VOGONS


First post, by hifidelitygaming

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Which Macintosh games for OS9 OS8 OS7.5 etc are worth playing which were never on the PC?

Reply 2 of 48, by DonutKing

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Wolf3D is another, with higher res graphics although the levels have been changed around a lot too.

Return To Zork on the Mac also has higher res graphics with animated actors (instead of the static actors you get in the DOS version) although the music leaves a lot to be desired 😒

If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

Reply 3 of 48, by ratfink

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Barrack
Mars Rising
Apeiron

All by Ambrosia games, www.ambrosiasw.com - I've always felt they did high quality fun stuff, though the few I tried [those 3] are all arcade-ish. They list some derivatives [Deimos Rising iirc] which have PC versions.

They may well be clones of PC games but life isn't long enough for me to look into that. Barrack and I think Mars Rising are exclusively OS9/earlier, Barrack in particular will not run under Classic environment in OSX or using an emulator like sheepshaver or basilisk 2.

Other Mac games where I'm not aware of PC versions:

- Marathon - a 3D fps which was Mac only; I didn't like it much;

- SpinDoctor [called something else latterly iirc]

- MacBrickout is the best brickout game I've tried.

- CrashBall - another arcade one

Those are the ones I like, I do have some others installed but either never play them or know they have PC versions like:

Quake/Quake2/Doom II/Warcraft/Warcraft 2/Starcraft/Duke Nukem3D
Diablo/Diablo2
Creepnight Pinball
Full Throttle
Snood

Reply 4 of 48, by Jorpho

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Pegasus Prime, an extra-fancy version of The Journeyman Project.

I also remain rather fond of Taskmaker and Tomb of the Taskmaker, which basically qualify as "roguelikes".

And of course there is Cliff Johnson's wonderful "3 in Three". His other games had slightly inferior PC ports (except for At The Carnival, which is kind of forgettable), but not "3 in Three".

"System's Twilight" is a similar game that I've heard good things about that was never ported.

Maybe Cap'n Magneto? Or Nanosaur?

leileilol wrote:

Some of the Mac versions of older DOS games have official 640x400/480 modes and some higher res graphics. Dark Forces is one of them. Blackthorne is another.

I seem to recall the best version of Prince of Persia 2 is the Macintosh version, too.

Reply 5 of 48, by Sune Salminen

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The Mac 68k version of Spectrum Holobyte's Super Tetris (Tetris with bombs and circus backgrounds) is a lot better looking than the DOS version.

Reply 8 of 48, by filipetolhuizen

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All of the 3 Alone in the Dark games for Mac run in SVGA mode, compared to the PC standard VGA mode and have better midi music. The CD versions have the whole scenery remastered for this higher resolution to look even better. Terminal Velocity for Mac runs up to 1024x768 against 640x480 for the PC. All of these titles look unbelievable at their highest mode. Prince of Persia 1 for mac is a lot different from the PC version and runs in SVGA mode. Prince 2 for Mac runs at 512x384.

Reply 9 of 48, by sliderider

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The Marathon trilogy for the most part was Mac only though part 2 was released for Win 95, it never sold well enough to really count.

Now available as open source for Windows, OS X, and Linux

http://marathon.sourceforge.net/

Reply 10 of 48, by leileilol

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SquallStrife wrote:

The Mac and Amiga versions of Lemmings are far superior to the MS-DOS version.

Does mac have the special levels that were censored in later releases?

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 11 of 48, by robertmo

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leileilol wrote:

Some of the Mac versions of older DOS games have official 640x400/480 modes and some higher res graphics. Dark Forces is one of them.

I noticed you posted screenshots on mobygames. Do you happen to know if it looks/is better/worse than DarkXL remake for PC?

