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The Top 10 Apple Games of All Time

Zack Stern — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:37:29 -0500

The next time some hater tells you that “Mac gamer” is a contradiction, fire back with these best-ever Apple-platform titles. Sure, Apple’s systems have had their gaming downs; the short-lived Pippin had few worth playing, and the most fun we had on a Newton was “Find Elvis.” But the Apple II and Mac have had a vibrant ecosystem of games that stood out among all titles.

We had a hard time settling on 10. In no order, SimCity, Oni, Glider, Bolo, Crystal Quest, Out of This World, Deus Ex, Diablo, Civilization, The Secret of Monkey Island, Starcraft, Lemmings, Spaceward Ho!, Ultima, Myst, and World of Warcraft, were all significant but didn’t quite make the cut.

You’ll have a hard time finding copies of most of our top games. Some are available online , while eBay and local computer stores might carry old copies of others. But if you do have the floppies or CDs, the game isn’t likely to run in OS X. Try an emulator like Basilisk II to trick the old software into thinking it’s running on an old Mac or Apple II.

10. Future Cop

This excellent, pulp shooter earns our nod partly because its 1998 release echoes the scrappy days of the Mac platform. Players control a walking vehicle from an angled, overhead perspective, able to jump obstacles and shoot at villains. But the walker can transform into a nimble hovercraft, which moves quicker, although more recklessly. A small development team within EA used Macs to create the Playstation version of Future Cop, wanted to make a Mac version, and twisted a few arms to release a hybrid Mac/PC disc. But even without the Mac-fan backstory, the game excels for its well-crafted controls, fun multiplayer, and L.A.-wasteland setting.

9. Unreal Tournament

The choice between Unreal Tournament and Quake III is the choice between Coke and Pepsi; when you like one, the other just doesn’t taste right. In late 1999 and early 2000, these two first-person-shooters unabashedly emphasized multiplayer teamwork over single-player story, leading the trend for most followers. Both include a set of explosive weapons that are copied in most other action-shooters. And both come from nerd-turned-rockstar developers who like the little guy—Macs and Linux—almost as much as the PC. Why’d we choose UT over Quake III? Because we have taste. Look for MacSoft to publish last year’s PC game, Unreal Tournament 3 sometime soon.

8. ChipWits

While RoboSport carried the basic mechanic to a multiplayer level in 1991, ChipWits gave us cute, programmable robots in 1984. Using a graphical language, gamers place tiles with simple commands that mean “move forward,” “turn right,” or “if there’s a cup of coffee, drink it.” Then the programmed robots totter through semi-random mazes full of traps and bonuses. The most efficient robots earn the highest scores. At its release, ChipWits was a standout game on the nascent Macintosh. ChipWits lives again in its recently developed—and still in beta—sequel. The $20 shareware game closely follows the original’s design.

7. Battle Girl

Combine beautiful vector artwork and a two-joystick-style control scheme where you move and shoot independently. Add a perpetually repayable electronic soundtrack. Mix in low system requirements. Several games include all of these elements, but no Mac game nails the pacing and control just like Battle Girl. In this arcade homage shooter, you fly a spaceship through centralized levels, upgrading weapons, and blasting powerful baddies. Battle Girl came out for Macs before PCs—always a winning point with Mac gamers—back in 1997. While it’s not compatible with OS X, Classic gamers might be able to buy a copy from Feral Interactive if they ask nicely.

6. Marathon series

Yes, the Marathon games make an obligatory appearance in any Apple fan’s list, but they’re here for a reason. In 1994, about the same time PC players were fixated on Doom, we Mac gamers took to the good ship, Marathon. This proto-first-person-shooter has no jump, but the ability to aim up and down rocked the FPS genre. Marathon: Durandal and Marathon: Infinity include extensive networking modes, from straight-up deathmatches to team-driven conditions. Many office-, school-, and improvised-home-networks were touched by Marathon’s magic, and a fan-base still plays. Or console gamers can re-live it on the Xbox 360.

5. Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle

Mac-first Dark Castle, set an unmatched benchmark for gorgeous black-and-white graphics. Gamers in 1986 compared the shaded characters and chiseled backgrounds to chunky splotches of color on competing computers. There was no contest. But Dark Castle’s difficult, but responsive gameplay carries the series. Controls seem simple enough, running and leaping through side-view mazes while tossing rocks at enemies. But numerous hidden traps nab medieval adventurers, or worse, send them to the dungeons of Trouble. Just-released Return to Dark Castle, replays levels in the original games, while adding dozens more. It’s as frustrating and fun as we remember.

4. The Oregon Trail

This edutainment staple originated on DOS, but many gamers remember its ubiquitous 1985 Apple II version, often found in schools. We remember the hunting. This prospecting simulation recreates the one-way trip West, full of river crossings, toil, and disease. Your job is to see your virtual wagoneers safely across the continent; there’s always a semi-random danger waiting over the next hill. Save money on expensive food rations, and just load up on ammunition. That’s living off the land. Oregon Trail has been updated every few years, staying fairly current for today’s kids. There’s even a fan-made Facebook multiplayer version and a Flash clone.

