It’s official – video game company Valve announced today that its Steam gaming service is coming to the Mac, along with a native version of gaming engine Source that will bring with it popular titles such as the Half Life series, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2.

Most important is the fact that Valve is not using emulation to make this all happen, as some suspected it would. Emulation would see the original versions of the games being played on the Mac in a spoofed Windows environment. Instead the developer has created a native version of its gaming engine – built for OS X. (more…)

iBurst has made many gamers’ dreams come true with its introduction of a service that provides uncapped ADSL bandwidth for gaming traffic, levied at R99 per month. There is a catch, however – you have to play on iBurst’s servers.

The service is called iGame Unlimited and is being offered as part of iBurst’s iDSL service that is being launched this month and offers ADSL bandwidth from R49 per gigabyte. If you have an iDSL account with iGame Unlimited bolted on then any gaming traffic isolated to the iBurst network and servers will not be deducted from your quota.

iBurst says it already has servers running for Left 4 Dead 2, Call of Duty 4 and a range of other games and will take its lead from subscribers when deciding on what servers to add. A list of servers currently online can be found over here. iBurst also claims to be in talks with Activision and Blizzard to get a local World of Warcraft server on the network.

It is uncertain as to whether the service will be extended to console gamers – iGame Unlimited is currently limited to PC games.

iBurst has also launched a community site called iGame Online where its community of subscribers can interact.

There’s a new cult in town. You might’ve heard about it already. You may even be a member. If you haven’t, and you’d like to preserve the precious little time you have, stay away from PopCap’s new insanely addictive game – Plants vs. Zombies.

I started playing this tower-defence-type title on my Macbook and now it’s spread onto my iPhone. I can’t get enough. I may need help. (more…)

Tornado Outbreak has one of the best premises in video game history – you command a tornado and must use it to destroy things. The more things you destroy, the bigger the Tornado gets, along with the things it can rip apart. It’s sure to be a hit this season with high ratings from most major video game review sites.

The title is one of the latest from Konami and was titled Zephyr: Rise of the Elementals in development, before being renamed. It is available for Wii, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

The storyline has something to do with intergalactic elemental beings trying to save earth while collecting stuff for their giant overlord – I skipped past all the storyline guff in favour of the destruction bits.

The gameplay in Tornado Outbreak is pretty original. It’s unusual for modern games to offer something outside of the usual genre range and still be appealing – like Dungeon Keeper managed to do in the 90s – but Tornado Outbreak delivers. (more…)

Nintendo’s black Wii is on its way to South African shores, just in time for Christmas. Local distributor The Core Group says that stock is expected to be available from 20 November.

The limited edition black version of the insanely popular console will come in a bundle with a Wii Remote, Wii MotionPlus, Nunchuk and copies of  Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. All the hardware is black. Like my soul.

The recommended retail price for the bundle in SA is R2900 and the international price is expected to be around $289.

Core is also bringing in all of the black accessories for the Wii. You wouldn’t want a black Wii with white remotes. That shit will get you beat up at school.