Sep 13, 2017 With Mac-only (or at least Mac-first) games such as Myth and Oni, they were the one company that made Windows owners jealous of Mac gamers. But then Microsoft bought them to claim Halo, and that shining light was snuffed out forever. Mac gamers can still see what made Bungie so special by playing the Marathon Trilogy.
Update: The new Wolfenstein game, released in 2014, has been a colossally awesome game that not only stays true to the original Wolfenstein 3D, but also manages to push the genre forward. It goes without saying that remakes, or reimaginings of classic first person shooters can be a damn good thing, if Wolfenstein is anything to go by. With that in mind, we’d love to see more remakes, especially high-quality titles for the latest-gen consoles.
I often look back at my childhood and think about the games that defined it. Aside from the hundreds of hours I spent playing games like X-Com and Monkey Island 2, the games I remember the most are the old FPS games. This article is reflection of the first person shooters that lead up to today's Calls of Duty, Killzones and Halos.
Wolfenstein 3D
Update:Wolfenstein 3D is given an homage in the latest Wolfenstein, and it comes in the form of the game's first level, which is playable in its entirety after you have a 'nightmare' on a pile of mattresses.
Wolfenstein 3D is the game that started it all. It may not be the most popular FPS, but it was a historic milestone for the genre. Developed by a little known studio called id Software, Wolfenstein 3D was a game that singlehandedly pioneered the first person shooter.
The premise was simple–you're a Polish-American prisoner of war who breaks out of a German prison called Wolfenstein, leaving hundreds of dead Nazis in your wake. Eventually, you go on to battle Adolf Hitler (who happens to be in a robot suit) to bring an end to the second world war.
It's crazy, but Wolfenstein 3D epitomizes the early days of gaming.
Doom & Doom II
Although there were a number of games between the release of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, Doom was the first to become a household name, and not just in the homes of gamers. I recall hearing the game referenced by Fox Mulder in an early X-Files episode. The game was even given an homage in one of its later episodes which had a Chinese character who resembled pro-gamer Thresh.
In Doom, you play a nameless Space Marine who wakes up aboard a space station orbiting Mars's moon of Deimos, where all your fellow soldiers have turned into undead, gun-wielding monstrosities. Demons, too, have invaded the base. In typical space marine fashion, you must take the fight to them and find a way to get back to Earth.
In the second game, Doom II: Hell on Earth, it would appear that your descent to the planet is days late, as the demons who first appeared in space have since invaded earth. To make things personal, they even killed your pet rabbit. The only thing you can do is answer their actions with bullets. Lots of them.
Hexen II
Not to be confused with 'hexane' (not that you would do that, but Apple's autocorrect certainly did), Hexen II was the third game in the Heretic/Hexen series by Raven Software. Developed on id Software's Quake engine, Hexen II allowed you to play four distinct classes (Paladin, Crusader, Assassin, Necromancer). It even featured a rudimentary RPG system in a medieval fantasy world.
The best part about the game was its online mode, called HexenWorld (like QuakeWorld) which featured something called Siege, a game where two opposing teams filled with different classes took on the role of attackers or defenders of a keep. It was a lot like the original TeamFortress or Onslaught mode in the Battlefield games.
Rise of the Triad
Quite possibly the campiest FPS ever made, Apogee's Rise of the Triad had a plot that paid homage to bad 80s action movies. You took on the role of one of five mercenaries, but the character you chose to play didn't make much of a difference in the game proper. Instead of killing nazis or zombies or undead space marines, you took on the fascist soldiers of a banana republic ruled by a tyrant named Oscuro, who as it turns out, was a monstrous human caterpillar made entirely out of heads and hands.
Spanning over several chapters, Rise of the Triad pitted you against numerous enemies, including a wheelchair-bound Dick Cheney-lookalike armed with rocket launchers and various cyborg bosses.
Like the movies it based itself on, RoTT didn't take itself seriously, and weapons ranged from John Woo-inspired pistols akimbo to a 'Hand of God' attack that vaporized everything on the screen. You could even turn into an attack dog by enabling 'Dog Mode'.
Rise of the Triad was also the first title to use a jump pad system, a feature later revived in Quake 3 Arena and Halo Reach. Despite using the 2D Build Engine, its developers managed to successfully create the impression of a 3D environment through some clever trickery.
System Shock 2
Hailed as the precursor to titles like Deus Ex, Bioshock and even Dead Space, System Shock 2 was a damn good game in itself and stands as one of the best games ever made. As scary as it was innovative, System Shock 2 awakened primal fear in its claustrophobic environment aboard the Von Braun, a derelict ship named after the famous German rocket scientist.
