NZMac.com - Supporting the New Zealand Mac community

Ahh...but in the Mac world, when we say "better" we mean quality over quantity...otherwise we'd all be using PCs

hmmm... then in that case windows really does have a 'better' selection of games not only in quality, but also in quantity. I'm interested in seeing what 'quality' games Mac OS X has that windows doesn't that would be the basis of saying Mac OS X has quality games compared to windows' quantity. Please expound.

Here's a quick list of 10 games I would call 'quality' that are available on windows but not Mac OS X:

Half Life 2
Team Fortress 2
Counterstrike Source (I'll stick Day of defeat source in here as well)
Oblivion
Call of Duty 4
Bioshock
Company of Heroes
Battlefield 2
Sid Meier's Pirates (fun game btw)
Far Cry (can throw Crysis in there as well)

I guess you can see what games I'm into.

Anyone feel free to list 10 'quality' games that are available on Mac OS X and not on Windows?

Again, I'm not saying windows is 'better' as it's not... BUT when it comes to games (which is the only reason I have a boot camp partition), the QUALITY and QUANTITY of games is head and shoulders superior to those available on Mac OS X (and not windows).

Feel free to argue against that statement with examples of games.

My comment was a joke. I can't comment on your choice of games as I simply don't have the time for games (tho' I used to love them) and confess I only recognise 1 of the 10 games you even list

Phil

Big bang checkers!

Nick Jennings wrote:
lowededwookie wrote:
One thing the Mac tends to have is a higher quality selection even though many of the ports don't work with the Windows versions which is dumb.

How can that be so when the games that are available on Mac have a Windows version, and there are many games available on Windows that aren't on Mac.

Which ever way you look at it, Windows has the better selection.I think you all seem to be misunderstanding what I'm saying.

By saying we have a higher quality I mean that we have ports of games that have proven themselves as opposed to numerous games that are there simply to provide choice. Many of these ports perform better on the Mac (at least the older ones did) than on the PC for the reason that Macs are controlled hardware. As such games made for the Mac will pretty much be guaranteed to work on a Mac. As such this is by logic higher quality as you can enjoy the game more when you don't need a degree in computer science just to workout how to get the sodding thing working.

Merely because we don't yet have a game does not mean we won't get it and even if we don't it's more likely that no one on the Mac really cares for the game anyway which brings me back to my point of quality not quantity. Sure there might be some who want a game on the Mac that is on the PC but in many cases these sorts of games probably didn't do too well on the PC either in which case we come back full circle once again to quality over quantity.

Look at many of the titles you've suggested there Iroiro. These are nothing more than rehashes of old titles just better graphics, different plots, and different maps. Hardly quality. In fact a number of the games you mentioned scored poorly (Battlefield 2 and Crysis for example). Many of these games are on the consoles which allows them to play better and work better as well so the need for Windows shrinks even more. There's tonnes of games on the consoles which don't make it to PC but that also doesn't make them any good.

Quality over quantity is a valid comment because I'd rather spend my money on good things than turdballs. That being said I choose my Wii over my Mac for gaming anyway because I'm a right tool for the right job kind of guy. Incidentally the Wii is in the same boat, fewer games but most of them are pretty good.

And yet you still didn't come up with any examples of games. Please list them.

Also, how can having a small selection of ports (which is a subgroup of a much larger selection of games available on windows) be better?

Many of these ports perform better on the Mac
You're kidding me right? Examples... please provide, because I honestly can't think of one.

Look at many of the titles you've suggested there Iroiro. These are nothing more than rehashes of old titles just better graphics, different plots, and different maps.
(falls off chair) - Have you actually played any of these?

Merely because we don't yet have a game does not mean we won't get it and even if we don't it's more likely that no one on the Mac really cares
You forget lowdedwookie that I'm very much a Mac person, have been for the last 4 years (I switched well before the intel transition) so you're argument there falls flat - as I'm a Mac user that really does care that so many quality games aren't available for MY PREFERRED PLATFORM! (and I'm not the only one btw)

It's interesting that you talk alot about quality and yet cannot even list a few quality games for Mac OS X that can back up your argument.

I choose my Wii over my Mac for gaming anyway because I'm a right tool for the right job kind of guy
Right there is my problem and you just proved it for me... basically the Mac (edit: should read Mac OS X, as many modern macs i.e. Macbook Pro with 8600gt make decent gaming machines - hardware wise) is not the right "tool" for the job when it comes to gaming, so much so that you have turned to something else (a wii in this case) because it is better suited to it.

