It’s easy to forget, but for the majority of Apple’s history the company had a strong gaming tradition. While it tapered off during the Intel years, there are more than a few notable (but largely forgotten) Mac games from the 90s and 2000s worth revisiting.
7
Spectre (1991)
Spectre is a 3D tank battle game with a cyberspace aesthetic which was released for Mac in 1991, but was later ported to platforms like the SNES and MS-DOS. The point of the game is to drive your tank around the world and collect 10 flags. There are various obstacles, and, of course, enemy tanks will shoot at you. It’s pretty clear that this game was inspired by Battlezone, but the whole game industry is based on cloning innovative genre inventors.
Given the limits of graphics in the early 90s, Spectre looks quite trippy today. It reminds me a bit of the movie Tron, except with tanks instead of blocky motorcycles. This was also before first-person shooters were really a thing, with the breakout FPS title Wolfenstein 3D releasing the very next year.
Still, even wireframe and basic-shaded 3D games like this were impressive, and the game is still fun to play today. In fact, you can try it right now in your web browser with (slightly) more modern graphics.
6
Pathways Into Darkness (1993)
Pathways Into Darkness is an early title by Bungie (of Halo fame) and an early first-person shooter adventure game for Mac. The game puts you in the shoes of a Special Forces soldier sent to the Yucatan Peninsula. In the game’s plot, an alien diplomat informs the president of the USA that a sleeping god will awake and destroy the world. So, you guessed it, it’s up to you to prevent that.
Pathways has an interesting mechanic almost reminiscent of the later Zelda game Majora’s Mask where there’s a timer running all the time except while you’re in dialogue with someone. When that timer runs out, the ancient god awakes, and it’s game over.
This is a pretty complex adventure for the time, with multiple endings, lots of plotlines and backstory to uncover, and a rather mature setting. You can play the classic game for free on Mac.
5
Escape Velocity (1996)
Following in the footsteps of games like the original Elite, Escape Velocity is a space RPG with trading, combat, and all the other stuff that made me fall in love with this genre and games like Freelancer.
Released in 1996 by Ambrosia software, this was the first in a series of games that still have a following today. Interestingly, the games were released under a shareware license, but the actual games had no limits. If you played for longer than 30 days, the game would just remind you that you haven’t registered. Also, apparently, there’s a character that attacks you after the trial period unless you register on an indestructable ship, which sounds hilarious.
A later adaptation called Escape Velocity Nova is free to play today, but the original can also be played using emulation.
Related
What Is Shareware, and Why Was It So Popular in the 1990s?
Imagine letting someone try a program for free before buying it. Crazy!
4
Ares (1998)
A space strategy sim that reminds me of 4X games like Master of Orion or Star Control, Ares puts you in control of fleets, as you work as the commander of the U.N.S Apollo to investigate the source of an alien signal which then, through story twists that I won’t spoil here, but it’s an interesting sci-fi premise.
After the game’s source code and most of its assets were released as open source and creative commons media, fans developed Antares, a virtually perfect remake of the game which you can play right now.
3
The Journeyman Project (1993)
A screenshot of the enhanced remastered version of The Journeyman Project.
In 1993, I didn’t have access to a Mac, nor did I know anyone who did, so my first experience of the first Journeyman Project games was the PC port of The Journeyman Project Turbo. That game became one of my all-time favorite titles, and I think in many ways no modern narrative-focused game has quite matched what this series of games has set out to do.
You play an officer of a time travel authority agency, who has to police time and make sure nothing gets messed up. In this utopian future, aliens are about to welcome an enlightened humanity into an exclusive club of alien races, but several disturbances in time are detected, and it’s your job to fix them before they can put this historic moment in jeopardy.
The original Mac game was well-received, but apparently there were performance issues as well as image quality problems. The “turbo” version that I played corrected these issues, so I guess I got the best version of the original without even knowing it. The original game and the rest of the series have been remastered and enhanced for modern PC and Mac systems, and you can find it on GoG.
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2
Cro-Mag Rally (2000)
Is there any platform post-Mario Kart that doesn’t have some sort of clone? Cro-Mag racing is obviously inspired by Nintendo’s world-famous franchise, but has a distinctly prehistoric theme. Focusing on two caveman racers named Brog and Grag, you race Flintstone-esque karts through various scenes in history.
Like Mario Kart, the different levels in Cro-Mag have varying obstacles and hazards, which you need to avoid. At the same time, there are offensive and performance-enhancing powerups.
Like Mario Kart, Cro-Mag has a comprehensive multiplayer mode, but instead of playing on a single split screen, you and all your Mac-toting buddies can get together, with up to six players competing via LAN. I do wonder if anyone ever actually did this, outside of a school computer class.
There are a few ways to play Cro-Mag today, there’s a sanctioned free port of Cro-Mag for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
1
Marathon Trilogy (1994, 1995 & 1996)
Before Halo (which was going to be a Mac exclusive at first), Bungie gave us the Marathon series. The first game was essentially an answer to PC shooters like Wolfenstein 3D and perhaps more importantly DOOM.
However, in some ways Marathon feels a little more like a lite-version of System Shock, at least in terms of the vibe and pacing. However, this isn’t some sort of RPG immersive sim, this is still a proper shooter, and Bungie ended up making three of these games.
The story’s not half bad either, and it’s notable for shooters of this vintage for having any proper story emphasis at all. The plot is mostly told through terminals, rather than during gameplay, but that’s still a far cry from something like DOOM, where the plot can fit on one side of a sticky note, and you don’t have to use small letters.
There’s definitely some of the DNA there that would eventually end up in Halo, looking at the sci-fi plot elements, visual style, and overall look and feel of the game, but of course it’s only a faint family resemblance,
You can play all three Marathon games for free on PC, iOS, and Mac.
