The Diablo 3 Open Beta was a lot of fun and certainly got everyone excited for the May 15 public release, but now that the Diablo III Beta client can’t be used any more it’s time to uninstall the app from your Mac. This will free up at least 5GB of disk space. Follow the manual uninstall instructions below, or use something like AppCleaner to automate the deletion process:

• Navigate to /Applications/ and move the “Diablo III Beta” folder to the Trash
• Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/ and delete “com.blizzard.diablo3.plist”
• Go to ~/Library/Caches/ and remove the entire “com.blizzard.diablo3″ folder
• Open the ~/Downloads/ folder and remove the original installer “Diablo III Beta Setup.app” and the accompanying archive “Diablo-III-Beta-enUS-Setup.zip”

Now empty the Trash to remove Diablo 3 Beta from your Mac completely, freeing up quite a bit of disk space. If you want to find more wasted space on a Mac, check out our guide to using OmniDiskSweeper.

These instructions are the same for the original Diablo 3 Beta client as well if you were lucky enough to be a part of that.

Are you a gamer? Toss your plans out the window for the next few days because Diablo 3 is free to play all weekend long. Dubbed an “open beta”, the free weekend is intended to help Blizzard load test the Diablo III game servers before the official public release on May 15. You’ll be able to play the game from today (April 20) at noon until Monday, April 23 at 10AM PST, with complete access to all five character classes up to level 13.

Playing Diablo 3 Open Beta is completely free for both Mac OS X and Windows users, here’s what you need to get started:

• Battle.net account (free to sign up)
• Create a BattleTag
• Download the game client and install it before April 23 (free)
• Hardware that meets the Diablo III system requirements for Mac or PC

Whether you’re a fan of the Diablo series or just Blizzard games in general, this is a great chance to get an early look at the game. Likewise, it’s also a good opportunity to see if you like Diablo 3 before shelling out for the full paid version when it comes out next month.

Diablo 3 has a release date set for May 15, and if you’re like us you’ve been wondering if your computer can handle the game well enough to be worth buying. The good news is that Blizzard looks to be supporting a wide array of hardware, and most fairly modern computers will run the game just fine. As usual, the newer and better your computer the better, but here are the minimum and recommended specs for Diablo III running on Mac and Windows PC’s. You’ll probably want to check against this before pre-ordering or buying the game.

Minimum System Requirements for Mac OS X

• Mac OS X 10.6.8, 10.7.*, or newer
• Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
• NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT or ATI Radeon HD 2600 or better
• 2GB RAM
• 12 GB of available disk space
• DVD drive for retail disc versions (digital download available)
• Broadband internet connection for multiplayer
• 1024×768 or greater screen resolution

Of course the game will run better with better hardware, here are the recommended specs for Mac users.

Recommended System Requirements for Mac OS X

• OS X 10.7.x or newer
• Core 2 Duo at 2.4GHz or faster
• 4GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M or ATI Radeon HD 4670 or better

If you have a Windows PC, here are the specs for that.

Minimum System Requirements for Windows

• Windows XP, Vista, or 7 with Direct X 9.0c
• Intel Pentium D 2.8GHz or AMD Athlon 64 4400
• NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT or ATI Radeon X1950 Pro or better
• 1GB RAM for Windows XP, 1.5GB RAM for Vista or 7
• 12GB disk space
• DVD drive
• Broadband internet connection
• 1024×768 resolution

For better performance in Diablo III, go with the recommended Windows system requirements instead.

Recommended System Requirements for Windows

• Windows Vista or Windows 7 with latest service packs
• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or AMD Athlon 2.8GHZ or better
• 4GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 260 or ATI Radeon HD 4870 or better

A note for Mac users: you will often get better gaming performance by playing in Windows, though this will require Boot Camp and a Windows partition to be able to do. The system requirements will be the same if you choose this route.

Gamers rejoice! Diablo 3, the highly anticipated action role-playing game, will be released on May 15 for both Mac and PC. Blizzard Entertainment has had the game in development seemingly forever (2001!), but it appears the long wait has been worth it. Gameplay is a mixture of dungeon crawling and hack-and-slash with RPG elements, there are five different character classes each with their own skillset, and there’s also a multiplayer PvP mode.

The expectations for Diablo 3 are quite high, but looking at gameplay videos and screen shots don’t disappoint with it’s gorgeous graphics and action packed style. This could easily wind up being the best major game release for the Mac platform this year, and gamers of all types should be anxiously awaiting it’s release.

Blizzard has a great record of releasing games simultaneously for both Mac OS X and Windows platforms, making it one of a few larger game companies to prioritize the Mac as an initial release platform.

Diablo 3 will cost $59.99 and can be pre-ordered and even pre-downloaded directly from Blizzard via BattleNet.

