First wave of EA Mac games finally en route to stores

[AppleInsider]

Following a month-long delay, Electronic Arts said Friday that its first wave of games for Apple's Mac OS X operating system are finally in transit to Apple retail stores nationwide.

Need for Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be available in stores on Tuesday, August 21, and Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars will be available on Tuesday, August 28. All four titles are also now available for pre-order from Apple's online store.
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"This is a huge leap compared with past launches," EA spokeswoman Tammy Schachter told AppleInsider. "We’ve shorted the gap between the Mac launch and other platforms to just a few weeks."

Over the course of time, and as EA gains experience in completing and shipping Mac games, Schachter said that gap will narrow even further.

"EA is very passionate about Mac," she said. "We see the Mac as a dynamic platform. We are very excited to get these games in the hands of Mac users."

Further rounding out EA’s portfolio of Mac games will be the release of Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 08 and Madden NFL 08 in the September/October timeframe.

Gamers interested in the first wave of EA games can check out descriptions of each title, below, or view the game trailers posted to Apple's website.
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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, licensed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts is shaping up to be his most exciting yet. Fearing that Hogwarts’ venerable Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is lying about the return of Voldemort in order to undermine his power, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge appoints a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to keep watch over Dumbledore and the students. But Professor Dolores Umbridge’s ministry-approved course leaves the young wizards woefully unprepared, so Hermione, Ron and Harry form “Dumbledore’s Army” with the goal of preparing themselves and other courageous young wizards for the extraordinary battle that looms against Voldemort and his Death Eaters.



Need for Speed Carbon

What starts in the city is settled in the canyons as Need for Speed Carbon immerses you in the world’s most dangerous and adrenaline-filled form of street racing. You and your crew must race in an all-out war for the city, risking everything to take over your rivals’ neighborhoods one block at a time. As the police turn up the heat, the battle ultimately shifts to Carbon Canyon, where territories and reputations can be lost on every perilous curve.
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Battlefield 2142

Earth, 2142. As a new ice age depletes the planet’s resources, two massive multinational coalitions wage a brutal war for the only cause that matters—survival. Armed with a devastating arsenal of futuristic weaponry and gear, including active camouflage, EMP grenades, and sentry guns, plus Battle Walkers and vast airborne bases called Titans, you must coordinate the efforts of your teammates to win the war for Earth’s last fragile pieces of livable land. With extensive improvements to the groundbreaking Battlefield 2 ranking and upgrade system and the new Titan gameplay mode, Battlefield 2142 brings the franchise’s award-winning online warfare into a harsh and desperate future.
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Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars

The year is 2047. A massive nuclear fireball explodes high in the night sky, marking the dramatic beginning of the Third Tiberium War and the long-awaited return of the most groundbreaking Real-Time Strategy franchise of all time. Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars unveils the future of RTS gaming by bringing you back to where it all began: the Tiberium Universe. With the corrupt substance Tiberium blanketing most of the Earth, the infamous Kane is back to lead his Brotherhood of Nod in a massive global assault on the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the few remaining livable Blue Zones left on the planet. Only you can stop him. Featuring state-of-the-art next-generation graphics, an epic story, and truly innovative features such as the ability to transform online battles into a spectator sport, Command & Conquer is about to reinvent RTS gaming … again. Welcome back, Commander.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[mrpiddly]

bf 2142 is good and all but we are missing somthing very important

[JCNYC]

I can't wait to see how these run on the new (video card crippled) aluminum iMacs

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by mrpiddly

bf 2142 is good and all but we are missing somthing very important

And yet, we will HAVE some things even MORE important than BF 2142

http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/s...rticleID=15293
http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ID=15395


Quake Wars


UT3


Gears of War

Of the EA games, I'll probably pick up Need For Speed. The price is right.

Originally Posted by JCNYC

I can't wait to see how these run on the new (video card crippled) aluminum iMacs

These should be good fun on a new iMac. These EA games are not next-gen engines, and even THOSE games (like UT3) are supposed to run OK on year-old DX9-level hardware or worse, if the details are set appropriately low.

