The Sims 2 For Mac

Aspyr Media and EA put out a joint press release yesterday announcing Aspyr's conversion of The Sims 2 to Macintosh. Information on the game is available via Aspyr's site, and will soon be available for preorder. No information yet on when the game will be available on the Mac platform.

Comments

Used PC Copy

[GopherDylan]

Anyone want to pre-order a used copy of Sims 2 for PC?

I was torn when this first came out over what platform to purchase it for. Earlier this year I had purchased I nice, shiny, new G5 with a pretty nice video card. But for some reason not knowing when the Mac version would be avalible had me to decide to upgrade the old PC Video card ($46 expense) to play the game on the release date.

The kicker in all this is that I played it for a week and then stopped. It's not that I don't like the game, I do, but it is time consuming and still just a sims game.

I think it would run better on my Mac, but would it be worth the trouble to purchase this game a second time?

I kind of miss the days when software came out for both platforms in the same box. I understand this would be a lot more difficult now, but I still miss it.

Re:Used PC Copy

[chrish]

I don't think it really needs to be more difficult, although it does double your testing/QA.

Platform-independant things like SDL, OpenGL, and OpenAL work quite well on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux... but almost nobody seems to want to use them when developing a commercial game. Know anyone using OpenGL for a game that isn't based on one of id's engines?

Re:Used PC Copy

[CaptMonkeyDLuffy]

Well, if I recall correctly City of Heroes uses OpenGL for graphics, and I'm pretty certain it's not based on an id engine.

um... pre-order?

[jxyama]

so it's a press announcement for a pre-order... but can you honestly say something is a pre-order when you don't even know when you can order it for real?

am i missing something or is there a significance to accepting orders when you don't know when you'll finish? aspyr isn't some small, semi-scamish operation... no one doubted that this isn't a vapor. why don't they let people pre-order when they get the release date set?

Re:um... pre-order?

[AvantLegion]

so it's a press announcement for a pre-order... but can you honestly say something is a pre-order when you don't even know when you can order it for real?

am i missing something or is there a significance to accepting orders when you don't know when you'll finish? aspyr isn't some small, semi-scamish operation... no one doubted that this isn't a vapor. why don't they let people pre-order when they get the release date set?

Because the interest in Sims 2 is at a high point RIGHT NOW.

Re:Sounds about right

[SkyWalk423]

I suppose you didn't find it newsworthy when the Grand Theft Auto box set for Xbox was announced? Because you knew it was coming out, right?

The state of games on the Mac

[Matt Clare]

The intent to produce a verion of a popular game for the Mac is news.

I love my PB and other machines, and most of all OSX, but it's a good thing my favourite game is Google.

Re:How many people care about Mac gaming anymore?

[AvantLegion]

UT2004, Doom 3, Battlefield 1942, America's Army, WarCraft III, Call of Duty + expansion, Diablo II..

When you look at the Xfire front page and see the top 10 most popular online games people are playing, 7 are available on the Mac platform.

While 7 != 10, 7 most certainly != "lol omfg n00b Mac has no gaymezz!"

Do people care about PC games anymore?

[amichalo]

It has been posted that the Mac is not a good game platform or the PC always gets the games first but I don't see the appeal to playing games on the PC(or Mac) anymore.

Other than Tetris or some other arcade style time killer, what is the appeal to playing some long, complex game on a computer rather than a cheap console?

An Xbox/PS2/GameCube is about $150-200 and has ergonomic interfaces for game play, rather than a mouse and keyboard. So why buy an Alienware desktop for $2000 when you could buy every console and 10 games for each one for that price?

I play Civ3 on my Mac but I wouldn't cry if I had to buy a PS2 to play it the times that I want to. It really isn't that big a deal.

Re:Do people care about PC games anymore?

[StocDred]

I agree entirely, but you are about to be destroyed by the pro-PC crowd in a massive flamewar.

Or, you would be if they hadn't seen the Mac-centric headline and bailed!

Re:Do people care about PC games anymore?

[chrish]

Perhaps some of us like long, complex games?

Re:Do people care about PC games anymore?

[javaxman]

what is the appeal to playing some long, complex game on a computer rather than a cheap console?

While I agree to you to a large degree ( I play the vast majority of games on my PS2 ), there is a place for games on a computer ( PC, Macintosh, Linux, SGI, whatever ) today.

That's in games where it's all about gee-whiz graphics. Games big in customization and other aspects that require large save files also benefit on a real computer, unless you're putting a hard drive in your console.

While modern consoles are pretty slick and getting faster, and some can ( or newer versions will ) hook up to high-definitions TV sets, the reality is that graphics cards, displays, and processors are all more capable on high-end computers, and always will be. I'm thinking that even for a game like Sims2, a computer-based version is going to end up looking a lot better than a current PS2 or Xbox port, at least if you have an up-to-date mid-to-high-range graphics card. Of course, this leaves the market for such high-end PC games to people with a lot of free time and money to burn. Mainly teenagers...

But yea, where is Civ3 for the PS2? I'd buy that. Of course, maybe it requires save files that would eat an entire memory card, but you *can* buy hard drives for the PS2, even though almost nobody does... there's a lot of customizable stuff in the current Sims games and even more in Sims2 that is generally left out in console ports.

Re:Do people care about PC games anymore?

[amichalo]

for $150 you can upgrade a PlayStation to a PlayStation2 - and you get a free PlayStation!