It’s been a long, hard battle for Mac fanatics but they’re finally being taken seriously.  It’s all thanks to one company led by a passionately beloved tech-celebrity.  One bold, forward-planning firm which is the very definition of thinking different - and then doing things that aren’t just better than everyone else, but that its sluggish rivals wouldn’t even have thought to do.  A company with the very smartest staff, the most polished products, and an understanding that style and substance aren’t mutually exclusive.

Valve.

It’s half-right: the PC is upgradeable, but the Mac doesn’t fall over so easily

After years of suffering occasional half-converted cash-ins, ported to the Mac after everyone on the PC was done with them, Valve have announced that Mac gamers will enjoy future Steam games released on Apple products.  And that’s not eventually, after conversion, or “several years after even Australia get the game assuming they didn’t ban it” - this is actually at release, just like a real computer, because the Mac version was developed at the same time as the other systems, just like a real game.

Apple gamers have been - well, for a start even that term still sounds stupid.  For years Apple computers were programmed to tie two arms behind their backs in order emulate a Windows environment.  Specifically, a Windows environment with none of the custom graphics hardware most games require as standard (and now using half its own processor to pretend that was a problem).  It was like Linford Christie building a scarecrow out of stir-sticks, then tying himself to it so he could enter a three-legged race.

The single sexiest piece of hardware ever (including fembots, Decker’s Rachael, and the T-X)

But now they can play!  We’ll have Mac users on Team Fortress 2 servers, where we’ll see if the rumors that they’re more community-minded than the PC community are true (go Medic!).  We’ll have fanboys on Counter-Strike servers, an experiment in obsession to see if one soul can support two passions.  We’ll even have white, cool lines running on Left 4 Dead 2 servers - and players running for their simulated lives on the same.

When asked “Will people have to buy their games all over again?”, Valve did NOT answer “Remember that we’re the company who do things like three years of free content without subscription fees?” but they totally could have.  They also did NOT glare incriminatingly at Activision, EA, and other companies who release zero-day DLC or yearly updates in full price boxes, but again, they totally could have.

The first new release in the unsegregated online world will be Portal 2.  Which makes Adam and Eve having the first sex ever look like a boring way to Genesize.

3D destroyed dozens of beloved characters back in dark days of the late nineties, now known as the “Plague Of Broken Polygons”, forcing them into a third dimension they weren’t ready for. The N64 Castlevania was a catastrophe of careening cameras and clumsy controls, and we’re going to have to pray our secret NES shrines forgive us for even mentioning the Playstation’s Mega Man Legends. But now we have professional 3D rendering tools, an army of innovative internet fans, and people who still love what made the titles good in the first place. Here we see how they’ve brought the old days onto modern game servers.

1. Super Gordon Bros

An awesome modification that’s half parody, half retrostalgic, showing exactly how things look for the Mario Bros in their flattened world. M0rtanius’s Super Gordon Bros teleports Gordon Freeman into World 1-1 of the greatest platform game ever made and it’s a view like no other.

It’s an incredibly fun little level despite being dangerously close to fan-fiction - but with the HEV suit coming out of the mushroom question block, and even the ability to “use” a pipe to enter the underground coin room, it’s about a minute of incredible joy. You can even load the level into a HL2:DM server for some side-scrolling shooting insanity. Not exactly the most balanced (or even possible) level but an awesome idea for a fun clan-server event.

Watch it here, or download it here.

2. TF2 Mario Kart

I don’t think we’re in Dustbowl any more

Teleporting Team Fortress 2 into a game where Mario was adapted into racing - this map involves more worlds than a Starfleet war. The team deathmatch level thrusts players into a psychedelic world of memes, mario karts and moving vehicles. TF2 servers running the map are usually heavily 4channed (meaning they’re not homes of fine teamplay or even coherent thought) but as long as you’re ready to mute the worst of the micspammers you can derive insane enjoyment from this lunatic level.

In fact, I don’t even want to know where we are

Get the files here, and thank the awesome Xenon for making it.

3. Half-Life Vania

We’re back with the best, with M0rtanius taking us to Transylvania - and giving us a crowbar. The instant you spawn you’re transported back in time, not to the days of Dracula, but the 8-bit eighties. The music immediately engages your grin response and the attention to detail is fantastic: you get power-ups by breaking candles, scanners patrol hallways in the classic sine-wave pattern, and the hidden healthpack is still in the right place for those who know where to smash up the wall.

