Mac Gaming!

[Avenger]

So i'm planning on switching to a Mac at the end of this month...getting tired of PCs and their buggy ways...BUT, I'm a huge gamer and I fear that because I am switichin, I won't have a lot of selection for games...So help me make a good list of games I can play on my Mac so i don't freak out :D!

ones I have thought of so far:

Diablo, Warcraft, WoW, Starcraft (all Blizzard stuff)
Marathon
UT

i hope this list gets a lot bigger lol

[shvnsth]

unreal. i wouldn't even try to game on a mac. i have a powerbook, and nothing is worth playing on it. keep a gaming pc around, a cheap one, and use that for your gaming

[Nez]

Bah if you thought PC gaming was dying the mac Scene is even sadder.

As for a mac not being buggy I 've had a couple and they were all crappy crashing POS.

Oh Sorry to crap on you thread. But I think you got the majority of the recent games that have come out for it.

[Saabmeister]

So i'm planning on switching to a Mac at the end of this month...getting tired of PCs and their buggy ways...BUT, I'm a huge gamer and I fear that because I am switichin, I won't have a lot of selection for games...So help me make a good list of games I can play on my Mac so i don't freak out :D!

ones I have thought of so far:

Diablo, Warcraft, WoW, Starcraft (all Blizzard stuff)
Marathon
UT

i hope this list gets a lot bigger lol

It all depends on how new a Mac you're getting. If you're getting a kick ass top of the line G5, then you can get all of the big name games at your local Circuit City. I dont know how well it works, but Virtual PC should be an option. My fastest computer is a 550mhz G4, and I can run games that require 700-800 mhz without much of a problem, the get a little slow at some places, but it's not bad.

I personally like to play:
Unreal
Wolfenstein
Medal Of Honor
Warbirds III
Oregon Trail II

So in all honesty, take the plunge, and enjoy. The selection may not be as wide, but you can get by and play plenty of top notch games.

Edit: in reply to Nez, I have a 350mhz PentiumII with Windows 95 and a 333mhz G3 running OS 8.6, and I can honestly say that I have had far fewer crashes with the G3 than the Micron. Almost any game I try to use on my Micron constantly crashes, even though it EXCEEDS the requirements of the game. You can get Halo, Doom 3, etc, etc, etc.[/i]

[FooFighter]

My wife has a Powermac G5 dual 1.8. It's a sweet machine. I was thinking about getting Battlefield for it just to try it out. Basically when it comes to Macs and gaming, you just have to wait a year or two after it comes out for PC.

[Avenger]

im gettin a brand new 15" powerbook, with the video card upgrade...cant be bothered to go get the specs...but its a beast

[Jorpho]

3 in Three's ! (Such a sweet little game. A bit old, but so is Marathon.)

[boatofcar]

Bah if you thought PC gaming was dying the mac Scene is even sadder.

As for a mac not being buggy I 've had a couple and they were all crappy crashing POS.

Oh Sorry to crap on you thread. But I think you got the majority of the recent games that have come out for it.

Do you know sonrito_karuito? Please leave your mac bashing in another thread.


I've loved everything I've played done by Freeverse. Burning Monkey Solitaire is awesome. There's also Burning Monkey Majjohng, Spades, etc.

Blizzard stuff, obviously. Aspyr usually ports most of the PC hits over to mac, and as has been mentioned before take some time-but it is getting better as more and more people buy macs. As more and more gamers come over, the natural effect will be game development simultaneously, so both the pc and mac versions of games will be released at the same time.

Have you been to www.apple.com/games/ ?
They keep up with most of the new releases. Plus, when you get your computer, you can play the first Mac game ever, Tile Game, on a dashboard widget :)

[Ed Oscuro]

I think Macs are nifty for gaming - less hardware problems to face, helpful when you're trying to get older games going. Another thing is that there were some damn good ports from the PC, like System Shock Mac (never been able to find this one, but I assume it exists) with its enhanced soundtrack.

I've gotta get an old IIgs to try out Rastan on, sometime :D

[zmweasel]

3 in Three's ! (Such a sweet little game. A bit old, but so is Marathon.)

