2008 Holiday Gift Ideas: Games

As always, no matter what new games come and go in a given year, Solitaire 'Til Dawn from SemiColon Software (http://www.semicolon.com/STDX.html) is my go-to for any kind of relaxation. I submit this each year not just because it's my tradition, but because I really do just play it that often.
--
Andy J. Williams Affleck

Well, it's an even number year, so we all know what that means; a
World of Warcraft expansion.

This time it's Wrath of the Lich King ($40, requires WoW and WoW: The
Burning Crusade, available as a set for $30-$40).

This expansion, if you've been living under the metaphoric rock,
raises the level cap to 80, adds a huge new continent with a lot of
new instances (and more coming soon), and a new Heroic class (the
Death Knight). If you know a WoW player.. well, to be honest, they
probably have the expansion.

But if you've been thinking about playing, this is a good time to jump
in. You can even download the game and try it our for a couple of
weeks for free.

The expansion looks beautiful, the game play is excellent, and hey, 12
million players can't be wrong, right?

<http://www.worldofwarcraft.com>

The game is rated T for Teen, but since it is a MMO, the content can
vary widely among players. I let my 11 year old play, but I turn off
the global 'trade' chat on his machine to shield him from some of the
more blatant user comments and we tend to play together, so that helps
as well.

While not a computer game, these geeked out Matryoshkus (Russian
nested dolls) include the gamut from bit to terabyte can be a fun
learning tool. I suspect TidBITS reader will prefer the Mac-like
design rather the traditional or Dell flavored:

http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/matryoshkus/

Marilyn

Why let Mick Jagger, Luciano Pavaroti or Frank Sinatra sing the lead?
Whether you or your giftee is a potential American Idol winner or
looser, iKaraoke lets anyone tune out the lead vocals and sing along
to anything in an iTunes library, allowing you blast away either
through speakers, privately blow out your eardrums through
headphones, or warble in your car. You can add effects, create duets
with the original vocalists, scan forward and backwards, etc. There's
also complimentary TunePrompter software that allows videotaping of
your iKaraoke performances:

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/ikaraoke

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/tuneprompter

Marilyn

We could use some more game suggestions, folks. I think there have
been four or five total, but we have room for ten in the survey.

cheers... -Adam

>We could use some more game suggestions, folks. I think there have
>been four or five total, but we have room for ten in the survey.

Do iPhone/iPod Touch games count?

--

=Alex Hoffman
Leadership, Policy & Politics
Teachers College, Columbia University

Hi Adam,

Given that Intel Macs have Boot Camp, can I suggest Fallout 3? It is the best game that I’ve played in a long time. And King’s Bounty: The Legend is a lot of fun too. Of course, I’d like these games to be out on the Mac, but I can’t see it happening...

Sadly, I’ve struggled to find good Mac native games - even with the advent of things such as Cider to help with porting.

Karen

If we want to talk iPhone games (do we?) my wife and I spend a crazy amount of time playing Scrabble. I also enjoy shutting of my brain for a little Burning Monkey Casino and Flick Fishing is amusing me as well. And Mondo Solitaire. It's the closest I've gotten to Solitaire Till Dawn on the iPhone :)


--
Andy J. Williams Affleck

Second Edition of Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac has been released! Details at: <http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/podcasting-mac.html>

<http://AndyAffleck.com> * <http://twitter.com/aaffleck>
Profile: <http://www.linkedin.com/in/aaffleck>

Assuming we are going to talk about iPhone games... Ocarina, which
turns your iPhone into, um, an ocarina is easy to learn and
surprisingly addictive for the musically inclined.

<http://ocarina.smule.com>

Tomoharu

>Given that Intel Macs have Boot Camp, can I
>suggest Fallout 3?

Nothing wrong with suggesting Windows games that
you play under Boot Camp or virtualization
software here, but we're not going to include
them in the survey, purely because we want to
encourage Mac games. :-)

cheers... -Adam

On Mon, 1 Dec 2008 10:55:31 -0800, Adam C. Engst wrote:
> Nothing wrong with suggesting Windows games that
> you play under Boot Camp or virtualization
> software here, but we're not going to include
> them in the survey, purely because we want to
> encourage Mac games. :-)

I have pretty much all my Mac Gaming needs met by Ambrosia:
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/games/>

I'm *still* playing Redline, which I nominated here a few xmas' back. I
bought a Logitech Momo USB steering wheel for it, and I play online with my
kids when I'm not at home... a nice way to "stay in touch" is gaming
together.

They have recently updated long-time fav, Apeiron. It is addictive as
crack. I find myself firing it up at least once a week.

Now if they'd only update Maelstrom! ;)

--chuck

Perhaps your loved one would like something to do while listening to
a podcast, perhaps while travelling by public transportation or
waiting for you to show up? (Why are you always so late all the time,
anyway?)

There are lot of iPhone games, and it looks like they keep getting cheaper.

I got Cro-Mag Rally on day 1, and it is properly mindless. It's now
down to $0.99

Perhaps s/he remembers playing Crystal Quest on his/her SE/30? Did
s/he know that it was actually available in color, and available for
iPhone/iTouch? $4.99





(I know that Adam Just Adam doesn't really approve of frivolous
iPhone software -- he's too busy, he tell us, to find more ways to be
unproductive -- buy I enjoy a good iPhone game from time to time. )

--

=Alex Hoffman
Leadership, Policy & Politics
Teachers College, Columbia University

On 1-Dec-2008, at 05:23, Karen wrote:
> can I suggest Fallout 3? It is the best game that I’ve played in a
> long time

Fallout3 is the first game, ever, that has seriously tempted me to
install BootCamp on my Mac Pro. Mostly because my wintendo can barely
play it at all.

--
OS X 10.5 is going to have spots?

On Dec 2, 2008, at 5:31 AM, chuck goolsbee wrote:

> They have recently updated long-time fav, Apeiron. It is addictive as
> crack. I find myself firing it up at least once a week.

One of the first things I do when I get a new Mac is install Apeiron
and EV Nova, and then update my licenses.

> Now if they'd only update Maelstrom! ;)

Ambrosia released the source code some time ago, and you can download
a compiled binary for Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Windows, Linux, or even BeOS
here:
<http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/Maelstrom/binary.html>

Enjoy!

Greg