You turned to the wii and I turned to windows, which a license for XP home and the games I bought would have cost much less than the wii+games. Why should we have to turn to another platform just to play games when according to you Mac OS X has quality over others' quantity... again please provide examples because I can't think of any (I'm honestly interested btw).

Wookie, I'm sorry but that post really is laughable.

It sounds like you are in some kind of denial or something.

Or perhaps you have trouble recognising that Windows is better than OS X for some things? Because when it comes to games my friend, it clearly is.

iroiro wrote:
Also, how can having a small selection of ports (which is a subgroup of a much larger selection of games available on windows) be better?Look at WHY games get ported. They're ported because there's a demand for them. Why is there a demand for them? Because the games have stood the test of time. Having new games come out on a Mac doesn't make good business sense at the moment because the Mac hasn't got high enough sales so developers develop for the platforms that do make sense, the best then get ported because people want them.

Think of a sift. You dump a whole lot of stuff at the top and only the finest stuff filters through. Now how can you tell me that having a whole lot of stuff that is mostly crap be a good thing? I'd really like to know.

Many of these ports perform better on the MacYou're kidding me right? Examples... please provide, because I honestly can't think of one.You cut off my qualifier so you completely changed what I said. A lot of the new games are different because they've been poorly coded during the port, not neccessarily the fault of the programmers but in getting games that are designed for DirectX working on other platforms, ie. having to convert them to OpenGL. Older games didn't have this problem and I can think of games like Star Wars Galatic BattleGrounds, Command and Conquer Generals, Knights of the Old Republic running better on the Mac than the PC despite having lower graphics hardware at the time. Like I said it's different now because you need such huge resources to play simple games because someone decided it would be great to have needless animations and graphics to make simple games more appealing.

If we counted open source then throw into the mix Vegastrike, WarZone 2100, Sauerbraten (Cube 2), LinCity NG and a few others that perform much better on a Mac than on a PC (I know because I HAVE played these on both).

Look at many of the titles you've suggested there Iroiro. These are nothing more than rehashes of old titles just better graphics, different plots, and different maps.(falls off chair) - Have you actually played any of these?No but considering most of them are using the same engine as others (Bioshock uses UnReal 3 engine; Counter Strike: Source, Half Life 2, and Team Fortress 2 use the Source Engine; Oblivion uses the same physics engine as Bioshock; The Battlefield series use the same engine) so what I said is valid.

Many games are based on the Quake 3 engine (some the Quake 4 engine) so once again they're nothing new, they just have a slightly different layer on top. Any limitations of the original engine will flow to every game built on top, at the same time the engine allows quick development of games. So what you get is a greater amount of similar games coming out quickly because someone else did most of the work for them. They've added nothing new to the mix and thus are nothing more than rehashes.

Then you only have to look at any EA game to see my point about them being nothing more than rehashes of the same title. Nothing new is every really bought to an EA game except better graphics and different team names.

You forget lowdedwookie that I'm very much a Mac person, have been for the last 4 years (I switched well before the intel transition) so you're argument there falls apart - as I'm a Mac user that really does care that so many quality games aren't available for MY PREFERRED PLATFORM! (and I'm not the only one btw)Once again I come back to my point about too low a market share to matter. There might be 100 of you who really love a game and want it ported. You might all be guaranteed sales as well but 100 out of 25,000,000 is hardly worth the effort is it?

Don't get me wrong, there's numerous games I'd love to see on the Mac but you have to be frank here if you don't matter in the grand scheme of things why should people care about you?

And that's why I support open source because there are many people who, as a hobby, will bring to various platforms the games that people want but can't get. Vegastrike came about because there was a huge demand for Elite style games that just weren't coming to fruition. So some clever folks built their own, then using that game engine produced a remake of Privateer which other people were chomping at the bit for.

WarZone 2100 is the open source version of the sequel to Earth 2150 that was never released. End result, a very competent realtime strategy game that works on a number of different platforms.

I choose my Wii over my Mac for gaming anyway because I'm a right tool for the right job kind of guy
Right there is my problem and you just proved it for me... basically the Mac is not the right "tool" for the job when it comes to gaming, so much so that you have turned to something else (a wii in this case) because it is better suited to it.Precisely. Anything that requires having to configure a machine to get running is not the right tool for the job and so I don't think PC gaming is a great concept either. It was different back in the good old days of the Amiga and the Commodore 64 because these platforms generally required nothing to get a game working.