3. Prince of Persia

The acrobatic prince rolls, leaps, parries, and thrusts through this side-view classic. Released first for the Apple II in 1989, Prince of Persia and its 2D sequel found a Mac audience, too. Great graphics and fluid animation are topped only by devious dungeons. Traps and guards block your progress, introducing a then-new puzzle-solving element to the action game. Long before 24, the original Prince of Persia gives only a real-time hour win, adding tension to the quest. The series has expanded to 3D parkour stunts with its console versions, but we’ll always love the game’s 2D Apple roots.

2. Lode Runner

The Apple II was one of the original launch platforms for 1983’s Lode Runner. Players navigate simple, side-view mazes, avoiding enemies by drilling holes into soft, brick floors. Moments after an attacker—or the player—falls into a hole, the space seals, crushing its victim. Lode Runner’s complicated levels require planning and careful excavation; this great game takes a simple idea and twists it into a mind-teasing puzzler. Lode Runner has found gold with several Mac releases, including the underappreciated Lode Runner 2, which ads a 3D angle to the puzzles.

1. Myth: The Fallen Lords

One of the original battle-strategy games, Myth doesn’t force players to keep track of resources and painstakingly outfit armies. Instead, players just get a bunch of warriors and issue them real-time commands to attack targets. Bungie’s wry humor informs the game, with careless dwarfs apologizing when their moltov cocktail misfires hit friendly troops. But the tactics involved set the standard for all followers; a few archers spread across several hills provide offense, while armored knights stand in defensive formations to give protection. If you still have old Myth discs, Project Magma offers a free OS X update to keep playing. This 1997 release looks dated now, but the action is timeless.

Not happy with our results? Vote for your choice of top video game.

First Look: The Evolution of Spore

Zack Stern — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:20:32 -0500

Spore starts small. A simple life form--you, specifically--merrily swims around in primordial goo, absorbing nutrients. Nothing matters outside of this pool, not the rock basin that holds it, the continent that cradles the rock basin, the planet that holds the continent, the solar system that contains the planet, or the galaxy that surrounds the solar system.

None of that matters--yet. Spore keeps its focus on the immediate goal, a race to survive and grow. Just like those scaling worlds, there’s always a hungry creature bigger than you.

Spore ends big. Your fully developed species extends its reach beyond its home planet, exploring and colonizing worlds across the galaxy. Literally, a million stars with about four planets each hold other creatures and civilizations, or may be barren and ready for development. All of them are unique, and all can be explored.

Spore is about the evolution of your organism: the transition to land, the development of appendages and teeth, the invention of tools and tribes, and the creation of global societies. The game simulates life evolving over billions of years while drunkenly zooming back like the Eames short “Powers of Ten.” And the result is playful, experimental, and explorative, as we found in our recent demo.

Seeds of Spore. EA says it will release Spore for Macs on the same day as the PC version, September 7. Spore will use TransGaming’s Cider technology, meaning it’ll require an Intel Mac.

Spore’s chief designer, Will Wright, defined the sim genre with SimCity, emphasizing creativity and play versus strict objectives. His later follow-up, The Sims, took simulation to the interpersonal level, experimenting with relationships in a dollhouse-like family. With the help of a massive team of developers, Spore builds on these themes, letting players interact with the game any way they want.

Players can start at any of its five evolutionary phases—cell, creature, tribal, civilization, and space—or progress through each in a linear pattern. Or gamers could just get sucked into the many building tools, endlessly creating whimsical life forms, buildings, and vehicles. There’s no right way to play Spore, although it has enough objectives to steer those of us who want more guidance.

About the space exploration phase, Wright said, “Different players will come at this with totally different styles. You might just play this totally aggressively and conquer all these neighbors. You might want to make allies with all of them.... We want the game to basically accommodate all of these different play styles. And I just want to be creative and [go around] looking for cool planets. But for the players who want a hardcore challenge, that’s what it’s going to be.”

Spore evolution, a series of funny hats.

Creature comforts. Creature editors are the root of Spore’s creativity, a cross between Mr. Potato Head and Maya. After earning enough points and upgrade options--typically through eating enemies--you’ll be able to swap in an assortment of dozens of parts. Each trait directly impacts the creature’s performance in the world. Bigger arms pump up strength, extra legs boost movement, and a spiked tail adds an always-ready weapon. But the part roster includes horns, antlers, noses, mouths, and practically any other body part.

Those parts can go nearly anywhere. Instead of pre-planned animation, a procedural graphics engine figures out how your choice and position of parts affect the creature. Stick stocky legs at the back of a body, and the game makes the creature wobble. Add a third leg for awkward ambling. You control neck length, body shape, and nearly everything else, and the game automatically brings your creature to life.

