
Here's a cool note I missed last week among the hustle and bustle of CES: Feral Interactive is one of the biggest publishers of Mac games out there, often porting and publishing games from larger PC developers over to the Mac platform. Last week, the company announced that four games it has published (Borderlands, Rome: Total War, LEGO Harry Potter and Bioshock) would be available for sale through three different digital download services (Direct2Drive, GamersGate and the MacGameStore). That's good news, not only for Mac gamers who want more options to pick from for their games, but for the platform as a whole. Steam has made plenty of headlines, both during the launch and since, but a deal like this shows that there is demand for Mac games even beyond the most popular digital store online. Direct2Drive especially is a fairly large digital store known for PC game sales, and the fact that Feral games are now available on the service is a nice indicator of how popular the Mac platform is becoming among gamers and other users.
Borderlands Game of the Year edition for Mac gets a release date
2K Games Feral Interactive (the company publishing this title for the Mac) has announced that the Game of the Year edition of the great "Diablo shooter" game Borderlands is on its way. It'll be out on December 3rd, and like other versions of the special edition, the game will include all of the title's downloadable content packs, including The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution. All that gaming for just US$49.95, running natively on our favorite platform -- pretty sweet. I was a huge fan of Borderlands when it came out last year -- you'll probably need to enjoy the FPS genre to really get into it, but the best part of the game is the guns: killing enemies makes them drop guns, randomly created with all sorts of wacky attributes, from poison fire machine guns to exploding shell shotguns. When you add in a fun quest system and four different classes to play with, it's a really great game with almost unlimited replayability. One note: you'll need an Intel Mac to run the game, of course, and you won't be able to use any Macs with ATI X1xxx series, NVIDIA 7xxx series and Intel GMA series video cards. But if you've got a recent Mac and room for a new FPS to play, keep an eye out for Borderlands early next month.
Bioshock for Mac on October 7th
I can personally attest to Bioshock being a terrific game, but the problem is that probably, many of you can as well. Let's be honest -- it actually came out for PC and consoles a full two years ago. At this point, a Mac port is probably useless, but it's coming out anyway. Feral Interactive has announced that they'll be releasing the port on October 7th of this year, so those of you Mac diehards who refuse to play games on any other platforms can finally get your fix. The game will be released for $49.95 in the US, and can be preordered on Feral's store right now. Or, you know, you can run out to Best Buy, pick up a copy for $20 and run it in Boot Camp, it's up to you. If you are going for the Mac version, however, you should know that the game doesn't support the Intel GMA integrated video cards, so you'll need a dedicated video card in your Mac to play it. Bioshock is a great game, as I've said, and if you really stretch it out, it might give you a good six months of free time entertainment -- just in time for you to pick up the Mac port of Hellgate: London, a game released in December of 2007. Oh wait.
BioShock opens Rapture to Mac owners October 7
Finally, two years after the original release of BioShock, Mac owners get a chance to see what all of the fuss has been about. Andrew Ryan opens the doors of Rapture again on October 7, inviting Mac gamers (yes, they exist ... somewhere) to spend $49.99's worth of ADAM (£34.99 in the UK, €39.95 throughout Europe) for entry into the aquatic kingdom full of genetic abominations and pipe-powered electronics. With a description like that, who could say no? The port is being handled by London-based dev Feral Interactive. We spoke with Brad Gibson, director of Marketing/PR at Feral, who told us the port "does not use Cider," the current go-to portability technology to get Windows games running on Intel-based Macs. We've put some more questions in to Feral to see if BioShock is the first native Unreal Engine 3 game on the Mac platform.
Rumor: Bioshock headed to the Mac
Is there anyone out there who doesn't have a PC, or a console, or a Windows partition on their Mac, or was just somehow able to avoid the critical, cultural, and widespread success of 2007's amazing Bioshock? If so, you're in luck -- while console gamers are breathlessly waiting for Bioshock 2 updates, Mac gamers are still waiting for the first one, and the wait might finally be over. Macworld is reporting that a little birdie (read: back of a t-shirt) at last week's show told them that Bioshock was finally headed to the Mac, courtesy of Feral Interactive.Too little, too late? Don't get us wrong: Bioshock, the spiritual successor to System Shock and its sequel, is a terrific game, combining FPS gameplay with RPG elements and one of the best videogame stories of 2007. If you haven't played it and you're willing to pick it up for the Mac, you're in for a treat. But these kind of releases just perpetuate the issues with Mac gaming: games come out years late, no one buys them (because everyone who cares has already played them elsewhere), and then developers complain that games don't sell on the Mac. A Bioshock announcement is all well and good, but next time, devs, would you kindly aim for release a little closer to everyone else?
Feral releases Tomb Raider Anniversary
Lara Croft is back on the Mac. Feral Interactive let us know that they have released Tomb Raider Anniversary for our favorite architecture.There are a few hitches-- it's Intel processors only at this point (though a Universal binary is due next year), and like most 3D games lately, GMA video cards are out. 10.4 is listed, there's no indication of whether the game works in Leopard or not. The good news is that while a lot of Tomb Raider games lately have been terrible, this one is supposed to be a nice return to the spelunking of old. The Windows version got reviewed favorably, but there's no word yet on exactly how the Mac version looks. We've heard good things about other Feral ports-- maybe this kind of release is just what Mac gaming needs a lot more of.
Feral Interactive product update (Macworld Expo)
U.K.-based publisher, Feral Interactive made the trip to this year's Macworld Expo, eager to sell its product to Mac gamers. The company's booth holds many kiosks showing Feral's latest -- or in-progress -- ports, including Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, The Movies, and Imperial Glory.Feral head, David Stephen updated us on the status of its games; Lego Star Wars, Colin McRae Rally, and Fable: The Lost Chapters will ship this Spring. (A few technical glitches that delayed the latter two titles have recently been fixed.)Stephen is also excited about the newly shipped The Movies because of updates Feral was able to make to the PC version. For example, Mac gamers have more format options when exporting completed movies. Also, because Feral wanted Mac gamers to be able to share videos on the PC-game's Windows Media site, the Mac version includes a copy of Flip4Mac's WMV Studio -- normally a $50 utility -- to render in that Windows codec.
