Games are the gifts that keep on giving…at least throughout the rest of the day when everyone else is bored with their drills and those blankets with sleeves and are now looking for what movies to see. And you may not know it, but there were plenty of great Mac games released this year. We’ve rounded up some of the best here so you can easily bring the joy of wanton violence to your loved ones this holiday season.

Virtual Programming showed some guts by bringing X3: Terran Conflict to the Mac. Are there any Mac gamers left willing to give up the time required to get into a space combat sim? Aren’t we all playing Diner Dash or those hidden object games? I hope not. In fact, games like this give me further reason to quit covering the casual games, because I want to spend more time with this one. And so I shall.

You want to beware a fellow who’s motto is “No gods or kings. Only man.” Chances are that such a man would fill those voids himself if given the chance. That’s pretty much what you’re up against in Bioshock, Feral’s latest Mac release. Bioshock is one of the prettiest, most enjoyable, violent and disturbing games I’ve ever played on the Macintosh. I can safely say I haven’t been this engrossed in a first-person shooter since Deus Ex.

You don’t need me to tell you there’s quite a diverse collection of apps in the iTunes App Store. SpoonJuice has embraced this diversity within their own catalog; they’ve currently got four apps available for iPhone and (three for) iPod touch, and the collection is fairly eclectic. In this roundup, we’ll take a look at them all: Nightstand, Fun Booth, The Plateau, and the free Air Balloon.

Don’t think for a moment we missed yesterday’s announcement that Star Trek: D-A-C is heading towards the Macintosh system. Currently available for the Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network and Valve’s Steam digital distribution service for Windows PC, the Mac version comes out in December via TransGaming Inc.’s GameTreeOnline.com digital distribution platform courtesy of Parament Digital Entertainment.