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:

Flight Control for iPhone / iPod:

Mirrors Edge:

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:

• An accessible Windows copy of Skyrim from Steam
• Wineskin (free download)
• Visit the PortingTeam for the ports and details (simple forum registration required)

If you run into problems getting it setup or if it’s not running that well, the Porting Team forums are very helpful to sort things out. Below is a screenshot of the game in OS X from their forums:

My advice? You’re buying the game for Windows anyway to get the thing to work on a Mac, just run it in Boot Camp and get the best performance possible.

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:

Recommended Specs – (For running Skyrim on “High” settings at 1920×1080 resolution)

• Quad-core Intel CPU
• 4GB System RAM
• 6GB free HDD space
• DirectX 9 compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 or higher; ATI Radeon 4890 or higher)

Minimum Specs – (For running Skyrim on “Low” settings at 1920×1080 resolution)

• Dual Core Intel 2.0GHz or better
• 2GB System RAM
• 6GB free HDD Space
• Direct X 9 compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM

Both cases you’ll need a DirectX compatible sound card but all Macs have those so that isn’t an issue. The first thing to notice is that in terms of RAM and CPU, nearly all modern Macs meet or exceed those specs, so what you really want to focus on is the graphics card chipset and video RAM (VRAM).

Step 1) Find Mac Graphics & GPU Info

What we’re going to do is retrieve the graphics card info from your Mac and then search a giant list of compatible GPU’s to see if and where it appears on a giant list below, this will let you know if your Mac can handle running Skyrim.

• Hold down the Option key and click on the  Apple menu in the upper left corner, select the top result which is “System Information”
• Now in System Profiler, look under the “Hardware” list and click on “Graphics/Displays”
• Look next to “Chipset Model” (see the red square in screenshot) and copy the numerical value of the chipset into your clipboard



• Check out the value next to “VRAM (Total)” as well, highlighted in blue in the screenshot, the higher this is the better, with lower values greatly reducing the texture and resolution quality you can run the game

Step 2) Search GPU List for a Match

There’s really one one step here, it’s using that chipset info to see if you can find a match from the huge list of video cards below:

• Come back to this web page and hit Command+F in your browser window, then paste in that numerical value and hit return to search the giant video card list below

Find a result? Congrats, you can probably run Skyrim, scroll up to see where the assumed graphics settings will be. If you’re barely on the edge, you may want to reconsider. If you’re in doubt, don’t risk wasting the money and just play the console version that is guaranteed to work well.

Don’t see a match? Try searching for a variation of the chipset (320M vs GeForce 320) to see if that’s how it’s listed instead. Remember, this list is intended for PC users and not Mac users, and sometimes the GPU is listed or named slightly different.

Still don’t see a match? It probably won’t run, this includes most of the Intel chipsets, sorry! Go for the Xbox or PS3 versions instead.

Super Huge Skryim Video Card List

Below is the humungous list from the Bethesda Software forums of compatible video cards grouped by their expected performance. We’re listing video cards that are beyond what would ship with Macs because some of you may have upgraded yourself or you may be running a Hackintosh, or maybe you’re just curious for your household PC. This list is repeated verbatim, they’re obviously geared towards Windows/PC users so there are plenty of GPU’s that won’t be relevant to us in the list:
—-

Personal Computer

Very High / Extremely High:

GeForce Mars II Dual GTX 580 3GB
Radeon HD6990 4GB
GeForce GTX 590 3GB
Radeon HD6870X2 2GB
Radeon HD5870X2 4GB
Radeon HD5970 4GB
Radeon HD5970 2GB
GeForce GTX 580 3GB
GeForce GTX 580 1536MB – GeForce GTX 460 2Win 2GB
Radeon HD6970 2GB
GeForce GTX 570 1280MB
GeForce GTX 480 1536MB
Radeon HD6950 2GB
Radeon HD6950 1GB
GeForce GTX 295 1792MB
Radeon HD4870X2 2GB
Radeon HD5870 2GB
Radeon HD5870 1GB
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB
GeForce GTX 470 1280MB
Radeon HD6870 1GB
GeForce GTX 560 1GB
Radeon HD5850 1GB
Radeon HD6850 1GB
GeForce GTX 460 2GB
GeForce GTX 285 2GB
GeForce GTX 460 1GB
GeForce GTX 465 1GB
Radeon HD4850X2 2GB
Radeon HD4850X2 1GB
GeForce GTX 285 1GB

High / Very High:

