[deniro]

As a Mac gamer, enduring second-class treatment is old hat. Being a Mac user, then a Mac a gamer, then a Mac adventure gamer is like being a minority within a minority within a minority.

Ask around and you will hear stories about the Half-life cancellation by Sierra. Or the Halo saga, a game which initially was designed for the Mac but which didn’t come out until 4 years later, after being on Windows and the x-box.

So, Evan, welcome to our world.

The adventures that you mention in your post never even came to the Mac: Grim Fandango, Longest Journey, Syberia I or II, Conspiracies, Mysterious Journey, Gabriel Knight 3. The list is much longer though: AGON and its sequel, the Broken Sword sequels, Faust, Dark Side of the Moon, Ring, Sanitarium, not to mention all the free underground adventures. And when a game is released the Mac, so much time has passed, and the hardware requirements are so prohibitive that few Mac users can play them. In the interim of porting the game, our machines have become “old” and can no longer run the latest games. Few of us can afford another thousand dollars or so just to play a $50 game.

Life is unfair.

[Royal Fool]

I'm sorry, but this is a really unfair comparison. Everyone and their nephew knows that you don't buy a Mac for the game library.

[bigjko]

Yeah, you don't buy a GameCube and then get disappointed that you didn't get Fable or Psychonauts...

[gravy]

---quote---
I'm sorry, but this is a really unfair comparison. Everyone and their nephew knows that you don't buy a Mac for the game library.
-----------


i second that.

[Skinny Minnie]

Sam and Max 2 wasn't cancelled because the PC isn't a viable gaming platform, it was cancelled because it's an adventure game.

I'm an averred PC enthusiast because Mac just isn't a gaming platform. Next time you're ready to buy another computer, go PC. You'll still have your old Mac, too, but you'll have a much more viable gaming platform that you can do practically everything productivity-wise you'd ever want to with as well. And if that idea doesn't fly for you (insert insulted rant here ), well, I guess you'll have to finally accept the fact that you're stuck without computer games because you continue to choose Mac.

[Jake]

I'm a Mac user almost exclusively and while I agree that getting screwed on Half Life and almost screwed on Halo sucked --hard-- there isn't a lot of comparison with the Sam & Max situation and Macs really.

(for the record, had Sam & Max shipped, I would have probably bought a PC to play it just like I'll buy an XBox once Psychonauts is almost out, though for Sam & Max there was very vague talk between some members of the ScummVM team to do an open source Mac/Linux port of the game when it came out... oh well)

As a side note, Mac adventuring has received a huge burst of new awesomeness in the last year thanks to ScummVM... Broken Sword 2, BASS, Simon 1 and 2, Curse of Monkey Island, Zak McKracken, and soon Flight of the Amazon Queen and possibly Grim Fandango all are now suddenly Mac adventure games thanks to the work of the ScummVM guys.

If you bought a Mac for gaming you're a little confused, but if you want to game on the side with your Mac there's really plenty of good stuff out there if you look in the right places.

[mag]

Originally Posted by bigjko
Yeah, you don't buy a GameCube and then get disappointed that you didn't get Fable or Psychonauts...

What, because the Xbox has such a vast array of exclusive titles compared to the GameCube? At least with the GameCube you get Eternal Darkness, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, and all of the Nintendo games. Of course, GameCube owners are kind of getting screwed now on the cross-platform games which seem to only be coming out on just the PlayStation 2 and Xbox more and more often. So the Xbox is overtaking them there.

Anyway, as far as using a Mac goes, aren't there Windows emulators you can use now? I've never really looked into them myself, but I've seen a couple of them around. Even Linux has WINE. Of course, WINE isn't that good, but I believe the ones for Macs are a little bit better.

Also, I don't know if this will work with OS X, but on my computer I have my hard drive partitioned. I have Linux on one half, and I keep Windows on the other for games.

mag

[remixor]

Originally Posted by mag

What, because the Xbox has such a vast array of exclusive titles compared to the GameCube? At least with the GameCube you get Eternal Darkness, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, and all of the Nintendo games. Of course, GameCube owners are kind of getting screwed now on the cross-platform games which seem to only be coming out on just the PlayStation 2 and Xbox more and more often. So the Xbox is overtaking them there.

Look, I really don't think he was trying to bash the GameCube, let's not get into that. He was just saying you don't buy a particular system for a particular game if it's obvious the game won't be on that system. Don't try to infer some sort of anti-GameCube bias for no reason.

[Royal Fool]

BigJKO is a pretty big GameCube fan, actually... I don't think he was really implying anything.

[mag]

Sorry if that sounded too aggressive. Wasn't trying to accuse bigjko of console bashing. I just wanted to point out that the Xbox may not have been the best example of use. Besides, I haven't tasted a good foot in almost twenty minutes.

mag

[fov]

I'm an averred PC enthusiast because Mac just isn't a gaming platform. Next time you're ready to buy another computer, go PC.

This is actually the reason I bought a PC. I grew up with Macs and always swore I would never switch, but when it came time to get a new machine, I just couldn't justify it. 95% of the time spent on my home computer is for games and I wanted to be able to play them all.

-emily

[deniro]

I didn't realize there was so much anti-Mac bigotry on this site.