Taking place after the events of the first System Shock, you wake up dazed and confused–a soldier in a lonely, seemingly abandoned space ship. Equipped with nothing more than the skills you came with, you have to figure out what happened to the crew and, if possible, find a way to get off the ship. Through the game's innovative RPG system, you earn new skills and equipment as you go, and through audio logs lying around, you slowly discover the fate of the ship and the full reality of the situation you're in.
It's well written, innovative, and surprisingly playable despite its age. Just be sure to play it with the lights on, because the ship isn't as lonely as first impressions might indicate.
Quake
The multiplayer revolution didn't begin until Quake. Up until then, single player games were the only titles on the market to ever make a dent in players' pockets, and investors (yeah, those guys) would rarely depend on a game's multiplayer features (which were rare) to carry the title alone.
These days, the most successful titles (with the exception of 'casual/social' games like FarmVille) are by and large multiplayer FPS titles — Halo Reach, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Team Fortress 2. None of that would've been possible were it not for the Quake revolution.
With arguably little effort put into the single player game, most of Quake's popularity stemmed from its robust multiplayer features–DeathMatch, Capture the Flag, and eventually, QuakeWorld Team Fortress. Played in colleges throughout the United States and later supported by matchmaking services like GameSpy and id Software's QuakeWorld, Quake's popularity gave rise to the pro-gaming movement and companies like Blizzard adopted its philosophy through their own Battle.net service with Diablo and Warcraft 2.
During the release of Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, I recall an interview with John Carmack, Quake's creator, saying that online games were on the rise but were not quite there yet in contrast to their single player counterparts. Were he to look at the state of the industry today, he would no doubt see that we've finally gotten there–and it's all thanks to him.
Starsiege Tribes
Imagine a multiplayer FPS populated by over a hundred players, each divided into roving squads pursuing individual objectives, with dozens of lone wolves scattered throughout. You might be thinking of MAG, or even PlanetSide, but the game I'm thinking of comes way before those two arguably great games. I speak of Starsiege Tribes, the first FPS of that magnitude and the first game to truly capture the spirit of a large-scale war zone. The game was purely multiplayer, featuring no single player campaign.
Set in the Metaltech/Earthsiege/Starsiege universe (a poor man's BattleTech/MechWarrior), Starsiege Tribes pit various opposing factions against each other in bouts of Capture the Flag and Siege-like battles that took place over a vast expanse of terrain. Equipped with jetpacks and flying vehicles, players were tasked to destroy enemy floating fortresses and capture underground strongholds. It was pretty much all out mayhem, and the best players outshined the competition through skilled use of weapons like the disc thrower and grenade launcher.
Duke Nukem 3D
It's good to be the king. In Duke Nukem 3D, you're a one-liner spouting, gun-toting late 80s/early 90s action movie hero. You basically play the gun-toting Arnold Schwarzenegger from Predator, without the pretense of being a decent actor (I really do think Arnie's a decent actor). Instead of fighting a single Predator, you go up against countless aliens and pig alien cops.
Armed with your trusty set of boots (to kick ass while chewing bubblegum), and various guns (including a shrink ray and a freeze ray), you (I groan every time I write this) take the fight to the alien enemy while rescuing helpless female strippers. Yeah, it's definitely a game of the 90s.
Somehow I don't think the sequel's going to go down all that well with today's enlightened crowd, but with that said, it's still a great game to return to.
Shadow Warrior
Shadow Warrior is incredibly fun if you can set aside your political correctness for a few hours and embrace its cliched portrayal of a Chinese kung-fu master/gun-toting badass named Lo Wang. You fight against countless ninjas, triads, and Yakuza in a futuristic dystopian Chinatown setting.
The game took a lot of its inspiration from Hong Kong and American ninja films of the 1970s and 80s.
Very ahead of its time, allowing the player to mount vehicles and control turrets. Featuring similar humor to Duke Nukem 3D, the game received some criticism for its portrayal of Asian characters, but speaking as someone of Asian descent, I honestly couldn't care less. It's nothing that Hong Kong cinema didn't already do 20-30 years prior.
Half-Life
Fun Old Fps Games Mac Online
Half-Life is the last game of the last generation and the first game of the current generation of narrative-driven first person shooters. It redefined the first person shooter from the color key-based rat mazes of the 90s to the event-based games they are today.