3 in Three rocked. All of Cliff Johnson's puzzle games rocked. He's currently working on "The Fool and his Money," which he's self-publishing: www.fools-errand.com (down at the moment)

-- Z.

[THATinkjar]

I'm sorry. But even die-hard Mac users are starting to grumble these days. Apple should be exploiting the mess that is Longhorn, but they ain't.

And as for gaming on Macs, I would not even bother. Only Blizzard games are worth your pretty pennies. The rest aren't. If you're into desktop gaming, stick with Windows.

[slip81]

Bah if you thought PC gaming was dying the mac Scene is even sadder.

As for a mac not being buggy I 've had a couple and they were all crappy crashing POS.

Oh Sorry to crap on you thread. But I think you got the majority of the recent games that have come out for it.

You must have been running OS 9 or earlier, cause 10 hardly ever has problems thanks to force quit. But anyway Mac are great, but they aren't perfect and will lock up and require a restart, rarely.

Anyway you can get most of the new big games on Mac now and they will run fine.

Not sure how good virtual PC would be for playing games though. My estimation would be that it's a waste of time because VPC tends to run a little slow anyway and it seems a game would just bog the whole thing down.

Anyway enjoy you new Mac, OS 10.4 is very sweet :)

List (OS X compatible)
Marathon
WoW
Warcraft III
Diablo II
Starcraft
C&C Generals
Halo
Rise of Nations
Call of Duty
Battlefield
Medal of Honor Allied Assault
Doom 3 (soon)
The Sims

[classicb]

yay mac gaming love. I'm a big mac user due to using it all through school for design stuff. more and more people are making the switch and I think that will lead to more games. I'm excited that Doom 3 is coming. Normally it takes alot longer for the mac to get PC games. could be a sign of thing to come. I also run Virtual PC since I do alot of work for buisness people and I need too. I've never played games on it though I would imagine you would need a really fast mac though since it takes alot just to run the virtual pc. All in all your making a good switch I think macs are great computers and you should get enough gaming to make you happy.

[Avenger]

yay mac gaming love. I'm a big mac user due to using it all through school for design stuff. more and more people are making the switch and I think that will lead to more games. I'm excited that Doom 3 is coming. Normally it takes alot longer for the mac to get PC games. could be a sign of thing to come. I also run Virtual PC since I do alot of work for buisness people and I need too. I've never played games on it though I would imagine you would need a really fast mac though since it takes alot just to run the virtual pc. All in all your making a good switch I think macs are great computers and you should get enough gaming to make you happy.

Thanks bud, ive always liked your sigs...nice to know they were made on a Mac...Im going into a Game Art & Design course in October, so I think the switch to Mac is going to be very helpful...very much looking forward to my powerbook now :D

[Ed Oscuro]

And as for gaming on Macs, I would not even bother. Only Blizzard games are worth your pretty pennies. The rest aren't.
This is the exact reason why I *am* trying to get into classic-ish Mac gaming: the games are cheap! Old Bungie titles can be had for very little.

[THATinkjar]

I'm sorry, but the gaming experience on the Mac is pretty poor in comparision with the PC and with consoles. Mostly everyone I know with a Mac has a gaming PC lying around. And these guys are bitching more and more about how difficult gaming on Macs is becoming.

Take the introduction of Tiger - that alone has made it more difficult to install and run games of yesteryear.

[Lady Jaye]

www.insidemacgames.com is your one stop for news, reviews and everything else pertaining to Mac gaming.

Currently, the commercial players in the Mac community are:

Aspyr (ports EA and Activision's games)
MacSoft (formerly the Mac division of Infogrames, is now independent -- they port Atari and Microsoft's games)
MacPlay (anything else that Aspyr and Macsoft don't port -- they're a far-behind third place)

And then, there's Blizzard...

I second the old Bungie stuff -- you might still be able to find a copy of the Bungie Action Sack somewhere, which includes the entire Marathon series... if you've been playing Halo and/or Halo 2 on the Xbox, you gotta try Marathon.

There are also a number of good shareware publishers -- the better known ones being Freeverse (and their excellent, funny Burning Monkey series of card games) and Ambrosia Software (whose catalog include the classic Centipede clone called Apeiron and their brand-new game, a Monkey Ball clone called GooBall).
www.freeverse.com
www.ambrosiasw.com

*edit* Incidentally, Glenda Adams (Aspyr's director of development) and Brad Oliver (who works for Aspyr and also ported MacMAME) are both actively involved at the Insidemacgames forum. So, for feedback regarding Aspyr's games, it's a good place to go.