I've been using Apple computers since 1980. I have seen no reason to change. At that time, Apple had the market share and finding games was no problem. In fact, adventure gaming really began on the Mac, with companies like Infocom ushering in the text adventure genre, Sierra making Mystery House and Cranston Manor, plus RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry. Myst, which before The Sims was the best selling game of all time, was made on a Mac using a program called Hypercard. Halo began on the Mac until the company sold out to Microsoft for $$$.

But regardless, for most of us who are adults and don't spend our days playing games, gaming is a secondary priority, if not further along down the list of why we use computers. I still believe the platform is superior, and if I didn't, I wouldn't have bought a Mac. Having followed the industry for probably longer than some of you were born, I am fully aware of the shift in market share and, along with it, the shift in quantity of software.

My nephew tells me the ultimate game machine is a Playstation. But I have no plans to get one. I am unaware if graphic adventures are made for that system, and game-playing is merely a hobby, not something that dominates my life.

I have no desire to buy a lesser platform (Windows, Linux) merely for the sake of playing games. Still, it would be nice to have some of the games, like Grim Fandango, that everyone raves about, rather than being treated like a second-class citizen. Competition, after all, is what a market economy is all about, and we are all supposed to be in favor it.

Mac users are familiar to having products promised to them and then pulled away as those their desires were insignificant. In that sense, my analogy regarding the Sam and Max episode is correct and I stand by it.

[remixor]

Originally Posted by deniro

I didn't realize there was so much anti-Mac bigotry on this site.

Oh, for crying out loud. I don't know how you could read this thread and claim evidence of "anti-Mac bigotry." It's a simple matter of people wanting to have the option to play all of the games, so even if they prefer Macs (like Jake and assumedly Emily) they recognize that the PC is currently a better gaming platform. That's all there is to it, it has nothing to do with thinking that Mac is bad or the people who use it are stupid or something. Nobody is saying YOU should use a PC, but by your own admission gaming is less of a priority for you than for some people on this forum. Nobody on these boards has a problem with that! Please don't accuse us of "bigotry", it's an almost laughably misguided accusation.

[mag]

Originally Posted by deniro
I didn't realize there was so much anti-Mac bigotry on this site.

It's not bigotry. It's just practicality. I personally think that OS X is a superior operating system to Windows. But the fact is that there aren't many games for the Mac. So a person shouldn't really be surprised to find out that a game isn't being released for the Mac. If it's not worth it to you to buy a more game-friendly platform, that's fine. But I would hardly call somebody who chooses a different platform to suit his/her needs a bigot.

The PlayStation 2, for instance is considered by many to be the best video game console because of its selection. But in terms of technology the Xbox is superior. It just lacks the number of games that the PS2 has. It's all about the selection.

Originally Posted by deniro
I have no desire to buy a lesser platform (Windows, Linux) merely for the sake of playing games.

First of all, Linux is second to no operating system. And besides, it's free. But I wouldn't suggest getting it for the games. Linux is just as bad if not worse than OS X in that regard. That's why I keep Windows around. Doesn't mean you have to give up OS X. It just gives you another option.

mag

[Crescent Moon]

Well...If you don't want to buy a new computer, you could get an Xbox. Though it's a $180 investment for a bit of a limited selection...Syberia, Syberia 2, Broken Sword 3, Myst 3, the new Leisure Suit Larry, and Shadow of Memories (Shadow of Destiny). *shrugs* I would say PS2, but SCEA seems to be sort of anti-Adventure all of a sudden. They aren't letting Syberia 1 & 2 and BS3 be published in the US, yet they approved Shadow of Destiny and also recently Nebula: Echo Night (an obscure Japanese adventure set on the moon).

[remixor]

Are you sure Shadow of Destiny is on the Xbox? I'm pretty sure it's PS2 and PC only.

[fov]

Originally Posted by remixor

Are you sure Shadow of Destiny is on the Xbox? I'm pretty sure it's PS2 and PC only.

I think the Xbox release was only in Europe.

-emily

[Bastich]

He he... I am actually going to switch to a Mac soon. I have been waiting for the Rev B G5s to come out already so I can buy, but Apple seems like it just wants to tease me.

I am not giving up my PC though. It will become an expensive, glorified console. That is about all it is worthy of anyway...

[Jake]

The defensive tech gadget-owners are out in force in this thread, jeez

That's already one Gamecube-defender and one Mac-defender coming out with posts blasting other people completely unprovoked Kinda funny. High strung much?!

[deniro]

Originally Posted by Jake

The defensive tech gadget-owners are out in force in this thread, jeez

That's already one Gamecube-defender and one Mac-defender coming out with posts blasting other people completely unprovoked Kinda funny. High strung much?!

Not me. You? Read much? Learn to read, kids.

I didn't "blast" anyone. Nor I was "completely unprovoked." You might read the responses to my posts again, but try it again without reading between the lines.

I demolished a silly response, namely the accusation that it was "unfair" to compare the Sam and Max situation with the number of times Mac gamers have gotten the shaft. It's a perfectly logical comparison. Don't cry to me if the point is too subtle for you to grasp. Frankly, I found the reponses to my post surprisingly immature.

I explained the reasoning behind my comparison. I explained the platform I use and why. I explained what priority games have in my life and something of my history with them. I explained how getting the shaft in gaming releases was something Mac users could relate to.

God forbid you should have anything in common with . . . eww . . . Mac users.

That's what I mean by bigotry. The automatic assumption that the Mac platform is second-class and deserves no consideration. Don't attack the platform and then expect someone not to reply.