Stella for Mac

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on March 29, 2013

As new game consoles continue to come out, users often want to re-experience old games they played when they were younger. Stella for Mac allows you to play Atari games on your Mac, although its controls are problematic.

Available as a freeware program, Stella for Mac installs quickly without any problems. The program immediately prompts the user to designate a location where Atari game files are to be stored on the computer. Users should note that the program is an Atari emulator. There are no games included with it and users will have to find their own sources of ROMs to download; these are easy to find with a quick Internet search. Once the games are placed in the designated folder, the program finds them quickly. A menu is easy to locate for loading the games. Unfortunately, fine-tuning controls and other game options are less intuitive and require much trial and error. This is especially problematic since the default keyboard controls are hard to use. But the actual graphics of the games match their original Atari counterparts and play as smoothly as expected. A small collection of games to accompany the program would have been a nice addition, as would instructions or a more easy-to-use interface.

For those users who want to play Atari games on their Mac, Stella for Mac works as intended, although its confusing interface may prove problematic for some users.