[THATinkjar]

I would recommend Civilization 3 but they haven't ported the expansion Conquests and without that, Civ 3 pales somewhat.

It's hard to recommend Mac gaming if you're already up and running with Windows. And there is NO Mac port you would recommend over the original PC version, is there?

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but it's just how it is. You can't argue differently on this one!

[boatofcar]

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but it's just how it is. You can't argue differently on this one!


We can't? :roll:

Doom 3 is out already, btw. We have it at the Apple Store in Clarendon where I work part time. Other big sellers at our store include:

First to Fight
Rise of Nations
Neverwinter Nights (and all the expansion packs)
X Plane (awesome flight simulator)
Baldur's Gate: Throne of Baal
Command and Conquer (whatever the newest one is called)
Battlefield 1942
Call of Duty (tons of expansions with that)
Alida
Myst IV

...the list goes on. I've been working at Apple the past year and a half and our games selection has doubled in that time, so whoever says that gaming on Macs is dying is seriously misinformed.

[vulcanjedi]

Hey

I have a few old powerMACs around just to play 10 year old games. Besides the Blizzard games the Lucas games are great also. I preferred the Dig and Sam and Max and Day of the Tentacle on the MAC. I even keep a Centris 660 to play sim city 2000 and sim ant.

Can't comment on anything newer than a G3 266mhz though. I have it running osX10.1 just fine though. But I keep the older machines running 8.6 for games.

VJ

[Lady Jaye]

I would recommend Civilization 3 but they haven't ported the expansion Conquests and without that, Civ 3 pales somewhat.

It's hard to recommend Mac gaming if you're already up and running with Windows. And there is NO Mac port you would recommend over the original PC version, is there?

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but it's just how it is. You can't argue differently on this one!

Actually, there's a flaw in that reasoning. If everyone went with that argument, then there wouldn't be any Mac gaming since no one would support it. That's why I continue buying Mac games. Sure, I could get a cheap PC or even a Xbox (for games like KOTOR), but by buying my games on the Mac platform, I give out the message to Aspyr, MacPlay and Macsoft that I want to support their game releases.

It may be argued that many great games don't get ported to the Mac, but it can also be argued that crappy games are weeded out.

[Gamemaster_ca_2003]

Heres A list of All known Games For the Mac From the all game guide.


http://www.allgame.com/cg/agg.dll?p=agg&SQL=PLH||||||||5

Also the All game guide list to all the games that work on PC or Mac.

http://www.allgame.com/cg/agg.dll?p=agg&SQL=PLH|||||||46

[sharp]

I own to quite old macs currently, a iBook G3 600mhz with 384mb ram and upgrade B/W Power Mac with G4 450mhz and 512 mb ram. I don't play a lot of games on them. The only game play a lot is Civ III (MacSoft, I want the add-ons), oh and of course my only Japanese import for a real computer Puyo Puyo Fever.

About games, you als have Feral Interactive which did a good job in bringing games like Black & White (also the add-on), XIII, Worms 3D, Republic and now working on Commandos Battle Pack.

Alo I played Toy Sight once and it's a real good eye-toy kind of game which is great fun to play. Only you need a iSight for it.

Anyway I'm not that much a pc-gamer, so I only buy a game a year so I will keep me focused on the mac-market as I don't want to have also a Windows-machine for gaming.

[Red Hedgehog]

Note that Bungie has released the original Marathon trilogy for free. You can download it from http://trilogyrelease.bungie.org/

I was also unaware System Shock was ever ported to the mac. I'll definitely have to look into that.[/url]

[Ed Oscuro]

LOL ...me and my big mouth

Yeah, according to TTLG it must've been, since there are MP3s for the Mac version. Great remixes of the music, I especially like the Medical area (but who doesn't?)

[Lady Jaye]

@Red Hedgehog: Actually, you're wrong. It was the fan community that released Marathon (Bungie.org is NOT Bungie.com).

Microsoft (who now owns Bungie) has never released the Marathon series as abandonware.