[dontlookleft]

Originally Posted by JCNYC

I can't wait to see how these run on the new (video card crippled) aluminum iMacs

the requirements seem to show that it'll work fine on the new imac...but what do i know?

[Marvin]

Originally Posted by mrpiddly

bf 2142 is good and all but we are missing somthing very important

I don't think that Crysis will be running very well on many computers. If they are saying that the consoles may be too weak to run it then what chance do desktops have? Remember when Oblivion came out and nobody could put it up to maximum because they hadn't made a card fast enough? This will be the same thing. The demos that they've been running are on really high end machines and the minimum requirements are pretty much the highest end cards you can buy now.

I think they said it was scalable so it degrades quality for lower machines but even so, it's going to be very demanding and I don't see it being worthwhile playing before next year when the next generation of cards become available. That's not to say that Apple aren't already making Macs laughable in certain communities though and it would really help if they addressed this:



Prices are a fair bit off but the point is valid.

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by Marvin

Prices are a fair bit off but the point is valid.

If the prices AND the graphics are BOTH off, then the joke-point is valid, but the real-world-point is something else

A Dell equipped similarly to the new iMac does not cost significantly less.

You can, however, SUBTRACT features from a Dell, ADD a much nicer GPU, and come out with a better game-focused system for the same price. You can, in short, customize the Dell tower more than the Apple all-in-one. Towers have their benefits for some, just as all-in-ones have their benefits for others, and Apple has no towers below the high-end. THAT is the real-world point.

For some, that makes it worth putting up with Windows. For some, a Dell PC will be a fine option.

As for me, I will be too busy on my iMac playing Prey (now), Need For Speed (next), Quake Wars (after that), and then UT 3 and Gears of War. The active modding community might just carry me through to Rage, especially since Epic's UnrealEd modding tools are coming to Mac

Still, I expect I'll be wishing very hard for Crysis AND especially Bioshock on Mac. But maybe not hard enough to deal with Windows when I do have other great games I can play. If I do want those games bad enough to buy Windows, it will be on a two-platforms-in-one Mac, for sure.

Meanwhile I do hope Apple comes out with a mid-range tower so people can BTO a fast graphics board without buying a big ol' Mac Pro. It may seem impossible that Apple would do so--the gamer market just isn't big enough. And yet... the Mac gamer market is growing, along with the rest of the Mac market, and other niches would appreciate a mini-tower too. And once upon a time, the Mac Mini seemed impossible too...

[mrpiddly]

i actually didnt know about unreal 3 on the mac. It looks great, however I want crysis mainly for the mod development tools and Sandbox 2. It also does much better, in my opinion with huge outdoor eviroments. Sadly, tools like snadbox 2 are the features that would probably be most difficult to port to a mac.

Here is a quote about crysis:

We do not know how much processor power is needed, though in a recent PC Gamer UK magazine preview Cevat Yerli said an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 2GB RAM, and a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 card could run the game at "ultra detail" settings.

Its really not as high as i had originally thought.











Im not to familiar with porting to differnt systems but since the unreal 3 engine will be playable on mac and because bioshock used the unreal 3 engine, while modified, that might make it slightly easier to port over. IDK

[nagromme]

Oh yes, Bioshock should be portable to Mac. I'm not holding my breath, but it's at least theoretically possible

The question is whether the companies involved want to bother doing it! I hope they will.

It seems unlikely... but then, a month ago I would have laughed at the idea of Gears of War in OS X!

I believe Crysis, idTech 5 (Rage), and UE3 all do outdoor environments better than the Doom 3 engine used in Quake Wars. But Quake Wars does have the MegaTexture technology from idTech 5 (or vice versa) and it doesn't seem to do half bad.

