Two files quietly appeared this morning that will certainly hearten Mac Blizzard fans. Only six weeks after the first announcement, Blizzard have released Mac OS X versions of their immensely popular real-time strategy game StarCraft and its expansion pack, Brood Wars. The files are relatively small at 3.2 MB each, making for an easy download for just about any StarCraft fan.

The files include a ReadMe which lists a number of outstanding issues still found in the Carbonized OS X applications. You will need to be running Mac OS X version 10.1 or higher, and a new form of UDP networking is implemented in the game. While this is different from the other types of non-Battle.net direct networking (like AppleTalk and IPX), updates to the Classic Mac OS and Windows versions of the game will also be released soon that add UDP.

Here's a full list of the issues surrounding the Carbon applications:

Starcraft for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X, version 10.1 or later.

Starcraft for Mac OS X should be installed on a hard drive that is formatted as Mac OS Extended. To find out how your hard drive is formatted, select your hard drive in the Finder and choose "Show Info" from the File menu.

For the best color quality, it is recommended that you run Mac OS X's Display Calibrator Assistant. You can find it by choosing Displays in System Prefs. Select the Color tab and click the Calibrate button. Then follow the on-screen instructions to calibrate your display.

Networking over IPX, AppleTalk, Serial and Direct Modem-Modem is not available in Starcraft for Mac OS X.

UDP Networking added. You can now play on your local TCP/IP based local network by choosing "Local Area Network (UDP/IP)" in the Multiplayer options screen. An upcoming release of the Classic Mac and Windows versions will also support this feature, allowing LAN play between these three versions.

If the computer goes to sleep while you're in the Battle.net chat screen, you may get disconnected from Battle.net. If this happens simply disconnect and then reconnect to Battle.net.

If music is turned off in the game, you may notice occasional pauses while the CD-ROM drive spins up. You may want to leave music turned on to avoid this.

Please do not lock any of the files in the Starcraft folder. This will prevent you from being able to connect to Battle.net.

If you have any problems installing Starcraft in Mac OS X's Classic environment, download StarCraft_Installer_1.05-b.sit from ftp://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/StarCraft/patches/. Run this program with the StarCraft CD in your CD-ROM drive. Should that fail, restart into Mac OS 9 and install from there.

We appreciate the excellent effort put out by the in-house Mac team at Blizzard, and we'll be taking feedback on how well the OS X patches work.

For those Mac gamers who still haven't tried out the excellent StarCraft series, Compuexpert has a great deal running on the games now, so check out our link below.

IMG Review: Brood War

IMG Review: StarCraft

MGF: Download Brood War for OS X Patch (3.2 MB)

MGF: Download StarCraft for OS X Patch (3.2 MB)

Blizzard: The World of StarCraft

Blizzard Entertainment (add to watch list)

StarCraft (add to watch list)

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