It’s a Source server fantasy for anyone who’s taken the long road through gaming: if you’ve ever blown on a cartridge to make it work, if you’ve ever sighed and started again from the beginning after dying on the last level, if you remember the first time you saw something in 3D, then these treats are for you. And your friends. And the Garry’s Mod server applications are only limited by your imagination.

Watch it here, get it here.

The internet is awesome: only a few weeks ago, a Counter-Strike/Ghost In The Shell crossover would have been the worst fan-fiction in the world. Now it’s a fantastic free mod for any Half-Life 2 Deathmatch server, and one you should really be playing.

If you don’t know what Ghost In The Shell is, don’t worry: you’ll still appreciate the excellent Blade-Runner stylings, texture rich multi-level locations and brutal combat of NeoTokyo servers (which, unlike many mods, actually have an active population.)  Think “near-future cyberpunk” with cyborgs, cloaking devices and high-level governmental shenanigans - usually resolved by gunfire.

The game has a real Counter-Strike brutality - it only takes a couple of bullets to put you down, and keep you there until the end of the round. The twist is the unique “Capture The Ghost” gameplay, a Capture The Flag variant where both teams are trying to take the same object back to their own exits. The “Ghost” is a piece of a cyborg shell, and also a giant flashing neon sign shouting “Yes This Is Totally Ghost In The Shell In Everything But Name, Isn’t It Awesome?”

Carrying the Ghost gives you information instead of ammunition

Picking up the Ghost means dropping your primary weapon, giving the game a real VIP-mode feel. There’s also an intelligence aspect - you can switch to your pistol, or “use” the ghost to detect enemies and relay the information to your team-mates by voicechat. The central nature of the ghost defines a whole new style of play. Players can choose to make an end-run with the ghost, rely on their comrades to defend them, or simply camp the objective and wait for the enemy to show up.

Another addition to the Counter-Strike core is classes and levels. Levels are simple: the more points you score on the server, the more XP you gain and the more weapons you unlock. There are three classes:

1. Recon

Recon have unlimited running, can use an “Aux power” bar to make incredible jumps (very nice for landing behind entrenched enemies) and have a fair bit of thermoptic camoflague. And by “thermoptic camoflague” we mean “cloak”, except you can actually fire while half-invisible - something of a shock for anyone coming over from a TF2 server, adding a real “Was that all of them?” element to any firefight.

2. Assault

Less cloaking, and they have to use their aux power for running, but more health and heavier weapons. The Assault class support the spearhead of recons out for the ghost (or the enemy) while maintaining the ability to make a few surprise sprints of their own. They can also counter cloaking with “motion vision”, at the expense of missing camped enemies.

3. Support

Defending the ghost-carrier with a support class.

No aux power, no cloak, just a great big health bar and a great big gun. The Heavy of the NeoTokyo rooftops, the extremely 3D nature of maps means a well-placed Support player can really change the course of the game. Thermal vision means they have the best view of the battlefield.

On top of all the innovations, NeoTokyo servers are beautiful. Detailed maps making great use of the Source engine, where even the lighting effects have tactical considerations (the act of cloaking causes a bright flash, advertising your location before you become invisible). With everything from rust-stained walls to Metal Gear-memorializing “Calorie Mate” advertisements, you really feel you’re engaged in urban combat in the middle of a major city or governmental facility. A lot more interesting than de_dust, and just as much fun.

Games are awesome.  You’re either agreeing or extremely lost because, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re on a site that rents online game servers (aka “Palaces of Pyro-explosive Joy!”).  But some go above and beyond the simple call of fragging, helping their FPS fantasies escape into the real world WITHOUT - and this is important - going insane and killing us.  Here we salute these brave server-servers and their incredible efforts.

1.  The Sentry Gun PC

The single coolest thing to happen to Team Fortress 2 servers since the game itself, “TiTON“’s Sentry Gun PC is the most beautiful sight outside of a burning Spy.  As well as being an excellent reproduction of the ultimate in BLU team point defense, the tripod-mounted heavy-calibre (fake) machine gun is a decent desktop as well, featuring a GeForce 9600 and a Core 2 Duo processor.

This means you can set up sentries on Team Fortress 2 while playing on a sentry from TF2; so you’re so many levels into an imagination, you have to start setting yourself on fire to make sure you’re not a spy.