[lkrupp]

Originally Posted by Marvin

I don't think that Crysis will be running very well on many computers. If they are saying that the consoles may be too weak to run it then what chance do desktops have? Remember when Oblivion came out and nobody could put it up to maximum because they hadn't made a card fast enough? This will be the same thing. The demos that they've been running are on really high end machines and the minimum requirements are pretty much the highest end cards you can buy now.

I think they said it was scalable so it degrades quality for lower machines but even so, it's going to be very demanding and I don't see it being worthwhile playing before next year when the next generation of cards become available. That's not to say that Apple aren't already making Macs laughable in certain communities though and it would really help if they addressed this:



Prices are a fair bit off but the point is valid.

Nice troll! I'll give it a 3 so as not to hurt your feelings.

[digitalclips]

For network games internet connection speed is an issue.

I have a question relating to this, to the experts here... excuse it being slightly off topic but I know this forum is where all the real Mac brains are

I have FiOS '20 / 5' service, i.e. 20 Mbps download and 5 up. In theory at least. None of my computers could get over 5 Mbps download. After months of this and many calls with no answer explaining why, I eventually spoke with a Verizon guy who explained about a utility they provide on their web site that allows the higher speeds by patching TCP/IP.

Bad news was they only have a PC version. I tested this on a very old Compaq and sure enough .. full 20+ Mbps showed up on the speed test site (The Compaq had only shown 4 Mbps previously).

So after digging in Google for 'TCP/IP and higher speeds' I discovered the Apple patch called Broadband Tuner and installed this on my Dual G5 tower running 10.4.10 and connected via Ethernet wire to the Router.

The effect was immediate, I saw 12 Mbps download on the next test more than double. Even though it warns not to use with airport I also ran on my aged iBook G4 out of interest. This connects through an Apple Airport 802.11n although I am well aware the iBook has no such abilities. The results also showed a jump but to 10 Mbps a significant increase. The iBook did suffer a crash for the first time in ages last night I do not know if there is a connection.

So my question is: Why is the TCP/IP patch for Windows showing a dramatic increase over the one for OS X.

I wonder how many other Mac users with FiOS are not getting what the pay for due to not knowing about this TCP/IP issue?

[Royboy]

Well for $9500 one can get this Dell Desktop. Should play the latest games.

https://ecomm2.dell.com/dellstore/ba...6-6eb750984a6c

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Royboy

Well for $9500 one can get this Dell Desktop. Should play the latest games.

https://ecomm2.dell.com/dellstore/ba...6-6eb750984a6c

The link doesn't work because it's a shopping cart, it's cookie and likely login-centric. You are better off posting a screen capture of your cart than sending a link to your cart.

I have to say that I'm gradually beginning to think that playing games on a personal computer of any kind really doesn't make nearly as much sense as it used to.

[Marvin]

Originally Posted by lkrupp

Nice troll! I'll give it a 3 so as not to hurt your feelings.

I didn't make the image btw, I found it circulating on a game forum. That's why I was saying that Macs are still ridiculed in those circles. I partly agree with them though.

If I'm being honest, I don't particularly mind the iMac spec, though if I was buying one now I'd actually buy the older one second hand as it's faster and has a matte screen but I don't want a built-in display.

Crysis doesn't come out until November but I reckon only the Mac Pro will get updated by then. After that I see the UK iphone launch, so it'll easily be 2008 before anything interesting possibly comes along. Leopard of course is coming but I'm bored waiting on it now - it's not going to make nearly the impact it should.

[Gon]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I have to say that I'm gradually beginning to think that playing games on a personal computer of any kind really doesn't make nearly as much sense as it used to.

Well, if I had a desktop PC with integrated graphics running Windows, and wanted to play something recent,

Radeon X1950 Pro graphics card, much faster than iMac's graphics: 130€
Geforce 8800GTS graphics card, much faster still: 280€
Wii: 300€
XBox 360: 400€
PS3: 600€

So, for someone with a regular Windows machine, PC gaming is cheap. For others, whose computer can't handle gaming for whatever reason, it is expensive.

