[David Braue]

We all love our games. Or, perhaps, many of us love our games. At any rate, it seems to me to have been a glaring omission not to have a gaming area in the AMW Forums. So, here we are. This is the place to come to discuss everything gaming-related -- theoretically with a focus on Mac gaming, but really I think if it's gaming-related it's fine in here.

Perhaps I can kick off the discussion in this new area by asking: what Mac games are everybody spending time with these days? Any new ones we're hanging out for? Any real stinkers?

Look forward to hearing about what's keeping everybody up late at night...

[clinton1550]

My favourite Mac game at the moment is Multiwinia.

http://www.ambrosias...mes/multiwinia/

It's a great little RTS, I haven't played it for a while but it's a good way to spend a few hours or a few minutes.

Here's how the game works; you have wave after wave of stick men called Multiwinians at your disposal and they're all willing to do your bidding, even if you're sending them to their deaths.

You use the Multiwinians to achieve objectives, like capturing flags, bases, statues or fuelling rockets. Along the way you can get power ups like tanks and gun turrets. You can even launch air strikes, nuclear missile strikes and meteor showers to defeat your opponent. There are also a heap of things to slow you down like monsters, Evilinians and Futurewinians.

The AI is surprisingly clever and challenging to beat. The AI has often beaten me by distracting me, sneaking up behind my base with a tank and then flooding it with troops while my back is turned. Oh yes, they're clever little bastards.

Anyway, make sure you check it out. There's a demo available at Ambrosia's site so you can try before you buy and you should buy it. Like I said, it's a good way to spend a few hours or just a few minutes.

EDIT: Sorry, the URL tags aren't working, you'll have to copy and paste the link.

[Dylstra]

I haven't played any games on Mac for a while. (Aren't I grown up? ) Most of my game playing is done on the iPod Touch, though I have just started thinking about a Mac game. I was excited about Spore but that seems to have dropped off the face of the earth--I'm sure it's still available, I just haven't heard anything about it.

About the last game I played was an oldie called Police Academy which I had to run through DOSbox, but I got to the very end, couldn't progress, couldn't go backwards, so I tunred it off in a fit of pique and haven't fired up a game since.

[Genshin]

I am not very into games, though with my son playing a few (on the Mac and iPhone) he has twisted my arm a bit!

I have on the Mac now, Plants vs. Zombies, Chuzzles, Peggle and Peggle Nights, and Bejewelled 2 deluxe.

Of those on the Mac, the most addictive would be Plants vs. Zombies closely followed by Peggle and Peggle Nights.

I have three pages of games on the iPhone!!!!!

EDIT: I did for a long time have Spore and my brother was even kind enough to send the Galactic Adventures expansion over so my son could play it. Alas, it wouldn't install and has quite a few problems on the Mac. No support whatsoever from EA Games led me to delete it and return it.

Being a Star Wars fan, I'm looking forward to seeing how Force Unleashed turns out on the Mac.

[David Braue]

Being a Star Wars fan, I'm looking forward to seeing how Force Unleashed turns out on the Mac.

Rest assured we will aim to bring you a very, very in-depth review.

[David Braue]

My favourite Mac game at the moment is Multiwinia.

That sounds like a great one. I have always enjoyed FPS type games for their gratuitous violence and relative lack of depth, but Multiwinia's chaos and seemingly novel gameplay did sound interesting. I got Multiwinia as part of the MacHeist bundle but have not yet installed or started running it. Will have to load it up and see what's what.

[Genshin]

Rest assured we will aim to bring you a very, very in-depth review.

Looking forward to your review.

[Ken Gracey]

I guess i am slightly old fashioned, i only play one game and thats Sim City, i guess its just my A typical control freak coming out in me, or should that be the narcism in me



TL

[MacDavo]

I think somewhere, hard core gamers will be snickering up their sleeves. Spore? Plants vs Zombies?

I'm not really into games, nor do I have time. I used to be a big SimCity fan, but then I got married

On the PC I loved racing games. F1, Colin McCrae Rally, V8 super cars, N4S and GTA. Though the later can't really be classified as racing, it's just amusing to run people over at high speed, and do nasty things with Hummers and 18 wheelers.

Oddly enough, I did enjoy Duke Nuke 'Em, Quake and the other odd 3D shooter. I even installed dosbox on my Mac so I could play some of those again.

It's the lack of hard core, gritty 3D games that really don't make the Mac a gaming platform. It's also this in part that no hard core gamer worth their salt would remotely consider a Mac. Kind of ironic given how flakey the PC is as a gaming platform. I'd have thought if you were truly into decent gaming you'd have a console. But you can't water cool a console, nor blow $800+ on the latest graphics card.

