How to play Cotton Boomerang on Mac

Game summary

A followup game to Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang uses the same graphics, sound and enemies, but slightly different gameplay. Gone are the lifebars, now you have one-hit kills (similar to the very first episode). Gone are the extra lives, instead you have 3 chosen characters, tag-team style. Gone is the experience-based level system, leveling up now depends on bonus items during the game. Gone are the special, full-screen Magic attacks, instead you have an instant smart-bomb when you change into a different character in-game. Gone are the powerup-dependant magic attacks, now each character has his/her own magic attack by default. The characters are also equipped with secondary attacks to make their shooting style more distinctive from each other. And to top that, you have plenty of new moves, counterattacks, powerups, and key combinations to use. Whereas Cotton 2 was more of a tactical shooter (whenever that is applicable to the game) with its chain combo and life/experience system, Cotton Boomerang is an all-out shooter due to the added moves, different level layout, and generally faster and crazier gameplay.
First released: Feb 1998

Play Cotton Boomerang on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Cotton Boomerang on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.

Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.

Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).

Cotton Boomerang installation steps for Mac

Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Cotton Boomerang like you would on any PC.
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