It's always fun to tell die hard console gamers that was almost exclusively released for the Mac. Bungie, the game's developer, had even to excited journalists at Macworld 1999, before being bought by Microsoft the following year. Development was shifted to the Xbox, the Mac engine killed, and the rest is history.

Steam does work on Mac, but it doesn't have much games since Macs can't run.exe files. Steam is completely free by the way, apart from buying games on it. Steam is perhaps the best platform for buying and playing games online and for enjoying a social gaming experience. Although there isn’t exactly a great deal of competition, Steam has proved to be a reliable platform for gaming on both the PC and the Mac.

Considering Halo's popularity, it's always curious to think if the original plan stayed intact. After all, Mac gaming is an oxymoron for many, a reoccurring joke in a long-running sitcom. For a very short time, things could have been different. These days, however, Apple is estimated to hold of the personal computing market share — a demographic hardly large enough to entice most big name developers. The keyword, however, is most, because now we have. Developer of the wildly successful digital distribution platform, Valve has sworn to do what few others would — treat the Mac as a first-tier gaming platform. With a growing library of first and third party games, Steam might just be the answer to the Mac gaming conundrum.

The Steam for Mac UI, with webkit-based browser., the OS X window management tool. Many Steam games work well with this feature, making it easy to move between windows or applications in-game, without the delays or hassles that make in-game task-switching on Windows such a chore.

But perhaps most important of all, the entire storefront experience has been revamped. Whereas the old Steam browser used Microsoft's, the new Steam UI is based entirely on, the same engine used in Chrome and Safari. Windows download internet explorer for mac. The default view lists only Mac-compatible games, marked with an Apple logo, though the rest of the store is still accessible as well. And while Windows-only games can be purchased regardless, they won't be available for play. An example of a Mac and Windows compatible game. That's not to say the client is without issue, however — despite constant updates and improvements, Steam still seems to suffer the occasional crash, at least on our test model MacBook Pro. It's not rare to see Valve push two or three client updates a day, however, so its likely we'll see more issues like this fixed.

The Games Like Mac gaming of old, Steam was once a running joke amongst the PC community. Slow, bloated and prone to crashing, gamers derided the software for being nothing more than a resource hog and glorified DRM. But it showed promise, and with a library of great third party titles, soon won the hearts of gamers worldwide. Things, of course, are different these days — but the need for a great library is still more important than ever.

Altitude, one of Valve's first SteamPlay games. Was the company's initial first-party title, Valve has promised more intensive, multi-player games like. Which brings us to our next big feature — SteamPlay. Games with the SteamPlay logo are completely cross-platform — that is, a Mac gamer can play seamlessly with a PC gamer and be none the wiser.