GeForce GTX 460 768MB
GeForce GTX 460 SE 1GB
Radeon HD5830 1GB
Radeon HD6790 1GB
GeForce GTX 275 1792MB
Radeon HD4890 2GB
GeForce GTX 280 1GB
GeForce GTX 275 896MB
GeForce 9800GX2 1GB
Radeon HD4890 1GB
GeForce GTX 260-Core 216 896MB
GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB
Radeon HD4870 1GB
Radeon HD5770 1GB / HD6770 1GB
Radeon HD4870 512MB
GeForce GTX 260 896MB

Medium / High:

GeForce GTS 450 1GB
Radeon HD3870X2 1GB
Radeon HD5750 1GB / HD6750 1GB
GeForce GTS 250 1GB
Radeon HD4850 1GB
GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB/GTS250 512MB
GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB
Radeon HD4850 512MB
GeForce 9800GTX 512MB
GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
Radeon HD4770 512MB
GeForce 8800GTS 512MB (G92)
Radeon HD6670 1GB
Radeon HD4830 512MB
Radeon HD5670 1GB
Radeon HD5670 512MB
Radeon HD6570 1GB
GeForce 8800GT 1GB/9800GT 1GB
GeForce 8800GT 512MB/9800GT 512MB
Radeon HD2900XT 1GB
Radeon HD4730 512MB
GeForce 9600GT 1GB
GeForce 9600GT 512MB/GTS240 512MB
GeForce GT 240 1GB
GeForce GT 240 512MB
Radeon HD2900XT 512MB
Radeon HD3870 512MB
GeForce 8800GTS 640MB (112SP)
GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
Radeon HD4670 1GB
Radeon HD4670 512MB
Radeon HD2900Pro 512MB
Radeon HD3850 512MB
GeForce 8800GT 256MB
GeForce 8800GTS 320MB
GeForce 8800GS 384MB/9600GSO 384MB
GeForce 9600GSO 768MB
GeForce 9600GSO 512MB (G94)

Low / Medium:

Radeon HD5570 1GB
GeForce GT 430 1GB
Radeon HD6450 1GB
GeForce GT 520 1GB
Radeon HD5550 1GB
Radeon HD3850 256MB
GeForce 7950GX2 1GB
GeForce 7900GX2 1GB
Radeon X1950XTX 512MB
GeForce 7800GT Dual 512MB
Radeon X1900XTX 512MB
Radeon X1900XT 512MB
GeForce 7900GTX 512MB
Radeon X1950XT 256MB
Radeon X1900XT 256MB
GeForce 7900GTO 512MB
GeForce 7800GTX 512MB
GeForce 7950GT 512MB
Radeon X1950Pro 512MB
Radeon HD2900GT 256MB
Radeon X1950Pro 256MB
Radeon HD4650 512MB
GeForce 8600GTS 512MB
GeForce 8600GTS 256MB
GeForce 7900GT 512MB
GeForce GT 220 1GB
GeForce GT 220 512MB
GeForce 9500GT 1GB
GeForce 9500GT 512MB
Radeon X1800XT 512MB
GeForce 7900GS 512MB
GeForce 8600GT 512MB
Radeon X1950GT 512MB
Radeon X1900GT 256MB
Radeon X1800XT 256MB
GeForce 7900GT 256MB
GeForce 7800GTX 256MB
GeForce 7800GS Bliss+ 512MB
Radeon X1900GT Rev2 256MB
GeForce 7800GT 256MB
Radeon X1800XL 256MB
GeForce 7800GS 256MB
Radeon X1800GTO 256MB
GeForce 8600GT 256MB
Radeon X1650XT 256MB
GeForce 7600GT 256MB
Radeon HD2600XT 256MB
Radeon HD3650 256MB
Radeon HD4550 512MB
Radeon HD5450 512MB

Very Low / Low:

Radeon X850XTPE 256MB
Radeon X850XT 256MB
GeForce 7600GTS 256MB
Radeon HD2600Pro 256MB
Radeon X800XT/PE 256MB
GeForce 6800Ultra/EE 256MB
GeForce 6800GT 256MB
GeForce 6800GS 256MB
Radeon X800XL 256MB
Radeon X800GTO 256MB/X800GTO2 256MB
Radeon X850Pro 256MB
Radeon X800Pro 256MB
Radeon X800GTO 256MB
GeForce 6800GS AGP 256MB
GeForce 9400GT 512MB
GeForce GT 210 512MB
GeForce 8500GT 256MB
Radeon X1650Pro 256MB
Radeon X1600XT 256MB
GeForce 7600GS 256MB
Radeon HD2400XT 256MB
GeForce 6800 256MB
Radeon X800GT 256MB
Radeon X800 256MB
Radeon X1300XGE 512MB
Radeon X1300XT 256MB
Radeon X1600Pro 256MB
Radeon HD4350 512MB
Radeon HD3450 256MB
GeForce 8400GS 256MB
GeForce 6800XT/LE 256MB
GeForce 7300GT 256MB
GeForce 6600GT 256MB
Radeon HD2400Pro 256MB

