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?"

Comments

Halo..

[AIX-Hood]

Halo was just released for the Mac, delivering on the promise made by Steve Jobs and Bungie all those years ago.

Re:Halo..

[RatPh!nk]

In addition to Halo (which is awesome) check out Apple Games. It contains the largest (as I know it) layout for mac gaming both commercial and shareware on the web.

Re:Halo..

[frozendevil]

For some old school FPS/Bungie action, the Marathon engine has been open sourced. A google search for Marathon Aleph One should turn it up quickly.

Re:Halo..

[AvitarX]

Going back not as far...

I am pretty sure the original Dues Ex was on the mac.

Maybe the sequel too.

I never played either and don't own a mac, but I had a friend at work who had a mac and would go on and on about how good it was.

Mac Gaming

[genetic_freak]

I saw an ad for this last year. Seems that best games for the mac are:

4.apple puzzle game
3.breakout
2.super breakout
1.Photoshop

Happy gaming

Re:Mac Gaming

[Tyrdium]

For those who missed the reference: Red vs. Blue's Apple Switch ad.

Re:Mac Gaming

[Tumbleweed]

Photoshop is probably the hardest game _EVAR_! The one game that's fastest on a Mac (usually). :)

My favourite part of the game is seeing how many layers I can add before the dreaded "Execution Error".

BTW - Does anyone have any cheat codes for this thing?

Re:Mac Gaming

[Hes Nikke]

BTW - Does anyone have any cheat codes for this thing?

if you hold the command key and type

QUICKLY DUMP THE CURRENCY

, i'll let you open up images that look like US Currency.

thankyouverrymuch :)

Shareware!

[faust2097]

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.

Re:Shareware!

[Tyrdium]

Agreed. Ambrosia Software's Escape Velocity: Nova, the third in a series, is one of the best games I've ever played. It's got about 6 great storylines; which one you follow depends on your actions in the game. The graphics aren't amazing, but more than adaquate. Gameplay is free for 30 days, at which point you need to pay $30 to register (there are a couple limitations in the unregistered version). Also, it's got a very good plugin system, so play time is almost unlimited, with a number of total conversions out, such as Polycon. Their previous two Escape Velocity games were also very good, but Nova is the best.

Re:Shareware!

[Colazar]

And Ambrosia has released the previous two games, Escape Velocity, and Escape Velocity Override, as plugins to EV:Nova for free. So if you buy EV: Nova, you can play all three games.

One Word

[lambent]

NETHACK

Games for the mac

[tayjo]

You could try NeverWinter Nights, Bioware even has instructions on their site for installing the expansions. Jedi Academy, which I am currently enjoying, just came out. Warcraft III and its expansion are also availible. The up and coming World of Warcraft will also be mac comapatible.

Re:Games for the mac

[tayjo]

Here is a link to an explaination of how to install the first NWN expansion pack on the Mac. The second expansion installs much the same. http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic =268892&forum=71&highlight=sotu+installati on

rpg type game

[Polo]

try dungeon siege...

AA

[RaisinBread]

America's Army is goodun... Its good quality, and you can't beat free.

I've also found that there are some really good emulators for the mac, SNES9X being a favorite. There are more.

If you're a MUDder, you can get to those with just about anything. I use Cantrip, but it doesn't seem there are as many great Mac MUD clients...

Best of luck: I'm interested to see what others have to say... Its been really slim pickins....

P.S. - I also heard there may be another option available soon.

Re:AA

[Quobobo]

If you want to play SNES on your Mac, don't use the "official" port of SNES9X.. SNES9X Custom is much better, and is frequently updated with new features and SNES9X code (the official port hasn't been updated since April of last year!).

Don't count on big names

[ctr2sprt]

The biggest names in FPS and RPG games are going to be Quake III and Neverwinter Nights. There are many other games, but you probably won't have heard of them. Nobody makes much money off Mac games, so there's a lot of "indie games:" games without a big-name publisher, usually distributed as shareware or sold only online. Now I'm not saying this is a bad thing, you just need to get used to not being able to play the latest and greatest games on your Mac.

This shouldn't be a big deal, since if you were big into gaming you wouldn't have bought a Mac. You should definitely be able to find enough games to keep yourself entertained, though.

Re:Don't count on big names

[kommakazi]

You forgot about UT2003 and Halo for FPS. You forgot about Fallout 2 and Diablo 2 (yeah it's kinda old but it's still quite addicting especially with the expansion pack) in terms of RPG's...

Dark Horizons: Lore

[VisorGuy]

Dark Horzons: Lore is an up-and-coming Action Mech game (not a simulation like Mechwarrior).
It currently runs in Win32 & Mac OS X and the Client will run [without crashing] on Linux as soon as the installer is ready, which should be Any Day Now(tm).

Here's a quote from the page:

Created by independent game developers, Max Gaming Technologies, Dark Horizons: Lore is set in the Dark Horizons Universe in the mid 22nd century. Lore throws you in control of the worlds most advanced weapon system during the conflicts between the Federated States and Eastern Confederation. Remote pilot vehicles like the AR-16b Hunter mechanized assault vehicle or the ECM-74 Juggernaut tank in explosive multiplayer action.

Crammed with fast-paced, extreme action, Dark Horizons: Lore puts you in command of the 22nd century's finest achievement, the Mechanized Assault Vehicle, or MAV. Remotely piloted from control pods located halfway around the globe these giant war machines are bristling with the latest plasma rifles, cannons and missiles. Pilot a single MAV or gain experience and take command of a MAV group or even an entire battalion and fight with your friends as a unit.