You play the mute Gordon Freeman, a Black Mesa physicist who inadvertently rips a hole in the fabric of reality in what should've been a routine experiment. Your actions cause an alien invasion from another dimension, and the government, keen on covering up what happened, sends in the marines to kill all the scientists involved. You have to fight your way out of the research facility through countless aliens and soldiers and ultimately find a way to close the gap by killing the alien overlord.
The story's doesn't sound that interesting, but how the story is delivered through the player makes Half Life the revolutionary game that it is. It set the bar for every FPS that came after.
Before digital downloads, finding the best Mac games wasn’t always easy.
They were out there, but the Mac section of the computer game stores (they used to have those) seemed to stock nothing but “Mario Teaches Typing,” and the games that included Mac and Windows versions would inevitably be scattered around the “PC” sections of the store.
As such, compiling a list of the best classic Mac games is pretty tough.
That didn’t stop us from doing it. And because we want you to actually play these games, we made sure you can still buy them all in either their original form or as enhanced editions (not remakes). It also means some of our favorite old Mac games—such as Myth, Red Baron, and Fallout—didn’t make the list.
By the way, if you want to stay on top of all the latest Mac games updates, retro or modern, make sure you check out Pure Mac.
The 10 Best old games for Mac: Revisiting the classics
Avernum is an underground prison, and of course, your adventure begins when you’re exiled there from the surface world, known as the Empire. But Avernum isn’t simply a prison; an entire culture exists in this subterranean world, presenting you with myriad options on what to do next. With numerous quests, spells, and party members to customize and control, Avernum unfolds with the freedom of pencil and paper adventures.
Avernum: The Complete Saga gives you a ridiculous amount of content and a cohesive story arc that’s tremendously satisfying. The graphics are rudimentary, but Avernum is very satisfying if you can overlook that.
Another name synonymous with Mac gaming back in the ‘90s was Ambrosia Software. You simply didn’t know a Mac user who didn’t have at least one Ambrosia game on her PowerPC.Perhaps their most fondly remembered title is EV Nova, the third game in the Escape Velocity series. A space exploration and combat game, EV Nova is set amongst warring factions scattered throughout the Milky Way. Consider it Divergent amongst the stars, as you will select your faction then find your role in it.
Gameplay involves jumping between star systems to accept and execute missions, upgrade your ship, and wreck havoc. There are six major storylines and plenty of branching missions, and how you get involved is up to you. That leads to plenty of replay options.
It’s still easy to get overwhelmed by EV Nova despite its age, but Ambrosia offers plenty of resources at the company’s website.
Our second sci-fi first-person shooter to make the list finds you waking from cryostasis to a ship full of unknown aliens, a screwed up AI, and your now zombified companions. Fair enough. We’ve been through this before, so pick up the weapons and health packs and have at it, right?Wrong. System Shock 2 doesn’t give you a lot of weapons or health packs. Rather, it gives you an RPG-like system of upgrades that forces you to use strategy, stealth, and the environment to survive.
What really separates System Shock 2 from its peers is the ship itself. It’s creepy and oppressive, and you’ll be more afraid of what could be around the corner than what actually is. Story elements are revealed through logs left by the crew, limiting your knowledge of what’s going on in a manner that reinforces how alone you are.
Another game produced by Peter Molyneux, Syndicate Plus is a real-time tactical action game in which you lead a team of cyborg mercenaries in the “problem-solving” department of the Syndicate.When you hear the term “cyborg” you just know there are going to be plenty of customization options via augmentations. You will use these to create a team that moves through futuristic locations to achieve your employer’s objectives.
Although there’s plenty to address between missions, it’s the execution of those missions that is most fun. The citizens and their belongings (cars, for example) are there to suit your purposes, should you need them. Your radar tells you where you need to go, but the direct route isn’t always best. If you need some extra help you can “persuade” the people around to help get the job done.
Best of all, the music and sound effects were incredibly effective for the time. The music that suddenly kicks in when you’re spotted will follow me for the rest of my life.
I gave up on the Star Wars movies about 25 minutes into Return of the Jedi, and I’ve never been able to get back into it. I still quite enjoy the games, however, and my all time favorite is 1994’s TIE Fighter from LucasArts.This is because of the excellent story that drives the mission-based flight-sim combat, because of the smooth graphics, and because it was the first time I got to serve the Empire. The missions are what you’d expect from any competent flight sim, asking you to engage in dogfights, take down freighters, protect your own vessels, etc. But because you’re now facing off against the whiney Rebellion, there’s a certain evil glee that goes along with it.