Then again, a 1k€ gaming PC is nothing in comparison to what you'd have to spend on a hobby automobile. If you don't have a HDTV, and get one for a new console, you probably pay more for the two combined than you would for a PC.

I also find the PC games I have played have often been very replayable. The length of gameplay that I have gotten and seen others get out of Starcraft, Counterstrike, Civilization II, Baldur's Gate II, the Myth series et cetera is phenomenal. Don't take this to mean everything should endure tens of replays or take a hundred hours to get through the first time. I actually hate it when the experience of a good movie-like or episodic game is sabotaged by adding hamster wheels mid-game to inflate the gameplay hours. But the typical console game is pretty much play through once or twice, then go to next game - you'll end up paying lots more for games.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Gon

Well, if I had a desktop PC with integrated graphics running Windows, and wanted to play something recent,

Radeon X1950 Pro graphics card, much faster than iMac's graphics: 130€
Geforce 8800GTS graphics card, much faster still: 280€
Wii: 300€
XBox 360: 400€
PS3: 600€

So, for someone with a regular Windows machine, PC gaming is cheap. For others, whose computer can't handle gaming for whatever reason, it is expensive.

Then again, a 1k€ gaming PC is nothing in comparison to what you'd have to spend on a hobby automobile. If you don't have a HDTV, and get one for a new console, you probably pay more for the two combined than you would for a PC.

I think it can go back and forth a lot, I mean, a computer has other uses as much as an HDTV has other uses, though I think the life cycle of a computer is a lot shorter than a TV. When I was into computer gaming, I easily spent as much money as a current console or more every year in upgrades just to keep from falling off the trailing edge.

I also find the PC games I have played have often been very replayable. The length of gameplay that I have gotten and seen others get out of Starcraft, Counterstrike, Civilization II, Baldur's Gate II, the Myth series et cetera is phenomenal. Don't take this to mean everything should endure tens of replays or take a hundred hours to get through the first time. I actually hate it when the experience of a good movie-like or episodic game is sabotaged by adding hamster wheels mid-game to inflate the gameplay hours. But the typical console game is pretty much play through once or twice, then go to next game - you'll end up paying lots more for games.

This argument looks like you are comparing the gems of PC gaming against the average of console gaming.

[Gon]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I think it can go back and forth a lot, I mean, a computer has other uses as much as an HDTV has other uses, though I think the life cycle of a computer is a lot shorter than a TV. When I was into computer gaming, I easily spent as much money as a current console or more every year in upgrades just to keep from falling off the trailing edge.

I'd say that puts you firmly in top 10% spenders - for example, see Steam user hardware survey for a cross section of current gaming hardware. Most of it is old, cheap or both. Besides, people on Steam will have better hardware than the average gamer, because Steam is firmly about FPS gaming.

I don't personally know anyone who'd have upgraded that much/often, and I know at least three people who have been high-ranking (national and continental level) amateurs in various games.

If it brings additional enjoyment and the gamer can afford it, by all means it's nice to have kick ass hardware, but it is not really required to play.

This argument looks like you are comparing the gems of PC gaming against the average of console gaming.

No, not really. I'm presenting some of the consistently longest playable PC games and asking where the console equivalents are. I have played quite a bit of stuff especially on PS2, which I own, older Nintendo consoles, even a little XBox and Dreamcast. I'm not saying console games are worse - in fact I believe they're better quality on average, and you cannot compare two greats of different genres - but I haven't seen individual games with equivalent staying power than the best on PC's.

Some possible reasons are that with a few exceptions, the strategy genre, modding and decent network multiplayer have been the domain of PC's. Long-lived games have a strong correlation with these three.

No matter what the reason for it, the phenomenon results in PC gamers getting by with less expenditure on games.

[Celemourn]

One thing I'd like to see, but am not expecting, is a crossgrade offer for those of us who already bought, say, BF 2142 for windows, before the announcement was made. I don't relish plunking down another $50 for something that will only distract me from my calculus homework. $15 on the other hand...