EXTREME: These cards SHOULD max the game at full 1080p, without any problems.

Radeon HD 6990M
Nvidia GTX 580M
Nvidia GTX 485M
Radeon HD 6970M
Nvidia GTX 570M
Radeon HD 6950M
Radeon HD 4870 X2

HIGH: These cards should run Skyrim at high setings, give or take a little depending on the resolution. They will definitely play Skyrim well.

Nvidia GTX 480M
Nvidia GTX 470M
Nvidia GTX 560M
Radeon HD 5870M
Radeon HD 6870M
Nvidia GTX 460M 1.5GB
Nvidia GTX 460M 1GB
Nvidia GTX 285M

MEDIUM/HIGH: These cards should be around medium/high settings give or take a little depending on the exact resolution. Some of these cards are showing their age but should still be more then sufficient for Skyrim.

Radeon HD 4870
Nvidia GTX 280M
Radeon HD 3870 X2
Radeon HD 3850 X2
Radeon HD 4850
Nvidia GTX 260M
Nvidia GTX 9800M
Nvidia 555M GT 2GB
Nvidia 555M GT 1GB
Radeon HD 6850M
Radeon HD 5850M
Radeon HD 6770M
Nvidia 9800M GT / 8800M GTX
Nvidia GT 445M
Nvidia GTS 360M
Radeon HD 6750M
Nvidia GT 550M
Nvidia GTS 260M
Nvidia GTS 160M
Nvidia GTS 9800M
Radeon HD 6830M
Radeon HD 5830M
Nvidia 9800M GS
Radeon HD 4830M
Radeon HD 6730M
Radeon HD 5770M

MEDIUM: These cards should be around solid medium settings give or take a little depending on the resolution. These cards should be on par with the console version graphically or even a bit higher.

Nvidia 8800M GTS
Radeon HD 5750
Nvidia 540M GT
Radeon HD 5730
Radeon HD 6670M
Nvida 435M GT
Radeon HD 6650M
Nvidia 350M GTS
Nvida 250M GTS
Radeon HD 6630M
Radeon HD 5650M
Nvidia 525M
Radeon HD 4670M
Nvidia 425M
Nvidia 9700M GTS
Nvidia 335M GT
Radeon HD 3870M
Radeon HD 4650M

MEDIUM/LOW: These cards should run Skyrim, with the right tweaks you could probably get them to look as good as the console version. The farther you get down the list the closer you are to low end.

Radeon HD 3850M
Nvidia 420M GT
Nvidia 330M GT
Nvidia 240M GT
Nvidia 7950M GTX
Nvidia 9700M GT
Nvidiia 230M GT
Radeon HD 6490M
Nvidia 325M GT
Nvidia 130M GT
Nvidia 7900 GTX
Nvidia 9650M GS
Nvidia 9650M GT
Nvidia 8700M GT
Nvidia 7800 GTX
Nvidia 7900 GS
Nvidia 9600M GT
Nvidia 220M GT
Nvidia 120M GT
Radeon HD 6470M
Nvidia GT 520M
Radeon HD 3670M
Nvidia 320M GT
Radeom HD 2600M XT
Mobility Radeon X1900
Mobility Radeon X1800 XT
Mobility Radeon X1800
Nvidia 7800M Go
Nvidia 9600M GS
Nvidia 9500M GS
Radeon 6370M
Radeon HD 5470M
Nvidia 415M GT
Radeon HD 3650M
Nvidia 310M

LOW END: These cards will have trouble running the game if they even run it. The game probably won’t be very enjoyable on any of these. The cards on the top of this of this list may be sufficient, but its more of a judgement call. The cards on the bottom probably won’t run Skyrim at all.

