You’ve been hankering for it and Valve finally came through.
The Steam gaming client, Valve’s Mac OS X port of the gateway to its online game store, allows users to purchase, download, and manage games for your computer. Per CNET, the program offers networking options for locating and joining online game servers, chatting, and providing in-game communication enhancements.
Valve offers access to over 1,000 games via Steam, and for OS X the debut will see Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Portal, and the whole Half-Life series available. Many of these games are run using Wine-like compatibility layer for OS X, which has been seen in applications like Codeweaver’s “Crossover” and “Crossover Games” packages.
The client is available as a 2.7 megabyte download and requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later and an Intel-based Mac to install and run.
Current Steam release titles for the Mac include Civilization IV (Colonization, Warlords, and Beyond the Sword editions), And Yet It Moves, Chuzzle Deluxe, Bejeweled 2, Bookworm Deluxe, Galcon Fusion, Bob Came in Pieces, World of Goo, Altitude, City of Heroes: Architect Edition, Machinarium, Torchlight, Braid, Brainpipe, Football Manager 2010, Zuma Deluxe, and Quantz, though Valve has stated that new Mac ports will