What happens when you merge classic Super Mario Bros with the modern classic Portal? It’s hectic, it’s a ton of fun, it’s Mari0. Basically you get old school Mario re-imagined with a portal gun and a variety of Portal puzzles and mechanics. There’s also an insane four player co-op mode, level editor, and downloadable third party map packs.

Mari0 is completely free for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, download it from the developer below:

• Download Mari0 now

The game is somewhat maniacal but that’s what makes it fun. As expected, controls are a cross between Mario and Portal: Left-clicking a mouse will shoot the entry portal, and a right-click gives you the exit portal. Mario himself is moved around with either the arrow keys or the classic WASD triangle with spacebar as jump.

Grab the game now, or check out the video below if you aren’t convinced yet:

You might want to grab this quick though, as LoopInsight mentions, Nintendo probably won’t let this one stick around for long.

Looking for a couple new iOS games to play this weekend? EAGames is offering up two popular iPad games for free today, Flight Control HD and Mirrors Edge. The games couldn’t be more different, Flight Control is an air traffic control simulator and Mirrors Edge is an action side scroller, but they’re both a ton of fun and well worth downloading.

Flight Control for iPhone and iPod touch is also available for free as a separate download, so we’ll include that too. The games usualy sell for $4.99 and $9.99 so download them today while you can get them for free:

• Flight Control HD – (iPad only) – App Store
• Flight Control – (iPhone & iPod touch) – App Store
• Mirrors Edge – (iPad only) – App Store

Videos of gameplay below:
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Skyrim is one of those games that is so massive with so many individual elements that it could take forever to try and cover everything. Included all over the game is a massive collections of books that fill in elements of lore, backstory, information on quests and characters, you name it, but who has time to read all of that while you’re playing a game?

Now you can read your Skyrim books outside of gameplay, because some guy discovered the all the in-game books are stored as plaintext format, which have been translated into easy to download ePub and Mobi formats, ready to be viewed on the iPad, iPhone, Mac, Kindle, Nook, or whatever other reader you might use. If you want to view the .mobi on a Mac or iPad, you’ll need to download the free Kindle app from the App Store.

• Books of Skyrim – MOBI format
• Books of Skyrim – EPUB format

Whether you’re playing Skyrim on a Mac in bootcamp or just sitting on the couch with an Xbox 360 controller, this should be a welcome addition to the nerdfest.

Heads up to CultofMac for the find.

The highly anticipated official version of Minecraft for iPhone and iPad has been released to the iOS App Store. For those who don’t know, Minecraft is a virtual sandbox building game with a focus on creating your own worlds and structures that are subject to in-game physics. Thanks to basic electrical circuits and logic gates, some extremely elaborate creations can be built in your own virtual world, it’s kind of like virtual Legos on crack, and is known to be very addictive.

• Get Minecraft – Pocket Edition for iPhone and iPad (App Store link)

Here’s the official description from the App Store:

Imagine it, build it. Create worlds on the go with Minecraft – Pocket Edition

Minecraft – Pocket Edition allows you to build on the go. Use blocks to create masterpieces as you travel, hangout with friends, sit at the park, the possibilities are endless. Move beyond the limits of your computer and play Minecraft everywhere you go.

* Randomized worlds
* Build anything you can imagine
* Build with 36 different kinds of blocks
* Invite and play with friends to your world (local wireless network)
* Save multi-player worlds on your own phone

There are a ton of nonsensical knock-off titles trying to capitalize on the Minecraft name on the App Store, so be sure you either click directly through a verified link or search for “Minecraft – Pocket Edition” , making sure it’s by Mojang.

For the truly dedicated, you can now run Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim directly in Mac OS X thanks to the Porting Team’s unofficial Mac port of the freakishly popular game. The game is played either through a Cider wrapper or Wineskin, the latter being easier but the former apparently having better performance, but in both cases you’ll need to own a Windows copy of the game to get it working (frankly the game is going to run a lot better natively in Windows through Boot Camp anyway), leaving this in the realm of determined die-hards.

Neither the Cider or Wineskin methods are the easiest thing in the world to get working, and if you have no experience with this sort of thing you should probably just buy the game for Xbox 360, PS3, or stay with booting into Windows on your Mac. Nonetheless, if you’re committed, here’s what you’ll need:
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Will Elder Scrolls V Skyrim run decent on your Mac? If your Mac is relatively new (2009 models and up) the answer is probably, but before you go jumping into Bootcamp, installing Windows on another partition, and buying the game, let’s check to be certain that it will run on your hardware, and run at an acceptable rate for that matter.

First up, here are the general Skyrim system specs for those who are savvy enough to take this information and make a decision on that alone:

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