How to play NES Virus Cleaner on Mac

Game summary

NES Virus Cleaner is pretty much a spoof of the NES Cleaning Kit. That thing barely helped clean the NES, just as NES Virus Cleaner doesn’t do much for removing “viruses” from your NES. You guide Clik, the hero, around inside your NES and grab viruses in the various spots they are placed. The ultimate goal is to get to the lockout chip and destroy Virii, the main virus. The obstacles in the game are electric bolts, electric sparks, disappearing blocks, a homing missile system, and of course, time. If you run out of time on a certain level, the game is over. If you get hit by an enemy, you will respawn at the point where you picked up the last virus. It’s a pretty simple concept overall. I tried to cover everything in the tutorial, but I did in fact miss the part about respawning at the last picked up virus. Oh well, things happen!
First released: May 2011

Play NES Virus Cleaner on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play NES Virus Cleaner 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).

NES Virus Cleaner 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 NES Virus Cleaner like you would on any PC.
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