2.  Real Life Warthog

Halo servers don’t actually need any promotion, what with the game being connected to approximately every college student dorm in any country, so this real-life Warthog is nothing but luxury.  Awesome, awesome luxury.

It’s even the original Bungie team who get to ride in the recreation of their creation, creating a “Cycle of Awesome” which could be used to drive all coolness on Earth -  except they’re a little too aware of how this is a one-of-a-kind result of weeks of work.  So they drive carefully, apparently unaware that driving carefully in a Warthog is like fasting on the set of Iron Chef.  Luckily there are real Halo servers where you can skid that thing’s beautiful inverse kineamatics right through an opposing soldier’s face.

3.  Real Life Crates!

You’ll see crates on almost every FPS server, with “Time Until You See A Crate” acting as respected review system, but you pay far more attention to the crates on Counter-Strike servers.  Because you normally pay more attention to things that can hide terrorists with machine guns, or if you don’t you need to radically re-evaluate your priorities.  All of which make these real life crates a thousand times more awesome than wooden boxes have any right to be.

Part of the best-named art exhibit ever made, the “de_dust installation,” pixelated packing was placed all over the city, popping up in streets and stations and generally making people try to reload while walking down the street.

4.  CERN Crowbar

The above escaped server-stuff is slick, but none of it ever protected Earth from interdimensional invasion (though we can see that Warthog being significantly awesome in an urban combat environment).  Luckily some cyber-citizens saw that CERN’s screwing around with the stuff of spacetime could lead to a resonance cascade (and a little alliteration) and organized probably the best nerdy thing ever to happen.

They sent CERN a crowbar, a headcrab for practise, and a strategy guide detailing what to do in the event of alien invasion (specifically, a Half-Life strategy guide).  And because some scientists are awesome, the actual factual Gordon Freeman (codename: Sandro Bonacini) came out to demonstrate his readiness.  Even cooler, as if that was even possible, Sandro’s work is in radiation-resistant logic components - so he really couldn’t sound more like a videogame scientist if he was wearing body armor and could run top speed while carrying ten thousand rounds of ammunition.

You’ve seen some sweet sights on your Source server - a fully-charged medic dropping to your headshot, the blind side of a terrorist on Bomb Site B, the UDamage when you’ve got a full rocket clip - but some people take it to the next level.  The “Somebody who isn’t actually playing would watch it, repeatedly” level, even though watching someone else play is usually the most frustrating thing outside a Chinese finger trap at the urinal.

1.  Combine Nation

Pretty much the only good thing about reality TV is the parodies - and what’s a better parody of real life than video gaming?  We’ll tell you what: video gaming with the Metrocops of City 17 as they deal with barnacles, insurance fraud, and their own idiotic members.

Combine Nation gets bonus points for resisting all the obvious gags - there’s no silent Gordon Freeman, no “From the nameless grunt’s point of view” killings by the player, there isn’t even a gravity gun.  They do include the “What happens if a Metrocop sneezes” bit, but it’s thrown in as an aside - not a single joke forming the focus of an excruciating five minute scene, as with so many fan-made creations.  Take time off from your HL2: DM server to go see.

2.  Ignis Solus

It also features somebody actually winning on 2Fort, and we think that’s an amazing enough to deserve mention all by itself.

3.  Maintenance Man

The story of an unlikely hero thrown into circumstances far beyond him, struggling against impossible odds (and heavily armed enemies) to save his world.  Who cares if he’s a bad guy?  Maintenance Man is about a gravity-gun-equipped janitor out to clean up Gordon Freeman’s mess, and since Gordon blew off the entire Dark Energy Reactor assembly and fatally destabilised the Citadel core, that’s a “mess” on par with the Death Star explosion.  Yes, he’s the guy who has to fix the results of Half Life 2.

Maintenance Man features incredibly skilled camerawork - they manage realistically gritty camera shakes, despite using virtual cameras on virtual actors.  These guys make something so pretend look so real they could probably sell you unicorn insurance.  They’ve also got perfect timing (the weak point of all wannabe Source server directors) adding wonderful little moments of humor and character in the midst of a serious story.

4.  Freeman’s Mind

You may have noticed that all three of the above were made by Lit Fuse Films.  We’re not going to lie to you: that’s because Lit Fuse are simply the best outside of Valve, and any list of the best Source machinima will always just be “Lit Fuse + a couple others”.  If they don’t get hired to do some serious (and well paid) production then there is no justice in this world.  Now, on to the “couple of others”.

