3 Classic Mac Games You Can Play with an iPhone Controller
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the original Macintosh computer. In that time, the Mac has been home to some of the best games every made. From revolutionary games like Myst (built in HyperCard!) to newer classics like Halo (long story), the Mac stood at the forefront of where game developers wanted their games to be.
Now that Apple stands at the forefront of the mobile gaming revolution, we have this opportunity to look back on some of the important games that helped Apple reach the heights they are at today.
The App Store is full of new versions of classic Mac Games
As the focus of this site is MFi game controllers, I’m just going to focus on the games that have already been updated to support Apple’s latest and greatest play for the hearts and minds of gamers. Read on to see which classics make the list…
1) Spectre 3D
The Spectre series was one of the first game series I ever dumped a serious amount of time into. I was just a kid when I played the first game, and the sheer intensity of action on display here hooked me immediately. At its core, Spectre is an arena-shooter that tasks the player with collecting flags and destroying enemies in order to reach the next stage. Through great execution of that simple premise, Spectre managed to become one of the most intense and action-packed games I’ve ever played.
I followed the series throughout its various incarnations – I remember playing Spectre, Spectre VR, and Spectre CD at various times – and it filled me with a good deal of sadness when no Mac OS X port was ever made available. I even kept a partition on my drive for the “Classic” Mac OS, to play this and other games. But time marches on, computers come and go, and eventually Spectre was left simply as an old memory of a game I used to play.
Thankfully, our inability to play this classic game has been SPECTACULARLY remedied. With Spectre 3D, developer Brilliant-Bytes Software has managed to release that rare port that succeeds in enhancing virtually everything about the original game, while at the same time preserving the elements that made the original good and the nostalgia that would bring a longtime fan back to play.
Aside from including all of the original classic games, Spectre 3D brings a whole host of new game modes and modern features. MFi controller support, achievements, multiplayer, universal iPhone / iPad support – everything that makes a great iOS game is here.
It seems like Spectre will be coming back to the mac before long, bigger and better than ever – a fitting next step in the history of a true classic Mac game.
2) Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and The Flame
I can still remember waking up on the morning of my birthday to find that my dad had placed a copy of Prince of Persia 2 in front of my computer monitor while I was sleeping. I remember very little else from that day except the hours of playing it.
I’d been a fan of the first game as long as I can could remember, sinking hour upon hour into the brutally difficult, unforgiving, yet deeply engaging game. This underrated sequel pushed everything up another level.
Gone was the black-and-gray blandness of the first game. In it’s place, Prince of Persia brought some of the best hand-drawn 2D graphics to ever grace a video game, then or now. The claustrophobic dungeons of the first game were broken up with beautiful, slower paced outdoor sequences. The more traditional platforming of the first game was augmented with puzzles that really required thinking outside-the-box. Some fans of the first Prince of Persia took issue with these changes, but I feel like they made Prince of Persia 2 into to a much stronger game.
Unlike the other games on this list, Prince of Persia: The Shadow and The Flame for iOS is a true top-to-bottom remake of the classic, with completely new resources and completely updated design. Developer Ubisoft decided to take the feel of the classic game, as well as certain plot points and overall level designs, and create a new game for a new generation.
While this iOS remake is definitely more approachable, there are more than a few regressions. Some of the simplifications come at the expense of some classic moments of the original game. For example, the first level of the original game tasks you with running, jumping and clinging to the edge of a boat just before it sails off screen. In this remake, the boat is stationary and the challenge nonexistent. Easier, but a lot less exciting. While I still remember that original challenge 20 years later, the remake’s version is easy and unmemorable.
As an iOS app, Prince of Persia 2 is a mixed bag. It hit’s a decent amount of checklist features for a real game – achievements, universal binary, controller support – but it also bundles a fair amount of player-hostile baggage.
Ubisoft has decided that it’s appropriate to beg players to watch commercials or connect to Facebook throughout the course of the game. This isn’t a freemium version either – this is a full game, begging you to connect to Facebook or watch commercials in exchange for a few gold coins. There is a lack of respect for the player in nonsense like that, and it is disheartening to see. If you have to bribe one of your paying customers to use one of your features, that “feature” probably shouldn’t be there in the first place.
Prince of Persia 2 is still a classic, and is ultimately worth a download. Still, I can’t help but wish that the developers had treated their customers with a little more respect, both in terms of dumbing down the game and in force-feeding us freemium components we don’t want and didn’t pay for.
3) Nanosaur
While Nanosaur is the newest game on this list, it is still an undisputed classic Mac game. It’s also likely the first Mac game many people were exposed to. That’s because Nanosaur has the distinction of coming bundled with one of the most important computers Apple ever built – the iMac G3.
The late 1990s was a very dark time for Apple. A decade of bad management decisions had left Apple with only a few months of money left in the bank before they’d have to declare bankruptcy. While the iMac was not exclusively responsible for saving Apple, it stands as a symbol of everything the New Apple stood for – personal computers with beautiful aesthetics, modern features (often at the expense of backwards compatibility), and a real sense of being designed by people who actually wanted to make something great. People bought these computers in record numbers. And on every one of those computers came Nanosaur.
Nanosaur was a third-person action game where you played as a dinosaur from the future, tasked with finding and preserving dinosaur eggs before the coming meteor caused your species’ mass extinction. Armed with a jetpack and laser gun, you were given a limited amount of time to retrieve all the eggs and fight off other dinosaurs.
All of this took place in some of the most beautiful natural environments possible at the time. The graphics were beautiful, the framerate smooth, the levels big, and most importantly, the game was really fun.
While Nanosaur itself is not available for iOS, the also-excellent sequel is.
Nanosaur 2 takes the same formula as it’s predecessor and transplants you from the ground to the sky. In doing so, it plays to the strengths of iOS – tilting the device to control your dinosaur ends up feeling more natural than using a keyboard ever did.
As an iOS game, Nanosaur 2 is about as good as it gets. Developer Pangea is one of the true standouts when it comes to iOS development. They were there on day 1 of the App Store (on stage at WWDC demoing games, in fact). They’ve hit every major development to happen to iOS gaming – Airplay, universal iPad and iPhone support, Game Center, multiplayer, retina graphics, widescreen display, 64 bit A7 – every key feature Apple wants to promote as iOS gaming related, Pangea’s games supported it.
Now that Apple’s made a play for the serious gaming market with MFi controllers, Pangea’s on the scene again with mfi controller support for almost every game they make.
Many of Pangea’s games would up bundled with various Macs throughout the years, but Nanosaur on the first iMac still stands out as a particularly important release. It represented why we bought Macs – to get top quality experiences that were years ahead of where the rest of the industry would be. Mobile devices running iOS continue this tradition, and Pangea’s games are just as welcome a sight in the App Store today as they were in our old Mac OS 9 Applications folders.