When Mountain Lion released in July, it brought with it a host of welcome features for gamers. The new AirPlay mirroring Mac feature allows you to mirror your computer screen to your television at the press of a button. Just like that, you can be playing Diablo 3 on your 55" flatscreen, all without involving a single wire.
But Mountain Lion also brought Apple's social gaming hub Game Center to Mac, and it comes with all the leaderboards, achievements, and multiplayer modes of its iOS counterpart. While there still aren't a ton of Game Center games out now, a small handful of quality games let you to challenge your friends in real-time or asynchronously across platforms (iOS to Mac), or compare your highscores to your friends', regardless of where you were playing.
Here are five of our current favorite Game Center games for Mac.
Sky Gamblers: Air Supreme - $4.99
The first thing you'll notice about Sky Gamblers is that it's gorgeous. Shortly thereafter, you'll notice it's a ton of fun.
Sky Gamblers is one of those games just made to be mirrored from an iPad to your TV, where you can scream through the skies shooting down poor pilots. But if you're stuck at a desk, Sky Gamblers: Air Supreme for Mac is just as good, and the best part is you can quickly compete with a friend, in head to head multiplayer. It's tons of fun, and good for a quick dogfight between putting together Excel docs.
Conquist 2 Online Arena - $2.99
Conquist 2 is basically Risk, and that means it has a ton of competition in the App Store. There's an official Risk app, and about 46 million awesome Risk one-offs (like Strategery!) all competing for our time and affection.
But Conquist is also the first Risk one-off to be cross platform on Macs and iOS devices. While games like the aforementioned Sky Gamblers allows you to go head-to-head in awesome dogfights, Conquist's asynchronous gaming style means you can open the game intermittently throughout the day and play a few rounds. It's perfect for a slight reprieve from the workday grind.
Real Racing 2 - $12.99
Just about every gamer with an iOS device probably has a version of Real Racing, and for good reason - they're the best iOS racing games out there. We gave Firemint's excellent racer a 9 (read the review), even with a higher-than-most $9.99 price tag.
Real Racing 2 for Mac is our most expensive game on the list, but it's also fantastic and well worth the cash to race your iOS-wielding friends at anytime. This is a fantastically gorgeous game and looks even better on Retina Display Macbook Pros, for which it's been optimized. Better yet, it has Cross-platform save capabilities and USB controller support.
It might be expensive at $12.99 but it's well-worth the cash.
Two Towers - $.99
Two Towers is a bit different than everything else on the list - it's a very pretty, pretty complex card game, which allows you to challenge friends on iOS from your Mac. There's a lot to learn in Two Towers, but soon you'll be whipping through your 114 cards and almost 30 spells. You can practice up against the challenging AI before sending that Game Center challenge to your friends. Plus, it's $.99.
Anomaly - $4.99
Anomaly is the only game on our list that you doesn't allow you to challenge your iOS friends to a head-to-head match. But fortunately, the game is still an insanely fun tower defense game, the kind of game where the highest score actually matters. Plus the game is really, really attractive. Definitely worth your 5 bucks.
Do you have any favorite Game Center games? Leave your username in the replies and challenge your fellow IGNers.
Nic is the Editor of IGN Tech. He loves technology almost as much as The Great Gatsby, Super Hexagon, and Mysteries of Pittsburgh. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.
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