I’m also impressed by TIE Fighter’s staying-power. The gameplay is every bit as intense (and difficult) as it was in the mid-90s, and the space combat graphics are still very cool to view. Just make sure you play it with a joystick. Trust me on this.
There was a time when Bungie Studios was the shining light of Mac gaming. With Mac-only (or at least Mac-first) games such as Myth and Oni, they were the one company that made Windows owners jealous of Mac gamers.But then Microsoft bought them to claim Halo, and that shining light was snuffed out forever.
Mac gamers can still see what made Bungie so special by playing the Marathon Trilogy. This revolutionary series of sci-fi themed first-person shooters introduced features such as real-time voice chat and the ability to wield two weapons at once. The multiplayer options may not do you much good today, but the action and the story are every bit as entertaining as they were in the ’90s.
Honestly, Marathon would be higher on this list were it not for the steps required to grab it. The games are free, but you’ll need to install Aleph One (the free, open source continuation of Bungie’s Marathon 2 FPS game engine) to run them.
“But what if this was set in space?” is a valid question for every video game ever made…even games that are already set in space. That’s because space makes everything so much bigger and more imaginative. And the time this worked best was when Sid Meier took Civilization interstellar with Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.The turn-based strategy elements all remained. You choose from seven factions, then research an unexplored planet, build new technologies and customize your units, and conquer anything hostile (or friendly, if that suits you) to claim victory.
The fun thing about Alpha Centauri is that none of the factions are bad guys. No matter which you select, you feel like you’re doing the right thing when you conquer the others.
Still, why bother playing this when there are many modern alternatives available on the Mac? Because the only thing missing in Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri are the flashy graphics. The writing, voice-acting, and depth of gameplay options are still among the best the genre has ever seen.
For our next game, we go all the way back to the ’80s with Bullfrog’s Populous from Peter Molyneux. If it’s not the first “god” game out there, it’s the first that made god gaming so gleefully fun.In Populous, you’re given an isometric view of your world and tasked with manipulating this world to help your “followers” wipe out the enemy. More followers lead to more mana, more mana leads to more powers, and more powers mean earthquakes, volcanos, and all kinds of fun ways to punish the non-believers.
There are many similar games available now, most of which are much more involved and rewarding. So, why bother going back to 1989 for the original Populous? Because it’s still fun. It also contains a whopping 500 levels, and the rudimentary graphics create an odd connection with your followers. It’s more like developer and programs than God and subjects.
Those looking to relive the original adventure in this real-time fantasy RPG are in for a treat. The enhanced edition—released in April of this year—comes with the original version from 1999.No matter which version you’ll play, you are the Nameless One. A name like that means life isn’t good, and the horrors of lives you can’t remember are coming back to haunt you. Worse, a floating skull named Morte is leading your adventure that will take you to the very depths of Hell.
The characters you can recruit in Planescape: Torment are highly non-traditional, including a crossbow-wielding cube and a haunted suit of armor. You’re free to change your class and alignment throughout the 50+ hour adventure, so you’re not stuck with one way of thinking as with most RPGs of this time.
Here’s a case where the enhanced edition of a game expertly accomplishes its goal; it reminds fans of why they loved the original while making the game accessible to modern gamers.Why? To start, the remastered graphics lovingly reflect the look of the original, serving mainly to make them look sharp on today’s much larger monitors. The enhanced edition also adds four new characters you can simply ignore if you want to remain faithful to the original, and it builds Shadows of Amn and Throne of Baal right into the package. There’s now a multiplayer option, too.
The reason Baldur’s Gate II is so fondly remembered is because of the excellent story and well-balanced combat. As you’d expect from a Forgotten Realms-based game, you can play through as the good guy, the bad guy, or someone in between. Your actions affect how NPCs and members of your own party see you and will open and close quests and other options.
Good RPGs create worlds you don’t just want to play through, but live in. And in that regard, Baldur’s Gate II is one of the most successful of all time.
The thing about putting together a list of the best classic Mac games is that it’s constantly changing. More games become “classic” each year, but it’s more than that. Countless games bubble just under the surface, waiting to be rediscovered or to get their “enhanced” edition to lift them back into the consciousness of Mac gamers. And with the ease of digital distribution, don’t be surprised if we’re soon talking about more of our favorites.In the meantime, can someone remind me why the Mac versions of Fallout and Fallout 2 disappeared again?
Disclaimer: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission (this is how we pay the bills). This commission comes at no additional cost to you.
Please understand that I only mention games because I believe they’re interesting, good, and/or fun. Never because I received a free copy or to earn a small commission.