Check it out.

Shareware and Commercial

[rackniraz]

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.

If you want quake, buy quake.

[isaac]

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

There's plenty available....

[kommakazi]

All of the Quake series is available...they are growing old but are still no less playable...but I still play Quake2 as it is my favorite game of all time...nothing beats a good round of ActionQuake! (shush you Urban Terror zombies!) There's Unreal Tournament 2003, Halo as mentioned already, Ghost Recon, emulators for about any console you can think of (hint: go to www.emulation.net), Jedi Knight II, Jedi Academy, Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness, Age of Empires II, Civilization III, all of the Sims series, Sim City 4, Rainbow Six 3, Aliens vs Predator 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate series, Medal of Honor Allied Assault and Spearhead, the Myth Series (another one of my personal favorites), Neverwinter Nights, Everquest, Oni, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Starcraft (old but I doubt this game will ever die), Splinter Cell, Tony Hawk 2 3 & 4, X-Plane....And this was only a skimming of the more popular/newer games from the list on Apple's site... gee whiz guys there's really no games for Mac...Pull your heads out of your asses and take a look around.

Re:Anything Quake3-driven should be fine.

[gl4ss]

dude you need to move out of iraq/afganistan/wherever_you_see_moh_kind_of_actio n_by_looking_out_of_window

Raven Shield

[attaboy]

Or Rainbow Six 3 as some people persist in calling it ;-) is an incredible multiplayer experience. The realism of the game surpasses that of some of the newer "realistic" shooters (e.g. America's Army, Vietnam), although not quite as good as Operation Flashpoint (although I find RS more enjoyable than OF, personally.)

You should definitely make this one of your first gaming purchases.

One of my favorite online features is coop play. Taking down 30 terrorists with a team of players is only surpassed in excitement by taking out 30 terrorists with a team of players who are all on voice comms!

Re:Way to get your troll story posted.

[feyhunde]

Rpgs are for nerds.
I always thought Slashdot was for nerds.

I'm confused

[NanoGator]

"What Games Should I Get for My New G5?"

Plural?!

My favs

[gearheadsmp]

Here's my favorites:

Fallout 1
Fallout 2
Quake 3 Arena (for Xtreme Arena mod, among others)
Soldier of Fortune II
Baldurs Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Baldurs Gate 2 - Throne Of Bhaal
Civlization III
Halo
No One Lives Forever 2
Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield

Games for the Mac

[PylonHead]

This Apple "switch" ad should help you figure it out:

I suggest checking these links...

[Stormwatch]

mac games:
- www.ambrosiasw.com
- www.freeverse.com
- www.victoly.com/~adam/
- www.insidemacgames.com
- www.macgamefiles.com

emulation:
- mac.emuscene.com
- www.emulation.net
- www.mameroms.com
- www.planetemu.net

Hmmm

[MalleusEBHC]

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.

This topic is just asking for it...

[reiggin]

Cliff, I really think this question comes from the "time-to-flame" dept.

Seriously, is there any other question (aside from "Games for BSD?") that could possibly draw more apple-flaming?!? I think not.

Re:This topic is just asking for it...

[(mandos)]

I can see your point, in that Macs haven't been "good" gaming platforms for a long time. However, many people buy their computers for tasks other then gaming, but still want to be able to have fun, without resorting to a console based system.

I just don't think asking what are good games for Mac's is flameworthy. Asking why the latest major production isn't availible for it is another story though. :p

Re:This topic is just asking for it...

[kommakazi]

It's only flameworthy because most of the flamers:
A) Have been living in a cave the past 5 years and
B)Are extremely gullible.
The fact is there is a very healthy amount of games available for the Mac and these people are just too closed-minded to accept it. Sure there aren't as many games, but one thing you will notice is that the games that do get ported are usually the most popular and/or best games available. These are the kind of people who accept quantity over quality. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that applies to all Windows/PC users: they all prefer quantity over quality.

Rrootage and Noiz2Sa

[moosesocks]

While they might not have the world's most descriptive titles, you'd do well to check out Rrootage and Noiz2sa

They're both highly abstract top-down shooters with pretty cool graphics. It's quite difficult to describe them with words -- the only way to experience them is to just play them. There are also windows ports availible somewhere.

tranquility

[presearch]

tranquility is simple to learn, yet takes months to master.

Playing through all it's levels takes most players over 100 hours.

It's a great way to show off what your G5 can do and looks amazing on a big Cinema Display.
It's good for you, it's cheap, and if you talk to it nice it might wash your car.

There's no other game like it (and there's probably a reason for that...)

I got one...

[brosmike]

Descent 3. Not quite sure if it qualifies as a FPS (it is first person and you do shoot stuff, so...), but it is a truly kick-ass game. Amazon's got it here.

MAME! (Or rather, MacMAME I supposed)

[Man In Black]

I can't believe no one has recommended this yet... I play MAME way more than any of the piddly PC games that are out there. No system is complete without a nice copy of MAME. Of course, you'll have to dive into the newsgroups to find... *ahem*... "support files"...

Second Life

[dr_leviathan]

...of course!

http://secondlife.com

Well, the Mac client is currently in beta, but
it's only $9.95 for a lifetime of access.