Mac Apps: The Games

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Although there aren't as many games available for Mac as there are for Windows systems, there are still more than enough games to choose from. Here are some of the games I think are worth buying. I'm not listing it in any specific order. I'll try to update this list whenever I can.


TOCA Race Driver 3: One of the best all round driving games ever. Basically, its Gran Turismo for the Mac. So you can play this game for the rest of your life, and still not complete it.

F1 2012: The best and the most accurate Formula 1 game till date. Although F1 2013 is coming this year, F1 2012 is still a superb game, and the online experience is unparalleled.

The Movies Superstar: This is like Sims, but all about movies. You're basically controlling a movie studio, producing movies, and managing stars. Good fun

Lego Batman 2: Its Lego. And its Batman. Need I say more? Haven't had so much fun in a long time.

Colin McRae Rally Mac: Probably the most realistic rally game there ever was. It is quite a challenge.

Call of Duty 4: The most iconic FPS game of all time, and the one with most hacked servers ever. I think there's more than a million players online by the looks of it, and an infinite number of mods. It's better than Black Ops because of the game's hack-ability.

Call of Duty Black Ops: This another iconic FPS game, but it's a lot more realistic, and you have to work a lot harder while playing it.

Lego Star Wars Clone Wars: Once again, Lego, Star Wars, and lightsabers. Better than the original Star Wars games.

Dirt 2: The rally game next-gen. With the X-games, and rallycross, focus has shifted from proper rallying. Not as cool, but still it's a lot of fun.

Minecraft: It's blocks of pixels stacked on each other. With imagination, you can create anything.

Angry Birds Space: The best Angry Birds version. Much better than the original thing.

NBA Jam: Retro game refreshed and bought back to life. Best played with a friend. This has to be ported to the gaming consoles. So much more fun than the original NBA games.

Real Racing 2: Same as the now iconic iOS version. Not as polished, but still playable.

Anodyne: The product of indie developers, this game had a game-changing launch. The devs put it on pirate bay.org for free, and asked players to donate. And oh boy they did. Brilliant RPG.

Grand Theft Auto Series: Its grand theft auto. Burn everything.

The Incident: Another indie game, this is really very good. Hours of fun.

Video Tennis: This uses a novel method of playing ping pong. It tracks your hand using the webcam to play the game. It works very well.

Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy: Another iOS port. Multiplayer is epic. Needs a joystick though, to play the game properly.
Galaxy on Fire 2: A space exploration game with good space battles. Great graphics.

Flatout 2: The daddy of smash 'n' race games. Haven't seen speed and violence in a such a great cocktail before.

Tomb Raider: Underworld: It's Tomb Raider. Owe up. You only play the game to look at the girl. Everyone does. She looks great in this game. So it's a no-brainer.

Bus Driver: Great training if you lose your job. It's sort of a realistic bus driving game. I haven't driven a bus, so I have no idea how realistic it is.

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy: One of the better Star Wars games. Although it is quite old, it is still really good. Deserves a remake though.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: The most iconic Star Wars game ever. With an option to build your character toward the dark side, or the light side, it is quite a easy decision to make. Join the dark side. Have fun.

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Mac Apps: The Essentials

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With the Mac App Store expanding day by day, it is becoming increasingly hard to figure out which applications are actually needed. So here's a small list of apps that I use on a day to day basis.

Media

Perian: This is a Quicktime player addon that enables to it play many video formats

MPlayerX: The most dependable and versatile media player out there. Plays everything, and anything.


DivX Player: Plays all your DivX files, and somehow manages to enhance the video quality.

Flip4Mac: If anyone sends you a .WMV file, this is what you use to open them.

iTunes: This is the best music player, bar none. It might be slightly sluggish, and cumbersome, but it does everything. Nothing can replace it.

Graphics

Pixelmator: Does everything Photoshop does, and perhaps even more, but is insanely simple to use. Mind blowing.

Sketch: The easiest and one of the most powerful vector graphics applications out there. It's so simple and easy to use. Although it's not perfect, its simplicity makes up for the lack of a few features.

Adobe Creative Suit: Although I don't use it that often, it's often handy if I need to do some professional work and deal with some specific file types. It's not my favourite, but it is essential.

iMeme: One does not simply....not make memes. Great sharing and uploading options.

Utilities

CleanMyMac: Perfect tool to keep your Mac running at speed. Does a full service, and gets rid of large files easily.

DaisyDisk: Well designed graphical interface that keeps track of your files on the hardrive. Another good tool to get rid of large and useless files that keep stockpiling.

FreeMemory: This is for the lesser Macs with barely any RAM. This tool clears the RAM cache. Useful if you want to starts a processor intensive application.

HandBrake: One the most powerful video converters, and a great tool to rip DVD's. It can also convert 30 fps files to a slightly higher 60 fps. It works very well on HD videos.

InsomniaX: This keeps your Mac awake and running even after closing the lid. Perfect for those overnight download marathons, and any other work that needs to run for a long time. There many other alternatives out there, but this is the best.

Keka: This can open any compressed file. Anything. One stop solution to open compressed files with exotic sounding extensions.

Password Assistant: This is actually an inbuilt function in the Mac OS that suggests passwords. Someone has converted it into a stand alone application. It helps you make passwords and gives great suggestions. It's also FIPS-181 compliant. Whatever that means.

Work

iWork: This is the coolest and the easiest application to make documents, presentations, and other crap that people make nowadays. Anything made on iWork looks unbelievably cool and slick. It eats Microsoft Office for breakfast.

Microsoft Office: The only glitch with iWork is that the über awesome presentations and documents made on them do not open properly on Word, and Powerpoint. Annoying. So you have to use Microsoft Office to to cater to those who still use Windows.

iA Writer: This is the art of zen writing. In full screen mode, it's just the text. There is no toolbar with infinite options. It's just you, the keyboard and what you write. Nothing else.

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