A Beautiful, Modern Game With Personality

The 2012 Macbook Pro 13’ Inch (OSX 10.9), while good in it’s own right and more than capable in my daily needs, has unfortunately kept me from playing anything truly ‘modern’. It only has Intel HD Integrated graphics, which most modern MAC/PC games do not like so much, and so trying to find a good game that doesn’t stutter constantly is a pain. For this reason I was a little skeptical about purchasing this game. I already knew how gorgeous it was beforehand, so I assumed it would not perform well on my model; turns out I was wrong… mostly anyway.

There is some slight slowdown here and there, not particularly when enemies are on-screen, but when around elements such as fire and water which sparkle and glow. Other than that, this game runs nearly perfect on my mid-range Macbook. Given, I purchased the 8gb model to boost speed, so that alone might have saved me a huge pain. One major gripe I’ve had with ALL games on my Macbook Pro is the overheating. When I play this, along with most other games, I have to turn up the fans to keep it from burning itself into oblivion. It’s annoying, but not a dealbreaker; I do recommend SMCfancontrol, though, if you plan on keeping your laptop safe from the heat.

I’ve only started playing the game, but already i’m enthralled. I’m not a huge fan of overly interactive/realistic first person shooters (finding hidden goodies, conserving ammo, upgrading powers, etc and etc), but it eases you in very nicely. Fighting the Big Daddys though… let’s just say I’m keeping it on Easy for the moment, just to get the hang of it.

I would not recommend trying to use the Magic Mouse with this game. Sadly it’s all I have at the moment, and because of its design it doesn’t make for the best gaming mouse, but it does the trick just fine.

If you’ve got $20 to spend, have a Macbook Pro made in the last 4 years (with a decent amount of RAM, especially), I would definitely recommend picking this up. It’s a blast so far, and truly a steal.

Jon David Tucker about BioShock