Blizzard has always been a game software company near and dear to the hearts of Mac users everywhere. This is because of Blizzard’s insistence on simultaneous release of their games on both Windows and Macs. Well, we got more reason to heart Blizzard now.

In the beta of the forthcoming release of Ver. 2.2 of World of Warcraft, Mac users can now record in-game videos using Quicktime using the H.264 codec, with selectable resolution and frame rates. Vid-cap your red-eye quests and post them on YouTube! Aside from numerous fixes, the beta version also optimizes graphics performance on Macs with Altivec (PPC) or SSE (Intel) systems.

Not all Macs can smoothly record caps, however, as the requirements are a bit hefty. You’ll also need Quicktime 7.1.6 running on OS X 10.4.9.

The beta still isn’t available to the general public yet, and is only for beta testers running in the Public Test Realms of WoW. Not to worry, it’s expected to be released soon.

I’ve wondered about this. Theoretically, it should be possible, since the iPhone gives you the “full Internet” via Safari. To be sure, a major bummer complete with squinted eyes and frantic pinching and swiping and tapping, but still theoretically possible.

Well, we’ve got proof of concept. The folk over at everythingdigital.org have uploaded a YouTube video where WoW is being played (with great difficulty it appears) on an iPhone. It was done with the help of something called Telekinesis, which is a streaming app. It does seem slow and tedious, and in the future might actually be workable, but we’ll need a modified client whatever the case may be.

See it here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFZA6gRK4qs]

(Thanks to Joel T. for the heads-up!)

Everyone’s favorite classic paranoia kill-em-all game, Postal, has just been given a new lease on life as a Universal Binary update. Postal Dude can go postal once more, this time on Intel Macs all over the place. This 10-year-old classic was both hailed and reviled since its release in 1997, for obvious reasons. It’s the only game that gives you “Mass Murder Opportunities” like mowing down marching bands, spraying protesters, or charbroiling whole towns.

The game description goes:

After coming home from work to find his house repossessed, the player-character, known as Postal Dude, decides that everyone is out to get him and goes… well… postal. He figures that everyone in town has been infected with something that makes them all psychopathic killers. Paranoia can be fun. The game gets under way with Postal Dude standing outside his home, unable to get inside but armed to the teeth nevertheless. Go figure. Moving from one surreal landscape to the next, you must make use of the twelve weapons at your disposal in order to dispatch anything with a pulse. The goal in each of the 16 levels is to off a given percentage of the “hostiles” (that is, cops, soldiers with missile launchers, rednecks with huntin’ rifles, etc.) without getting killed yourself. Pretty simple, really. There are no magic power-ups, no special abilities - just you, your arsenal, and the occasional Kevlar vest or first-aid kit.

A younger me had hours of unbridled, murderous fun and let me work off lots of aggression back in the day. I don’t think the present me’d be comfortable playing this one any more, but you can give it a shot, so to speak.

This update is entirely a digital download that goes for US$10 at the MacGameStore website. You can get Postal here.