You turned to the wii and I turned to windows, which a license for XP home and the games I bought would have cost much less than the wii+games. Why should we have to turn to another platform just to play games when according to you Mac OS X has quality over others' quantity... again please provide examples because I can't think of any (I'm honestly interested btw).I turned to the Wii because the games I like aren't on the Mac OR PC, at least they aren't playable on the PC (Resident Evil for example). Keyboard bashing is pathetic compared to the control system of the Wii (or the XBox or Playstation for that matter).

Isn't Battlefield, Call of Duty, Command and Conquer, etc available on the Mac? Are these not quality titles that have stood the test of other platforms and also performed well on the Mac? Whether or not your Mac can handle it is kind of moot (my Mac Mini can't run Command and Conquer because they don't write games for the Intel graphics chipset), the games are there and they are quality games that people enjoy and so my comments still stand.

Think of a sift. You dump a whole lot of stuff at the top and only the finest stuff filters through. Now how can you tell me that having a whole lot of stuff that is mostly crap be a good thing? I'd really like to know.

It actually sounds like you're arguing that having less choice of the SAME thing is better?? I just don't get that. Think of it this way:

Mac OS X has quality titles since only the good ones get ported (arguable - who decides what are the good ones btw? - let me tell you, it's not the users - see http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?hl2mac )

Windows has those SAME quality titles (before Mac OS X got them, and usually cheaper), lots of other quality titles, and even some crap games thrown in.

How can you argue that the 1st option is better?? That's like saying windows is better suited to music because it has iTunes! when iTunes was ported from Mac OS X and Mac OS X has iTunes + the rest of the iLife suite. The more I think about your points you raised, the more I'm perplexed at your logic.

Let's try a little role-reversal play, let's say that all the games for windows were actually for Mac OS X and a few of the 'good' ones were ported to windows. Now imagine someone on these forums arguing that windows is better because they've ported some good games across, and that since they have less to choose from (again, the same games that were first available for Mac OS X) that windows has "quality over quantity" (*&@#

Anyone else confused by that logic?

I've tried to be as neutral as possible and look at your arguments from different perspectives but I keep coming back to the fact that windows therefore has "quality + quantity" (since they have the same games + more quality titles)

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one lowdedwookie. I've enjoyed reading your opinion though.


Iroiro.

Lots of interesting posts and debates going on within this thread, but I think it misses the point of the original poster. It seems we have got into the Mac v Win deabte.

The poster just wanted to know where they could get games. Sure there are more available for Windows.

Let's look at the debate from the game writers position. Windows has about 91.79% of the OS market and falling while Mac has 7.31% and has increased each month for the last six months refer www.macrumors.com.

Games only have a limited life, they get copied, passed on to others and users get bored with them. The game writer plays on this because they want you to buy more of their games. One drawback is that each game needs more power than the previous so you have to upgrade your computer. So therefore if you write a game you need to get your money back quickly. It takes time to develop a quality game and the writer has no idea what the sales will be. On my previous post I said that MS Flight Sim had been around for many years. I believe MS has over a 100 people fulltime developing the next version. It is really great but has the benefit of years of development. It is unlikely that they will port to Mac.

Simple economics shows that you won't get your money back if you restrict your market to a Mac, hence why many have been ported from Windows. Now that Mac's are unix-based and operate with Intel chips more will be ported in the future but don't expect that every latest and greatest will be on a Mac or even a PC for tha matter as the console market is really the biggest market these days.

My role is as a trainer and educator of both young and older persons. There is a huge range of educational software for Mac's a lot being game-based but strong on learning outcomes.

If you just want to play games there are a lot of games available for a Mac but that is not really the market segment that Apple is seeking. Want games? Then buy a Windows computer.

Some other sites for Mac games:
www.macgamestore.com
www.insidemacgames.com
www.macgamesandmore.com

Good call Cassiachatte,

I guess we were getting carried away and probably not helping the original poster (what did they ask again? )

Anyway, I think it's already been mentioned but check out: http://www.pcgame.co.nz/customer/home.php?cat=378

They seem to have a good selection of mac games.

One more thing...If you just want to play games there are a lot of games available for a Mac but that is not really the market segment that Apple is seeking. Want games? Then buy a Windows computer.
Or just set up a boot camp partition.