If Lit Fuse are the cinema, Freeman’s Mind is the stand-up.  It’s at the opposite end of the technical spectrum - it’s just the someone talking while playing Half Life with the HUD off, and if watching that sounds like the seventh circle of Hell it’s because you haven’t heard him.  Gordon Freeman’s muteness is the most overplayed joke in gaming history, slightly less original than Seinfeld asking “So what’s up with airline food?”, but Ross Scott gives a genius reason: he’s an idiot.  A brilliant, ridiculous, idiot who’s massively entertaining for everyone but downright hilarious for those who’ve played through Black Mesa’s “unique” architecture.  If you’ve ever even heard of crowbars, go check it out.

5.  Escape From City 17

Ultimately, and we do truly mean “ultimately” because it ends everything you ever thought you knew about the genre, there’s Escape From City 17.  Which is quite frankly unbelievable, as in the-first-cowboys-to-see-a-motor-car-, witnessing the start of a new technological era ,-unbelievable.  Merging the Source SDK, Half Life 2 sound effects and real actors in a way that would make major production companies jealous, its insane quality propelled it to the top of the internet so fast it made Zero Punctuation look like a livejournal.  Released one day, an official Steam update announcement the next - and that’s about as high as you can go, Valve-wise, short of owning a crowbar and joining the BLU team.

The makers, the awesomely talented Purchase Brothers, claim that the whole thing cost about $500 - and if that’s within even a factor of a thousand of being true, you’re watching the next generation of film right here.  The first episode alone kicks the hell out of most of the starting series, online or off, and they’re just getting started.  It remains to be seen whether the headcrabs will be the undoing of their limited budget (zombies are harder to recreate than metrocops), but they deserve every click and comment the community can give them.

Most Orange Box owners jumped straight into a Team Fortress 2 server and just stayed there. That’s understandable, what with it being one of the best online games ever made and all, but if you don’t at least look at HL2: Deathmatch you’ll miss out on one of the finest moments multiplayer combat can offer.

The graphics, the quality, the varied weight of the weapons and sheer codification of Pure Awesome that is the Source engine are all strong reasons to play, but they aren’t The Moment. The huge number of modifications based on this solid core are testament to its greatness (some of them now officially in their own right), but they aren’t The Moment. Half Life 2: Deathmatch can be sold on just three words:

The. Gravity. Gun.

Oh, you THINK you understand the joy of the Zero Point Energy Manipulator just because you used it in Ravenholm. You laughed as you played ball with Dog, you marveled at the freedom of the weapon, and you fist-pumped “YEEEAAAAAAH!” as you punched circular saw blades through crab-zombies.

We tell you now that haven’t seen even a fraction of it.

Not an iota, a speck, not even a tiny glimmer of the true ecstasy this wonder of weaponry offers. The first time you log on to a HL2: Deathmatch server you’ll be running around with your usual equipment - the rapid fire of the machine-gun, the up close and personal weight of the shotgun, even the desperation of the pistol. Force of habit might even stop you going any further, getting as far as the crowbar and assuming that “almost useless melee weapon” was the end of the line - as it is in every other game.

But keep scrolling and you’ll notice “Oh wow, I’ve got the gravity gun!” You are about to experience The Moment. Because when you lift your first oil barrel, run at some fool using pathetic ballistic technology, bullets sparking and bouncing off your metal shield, and then just blast that thing into them HOOOOOOYAAAAHHAHAHAH#$#@%#$@%$@#A! (Warning: the sheer visceral physics-engined joy of thumping someone with the gravity gun cannot actually be contained by HTML text)

There are some sacrifices to make for being able to throw things around with your mind. For one thing, you need things to throw - that’s kind of the point - which in item-poor environments mean a missed shot can cost you. Every second you spend hunting for hurlable objects is a second the enemy is shooting at you.
Note: you can’t actually survive many such seconds.

Like any game the key is finding the right people to play with. There are servers where you’ll punt an engine block at someone (and the fact that we live in a world where we can say that fills us with joy), and they’ll have the sheer bad manners to simply step out of the way and shoot you in the head. Since you’re not the Incredible Hulk, this means you “lose”. Keep moving from HL2:DM server to server until you meet the people who catch it in mid air and throw it back at you.

Then you’ll really have some fun.