14 DAY TRIAL // Valve announced recently that its flagship video game, Half Life 2, was headed to the Mac. Currently available for download via Steam, the game is one of the most highly acclaimed of its kind, and is now playable on Macs thanks to Valve porting the Steam gaming platform to Mac OS X.
“By taking the suspense, challenge and visceral charge of the original, and adding startling new realism and responsiveness, Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player's presence affects everything around him, from the physical environment to the behaviors even the emotions of both friends and enemies,” Valve states.
Via a report by Inside Mac Games, we are able to provide our readers with the official system requirements for Half Life 2 for Mac. As noted by the website specializing in news and information for the Mac gaming community, the system requirements for Valve’s popular first-person-shooter include Mac OS X version 10.5.8 (Leopard) or Mac OS X version 10.6.3 (Snow Leopard), 1GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8 or higher, or ATI X1600 or higher, a mouse, a keyboard, and an Internet connection, the last one being necessary for the online activation of the game. Half Life 2 was actually the first video game to require product activation using the Internet.
Half Life 2 boasts cross-platform support for Steam Cloud, a feature that allows players to save their progress on one computer, and resume the play on another, be it a Mac or a Windows PC. According to Valve, Half Life 2 and Episode One have been updated to include over 40 new Steam Achievements. These are reportedly available to all owners of the Half Life titles. Supporting Steam Play (which enables customers to purchase a game once and play it on all Steam-supported platforms), Half-Life 2 Episode One and Half Life 2 Episode 2 are each available for 30% off their regular price, but only for a limited time, Valve has confirmed.
To play Half Life 2, Mac owners must first download the Mac Steam client, subscribe, and proceed with downloading the game.