"Macintosh: The Apple Flagship"

In 23 years on this planet I have owned a computer for 18 of them. I started out with a Macintosh 512k which featured a Motorola 68000 processor that ran at 8 megahertz. Since then I have owned an IBM PS/2, a Macintosh Color Classic, a Packard Bell PC, a Compaq Presario, a Macintosh Performa 6200, an original G3 iMac, and finally a dual-processor Power Mac G4. I have been playing games on these machines all of my life and must say that the Mac has been the best gaming platform I have used in comparison to the PC boxes I have owned. Let's use my latest Power Mac G4, a 'Mystic' (codename) sawtooth-logic board Macintosh with gigabit-ethernet, twin 450 megahertz G4 processors, 512 MB of RAM, a 30 gig hard drive, an ATI Radeon 8500 with 64MB of SDRAM, and a 17-inch Apple Studio flat-panel display running OS 10.2.8, or OS X (Jaguar). This Macintosh is a workhorse, providing me with plenty of power to get the tasks done I need to do. I type my papers, write my poetry, surf the net, play video games, author musical CD's and watch DVD movies on this machine. Since this is a review of the hardware, I'll go ahead and give you the run-down.

First off, the Macintosh features a 100 megahertz system bus and twin 32-bit RISC G4 processors clocked at 450 megahertz. The graphics chip is double-speed, or 2x AGP. The optical drive is a combo DVD/CD-RW that runs at a blistering speed, as does everything else in this machine. At first finding games for a Macintosh seems difficult, not every store carries Macs, and not every emulator is available for the Mac. However, the most popular emulators are available, and all the best PC game titles eventually make it to the Macintosh platform. So far I have emulated a Nintendo 64 with my Macintosh, and that is the best system I've been able to emulate. I have not tried to emulate the Saturn, Playstation, or Jaguar, but have sucessfully run Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Neo-Geo, Nintendo, GameBoy Advance, Turbo-Grafx 16, and arcade games spanning everything from Tempest, Pac-Man, Street Fighter 2, King of Fighters, Marvel versus Capcom, and Street Fighter Alpha as well as Afterburner, and Virtua Fighter. This Macintosh can literally run anything out there as far as emulation goes, if the emulator exists this Mac can run it. Not to mention the latest and greatest computer titles, like SimCity 4, Unreal Tournament 2004, The Sims, Black & White, and Aliens versus Predator Gold. I love this machine, it literally is the most powerful machine I've ever owned, and I am sold on Macs for life. As long as Apple builds computers I will buy them.

The expansion capabilities are wonderful, with room for extra hard drives, memory, video cards, and even processor upgrades. The Macintosh features a very elegant, rock-solid stable operating system to work with, called OS X. This OS is based on Unix and is virtually crash-free and is very ease to learn and master. Take the ease of use from the OS, add it to the mix of a powerful combination of hardware, and you have one of the best gaming platforms on the market today. There are so many features that make a Mac user-friendly and easy to live with, such as voice-recognition, iTunes which plays your favorite music and can burn MP3's to a CD, iMovie and iDVD which let you author small movies and DVD's... as well as AppleWorks which is a word processor, and Safari, the easiest and fastest web browser on the market today.

Macintosh computers may be more expensive than a run-of-the-mill PC, but when you consider a Mac is built from the ground up for a single OS and the components are not just off-the-shelf parts like most PC companies use, then it is easy to see why Mac owners are willing to pay a premium for their machines. When you combine the easy to use OS, the stability and rock-solid performance of Unix along with speedy dual processors, massive amounts of memory and plenty of room for expansion, you are left with a machine that is dressed to impress. You really can't go wrong with a Mac since it can run PC files via Virtual PC, which emulates Windows on your Mac without leaving the Mac OS. Pretty cool, huh? Add to this a cool optical mouse, incredible flat-panel displays and high-quality components throughout the system and anybody can grasp why the Mac has such a loyal and cult-like following. For years the Macintosh has been innovating computer technologies, and Apple does not appear to be resting on its laurels. Expect more big things from Apple in the future, and the next time you purchase a gaming rig or computer, head on down to your local Apple Store and ask the folks inside about the latest and greatest in the stable of Macintosh computers. Take my word for it, once you go Mac, you'll never go back.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/04