It’s been nearly a month since we released the last PC game compatibility list. Since then, we have tested several games including

Well, this time, I won’t go into details for each game. In fact, I only want to talk about Civilization IV: Colonization, Crysis: Warhead and Pure briefly.

Screenshot 01: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 02: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 03: Source – MacHouse

There are several PC game titles that start with Civilization IV. Those games include






Civilization IV: Warlords (released on July 27, 2007)
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (released on July 23, 2007)
Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Gold Edition (released on July 17, 2007)
Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Complete (released on October 12, 2007)






Honestly, I don’t keep track of these Civilization IV spin-offs. I was once excited to play Civilization IV. But the Mac version (released in June, 2006) barely ran on my iMac G5 2 GHz. Now, the thrill is completely gone for me.

Well, if you have an Intel Mac machine, I can tell you that you can run Civilization IV: Colonization without Boot Camp. So far, I have no trouble playing this game with VMware Fusion 2.0. (There is no guarantee that you can play the game to the end.) It’s a stand-alone game title, whose installation takes up only 844 MB of hard disk space. 

Is it fun? Oh, I don’t know, not for me. If you want some idea about how this game goes, divide [0.3 x Civilization IV + 0.3 x Civilization II: Call to Power + 0.3 x Sid Meier’s Pirates! + 0.1 x Age of Empires III] by 4 to get a weighted average.

Screenshot 04: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 05: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 06: Source – MacHouse

Why Age of Empires III? That’s because you can sail back to the home country and bring colonists and workers from Europe. If you sail back, there may be one or two people waiting at the dock. You can drag and drop them one by one onto the ship. (See Screenshot 07.) You can click on the dollar sign at the top for forced immigration.

Screenshot 07: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 08: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 09: Source – MacHouse

The worst part of Civilization IV: Colonization is lack of research. I spent many hours playing the Mac version of Civilization II nearly 9 years ago. Then I was very excited to play the PC version of Civilization III. I bought a cheap PC computer to play it. I was eager to see a list of new wonders Civilization III supports. Now, this thrill is gone because Colonization doesn’t let you build wonders.

Screenshot 10: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 11: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 12: Source – MacHouse

While playing the game, you will often see a message that says something like ‘5 units of tobacco or whatever have been lost in Quebec or wherever.’ What does that mean? Well, if you see this message, obviously, that means you have run out of storage space in one particular city. (See Screenshot 10-1.) Then do what? You can give a produce to a neighbor. If you build a warehouse, you will get a wagon with which you can carry a produce. You can also load a produce with the ship and sail back to Europe. There are 16 resource icons shown at the bottom of the screen. There’s a fraction inside each resource square. A number on the numerator shows home country’s buying price while a number on the denominator shows your buying price. (See Screenshot 12.)

Next, let’s talk about Pure briefly. I like this game to the extent that the graphic quality is quite good. I don’t have trouble running this game with our iMac 2.8 Core 2 Duo at all. BUT… Data loading is a big issue for this game. It’ll take 20, 30 seconds or longer to load data after picking a race. After a race, you have to wait another 30 seconds or so to go back to the race-pick screen.

Screenshot 13: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 14: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 15: Source – MacHouse

By the way, this game doesn’t let you use your Mouse. Some car racing games involve just several buttons that are controlled by one hand. As shown in Screenshot 16, there are many keys to control. So you probably need to use both hands to play this game.

Screenshot 16: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 17: Source – MacHouse

Finally, it’s Crysis Warhead that I want to briefly talk about. It’s a stand-alone game. So you don’t need the original game pack to play Crysis Warhead. It’s a first-person shooting and action game. The character you control in the game is Psycho, a member of U.S. Army Delta Force Raptor Team. He wears a special suit called Nano Muscle Suit.

Screenshot 18: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 19: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 20: Source – MacHouse

So why is this game so popular? I honestly don’t know. I don’t know why the Half Life series is such a big hit, either. I like the suit feature.

If you press the shortcut key for it, as shown in Screenshot 19, 5 icons will appear at the center of the screen. If you select the one looking like a piece of chameleon skin, you will become invisible to foes as long as the blue sprint meter at the bottom right corner lasts. If you are surrounded by a lot of foes, you may probably want to turn on the shield icon to increase armor.

Screenshot 21: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 22: Source – MacHouse

Screenshot 23: Source – MacHouse

References:

Running PC Games through Boot Camp on Intel Mac Machines
Running PC Games through Boot Camp on Intel Mac Machines – 2008-09-01
Running PC Games through Boot Camp on Intel Mac Machines – 2008-08-02
Running PC Games through Boot Camp on Intel Mac Machines – 2008-08-01
Wikipedia – Prince of Persia (2008 video game)