Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel blasts onto the Mac with more shootin’ and lootin’

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Same-day release on Mac, PC, Linux, and console! Photo: Aspyr
Same-day release on Mac, PC, Linux, and console! Photo: Aspyr

Handsome Jack, the erstwhile villain of Borderlands 2, had to start somewhere. It’s not easy taking over an entire corporation, let alone a whole planet.

His story begins much more humbly, however, with Jack working as a programmer at Hyperion Corporation. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, in some part at least, aims to tell the story of this psychopath’s rise to power.

What’s even better is that this newly released game, available on all the consoles and PC on Steam, is also available for Mac thanks to the tireless efforts of the best Mac game publisher around, Aspyr.

That means that if you rock a Macintosh computer as your main gaming device (and why not, it’s a fantastic machine!), you’ll be able to shoot your way across the moon of Hyperion, floating through the air with every low gravity jump and using new awesome weapons like the ice and laser weapons.

Check out the trailer below, starring Mr. Torgue High-Five Flexington and Sir Hammerlock, for more hilariously over the top details.

Borderlands 2 perfected this kind of RPG and first-person shooter mashup with an amazing cartoonish art style, and the Pre-Sequel carries on in this same fine tradition.

You’ll get a ton more gameplay with new mechanics to keep things fresh, like the crazy low-gravity jumping abilities that allow you to take down enemies from above, the new weaponry, and four new vault hunters. There’s Wilhelm the Enforcer, Nisha the Lawbringer, and Athena the Gladiator for your human-esque anti-heroes (“gender equality!” screams Mr. Torgue in the video above), while Claptrap, the vociferous little robot from the first two games, will serve as the comic relief as well as a playable character.

Gender equality! Screengrab: Aspyr
Gender equality! Screengrab: Aspyr

If you’ve played the first two games, you’ll feel right at home here, and the first half hour or so of gameplay will introduce you to some of the new mechanics. It’s a rip-roaring great time, and if you loved either of the preceding Borderlands games, you’ll dig this one, too.

The game runs smoothly at high resolution on my Macbook Pro, and works well with a keyboard and mouse or connected game pad device, like the wired Xbox 360 controller I tested. You can grab your own copy for $59.99 on Steam, the Mac App Store, or Aspyr’s own GameAgent website. If you use the latter, you can check to see if your Mac will run the game, too.

Here are the minimum specs, though, just in case:

Operating System: 10.9.4 (Though it played just fine on my beta Yosemite install)
CPU Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (Dual-Core)
CPU Speed: 2.2 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 13 GB
Video Card (ATI): Radeon HD 2600
Video Card (NVIDIA): GeForce 8800
Video Card (Intel): HD4000
Video Memory (VRam): 256 MB

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