Steam for Mac, Finally.

Ever since 2004, Steam, the popular game management software was available solely to Windows users. Playing VALVE's world-class games was a joy when using a 22 inch screen backed by an NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 512MB graphics card, however, if I ever wanted to use my MacBook, I would have to either reboot into Windows with Boot Camp or run VMware Fusion or some other virtual machine software. Such a maneuver proved quite incapacitating and processor-consuming. Even sporting 4 GB of RAM and a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, my MacBook would display the atypical beach-ball and tense up for spells of time never before experienced. In spite of having completed the first level of Portal on scores of occasions natively on a PC, it had taken upwards of 20 minutes to finish while running on my MacBook. I could try to play Team Fortress 2, but it would eventually crash, and after my first try, I scarcely even considered running Half Life 2 or any of its pantheon of trailing episodes.

Much to my surprise, Steam released an edition of their program specifically for Macintosh users. This is quite a relief for me (and many other gamers who happen to fancy the Mac operating system) in that I can now run Steam natively on my MacBook without the aid of a virtual machine software. Granted, my graphics processor is the Intel GMA X3100 chipset, so the image quality is tainted, but playing Portal is such a breeze, it compensates for any lack of definition. I'm excited about Steam for Mac and I am eager to play more games as they are released for the platform. Thank you Steam for broadening your horizons and allowing a greater audience to join the gaming community.