CrossOver Games is a simple installation, even if its underpinnings is crazygonuts. Essentially, games (and applications for the CrossOver application) operate as though they exist within specialized environments contained within the Mac itself. CodeWeavers calls these environments "bottles". For example, the Guild Wars application lives inside the Guild Wars bottle. You can have multiple bottles for each game you want to run, and can configure each of them separately.

If you look at the configurable settings for bottles, it's apparent that what's going on here is pretty much an actual, discrete build of Windows that fires up every time you want to play that particular Windows-only game. There are separate controls for managing tasks in the Windows instance, and you can simulate a reboot for that instance. There's even the option for opening the C: drive and displaying its contents in the Finder, should you need to delve down into that level of software support. For people like me, that's unnecessary, as my Windows Fu doesn't extend to actually modifying registers or editing .ini files, but it's good to know that that stuff is there.

CrossOver Games creates a distinction between Supported and Unsupported games. Supported games include EVE Online, Guild Wars, Half-Life, Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, Spore, and the Valve Software Steam interface. What this means is that CrossOver Games is ready to let you play these games (with the proper install CD or file) without any monkeying around. If you select one of these choices, you're given a small message recommending a particular flavor of Windows to use, or you can just go with what it suggests. From there, the process is painless. For Steam, as an example, you're given the option to install the client from the Orange Box CD, or download it directly from the Steam website. CrossOver creates the necessary environment, and suddenly you're looking at the ugly Windows interface.

Then it's just a matter of choosing which game you want to play. Opening a game opens CrossOver Games, and it all just functions seamlessly with the Mac environment. Venturing into the realm of Unsupported games, however, is a different beast. From the app: "CrossOver should be able to run many games that use Direct X 9 or any previous version of Direct X. However, there are sometimes problems with particular games." This is where being knowledgeable about Windows guts would probably come in handy.

When setting up the environment for an Unsupported game, you're given the choice of choosing one of four Windows versions for your bottle: Vista, XP, 2000, and 98. And no lie: when I saw that Windows 98 was available, my heart leapt with joy, because it meant that I could stop feeling silly for holding onto my The Neverhood CD for all these years.