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What Games Should I Get for My New G5?
Lane.exe wonders: "So I just got a new Apple Mac G5 (Dual 1.8s, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600, etc) and I was thinking about getting back into some gaming. I was looking over the game selection for Mac, and it's not looking as bright as I'd hoped. But I think this is due more to my ignorance of good games than anything else. What I'm looking for is a few good multiplayer shoot-em-ups (like Quake, UT or Half-Life) and a nicely engrossing RPG. The last few games I've played were Icewind Dale, Pool Of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, and MechWarrior 4. Has anyone got any suggestions along these lines?"
There's a lot more shareware gaming on the Mac, companies like Ambrosia, Spiderweb and Freeverse put out good quality games. If you get anything though I'd recommend Escape Velocity.
You might want to check out Yohoho Puzzle Pirates as well.
NETHACK
The great thing about using a mac is the cool shareware stuff. We've got some of the best developers (Ambrosia, Pangaeasoft, they're everywhere) and we get some great games. Here are a couple of great ones...
enigmo
escape velocity nova
As far as commercial games go, Halo is a great choice, you can pick up UT, EverQuest, Warcraft III...There are a ton, and more coming thanks to great porting houses like Westlake.
I'm personally hooked on EQ right now, and it's great...not nearly as many people per server, but it's become a nice community without the assholes that plague the pc version. If you don't know what I mean by that, think your typical battlenet user.
Quake 3 has been out for Mac OS for years. Lots of big-name franchises are available for Mac - Warcraft III, Neverwinter Nights, UT2003, Rainbow 6, Medal of Honor, etc. etc.
The biggest glaring omission from the Mac gaming world is Half Life (and, by extension, Counter-Strike). It does really suck not to be able to play Counter-Strike.
I'd check out www.insidemacgames.com to see what's available and what's coming soon. Note: I'm not affiliated with this site. It was just the first site that came up when I did a Google search for "mac games."
-Isaac
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Congrats on the purchase of the G5. For starters, check out GameRanger. GameRanger (aka GR) is the hub for most all Mac gaming outside of Bnet and MMORPGs. You can check the game list on the GR website, but you can find basically all the popular FPS and RTS games there. For the more popular games, finding a good host won't be a problem, but for older or lesser known titles it can be tough. That's just one of the downsides of the smaller Mac gaming community. However, being small can also be an advantage as you can get to know a large portion of the people you play with on a regular basis.
As for the actually games, I would recommend Raven Shield (aka Rainbow Six 3) for an FPS. It will look awesome on your G5, and the gameplay is quite addicting. Everyone I know who has tried Halo hasn't liked it. Ghost Recon isn't bad, but it feels much slower paced than Raven Shield. There are also the old standbys like MoH and Quake 3, and you can probably pick those up cheap if you shop around.
I'm not an RPG guy, so I can't really comment there. I know some guys who are enjoying NWN, but that's about it. However, one game I think you should definitely check out is Jedi Academy. It has both great single player and multiplayer action. Another highly recommend game is EV Nova. The Escape Velocity series has been a classic on the Mac for a long time now, and EV Nova does not disappoint. You should also take a look around Ambrosia's site. They are generally regarded as the makers of the finest shareware games for the Mac.