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Which games are better on a Macintosh?

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Reply 80 of 261, by Uka

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"The Puzzle Gallery: At the Carnival" by Cliff Johson is certainly better on (color) Macintosh than on PC.

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The author himself even thinks that his first famous game "The Fool's Errand" is better on black-and-white Macintosh then on EGA PC (because of higher resolution), but that's more questionable.

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Reply 81 of 261, by ragefury32

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Are we counting only 040 stuff? Or are we considering PPC/Classic and PPC/OSX as well?

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I am personally quite impartial to the blippy, bloopy version of Monkey Island on the 040/Classic Macs. i mean, granted, there is a certain charm to running the DOSBox+MUNT version on a modern(-ish) Mac.

Reply 83 of 261, by ragefury32

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dr.zeissler wrote:

The Sound especially the music on the old mac-versions of the lucas-adventures are bad on mac compared to adlib or mt32 on pc.

Yeah, but then the audio off the Mac sounds less juvenile than their SB/Adlib equivalents on games like Dark Forces.

Reply 84 of 261, by filipetolhuizen

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Mac versions of early lucasarts adventures had digital sounds. Their PC counterparts had all analog thru OPL. The Macintosh interface of Indy3 is kinda interesting and every title from Monkey Island onwards offered graphics filtering similar to Eagle/SAI.

Reply 85 of 261, by filipetolhuizen

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Not exactly better, but the Mac version of MDK has a rendered Shiny logo intro animation and different intro/menu music. However, no HW accelerated patch was ever made. In game parts are all identical to the PC version.

Last edited by filipetolhuizen on 2019-12-10, 00:19. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 87 of 261, by ragefury32

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filipetolhuizen wrote:

Mac versions of early lucasarts adventures had digital sounds. Their PC counterparts had all analog thru OPL. The Macintosh interface of Indy3 is kinda interesting and every title from Monkey Island onwards offered graphics filtering similar to Eagle/SAI.

Oooooh yeah. I really should do a side-by-side comparison of Sam and Max on a Mac-versus-PC side. I managed to end up with a few Lucasarts demos of DOTT, The Dig and Full Throtlle on my Sam&Max Hit-the-road CD with the filtering features. They are actually quite well done.

Reply 88 of 261, by filipetolhuizen

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Everything is being rendered at twice the resolution but the artwork is still low-res. The filtering feature came in quite handy. AITD series is the only one I can remember that had the sceneries remastered for MAC hi-res mode, but only the CD-ROM versions. Floppy versions will also run in hi-res, but sceneries are still low-res.

Reply 89 of 261, by Dimitris1980

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I am a Macintosh fan since 2007 where i discovered the old macintoshgarden site and i started searching about the Macintosh computers. Now, 12 years later, i am an owner of seven retro Macintosh Computers (Powerbook 540c, LC475, Performa 6116, Powermac G3 Minitower, Imac G3, Powermac G4 MDD). The reason i got stuck is because lots of games on Macs are better than dos. Great graphics, so sharp and clean, see Flashback, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Civilization etc. Lots of games have better graphics and better sound. I use the Macintosh Color Display Monitor and everything looks amazing.

These days i play with my Cyrix 120+ because at last i got a midi card and i connected the amazing Roland MT32. All these years i had it on my Macintosh computers but unfortunately only few games of Sierra On Line support it. The sound of Roland is fantastic, even on you tube videos you cannot understand the real thing. Face to face is different, so great. I wanted also one dos PC because of the Roland and because there are lot of games that do not exist for Macs.

My purpose (and i hope to do it soon) is to have both ,my Cyrix PC and my Macintosh Performa 6116 on my office, side by side in order to see the comparisons better. I would like to say also that although some games are better regarding the technical characteristics, i prefer the inferior versions. For instance Blackthorne on Mac has great hi res graphics but i like the feeling more on the dos version. Wolfenstein 3D on Mac, it has so much better graphics and sound effects but the dos version has greater and more speeches.