Nvidia 410M
Radeon HD 4570M
Radeon HD 6450M
Radeon HD 5450M
Radeon HD 2600M
Nvidia G120M
Nvidia 315M
Nvidia 7600M GT
Nvidia 9500M G
Nvidia 8600M GS
Nvidia 7700M Go
Nvidia 6800M
Mobility Radeon X1800XT
Radeon HD 5430M
Radeon HD 4550M
Radeon HD 4530M
Radeon HD 4350M
Nvidia 305M
Mobility Radeon X1700
Nvidia 7600 Go
Mobility Radeon X800
Mobility Radeon X1600
Nvidia 6600M Go
Mobility Radeon X1450
Radeon HD X700M
Nvidia 110M G
Radeon HD 4330M
Nvidia 8400M GT
Nvidia 105M G
Nvidia 103M G
Nvidia 9500M Ge
Nvidia 102M G
Nvidia 205M G
Nvidia 9400M ION
Radeon HD 6320M
Radeon HD 6310M
Radeon HD 3470M
Nidia 9300M G
ION 2
Nvidia 9200M GS
Radeon HD 3450M
Radeon HD 3430M
Radeon HD 3410M
Radeon HD 2400XT
Radeon HD 4270M
Radeon HD 4250M
Radeon HD 4200M
Radeon HD 2400M
Nvidia 8400 GS
Radeon HD 3200M
Radeon HD 3100M
Nvidia 8400M G
Nvidia 8200M G
Nvidia 7400M Go
Nvidia 7300 Go

If and how well a Mac can run Skryim is a question that myself and many others have had over the last few days. After answering this question for a few friends and again on Twitter, and then not finding any particularly easy answer online, I decided to write this up with the information I did find. Yes, it’s a Windows only game, but too many of us Mac users want to play Skyrim and it’s just not available for Mac OS X yet, so Bootcamp it is. If you can’t run this in on your Mac, there’s always Xbox 360 and PS3 too.

If you’re looking for some more specific performance information and FPS tests, check out Toms hardware, although they are not Mac specific tests or GPU’s.

Fieldrunners is a very popular tower defense game for iOS and Android, it usually costs between $3-$8 depending on the version, but guess what? You can download and play it for free using nothing but the Chrome web browser and Google’s web store.

Head over to the Chrome web store to start playing

You’ll want to download the game to be able to resume games, but you can also just play the game directly at the appspot url. The game can be loaded in either standard or high def mode, so choose accordingly based on your screen resolution.

Technically it’s supposed to be for Chrome only, but you can usually load the game with Safari or Firefox as well. You won’t need Flash either because the app is HTML5. Similarly, you can download and play Angry Birds for free with your browser too, just in case you haven’t beaten that dead horse enough yet.

Just in time for some weekend fun, you can download the wildly popular physics-puzzle-shooter game Portal for free from Steam until September 20.

Download Portal from Steam by going here and clicking the big green “Install Game” button

Portal runs in both Mac OS X and Windows, and once it’s in your Steam account you can download it on other machines if you want.

Here’s the interesting part: the game is offered as a free download until September 20, 2011 as part of the “Learning with Portals” program, where some schools are using the popular video game to help teach physics and critical thinking skills. How cool is that? This blurb from their website explains further:

Today, innovative educators are finding ways to incorporate Portal™ and Portal 2 into their classrooms—helping teach physics and critical-thinking skills. It’s eye-opening to see how video games can be used in amazing and unexpected ways to help educate our next generation.

One of the biggest challenges in teaching science, technology, engineering, and math is capturing the students’ imaginations long enough for them to see all of the possibilities that lie ahead.

Using interactive tools like the Portal series to draw them in makes physics, math, logic, spatial reasoning, probability, and problem-solving interesting, cool, and fun which gets us one step closer to our goal—engaged, thoughtful kids!

If you’re skeptical, Valve put together a video which shows exactly how it’s being used by one 7th grade classroom:

Pretty cool huh?

Check it out yourself, the system requirements are relatively basic and it should run on most recent Macs:

• OS X version Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard 10.6.3, or higher
• 1GB RAM or more
• NVIDIA GeForce 8 or higher, ATI X1600 or higher, or Intel HD 3000 or higher
• Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

While we’re on the topic of free gaming, if you’re looking for a multiplayer experience, don’t forget that Team Fortress 2 is also a free download from Steam too.

Looking for a fun game to play this weekend on the iPad? Grab Crimson: Steam Pirates, an action-strategy game where you can battle through a series of pirate voyages with over a dozen different boats, subs, and airships. The turn-based game is getting raving reviews which isn’t too shocking considering it’s coming from Bungie, the creators of the Halo franchise and Marathon. Here’s the games description from iTunes App Store:

In Crimson: Steam Pirates, plumes of black smoke fill the blue Caribbean sky as Thomas Blood’s pirate fleet steams ahead—over, above, and below the waves. On the surface, ships bristle with swivel cannons and lightning guns. Above, zeppelins drip with incendiary bombs. And below, silent and deadly, submarines stalk their targets, torpedoes at the ready.

Command your fleet and your Steampunk crew using an elegant action interface. Crimson: Steam Pirates’ turn-based gameplay provides an addicting mixture of strategy and action as you anticipate your enemies’ moves and counter them, luring them into a deadly hail of weapons fire while uncovering the mystery brewing in the Caribbean.

Crimson: Steam Pirates for iPad – free download on the iOS App Store

The only thing surprising here is that it’s free, but you can buy additional levels for $1.99 as an in-app purchase if you beat the first eight.

Rage is a first person shooter for iOS where you blast your way through mutants in some post-apocalyptic disaster, it’s fairly similar to classics Doom and Quake, and that’s because ID Software created them all.

Both versions of the game, Rage and Rage HD, are available free for a limited time, with the HD version bringing higher resolution graphics and textures to iPhone 4, the latest iPod touch, and the iPad and iPad 2.

• Rage HD on the App Store

If you’re an iOS gamer, download it now for some weekend fun. Video of some gameplay action below.

Apparently console and PC versions of Rage will be out later in the year.

Want to make it a gamers weekend? Don’t miss the huge Steam sale going on now that has just about every game for at least 30% and up to 75% off. Everything offered on Steam is instantly downloadable so you can quickly get your gamer fix, some of the hot titles for Mac OS X include:

• Half Life 2 for $2.49
• Portal 2 for $33.49
• Civilization V for $33.49
• Left for Dead 2 for $13.39
• Hoard for $2.99
• Plants vs Zombies for $3.39
• Gary’s Mod for $2.49

You can look through the full list of Mac games on Steam here

More games pop up on sale every day, but the core Valve lineup is discounted all the time. The sale goes until July 10 so stock up now and you’ll have entertainment all summer long. If you happen to game or dualboot with Windows there are even more options for you, but the Mac section is quite large and shouldn’t be missed.

Want more games? Don’t miss playing free World of Warcraft (until level 20), the 99 cent iOS game sale from EA, and be sure to download Team Fortress 2 for free (no limit on play!). Who needs fireworks, summer fun, and BBQ’s when you have games to play?

(From top to bottom, screenshots are Half Life 2, Hoard, and Portal 2)

Blizzard has made its ultra popular virtualcrack game World of Warcraft free to play up until level 20. Free players can access the entire game and all quests of paying players, but there are a few limitations with the free World of Warcrack, notably:

• Free players can not join guilds
• Free players can not accumulate more than 10 gold coins (probably an anti-farmer move)
• Free characters max out at level 20, gameplay continues but experience points stop accruing

Over 11 million people play World of Warcraft on a regular basis, so you’ll be in good company if you get addicted to the never-ending MMORPG.

Blizzard has always offered free trials, but previously you would only get 14 days to test the game before being told you had to buy it. Now you can play endlessly if you don’t mind your character maxing out at level 20, and at any point you can purchase a paid subscription to carry the character and your addiction further.

You can signup for free World of Warcrack on Blizzard’s BattleNet

World of Warcraft runs on both Windows and Mac OS X and has fairly low system requirements, just about any Mac from the last 5 years should play it fine. Kiss your social life goodbye! If you do get sucked in, you can get a slight discount by buying pre-paid cards from Amazon.

If MMORPG’s aren’t your thing but you want another great free multiplayer game, don’t miss downloading Team Fortress 2, it’s a really fun fast paced first-person shooter that was recently made free as well.

If you’re a gamer don’t miss Electronic Art’s huge iOS game sale this weekend, everything is just $0.99, even their most popular titles. This represents a discount of up to 90% on some titles, and EA says it’s their biggest iOS sale ever. Make it a gaming weekend!

Check out all the choices by Electronic Arts on the iOS App Store (App Store link)

The sale is in celebration of the holiday weekend and goes until July 4. Sims, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, Madden, it’s all there, so grab your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, and get downloading.

Team Fortress 2 is now completely free to download and to play online. No strings attached. That’s right, one of the most popular and highly rated online multiplayer games of all time is now being given away for free.

