Best old Mac (PPC / G3) games

[skate323k137]

I recently got out my old G3 macs to play THPS2 when the remaster got announced. I also fired up the original Warcraft and that was a good time. I've got a 1st gen G3 iMac and a 500 mhz pismo powerbook.

I grew up with DOS at home, but Mac at school. I've played most of the DOS classics but I'm wondering what games people played on their Macs around this era. Even if they had a PC release, any recommendations?

68k mac games are cool too if they're worth playing. I have a Mac SE that I recapped a year or 2 ago, which is mainly used for Monopoly, Tetris, and Flying Toasters (TM).

 

[ChopstickSamurai]

I haven’t gamed much at all on Mac, but I played the heck out of Shufflepuck Cafe in high school during computer class. These would have been Mac LC’s. Good times.

 

[Jibbajaba]

Since you mentioned 68k Mac games, have you played Crystal Quest? Really neat game. Shufflepuck Cafe is also neat but more as a tech demo than something you’d actually want to play for very long. Glider Pro is another interesting one. Someone recently gave me a Mac Classic that was headed for eWaste and I had it recapped and maxed out the RAM. Neat little system but I’m glad I had a DOS PC back then.

 

[SpamYouToDeath]

Those iMacs are great for an instant Quake 3 LAN party. The screens go up to 100hz if I remember.

 

[Dr Shroom]

SimTower
68000er game, but still works on OS9 and PPC.

The Marathon games if you like FPS.

https://macintoshgarden.org/

 

[skate323k137]

Since you mentioned 68k Mac games, have you played Crystal Quest? Really neat game. Shufflepuck Cafe is also neat but more as a tech demo than something you’d actually want to play for very long. Glider Pro is another interesting one. Someone recently gave me a Mac Classic that was headed for eWaste and I had it recapped and maxed out the RAM. Neat little system but I’m glad I had a DOS PC back then.

I know I've played crystal quest, that's a fun one. IIRC I have it on my IIgs.

 

[skate323k137]

Those iMacs are great for an instant Quake 3 LAN party. The screens go up to 100hz if I remember.

Nice, yeah they are decent tubes. The control panel has hella geometry adjustment options for the CRT too.

 

[Neodogg]

I still have my old Warcraft II & Quake on cd and Doom on 3.5. Need to see if my parents still have my old PowerPC Mac...

 

[skate323k137]

That's awesome stuff Dogg. If you end up SOL I might have an extra powermac 7500.

 

[NeoSneth]

Are you looking for Mac exclusives or anything PPC?
I used a PPC all through college, and I still have a Pismo Powerbook alive and well. Batteries are shot, but everything else is mint.
There is a PPC gaming group on facebook that schedules online events. I no longer belong to the group, but I used to fire up the PowerMac for Halo, etc.. I just have the Pismo now.

Anything from Blizzard was very well done on the Mac.
Aspyr did awesome releases, so I'd look up their catalog.
Majesty
Alice - play this on my Pismo almost as a yearly ritual.
Undying
Myth
Age of Empires III
Clan Lord - very early MMO, still going to this day.

 

[Late]

I played Alice on pc, good game.

 

[HeavyMachineGoob]

Just PowerPC and Mac OS 9? Well there's the usual Windows ports from that era. Age of Empires, Unreal, Quake series, Shogo, Alpha Centauri, Railroad Tycoon II, anything by Blizzard, stuff like that. Bungie's Marathon series were Mac exclusive (technically they were out of date if we're talking iMac). I enjoy Pangea Soft titles a lot, always heavily associated them with Mac OS. They had games like Nanosaur, Bugdom and Cro-Mag Rally. Majesty is another excellent Mac exclusive.

Shareware games were still huge back when the iMac was new, but they can be hard to track down now. I recommend Gridz, Jewel of Arabia, Slithereens, Temple Tantrum and Escape.

I recommend you just wander through http://macintoshgarden.org and pick out games that interest you.