Other titles that come now to my mind? Willy Beamish, Heart of China, Larry 5, Space Quest 1 256 colours have better fonts on Mac. Flashback Mac version is the only one that you can see also the eyes of the hero. I agree also that some games are late on Mac (for instance 1-2 years after the dos release). Monkey Island 1 sound is bad on Mac, even the adlib is better. But Monkey Island 2 is superb. Great music, better than sound blaster, better graphics, small cross-cursor. But there is no Largo's scream when you use the pin-voodoo doll like the sound blaster version. On the other hand though, the Roland MT32 is really outstanding on dos version!

I love the comparisons. When we were kids we were fighting with friends which computer or console is better. We loved and we hated the machines. Now i am 40 years old and i do not see it like this. Every computer/console has its style and its personality. This is what i love of the 80-90s era. It depends on what someone wants. If you want adventure games then it is better to have a pc or a Mac for instance.

I do not understand something. Some great adventure games especially from Sierra, never came up for Macs but there are Amiga versions. For instance Police Quest 3. Amiga was a great computer but when i saw Police Quest 3 on my friends Amiga 500 i didn't believe what i saw. Very bad graphics, too slow, all the time the game was loading and changing disks. I would like to have an Amiga 1200 in the future but they are expensive.

To conclude. For my taste and preferences, Macs are better on gaming, i love them more but the dos has one huge advantage: the Roland MT32.

Last edited by Dimitris1980 on 2019-12-30, 14:16. Edited 2 times in total.

- Macintosh LC475, Powerbook 540c, Macintosh Performa 6116CD, Power Macintosh G3 Minitower (x2), Imac G3, Powermac G4 MDD, Powermac G5, Imac Mid 2007
- Cyrix 120
- Amiga 500, Amiga 1200
- Atari 1040 STF
- Roland MT32, CM64, CM500, SC55, SC88, Yamaha MU50

Reply 90 of 261, by Dimitris1980

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One game disappointed me a lot on Macintosh: Rex Nebular which I wanted so much, and it was one of the reasons that i got a Macintosh LC475 because it only runs on Motorola Macs with 32-bit addressing mode off. Very poor introduction, no speech at all, lot of music is missing but when you hear music is really great, no spinning inventory, only the fonts look great on Mac. These days i tested Rex Nebular on my dos pc with the Roland MT32. No words to say!

- Macintosh LC475, Powerbook 540c, Macintosh Performa 6116CD, Power Macintosh G3 Minitower (x2), Imac G3, Powermac G4 MDD, Powermac G5, Imac Mid 2007
- Cyrix 120
- Amiga 500, Amiga 1200
- Atari 1040 STF
- Roland MT32, CM64, CM500, SC55, SC88, Yamaha MU50

Reply 91 of 261, by Dimitris1980

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Attached some pictures taken from my Performa 6116. This is exactly what i see on my Macintosh Color Display Monitor.

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- Macintosh LC475, Powerbook 540c, Macintosh Performa 6116CD, Power Macintosh G3 Minitower (x2), Imac G3, Powermac G4 MDD, Powermac G5, Imac Mid 2007
- Cyrix 120
- Amiga 500, Amiga 1200
- Atari 1040 STF
- Roland MT32, CM64, CM500, SC55, SC88, Yamaha MU50

Reply 93 of 261, by Jorpho

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Prince of Persia 2
Dark Forces
Super Wing Commander
The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime

There have been plans to recreate the Dark Forces engine in open-source code, but as far as I know they keep stalling.

Pegasus Prime is supported by ScummVM now, at least. (And it's even available on GOG.)

I think there is some fondness for the Mac version of Wolfenstein 3D?

Reply 95 of 261, by filipetolhuizen

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IMHO the only con in Wolf3D for Mac is the lack of melee attacks because the enemies are always facing you and they don't patrol sectors either. Otherwise is far superior.

Reply 96 of 261, by Jorpho

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robertmo wrote on 2019-12-31, 21:13:

there are even more games mentioned in the first post 😉

Oops. This new layout will take some getting used to. >_<

I'm going to have to check out Castles II sometime. It looks completely different!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmlMHSXr3kc

Reply 98 of 261, by Dominus

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No, doesn't make sense IMO

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper