OS X Native games & emulators for PowerPC Mac

[saturnotaku]

I recently picked up a 12-inch PowerBook with the 1.5 GHz G4 processor and am looking for games and 8/16-bit console emulators that will work on this platform. I have Halo and Oni installed right now, the latter of which was a pain because it requires the Classic Environment, which wasn't present on the retail copy of OS X Tiger I had installed. I'm looking for similar types of games. Obviously I know of stuff like Quake, Doom, Unreal, Marathon, but are there any other gems that would be worthwhile on this old-school Mac?

 

[Paulk]

Try Drakensang Online. Works fine on my old mac

 

[Huntn]

I'm trying to remember what version of the MacOS dumped the emulator (forget the name of that too) that allowed many older Mac games and programs like Clarisworks to run.

 

[smirking]

Strategic Conquest

 

[DrNeroCF]

Well, Starcraft 1, if that one's not too obvious...

I used to enjoy Mutant Storm, if you're a fan of twin stick shooters.

 

[Cougarcat]

FYI, Oni was ported to OS X by the Omni Group: http://mods.oni2.net/node/232

It requires 10.7 though, not Tiger.

Diablo II and EV: Nova are great. Ferazel's Wand should run in Classic and it's my favorite platformer ever.

If you like classic adventure games, they will pretty much all run (especially with scummvm). Myst and Riven (especially) are my favorites; you'll need RivenX to make it run in OS X. The Dig and Monkey Island are pretty good too.

 

[Paulk]

Try Drakensang Online. Works fine on my old mac

I got some good advice on the Drakensang forums, in response to my query about my ranger not having enough concentration. It's made me realise how to change my character's skills. Most important he should always use a longbow, never a short bow. Now I have got my ranger from level 25 to level 30 I can envisage playing him to the max level of 50.

I am sure there is similar good advice for other characters, like my spellweaver. But one character in this game is enough for me. This is a great game!

 

[organicCPU]

Not fitting to your FPS list, but I think noteworthy and oldschool...

Still active Universal Binary download links (hope for 10.4, not just for 10.5):
- MacBrickout
- Neverball

Those could be a little more difficult to get:
- Airburst Extreme -> http://www.strangeflavour.com/games/
- Jazz Jackrabbit 2 -> https://www.jazz2online.com
- Pac the Man X, Bub & Bob X -> mcsebi - site unfortunately not available

Caution -> some dead or dangerous links on these sites (no warranty at all):
https://powerpcgaming.wordpress.com
https://macpowerpc.com/?s=games&submit=Search

Emulators can be found here, though it's not necessary to run them on a PPC since there are plenty of Intel emulators doing the same:
- Nintendo 64 -> sixtyforce 0.9.7 ( no download link for that version found on http://sixtyforce.com )
- Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator MAME -> http://mamedev.org -> http://www.macmame.org
[doublepost=1484434591][/doublepost]

I'm trying to remember what version of the MacOS dumped the emulator (forget the name of that too) that allowed many older Mac games and programs like Clarisworks to run.

- native Mac OS Classic (up to 10.4. and PPC G4, G5s not supported)
- Classic Environment (till 10.4 only PPC including G5) dumped with 10.5 (or earlier if on Intel)
- Mac 68k emulator was running under Classic (native and in Classic Environment)
- Rosetta (until 10.6. on Intel) for running PPC-Code dumped with 10.7

 

[Huntn]

Not fitting to your FPS list, but I think noteworthy and oldschool...

Still active Universal Binary download links (hope for 10.4, not just for 10.5):
- MacBrickout
- Neverball

Those could be a little more difficult to get:
- Airburst Extreme -> http://www.strangeflavour.com/games/
- Jazz Jackrabbit 2 -> https://www.jazz2online.com
- Pac the Man X, Bub & Bob X -> mcsebi - site unfortunately not available

Caution -> some dead or dangerous links on these sites (no warranty at all):
https://powerpcgaming.wordpress.com
https://macpowerpc.com/?s=games&submit=Search

Emulators can be found here, though it's not necessary to run them on a PPC since there are plenty of Intel emulators doing the same:
- Nintendo 64 -> sixtyforce 0.9.7 ( no download link for that version found on http://sixtyforce.com )
- Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator MAME -> http://mamedev.org -> http://www.macmame.org
[doublepost=1484434591][/doublepost]
- native Mac OS Classic (up to 10.4. and PPC G4, G5s not supported)
- Classic Environment (till 10.4 only PPC including G5) dumped with 10.5 (or earlier if on Intel)
- Mac 68k emulator was running under Classic (native and in Classic Environment)
- Rosetta (until 10.6. on Intel) for running PPC-Code dumped with 10.7

I was thinking of Rosetta, that one really hurt.

 

[organicCPU]

I was thinking of Rosetta, that one really hurt.

Rosetta was really great to make the switch to Intel less uncomfortable. Sometimes I miss it, too.
Apple didn't call it an emulator, but a dynamic binary translator. Rosetta translates upon application's request whole blocks of code from PPC (big-endian) to Intel (little-endian) and not just a single instruction like emulators do.
There are unfortunately many restrictions. Amongst other things it doesn't translate PPC G5 code, it doesn't run non-Carbon apps, therefore not able to run Classic Mac OS 9 and lower apps and it isn't capable of executing kernel extensions, e. g. needed for scanner drivers.
Rosetta relies on QuickTransit, developed by the UK based company Transitive Corporation, that was acquired by International Business Machines Corporation, aka IBM, in 2009.
It's a pity that Apple and IBM didn't decide to open source Rosetta, so that it could have been developed further by the community...

 

[Canubis]

Not sure if you're into the Tomb Raider series? I've never considered myself much of a gamer over the last two decades but always loved (and still do) all the Lara Croft games for their mix of action, adventure, puzzle solving and story telling.

Tomb Raider 5 "Chronicles" came with both a classic and carbon version, which run well on PowerPC Macs with OS X. Also the Level Player software, which came together with this game could be run well on OS X PowerPC Macs, giving you access to thousands of smaller or bigger fan-designed Tomb Raider games.

If you can get your hands on the Classic emulation, all of the old Tomb Raider games (1-4) should also be playable. For more info on this Macraider always was my preferred source:
http://www.users.on.net/~macraider/tombraider/tr_osx_classic.html

 

[Eric5h5]

All of the Soldak games seem to have PPC versions, even the latest one (Zombasite).

--Eric