This could very well be the best free online game for the Mac platform. If you haven’t played Team Fortress 2 before but you like multiplayer action games, there’s no excuse not to now. Since both Windows & Mac OS X versions are available and can play together, you can get your PC friends to tag along too.

Download Steam & Team Fortress 2 Now

Most newish Intel Macs can run the game, the Steam system requirements match TF2′s minimum requirements closely: Mac OS X 10.5.8 or 10.6.3, 1GB RAM or more, NVIDIA GeForce 8 or higher, ATI X1600 or higher, or Intel HD 3000 or higher, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection. As usual the newer your Mac, the better the game will run.

There are a few minor differences between the Free and Premium accounts, but nothing significant enough to affect gameplay. If you already bought the game, you will be grandfathered into a Premium account and get a special in-game hat to wear.

We talked about Team Fortress 2 last year when it first came to the Mac platform, you can read some performance tips for the game if you encounter any issues with gameplay.

This is the video that Valve released alongside the announcement:

You can read more at TeamFortress.com

The iOS line is gearing up to be a viable contendor in the video game console world, thanks largely to the new wireless AirPlay video mirroring feature coming in iOS 5.

It works like this: an Apple TV2 becomes a wireless receiver that an iOS 5 equipped iPad 2 can then export it’s screen to, the TV can then either mirror the iPad 2 display, or if an supports it, the TV can display different images than what is on the iPad 2, turning the iPad 2 into a controller. Yes, that means the feature is currently limited to iPad 2 in beta 1 of iOS 5, but I suspect that will broaden to the rumored A5 equipped iPhone and possibly other iOS hardware through some jailbreak tweaks.

Watch these videos to see the potential here:

This first video shows the iPad 2 exporting Real Racing 2 at full screen to an Apple TV2, there is a mention of some lag here and there, but for beta software it looks amazing. The brief lag could also just be the result of network interference, poor wifi reception, or not using an 802.11n network.

The next video comes from AppleNApps Channel on YouTube, skip the beginning (unless you want to see how generic apps like Twitter run in AirPlay) and jump to about halfway through at 5:00 to see the good stuff, the iPad 2 exporting several full resolution games to a TV via AirPlay to an Apple TV 2:

Next up is a video from Engadget/AOL, showing Angry Birds and again Real Racing 2 on a TV through the same AirPlay beta feature:

As of now, not many games support the full wide-screen video export, which is why games like Angry Birds show the black bars on the sides. This isn’t shocking when you remember that the release date of iOS 5 isn’t scheduled until sometime this Fall, but I suspect many games will offer full AirPlay support by then. Finally, don’t forget that iOS 5 supports 1080p playback too, which makes the console potential even greater.

Did you just get a new Mac? Maybe you upgraded your hard drive and went with a clean Mac OS X install, but you want to maintain all of your Steam saved games from the old drive so you can pick up where you left off.

Instead of redownloading everything, you can preserve your bandwidth and copy the files directly. Steam makes this easy to do by storing all game files in a central location, you just need to copy the game files to the new drive and then reauthorize through Steam. First off you’ll want to make sure the Macs are either networked together or that the new hard drive is mounted on the system where Steam files are stored.

Now, here’s how to move the Steam game data:

1. Navigate to your existing Steam library, located at: ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/
2. Copy the entire Steam folder and it’s contents to that exact same location on the new hard drive (~/Library/Application Support/)
3. If you haven’t done so already, redownload the Steam client on the new Mac or hard drive
4. When the Steam folder is finished copying, launch Steam and you’ll be prompted to Authenticate
5. At the Steam Authorization Required screen, select the second option “What email message? I dont have it…” this will cause Steam to email you a new authentication code



6. Check the email associated with your Steam account, and enter the provided access code into Steam to authenticate the new computer or hard drive
7. That’s it, game away!

The only potential problem here is that the Steam folder can be huge depending on how many games you have and how much game data is stored. If you have a couple of games and a fair amount of saved data, don’t be surprised if this is well over 40GB. Other than potentially taking a long time to transfer, the size of this folder could matter if your new drive is an SSD with limited space, you might want to check the size of the folder before moving it (select the folder and hit Command+i for Get Info) if this applies to you.

I just did migrated a huge Steam library for a friend using this method, which I found on MacLife. If you’re on a gigabit ethernet network this is substantially faster than redownloading 40GB of data from Steam directly, plus it doesn’t place a massive toll on any ISP’s monthly bandwidth limits, making it a win/win.