[Chunky]

you have to play RoboSport, this was my fav mac game,

oh wait that was in 92. darn, maybe not the game your into.

[Red Hedgehog]

@Red Hedgehog: Actually, you're wrong. It was the fan community that released Marathon (Bungie.org is NOT Bungie.com).

Right, I know Bungie didn't release them, but it was my understanding that they gave permission for them to be distrubted.

I got that from here (http://trilogyrelease.bungie.org/faq.html), although reading it more closely, it just says the Bungie is allowing them to be distributed, which might just mean they haven't threatened to sue them.

[Lady Jaye]

Of course, letting them distribute them is still not the same as officially releasing them as abandonware (ie. if Microsoft/Bungie ever decided to re-release Marathon, you can bet there'll be a C&D letter sent pronto).

In any case, if they gave their blessing to it, that's good. Sure beats TakeTwo's decision to remove Myth II's free expansion pack from the Web (back when Bungie owned Myth, they offered the expansion pack to Myth II for free on their website. TakeTwo now owns the franchise and it's no longer officially available for free.).

[LeGIt]

-Removed

[Jorpho]

If you like roguelikes, the ancient abandoned shareware game known as Taskmaker (and its sequel, Tomb of the Taskmaker) was reasonably amusing in my mind. 'Tis available at Underdogs.

Another swell game in that category is Rescue!. In a way, it's the same old Star Trek game that has been circulating since the earliest days of computers, but it has a much faster pace, good graphics, and lots of neat little touches.

[Dobie]

Oh, and don't forget emulators! There's plenty of Mac lovin' there too! 8-)

Honestly, I don't use my iBook G4 for gaming much. I have the preloaded games on there (some Super Monkey Ball clone and a dinosaur flying game) that came with the OS, and chess. It is nice to load up MAME or some NES games now and then though, as a quick stress buster.

I primarily use my laptop for work, music, movies, and just about everything else other than games. I think Macs are a strong buy as just general-use computers, so I look at any gaming ability as a bonus rather than the reason to specifically buy one.

[ozyr]

(As for umich and Nez, bash Macs in a different thread. Don't need you junk here! )

As for 'boatofcar' (and others), thanks for defending the Mac. :)

I've been using Macs for many years. Sure, there are not as many games for Mac as for PC, but there are still a decent amount to choose from. And, even so, why would I want to buy 'all' of the PC games out there. Many of them are not that good. And the simple fact that I use my Mac for other stuff more than gaming.

----

Now, as for the topic of this post - Mac Games.

Myself, I prefer the laid back type of game (card games, strategy games, etc). Favorite company has to be Freeverse. Their card games kick butt - favorite is Burning Monkey Solitaire.

I'm not a huge shooter fan (even though I like the old Marathon series), but my brother-in-law is. He totally loves Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Max Payne (somewhat older game, but the still are a blast to play). He's also into the Medal of Honor games, as I am (even though I don't get the chance to play as often as I like)

My nieces totally like Bugdom II and Enigmo.

Well, that's my two cents worth

As someone mentioned, Insidemacgames.com is the place to check out Mac games. Very nice site indeed!

[Ed Oscuro]

Surprising that we've mentioned Bungie...we've mentioned gaming...but not Abuse? For shame! Check it out; it's a shooter. Available for Windows, as well.

[ozyr]

Surprising that we've mentioned Bungie...we've mentioned gaming...but not Abuse? For shame! Check it out; it's a shooter. Available for Windows, as well.

Yes, Abuse is a killer game. I only wish it was playable is OS X... :(

[Richter]

you can forget running (most) 3D games in VPC - the program emulates an 8MB S3 trio vid card

*however* Sim City 4 is reported to work fine in VPC. havent tried it myself, dont own the game

one reason why PC games take forever (if ever) to appear on the Mac platform is because many are written in Direct X - something that MS wont port over -.-

[ozyr]

one reason why PC games take forever (if ever) to appear on the Mac platform is because many are written in Direct X - something that MS wont port over -.-

The main reason for PC games taking a long time to get to the Mac, according to an article on InsideMacGames, is all the crap it takes to actually get a game licensed before coding even starts. The process can be (and usually is) a complete pain in the ass!