[rachp]

In my youth I loved the Sierra adventure games, Kings Quest, Space Quest etc. of course these were PC games.
I managed to buy them on CD not long ago and with the help of DOSBOX I am able to run them on my mac, the only trouble is I never have time to play them.

If you like this style of game there are some decent free Flash games in a similar style on the Warner Bros website.
Steppenwolf and Arcane

http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/steppenwolf/home.jsp

[rachp]

I also forgot to mention "The Secret of Monkey Island" App another great classic adventure game made specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch.

[clinton1550]

That sounds like a great one. I have always enjoyed FPS type games for their gratuitous violence and relative lack of depth, but Multiwinia's chaos and seemingly novel gameplay did sound interesting. I got Multiwinia as part of the MacHeist bundle but have not yet installed or started running it. Will have to load it up and see what's what.

My favourite game types in Multiwinia are Assault, Rocket Riot and Blitzkrieg.

Assault is great because you can choose to be attacking or defending. You'd think that defending would be easy because you have a heap of gun turrets at your disposal but it's always more fun to be the attacking team.

Rocket Riot is pretty unique. First you have to fuel your rocket by capturing solar panels, then you have to load up your rocket with 100 Multiwinians to win the game. In the meantime, you can sabotage your opposition's rocket and they can sabotage your own. It's a complicated game type that can go on for hours if you're not careful.

But that's nothing compared to Blitzkrieg.

As the name suggests, Blitzkrieg is all about speed. You have to capture a flag, hold it and invade your enemies' base and steal their flag. It might sound easy but it's not when your enemy has five gun turrets pointed at their flag ready to slaughter you as soon as your in range.

Blitzkrieg has no time limit, I've spent hours and hours trying to win one game. Too often victory is within my grasp and it slips through my fingers.

[David Braue]

In my youth I loved the Sierra adventure games, Kings Quest, Space Quest etc. of course these were PC games.
I managed to buy them on CD not long ago and with the help of DOSBOX I am able to run them on my mac, the only trouble is I never have time to play them.

If you like this style of game there are some decent free Flash games in a similar style on the Warner Bros website.
Steppenwolf and Arcane

http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/steppenwolf/home.jsp

Have you played the remakes?
King's Quest I
King's Quest II
King's Quest III
Space Quest 2
Quest for Glory II

They're Windows-only but would easily run in a Fusion/Parallels virtual machine. We've played KQ1 and 2 all the way through and they are very well executed. Good fun!

[Bungs]

I'm not really into games, nor do I have time. I used to be a big SimCity fan, but then I got married

ditto, plus total war and civilization

[mickdevlin]

The only game on my machine is Chess, and that's only there because it is part of Mac OS X.

[Ken Gracey]

LOL Mick you old stick in the Mud



TL

[clinton1550]

I'm going to add Age of Empires II. I haven't played it in a while but it's a really good game.

My favourite game of all time is definitely Myth: The Fallen Lords. The sequel Myth II: Soulblighter is also another great one.

I haven't met many people who have played either of those games, anyone here played them? They came out in 1997 and 1998, both made by Bungie before the evil overlord Microsoft bought them out.

Speaking of Bungie and Microsoft, I also have the Mac port of the first Halo and I've been playing Halo 2 a lot recently but that's only available for Windows Vista and up. It's a shame they never made a Mac port.

[skyhawkmatthew]

Me:
4x4 Evolution 2
Command & Conquer: Generals
Cro-Mag Rally
Enigmo 2
Myst IV
Otto Matic
Railroad Tycoon 3
SimCity 4
The Sims/2

And not necessarily natively on the Mac, but rather browser-based, Quake Live

[Genshin]

Me:
4x4 Evolution 2
Command & Conquer: Generals
Cro-Mag Rally
Enigmo 2
Myst IV
Otto Matic
Railroad Tycoon 3
SimCity 4
The Sims/2

And not necessarily natively on the Mac, but rather browser-based, Quake Live

Oooh, That reminded me, I have Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars installed - I haven't played that in such a long time.

[Dylstra]

Actually, I was completely wrong when I said that I hadn't played any games lately. It wasn't that long ago that I had a few sleepless nights in a row playing Braid. And my three year-old daughter played it as much as she could too. The controls were so simple that she could pick it up and have fun, but the gameplay was fiendishly difficult. It cost less than $20AUD and after playing the demo for a minute I had no hesitation in purchasing it.

I still don't know why the rabbits sounded like cats though.