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They walk amongst us. A unique subcategory of Mac user who looks at a computer and sees not a spread sheet or database, but an opportunity for adventure, something more than a ho-hum Photoshop, Word, or Quicken experience. They seek thrills in a variety of genres with First Person Shooter, Real Time Strategy, and Role Playing Games dominating their time. Yes, I am referring to intrepid Mac Gamers who push the envelope on a daily basis, demand the utmost in performance from their hardware, tend to shake the kinks out of their wrists on a regular basis, are heard frequently reassuring themselves that "she'll understand", and have been observed disappearing into their offices with a Big-Slurp and bags of artery-clogging excuses for snack food tucked under their arms for an undetermined amount of time.Mac gamers demand GAME and for 2007 Inside Mac Games knows of titles that fall into the following loosely defined categories: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Adventure, Puzzle, MMORPG, Stealth, Combat, and a variety of Simulations. As usual the heavy hitters for bringing mass quantities of games to the Mac are Aspyr Media and Feral Interactive. And don't forget about the dancing elephant in the crowd Blizzard Entertainment who brought us along for the stampede known as World of Warcraft and this year's The Burning Crusade expansion. But let's be clear, Mac gamers appreciate the efforts of all developers- big, small, and independent who bring us new ways to spend our gaming time. You may notice that some title release dates have slipped a bit due to Apple's conversion to Intel Mac architecture, but never fear, these titles should happen this year. Besides Fable, word through the grapevine hints at a possible deal for another major RPG in the near future. And I'm keeping a close eye on the status of the next Unreal Tournament installment for a Mac announcement. Most of the new titles from the large publishers will be universal binaries, meaning that they will run well on both PowerPC and the new Intel Macs (as long as your Mac meets game system requirements). Prior to purchase, all titles should be verified for compatibility with your hardware by checking the system requirement on the package. Note that Intel Mac-only games will not run on older PowerPC Macs (G5s, Powerbooks, iBooks, and PPC based iMacs). I don't anticipate this being an issue for at least another year with my fingers crossed. The focus of this feature will be on the major titles that are currently in development and scheduled for a 2007 release. Some title are about to be released and may be available when this feature is published. For a comprehensive list of available Mac games including casual games visit Apple.com and The Mac Game Store. You can keep track of future Mac releases on IMG's Game Release Date Page and on IMG's main page for the latest game news.
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