 

[cdamm]

Spectre was the only thing Mac folk had to lord over the pc crowd back in the day. Then it got an awful pc port and we got lol'd off stage. Still a fun one to fire up from time to time.

 

[NeoSneth]

Just PowerPC and Mac OS 9? Well there's the usual Windows ports from that era. Age of Empires, Unreal, Quake series, Shogo, Alpha Centauri, Railroad Tycoon II, anything by Blizzard, stuff like that. Bungie's Marathon series were Mac exclusive (technically they were out of date if we're talking iMac). I enjoy Pangea Soft titles a lot, always heavily associated them with Mac OS. They had games like Nanosaur, Bugdom and Cro-Mag Rally. Majesty is another excellent Mac exclusive.

Shareware games were still huge back when the iMac was new, but they can be hard to track down now. I recommend Gridz, Jewel of Arabia, Slithereens, Temple Tantrum and Escape.

I recommend you just wander through http://macintoshgarden.org and pick out games that interest you.

]

I forgot about Pangea Soft. I avoided their games for years, and then one day i finally gave them a shot. Excellent titles even if they are a little derivative.

 

[skate323k137]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.

Definitely don't need exclusives only... I don't have a PC from that era at my disposal so it's cool to replay the titles (like blizzard) that I knew from DOS/windows growing up.

 

[NeoSneth]

If you want something different,
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire
They are often compared to Civ which I think is a bit unfair.

 

[Poison Sama]

I recently found the boxes for most of my old Mac games. Pretty much everything in this pic is worth playing, but also available on PC. I'd say the vast majority of the Mac's best exclusives are shareware. I'd recommend taking a look at all the shareware games that Freeverse have made, and Ambrosia also made some good ones (particularly Escape Velocity).

 

[NeoSneth]

Giants and Myth....
I forgot all about those games.

 

[skate323k137]

I recently found the boxes for most of my old Mac games. Pretty much everything in this pic is worth playing, but also available on PC. I'd say the vast majority of the Mac's best exclusives are shareware. I'd recommend taking a look at all the shareware games that Freeverse have made, and Ambrosia also made some good ones (particularly Escape Velocity).

Nice stash. I love The Dig, and Escape Velocity was a childhood favorite.

 

[NeoSneth]

Found this bad boy after this thread. It's funny how Apple has gone full circle to making their own processors again.

 

[Poison Sama]

Nice! I never picked up the trilogy set back in the day since I already owned 2 and Infinity, though I kinda wish I had.

I actually stopped caring about Macs after they switched to Intel chips.

 

[NeoSneth]

Nice! I never picked up the trilogy set back in the day since I already owned 2 and Infinity, though I kinda wish I had.

I actually stopped caring about Macs after they switched to Intel chips.

OS 9 to OS X was enough for me. I stayed with OS X until about Tiger, but left with the switch to intel.
I imagine there will be a fair amount of turnover with the switch to ARM as well.

I will likely sell the Trilogy in the near future. It's been in my basement for years, and I have never seen one go for sale.

 

[jdoll]

well time to dig mine out. One of the guys from linus tech tips did a video on the g3 recently (tear down vid) believe the channel is called short circuit or something. Such a shame apple had solid gaming early on and went downhill-I mean they do well with mobil but thats it

 

[Heinz]

A friend of mine in school had an old Mac and we used to play this fps that was in the same early 3d style like doom. I can't remember the name of it but I remember when using the shotgun on a human enemy it would show their chest being blown open by the blast. Does this ring any bells guys? It had a level in an office.. not too helpful...

 

[Poison Sama]

A friend of mine in school had an old Mac and we used to play this fps that was in the same early 3d style like doom. I can't remember the name of it but I remember when using the shotgun on a human enemy it would show their chest being blown open by the blast. Does this ring any bells guys? It had a level in an office.. not too helpful...

That was Prime Target. One of the few 3rd party games based off the Marathon game engine (the others being Damage Inc and ZPC).