I must admit being a bit skeptical when first hearing about Crossover Mac. For many years I have tried various solutions to make my Mac run PC programs for both professional and gaming reasons. So often, so much was promised and so little delivered. I was even one of those fools that allowed my mother to be convinced to buy a Mac with a built-in PC emulator card in it. It was a useless piece of rubbish, the card that is, that couldn't run a bloody thing.
What most convinced me to get in touch with the guys behind Crossover was their cheeky little video comparing their product to the other ways of getting Counterstrike 2 running for a bit of LAN party. Crossover naturally was the fastest. Anyone who loves FPS gaming, especially the online variety has a lot of respect for Counterstrike in its various forms. No purer form of multiplayer FPS exists and its no wonder its used frequently in the FPS professional leagues.
A review copy was offered of Crossover Mac and I enthusiastically installed it on my Macbook Pro. The program is very easy to install and the set-up is quite easy; even for the most neophyte of tweakers. To my great surprised installing PC programs is just as easy. It takes you through the "bottling" process and sorts everything out for you in easy to understand ways. I first started off with a Counterstrike package to see if that worked alright. It would have been silly to spend that much on any other products in the series as the "Orange Box" was about to be released.
For those of you who don't know the Orange Box consists of Half Life 2, HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Episode 2, the odd but fun Portal and Counterstrike 2. It is probably the best PC game value on the market. There is additional free programming associated with HL on the "Steam" online distribution system that is accessed quite easily with Crossover. HL2 and its offshoots all work very well indeed on Crossover. You might need a bit of tweaking with the set-up, but in no time you will find yourself blowing the smithereens out of the various nasties in the game. The pleasure of playing such a great game on my MacBook Pro knows no bounds.
Article comments
1 - James
I also use CrossOver, and I am extremely satisfied with the application. While not as popular as its competitors, I found it to be the easiest and best solution for Team Fortress 2. I play it every day on my MacBook Pro, and it ROCKS!! For work, I use it for Office applications and IE daily with the same success. If you're looking, I'd buy CrossOver Mac first. You'll be as surprised as Marty!
2 - Michael B
Hey, i use crossover for my new Imac and it runs counter strike source perfectly. i have heard it is better to download steam directly from crossover, rather than from your disc. Happy hunting!
3 - paul Lang
im running mac power pc g5 quad , i downloaded the trialbut it wont even load ????
4 - Centino
It needs Intel Macs to work - it uses WINE as a virtual machine to run Windows stuff. To do it on PPC architecture would be emulation, which WINE isn't (Wine Is Not an Emulator).
5 - Fred
Im looking into purchasing CrossOver, and your review was helpful, but one minor flaw was that the Orange Box consists of Team Fortress 2, not Counterstrike 2.