I'm upgrading my first gen 24" iMac to a 27" and thought I'd try to play some games. I've wanted to play half life 2 for a while but I'm confused as to how it works. I don't see any "Half Life 2 for OS X" on Amazon, but I've seen where people are playing it on their Macs. Do you have to use this so-called "Steam" or does it install natively?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Half Life 2, Steam, confused
- Thread starter Razorhog
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
To my understanding you must use steam when installing on a mac, although the installs are still native. I would suggest buying The Orange Box when you do since this will come with some other mods for half-life.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5149-EAJZ-9911
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5149-EAJZ-9911
Using Steam, it's owned by Valve. I think a lot of people already owned the PC version of The Orange Box and just registered it through Steam. Valve made those titles available to OSX long after the fact and allowed customers to play on Windows or OSX. So I guess you could still buy The Orange Box, if you absolutely need a physical disc, but don't expect the installation disc to work on your Mac.
Just understand that not every game available on Steam is available for playing on Windows and OSX. Some are only playable on one OS or the other. Just be sure to read everything before you buy something. Sometimes people get all excited and don't read things like system requirements.
Just understand that not every game available on Steam is available for playing on Windows and OSX. Some are only playable on one OS or the other. Just be sure to read everything before you buy something. Sometimes people get all excited and don't read things like system requirements.
I also got my copy of Half-Life 2 from Steam. This already said some of my older PC titles transfered over to my iMac, not many.
FYI, from time to time Steam runs good sales on the games. I got the whole Half-Life 2 set for 50% a while back...
FYI, from time to time Steam runs good sales on the games. I got the whole Half-Life 2 set for 50% a while back...
Thanks, that helps. Now if I buy HL 2 via steam can I install it on my machine at work and at home?
anything bought under your steam account can run on your steam account no matter what machine your on (though it will have to re-download the game files on the local machine), all you have to do is install Steam and use your same steam account.
Anything with the Steam Play logo with the Windows and Mac logos on it means you get both versions... so if you install and run steam on Windows you can play it, or install Steam on Mac and play it as well without having to re-buy a separate Mac version.
Steam is great for gaming... you don;t have to keep rebuying software for different platforms (usually), and you don't have to mess with discs or having them in your drive or any junk like that. Just make sure you've set steam up for offline mode right for a game if your going to play without an internet connection. it does copy protection with the steam servers, so many games by default won't run if you don't have a connection... but there is an offline mode for that.
I've tried off and on for hours. I was hoping Steam would work well, but this is a really bad sign. Looks like a lot of others have this problem too.
Damn straight they have good sales sometimes...two weeks ago they had Mafia II on sale for like $7.
Sorry to hear some of you are having issues with steam on mac...ive never had any problems. Admittedly, i never play game on my OS X partition. Windows is indeed good for something (although i cant think of many other things besides games)
I tried playing portal, couldn't get into it. I did get it free back when Steam was first released for Mac.
Some people seem to think it might be a Firewall issue. Otherwise there is a solution in this post that involves manually downloading the latest version of Steam:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1269939
Sorry that you are having such a hard time with this. It will be worth it once you get it going...
Hopefully you'll get it going in the end but unfortunately Steam is one of the most buggy apps I've ever used
Steam is great man, I actually just finished Half 2 and both Episodes 2 days ago on my MBP, I bought first on my PC and started the and beat the first level on my PC then moved and simply re downloaded the game onto my Mac and continued where I left off through Steam Cloud.
Oh by the way you will love Half Life 2, I got right into and the ending of Episode 2 is epic and I can't believe there is no news on Episode 3 or Half Life 3 yet after that ending.
Oh by the way you will love Half Life 2, I got right into and the ending of Episode 2 is epic and I can't believe there is no news on Episode 3 or Half Life 3 yet after that ending.
I only got it cuz I got it for free... I usually dislike any FPS type games and thats what it looked like.. but its not.. its really fun, i've played it through a few times now and its one of the best games ever. The first part where your in the normal testing areas gets kinda old, but in the later part when your kinda on your own in the building is a lot better.
There really was a cake though... I was happy!
Only issue with Steam is they charge such high prices for games which are already 80% cheaper if you buy the CD version. They are playing on the lazy market, where they know someone will spend £17.00 more just to buy it online, rather than walk to the shop.
ive been a member of steam since 2003. it is easily he best thing to have on a computer. get games for extremely cheap and re download it anytime.and steam definitely doesn't rip you off they always have amazing deals. like i got crysis for 7 dollars like 2 months ago.
You're located in the US, here in the UK we're not so lucky. They really mark up the prices for games here.
Hmm. The games are sold in US dollars here, and from what I can tell they're the same prices as in the US. I wonder whether there's a way to get US pricing from the UK.