Recently, digital game distributors GOG.com launched a new catalogue of Mac OS X games. However, the launch doesn’t simply attempt to compete with rival Steam’s library of newer titles, like Call of Duty: Black Ops and Portal 2.
Instead, GOG.com launched with a big focus on classic titles, with such iconic games as SimCity 2000 and Theme Hospital. After we took a look at the service in general, in this article, let’s check out some of the nostalgia you can indulge in.
SimCity 2000
1995′s SimCity 2000 followed up the massive success that was the original SimCity. The series, of course, being an iconic city simulator that allows users to construct a metropolis while guaranteeing a steady supply of power, policing and more. Much like any games from EA/Maxis’s The Sims and SimCity lineup, there’s no real goal other than not turning your creation into an unprofitable failure.
SimCity 2000 added a whole host of new facilities such as schools, hospitals and prisons, tools to build roads, railways and airports, more types of power and other bureaucratic and diplomatic endeavors. It’s a game many of us grew up playing, and was the first GOG game we looked at here at Mac.AppStorm.
SimCity 2000 Special Edition is available from GOG.com for $5.99, a definite must-have buy, especially as newer versions of SimCity are not widely available for OS X (although next year’s refresh of the franchise will be released for the Mac).
SimCity 2000.
Theme Hospital
Theme Hospital, a 1997 release from EA, was one of the first video games I actually played and its release on the Mac was perhaps the most exciting announcement from GOG.com.
Theme Hospital is another iconic simulator but instead of micro-managing a bustling metropolis, you act as a hospital administrator, constructing and running a series of medical establishments. These begin with a small site setup for little more than general diagnosis and treating sick patients in wards and with pharmacies, eventually growing into massive facilities rapidly conducting surgery, educating new doctors and running research into new treatments.
My description might not portray Theme Hospital as the most enjoyable game, but it is a lot of fun and has a quirky charm. It, too, is available for $5.99 from GOG.com.
Theme Hospital
Fallout
Fallout throws you into a post-apocolyptic world after a nuclear war, tasking players to survive in an underground “Survival Vault” before you are forced outside into a dystopian land years after the collapse of civilisation.
Another classic game from 1997, Fallout plays in a world surrounded by violence, mutants and a constant threat as you attempt to fix a water purification system so that your fellow Vault Dwellers can continue to live without being exposed to the outside.
As is becoming the standardised price, Fallout is available for $5.99 from GOG.com.
Fallout
Dungeon Keeper
Another 1997 release, Dungeon Keeper allows players to jump into the namesake role, building and operating a dungeon while under constant fear of an attack of NPC whom seek the character’s accumulated goods.
The game spins itself as the opposite of similar games, instead portraying the player as the villain and the attacking NPCs as the actual heroes, being a “refreshing title for someone tired of rescuing princesses, saving worlds, and all that love, happiness and political correctness junk”.
Dungeon Keeper is available for, you guessed it, $5.99 at GOG.com.
Dungeon Keeper
Syndicate
Syndicate throws players into a futuristic world where corporate syndicates compete for dominance and you play as one of those very corporations.
Your objective is to achieve global dominance, using robotic agents to assassinate, infiltrate and overall criminalise your way to the top. You work area-by-area, eliminating rivals and slowly gaining the very dominance you desire.
Syndicate — which has actually been rebooted earlier this year, albeit not for OS X — is available for $5.99 on GOG.com.
Syndicate
Round Up
With the Mac only emerging as a viable gaming platform in the past few years — and, in some cases, is still not considered one — it’s easy to understand why some of our favourite games of yester-decade — nay — yester-century aren’t available for our beloved platform. Steam’s debut on OS X brought a number of fairly recent, popular games like Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 to the Mac, and setup a platform for future releases, but classic games from the ’90s were left out. Even Valve’s own games like the original Half-Life got left out in the cold grasp of Windows exclusivity.
These five games are but a handful of the new Mac games available through GOG.com. Be sure to explore their full catalogue and feed back your favourites!