After waiting several hours for a massive 2.7 GB patch to download, I was finally able to prowl around the Macintosh open beta for City of Heroes, a PC MMO developed in 2004 by Cryptic. During my wait, I couldn’t help but to wonder if this would be the MMO that would finally hook me. After a brief play through, I can’t decide.
The system requirements for the game aren’t exactly steep (listed after the break), but if you’re running an older machine the game will certainly chug. My Macbook is aging not-so-gracefully, so I found myself experiencing a variety of oddities. Occasionally, geometry wouldn’t load properly or in-game messages attacked the entirety of my screen, leading to a quick death.
Despite my problems, I can happily report that the core game is still present and working. My biggest qualm outside of the technical realm is that the game is still very PC-oriented. As a Mac user, I am highly sensitive to having to right-click things.
City of Heroes for the Macintosh is due out sometime this January. It will feature a few exclusives, like the very sexy Valkrie Costume set and the Mission Teleporter Power, which will allow users to teleport to their active missions. While we wait, I’ll continue my journey through the beta and update you with my impressions.
Minimum System and Operating System Specifications:
• Intel Core Duo Processor*
• 5GB of free hard drive space
• Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard or higher
• 1024 MB RAM
• ATI X1600 or NVIDIA 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100
*Please note that iMacs with PowerPC chipsets are not supported.
For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires at least:
• Intel Integrated Chipset GMA X3100
• Dual 2.0GHz CPUs, or 1.7GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
Supported Video Cards:
• NVIDIA GeForce series 7300, 7600, 8600, 8800, 9400, 9600
• ATI Radeon™ series X1600, X1900, HD 2400, HD 2600
• Intel® Extreme Graphics GMA X3100
Contest:
5:30 PM on 12.22.2008
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NEED.
Memory: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM ... but it's the integrated Graphics card that is killing me I believe. It's a GMA 950.
In no way, shape, or form should the fact that right clicking is a prevalent part of game play make you cranky, if only because the Apple Mighty Mouse is, at its core, a wildly over engineered piece of Macintosh hardware, infused with magic, rainbows, and probably the souls of innocents, to accomplish what is essentially a very simple thing: Be a two button mouse.
Having previously been a WoW player, when I switched to Mac, I never even plugged the Mighty Mouse in for the simple fact that its design prohibited its inherent two button functionality from actually working given the game's interface.
Just buy a real mouse that actually has two separate, and mechanical buttons instead of staying with a mouse that is pretending it isn't two button by mimicking two button functionality poorly. All of this said without malice and a smile. :-)
Right click.