Last edited by Stiletto on 2020-06-05, 05:54. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 12 of 48, by keropi

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filipetolhuizen wrote:

All of the 3 Alone in the Dark games for Mac run in SVGA mode, compared to the PC standard VGA mode and have better midi music. The CD versions have the whole scenery remastered for this higher resolution to look even better. Terminal Velocity for Mac runs up to 1024x768 against 640x480 for the PC. All of these titles look unbelievable at their highest mode. Prince of Persia 1 for mac is a lot different from the PC version and runs in SVGA mode. Prince 2 for Mac runs at 512x384.

that's an interesting fact on the AITD games, do you know of a yt video showing those enhancements? (I tried searching but all I got was the DOS version)
Also having both CD and floppy versions of the first 2 games I must add I find the OPL music superior to the CDDA tracks 😁 but better midi music? Wish I could hear that....
Do these require a 680x0 cpu or do they run in ppc hardware as well? I have no idea about macs but I can get for free a complete ppc-603 system IIRC

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 13 of 48, by Jorpho

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keropi wrote:

Also having both CD and floppy versions of the first 2 games I must add I find the OPL music superior to the CDDA tracks 😁 but better midi music? Wish I could hear that....

I'm guessing it uses custom instrument banks like SimCity 2000; I reckon a soundfont could be made with similar difficulty.

Do these require a 680x0 cpu or do they run in ppc hardware as well? I have no idea about macs but I can get for free a complete ppc-603 system IIRC

If I'm not mistaken, all 68k code could be run on a PPC, just not necessarily as efficiently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_binary#Apple.27s_Fat_Binary

Reply 14 of 48, by keropi

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well I'm off to pick it up, could be upgraded or not or just wasted time but it's a complete Performa 6400/180 system.... very white too 🤣

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 15 of 48, by sliderider

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keropi wrote:

well I'm off to pick it up, could be upgraded or not or just wasted time but it's a complete Performa 6400/180 system.... very white too 🤣

I hope you never have to upgrade it. Opening those cases is a B-I-T-C-H and actually getting your hands in there is a knucklebuster. For things that mount on the motherboard it's not so bad because that slides out the back, it is the hard drive, Zip drive (if present), CD ROM drive or floppy drive that are a pain if they need replacing.

Reply 16 of 48, by filipetolhuizen

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keropi wrote:

that's an interesting fact on the AITD games, do you know of a yt video showing those enhancements? (I tried searching but all I got was the DOS version)
Also having both CD and floppy versions of the first 2 games I must add I find the OPL music superior to the CDDA tracks 😁 but better midi music? Wish I could hear that....
Do these require a 680x0 cpu or do they run in ppc hardware as well? I have no idea about macs but I can get for free a complete ppc-603 system IIRC

The first game had 68k code only and needed to be slowed down on most PPC (at least on a G3) or the player would be trapped on the first staircase (also happens on DOS version with very fast PCs). G3/G4 Throttle will do the job. Some say that using any Mac OS version previous than 8.6 also fix this. The 3rd game had PPC native code as it shows when you open it. Regarding the music, you'll be the judge. I personally found it way better than the CDDA tracks and *sometimes* better than the OPL tracks (you can hear some other instruments that were not quite audible on the OPL tracks). But anyway, it's worth to see them with only their higher resolution. Makes a huge difference.

Reply 17 of 48, by keropi

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I did run AITD1 but was disappointed since it was crawling. It felt like a 286 running it... (but that could be because a. the 6400 "vga" sucks and b. there is no L2 cache module installed and I am waiting for one...)
The gfx were higher res allright but I did not see an option to make the game run in fullscreen... a 640X480 window is no real fun 🤣
Also the music is OK I guess, I still prefer the opl one but that's just me, I always try to get game versions that don't use cdda

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Reply 18 of 48, by Mau1wurf1977

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Not an Apple person so I don't know how this fits in but all the early Sierra games like Space Quest 1 and 2 or Kings Quest 1,2 and 3 have vastly superior music on the Apple version. And mouse control for the character 😀

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Reply 19 of 48, by filipetolhuizen

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Not an Apple person so I don't know how this fits in but all the early Sierra games like Space Quest 1 and 2 or Kings Quest 1,2 and 3 have vastly superior music on the Apple version. And mouse control for the character

I wish I could run some of these. They require 16 colour mode which is not available on G3s and newer.

I did run AITD1 but was disappointed since it was crawling. It felt like a 286 running it... (but that could be because a. the 6400 "vga" sucks and b. there is no L2 cache module installed and I am waiting for one...)
The gfx were higher res allright but I did not see an option to make the game run in fullscreen... a 640X480 window is no real fun
Also the music is OK I guess, I still prefer the opl one but that's just me, I always try to get game versions that don't use cdda

The movement is kinda jerky even if the game is running too fast. Did you get stuck on the first staircase? If yes, then it's running too fast.