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Mac Gaming History Remembered

Posted by simoniker on from the woz-woz-here dept.

Thanks to 1UP/Ogamo for its feature discussing the early importance of the Apple Macintosh as a videogaming platform. The author argues: "The Mac definitely left its mark on gaming. Though it never became a gaming powerhouse, it played host to a few legitimate classics, and their ideas went on to influence developers to this day", before referencing titles such as ICOM's Deja Vu ("...has some of the wry sense of humor that [also] brightened up the best of Infocom's games") and Silicon Beach's Dark Castle ("One of the first successful action games to use a mouse for shooting things.")

8 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Memories by Gogo+Dodo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ah, the memories of playing Crystal Quest, Crystal Crazy, and Shufflepuck Cafe. And blowing stuff up with the Spectre series of games.

  2. Pity. by Arkhain · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Pathways, Marathon, Maelstrom and Escape Velocity. Oh childhood, where art thou?

    Oh yeah, playing Halo on a Microsoft Xbox and Freelancer on Windows XP.

    Really a pity how shallow the Mac's gaming shelf has become. I mean, Panther wipes the floor with XP for just about everything except games.

  3. Bah! by daeley · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sorry, not classic enough. Gimme "Ancient Art of War" or give me death! First program I ever used on a Mac, and that in 1986.

    Kids these days...

    --
    I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  4. And let us not forget... by SphericalCrusher · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Doom. Doom was orignally designed to run on an Apple II. Quake was also originally on a Mac. And Wolfenstein 3D.

    --
    "Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
  5. Bolo by Macgrrl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I used to share a flat with an Apple employee, and was friends with another Apple employee. Whenever they had to travel for business, they all used to take PhoneNet boxes for their PowerBooks (PB170-180 era) so they could play networked Bolo in the waiting lounge at the airport.

    Just think how far we've come. And the irony of having their wireless networking offering called "Airport" makes me wonder if this was a common phenomenon for Apple globally.

    --
    Sara
    Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
  6. Marathon by T.Hobbes · · Score: 3, Interesting
    My first FPS, and still my favorite.

    best line - 'They're everywhere'

  7. Another Omission by great+throwdini · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I never did own a Mac back then, but I always enjoyed using others' for games. I don't think anyone has mentioned the (shareware?) arcade shooter Solarian II. Haven't played it since 1999, but now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind a quick game or two right about now ...

  8. You shot my LGM!!! by mole · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Amen! Bolo was a favorite game back in school and still a great strategy game played today. Bolo was designed and never quite finished by Stuart Cheshire of Rendezvous/ZeroConf fame. Released before the TCP stack matured on MacOS, and never updated since 1995. Still a great game, runs in black and white on classic macs or color, easily networked up to 16 players via PhoneNet (well, sometimes you get netsplits after 8 or 10). One thing I love about the Mac platform is this game was compiled for 680x0, runs in powerpc emulation, and in os x via classic, over the airport, across the world. It still works! I remember: - ladmo and indy bot - spiking pillboxes - designing maps - wasting entire lunch breaks and afternoons - 5 trees to build a boat - pillboxes have longer range than you, fire faster and take more damage. go out and capture them all. - collecting your teams pillboxes and breaking alliance. hehehe. - desperately waiting for your builder to parachute back in.