NCsoft on Thursday announced that Mac gamers can now take up residence in City of Heroes, the company's hero-themed MMOG that lets players create a superhero or a supervillain and fight for truth and justice or the destruction of Paragon City.

Mac gamers can download the Mac Special Edition from GameTree Online, the distribution arm of TransGaming, whose Cider technology helped port the game to Intel Macs. They can also get it from NCsoft's PlayNC store. It offers two exclusive in-game items: a teleportation power that takes characters straight to their current mission and a costume set called Valkyrie.

To celebrate the launch of the game, NCsoft released an "I'm a hero, I'm a villain" video that parodies Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads.

In City of Heroes, players create a hero or villain and explore Paragon City or the Rogue Isles, respectively. Like the comic books that inspired it, the game features a rich history full of colorful characters and epic battles. As players take on missions and grow their characters, they learn more about the good and evil factions inhabiting the world and discover the back story that ties them together.

The Mac Special Edition comes with 30 days of play time. After that expires, the monthly cost is US$14.95. In addition to an Intel Core Duo processor, City of Heroes requires Mac OS X version 10.5.5, 1GB RAM, 2.9GB of hard drive space, and ATI X1600, NVIDIA 7300 GT, or Intel X3100 video. Intel GMA950 integrated video chipsets are not supported.