STEAM CLIENT FOR MAC!

[J T]

It's a parody of the original Apple ad isn't it?

Correcto:

[Niode]

So all Source based games will be available from the get go at least. Very cool to hear.

Yep. Can't wait!

The thing I'm most looking forward to is being able to stay in contact with a lot of my IRL friends. They all use Steam and only Steam for communication. So being able to stay in contact with them when I'm away with my Macbook Pro would be awesome. I could give or take the games to be honest, but it's an awesome lining to an awesome cake.

[jmbarnes101]

This is great news since I only have a Mac. I have a few Steam games that I can play at other places but it'll be nice to actually be able to communicate and play games on my Mac. Not sure if anything I own will ever be ported but it would be nice (I only own some LucasArts games and the two OddWorld games).

[Niode]

This is great news since I only have a Mac. I have a few Steam games that I can play at other places but it'll be nice to actually be able to communicate and play games on my Mac. Not sure if anything I own will ever be ported but it would be nice (I only own some LucasArts games and the two OddWorld games).

Well depending on what Lucasarts games you own you can play them in SCUMMVM. It is open source and works on pretty much any platform, including OS X. Just point SCUMMVM to the location steam has installed them (copy them to a memory stick if they're on another computer). SCUMMVM works for every lucasarts adventure games up until the 3D era.

[GSZX1337]

but it's an awesome lining to an awesome cake.

Must. Avoid. Portal reference!

[Niode]

So it's finally out. I've been downloading a bunch of my games from PC Steam account to my Macbook Pro. Personally, I feel that the new Steam client fits much better on Mac, it feels a lot better and much more suited to how OS X works.

Currently the games that I own that work on my Mac are:

Bob Came in Pieces
Osmos
Portal
Toki Tori
Torchlight

Interestingly, it shows most (not all) of my games, but only certain games have an 'Install' button. Team Fortress 2 is a game that has been pushed heavily as part of the Steamplay service but for some reason that doesn't show up on my games list yet. Judging on posts on the Steam forums, there's some bugs with it and it's available to the beta users but not to gold users just yet.

Steam works just like it does on PC, so all my other games/emulators can be added into the steam interface and played from there with the Steam overlay on it. However, currently if a game uses a different cursor to the system cursor then you won't be able to see your cursor on the overlay if the game is in full screen mode. Games like Aquaria won't allow me to see my cursor in the overlay, if I switch to windowed mode the overlay works perfectly. Bit of a quirk, but I'm glad that the overlay works in all games not just the Steamplay ones. Of course, it works perfectly in all the Steamplay games.

All steamplay games (at least according to Valve, other publishers may not take the same stance) will be cross compatible with PC users, so all saves etc should work on both formats and Mac users will be able to play with PC users et vice versa.

Everything is here, there's no compromise (apart from choice of games but given that this is the first of it's kind on Mac and they aren't charging to let you play games you have already paid for) everything you can do in the PC version you can do in this.

I knew that Valve wouldn't fuck it up, but I had no expectations of it being this good.

[nickfil]

i have nothing to add- except that i agree and am really happy. Going back to torchlight now...


*edit* oh wait- i do have something to add. I can't imagine that games like wolfenstine 3d are going to be a long wait. Those just run in dosbox right? we have that on macs already.

[Niode]

i have nothing to add- except that i agree and am really happy. Going back to torchlight now...


*edit* oh wait- i do have something to add. I can't imagine that games like wolfenstine 3d are going to be a long wait. Those just run in dosbox right? we have that on macs already.

Yep, Anything that is based on IDs engines (IE Quake and Doom) are all OpenGL so a port should be a no brainer, same for anything based on Unreal Engine 1, 2 and 3. They're all OpenGL. Basically anything that is based on OpenGL should be pretty straight forward to port. Anything that runs in a VM will be trivial to port, such as Lucasarts games and anything running in DOS. So yeah, we should have a sizable amount of games pretty quickly.

[Niode]

One annoying thing is certain games purchased before Steamplay won't allow you to play them on you mac and PC. Currently this applies to Civilisation IV, I own the game, I can't install it on my mac. Even if I try and buy a Steamplay compatible version it won't let me because " already own some of the above titles".

This is very annoying, especially considering I've bought Civilization IV twice now and I STILL can't play it on my mac. Let's hope this is just some sort of glitch and not just another way for publishers to shaft us.

I understand that some developers, especially mac specific porting companies don't want to give their work away for free for existing PC owners, but having to buy the entire game again just isn't acceptable. I don't mind paying a nominal fee for a licence to play the game on my mac, that's the price I pay for convenience, but I definitely wouldn't pay anything more than a couple of pounds.

[Niode]

Civilisation IV (and I assume it's expansions, haven't installed those yet) is working on my Mac with the Complete Edition that I purchased during the sale! Slowly but surely my Steam library is turning light grey instead of dark grey. I'm so happy .