EA expects that some gamers will play with the creature editor almost exclusively. Sometime before the Spore launch--the company wouldn’t specify when--EA plans to release a creature-only version of the title, letting gamers model and play with new species.

Single-player plus massive community. Spore is a self-centered game at heart. This is your personal universe to build and change any way you want. At any given time, you’re the only one playing--all in-game creatures are controlled by your Mac.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s a single-player game. Extensive networking features retrieve player-created content from other gamers’ universes, sloshing it around until it washes up on your shores. By default, nearly everything that you don’t create will come from those other gamers--friends or strangers. Ambient life forms, distant aliens, buildings, vehicles, and even whole planets will be delivered into your universe. You can favor certain friends, subscribing to all of their newly created content, or block this feature entirely if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Wright showed off a spaceship, chuckling about its player-created design. He said, “This happens to be a four-poster bed. You get some weird content in this game. Sometimes [the spaceship] is Santa Claus. If I’d said I want this very specifically to be my favorite sci-fi thing… then it’s more likely to be [that].”

Your actions to blow up a planet created by a friend or to wipe out their civilization will only affect your universe (and possibly your friendship). In-game recording tools can capture video of these taunts or other triumphs, even allowing direct YouTube uploads for online bragging rights.

While single-player, Spore is far from solitary. Its massive, SimEverything scale continues to boggle our minds. But it could usher in more than an evolution in how we think about games. We might not look at a mold colony—or star—the same way again.

Phases of Spore

Spore has five distinct phases, so you never get bored.

With its distinct and different phases in the game, Spore is no bore.

Spore’s gigantic scope provides a lot of value. It’s like five or more different games bridged together. While Spore could begin anywhere—and we half-jokingly expect an expansion pack to simulate the Big Bang—it starts with the creation of life on your planet. Its five phases eventually culminate in the colonization of the universe.

Cell Phase
The goal: Eat and evolve
Genre it resembles: Classic arcade
It plays like: Pac-Man without mazes
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 1 hour
Your simple organism pops into existence, and you swim around a 2D view, absorbing protein to grow. It’s a simple outlook at this size, drifting through a primordial bath; your job is to eat or avoid. Eat enough, and discover enough parts to evolve in a creature-building
cut-away, positioning extra tentacles, eyes, and other primitive upgrades. As the organism grows, the camera pulls back to show a wider perspective. That far-away blur of colors initially looks benign. Zoomed back, it sharpens into the hungry eyes of giant creatures.

Creature Phase
The goal: Evolve into the planet’s dominant life form
Genre it resembles: Simulation
It plays like: The Sims with extra tails
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 15 hours
Your organism eventually flops onto land, where you follow a similar mechanic to evolve. This time, the game takes a 3D perspective, where you can run, hop, or gallop in any direction. Avoid bigger enemies, keep eating, find new parts, and evolve. The extensive creature editor can create nearly anything you imagine, including custom colors and Seuss-ian—or Kafka-esque—attributes. Befriend ambient critters to add allies to your evolutionary gang.

Tribal Phase
The goal: Unite or conquer opposing tribes of the same species
Genre it resembles: Real-time strategy plus simulation
It plays like: Age of Empires on a simpler scale
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 10 hours
Once your creature emerges as the planet’s dominant life form, you control a group of them for the first time. Food acts as the key resource, keeping the tribe alive but also allowing for upgrades. With enough food, you can develop tools, like spears to catch more fish and armor to defend against other tribes. Or you can win the opposing tribes over with gifts and entertainment. Dance or destroy: It’s your choice.

Civilization Phase
The goal: Expand your territory to control cities
Genre it resembles: Real-time strategy
It plays like: Command & Conquer on a simpler scale
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 15 hours
The game expands its scope again to show competing civilizations. If you’re playing the phases in a linear progression, your previous actions determine if you’ll initially control a military, religious, or economic society. Militaries wield the most power. Religions convert others with music and propaganda. Economic societies buy (and bribe) everything they encounter. Race to capture Spice Nodes, which drive your economy and allow further expansion. In-city buildings add town attributes. Launch custom-made land, sea, and air vehicles to expand territory and conquer other cities.

Space Phase
The goal: Explore, expand, and prank other planets
Genre it resembles: Real-time strategy with light adventure and role-playing
It plays like: Master of Orion with streamlined controls but millions of planets
Total time we’d play before getting bored: 30 hours
Once your civilization dominates the entire planet, you’ll change scale, launching into space. Again, choose from prebuilt spaceships or design your own. This final section of the game allows for the most open-ended play but also includes an option for the most specific story. Tool around the galaxy visiting primitive planets and building outposts to mine more Spice. Make friends or enemies with other spacefaring cultures. Eventually, you’ll unravel the game’s narrative journey to expand further and uncover the mysteries in the center of the galaxy.

Want more Spore? Check out our interview with Spore Chief Designer Will Wright and Executive Producer Lucy Bradshaw.