About Games (mostly)

iMac Modifications

Light up Mice

You'd think that Apple would have learned by now, but after introducing the iMac with a "light up" mouse, and then saying it was just a trick, it was only a matter of time before the instructions to make your iMac mouse light up were posted on the Internet. So if you're fairly competent with a soldering iron, and not afraid to void the warranty of your iMac (well, certainly that of your mouse) you too can own a limited edition light-up iMac mouse.

Non USB iMac drives

A company called iDrives is apparently ready to ship non-USB floppy drives, external hard drives and other sorts of external drives for the Mac. This is intriguing in that, while not saying what expansion method they are using, they do say that it is "not USB" and requires "no soldering." This leaves us free to speculate what it is they are doing. Some sort of card for the iMac, or something way of the wall like making use of the IrDA (infra red) port? Interesting, can't wait to see what it is they end up shipping.

Now for the games

With the iMac out of the way for this week, we'll take a look at the industry the iMac has had the most dramatic effect on since its release, Games! Or to be more specific Mac Games.

The iMac has done more positive good for the average Mac Gamer then anything else Apple has done. One thing and one thing only matters to some of the larger game companies, money. Large companies are there to make money, to get them to release games on the Macintosh you have to first convince them they can make money out of it. With the historically low numbers of Macs being bought before the "New Apple" (and its iMac), it was very hard to get these companies to release Mac games. Now that Apple has shipped some two hundred and sixty odd thousand iMacs, nearly all of which are going into the consumer (read "gamer") market, big companies are becoming more open to the "well it costs only a little extra to release a Hybrid Mac-Windows CD, and it gains you X amount extra customers." They smell money and the results are already showing.

MacSoft has been able to get a hold of more titles, and even better been able to release them closer to the time of the PC release. Unreal was released within months of the PC version, unlike the Mac version of Tomb Raider II, which is only coming out now, and the original, Tomb Raider which is still not out (but in development?). Even the eternally anti-Mac Electronic Arts has released the hybrid Future Cop: L.A.P.D..

Go To Page: 1 2