Last Christmas I received a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate from one of my aunts and uncles. Nearly eight months have passed and I still don't know what to buy. So I'm looking to you guys and gals for help. I am in the market for a first person shooter. My requirements is that it be (of course) compatable with my computer (20-inch iMac, 2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 Gigs of RAM, hard drive space is not an issue, believe me), easily moddable, and that said mods can make use of the ability for the player to ride in and drive land vehicles (flying vehicles are also desired but not necessary). I am willing to spend an addional $30 if necessary.

Note: do not even mention it if it has an ESRB Rating above Mature.

I WAS going to say Half-Life 2 until I noticed you said you have a Mac. As such, I think Halo might be made into a Mac version by now, but I don't know for sure.

Yeah there's Halo out for Mac. I would recommend Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Fun game, good storyline, excellent multiplay.

UT2k4 is a good game that fits these requirements – you might also try Battlefield 2142 upon its release.

If you don't mind running windows (or the cheaper option of Linux + Wine, Cedega, or Crossover Office) I'd heartily suggest Half-Life 2, which you might be able to get along with Counter-Strike for around $30.

If you want vehicles that are just downright fun to drive, you should probably just go with Halo—it probably has the most replay value of any shooter currently available for Mac anyways. That said, the Mac version of Halo is pretty much non-existent as far as mods are concerned.

Unreal Tournament 2004 includes vehicles and has Mac mods available for it. It's a decent game, but you will get sick of it eventually.

Quake 4 has vehicles too, I hear. I have not played it, however, so I can't say how good it actually is and I have no idea how modable it is.

If you're into WWII, Battlefield 1942 has pretty good vehicle combat (get a joystick if you plan to fly planes) and there are several mods available which work on the Mac version. There's also an expansion pack available for Mac, Secret Weapons of World War II.

Along the same lines, Call of Duty 2 also has vehicles, and I hear it is an excellent game. Have not played it, so I can't say personally.

Note that all of the games I listed are Universal Binary games, either out-of-the-box or through an update. Rosetta doesn't run games very well.

Of course, you could always install Windows (and perhaps Parallels Desktop) on your machine and buy a Windows game (Half Life 2, for example).


Er, I don't even know of any first person shooters that have received an "Adults Only" ESRB rating.

Yeah, you'd have to note that anything that is a FPS is going to have a rating of T or higher. (let's put it this way...age of empires was rated T for teen..)

I'd suggest that if this is a major hurdle, to look up some reviews (parenting sites usually have 'em, put google to use) and such, to prove that 'mature' means 'I'm not going to run around shooting people, thinking this is real"

Anyway, Halo is a great choice. Lovely graphics, a good design....

Seconded. JK3 is also great. Story might not be as good, but the multiplayer is much better. And there are plenty of mods for each.

Run Windows and get HL2+Ep1 for $24.95. HL2 has more mods than almost any other game on the market, is very easily moddable, and features a highly realistic vehicular simulation system with independent suspension and friction calculation on up to four wheels. It also supports hovercraft for cheaper simulations. In addition to that, you can drop an additional $10 on Gmod, which opens up a whole other realm of possibilities.



Halo for Mac came out about 3.5 years ago. Halo 2 is forthcoming. Halo is not so easy to mod as Half-Life 2, though.



Come to think of it, if you are going to do that, wait until October 9th and get Orange Box. It's got HL2, Ep.1, Ep.2, Portal, and TF2, all for $50. Best deal ever. HL2 comes free with the Source SDK and SDK Base.

Get Tremulous. It's free.

Let me pair this list down with some more "opinion":

The absolute top pick is Half-Life 2. Of course the "Orange Box" coming out this summer will have HL2, plus both episodes along with Team Fortress 2 and Portal, but that'll probably run you more like $50. And you'll need to run Boot Camp regardless. It's certainly mod-able to have what you want, though I haven't extensively gone mod hunting. Anyway, fantastic game, supports vehicles quite nicely, and fantastically mod-able.

The best vehicular game is of course Halo, though I hear the Mac version is missing even more graphical effects than the shoddy PC port (which I happily own). It's starting to show its age, and you won't be modding the Mac version, though it's an easy recommend if you've never played it and can get it for $20 or less.

UK2k4: Exactly fits your criteria, but play the demo and see if it's to your taste. (Actually, there may not be a UB demo so that might be a no-go.) I liked it okay, but not enough to buy. The original UT still seems more fun to me, though onslaught in 2k4 was pretty good.

JK2/3: Great games, not exactly what I'd call FPS's though, and not particularly strong on vehicles. Can you install Windows mods on the Mac versions? (I only own the PC versions.) If not, the extended value of this purchase would be tiny and you'd be better off with the Windows versions.

Stay away from Quake 4 - it's just as mediocre as Doom 3.

COD 2 is good - try the demo.

I hate Battlefield games, though I suppose it might be worth a look.

JK2 has _no_ vehicles that you can drive, with only a handfull walkers run by AI. I don't know about any mods for JK2, so I would assume not. I don't really play JK2 much anymore, and that's a shame, but I basically replaced it with SW Battlefront. I think it might be a bit expensive, but you never know how much it is on Amazon.com. Battlefront is a great game, SWBF2 is amazing, but not out for mac yet. SWBF has plenty of mods and maps online.

Actually, you can use an AT_ST.

Due to the fact that the Mac build is still somehow "unofficial," it's not on the main Tremulous site. Apple was nice enough to put it on their site, though.

Wow Tremulous is amazing, it's free, and it's open source?!?!? Wow... my computer clocked a record 90 FPS in multiplayer with about 10 players... the only problem is that scienceguy still can't get rid of his Amazon.com giftcard

Which map is that?

Not in multiplayer.
Unless the computer version is different from the 360 version.


Agreed. There are a lot of good free FPS games out there.
No vehicles in Tremulous though.

Good free FPS games there are... but the best free FPSs are all HL2 mods. Insurgency alone is worth the price of a Source game.

Phosphor. It's free. And in beta.

Well, how about the one where you start out right next an AT-ST Landing pod... Duh.

Anyway, as fas as FPS go, i would also recommend using Windows. Great games are Half-Life 2, BattleField 1942 (Available for mac, as well), Jedi Knight 2 (do NOT buy Jedi Academy, however, just thinking about that game gets me all hackled up... Its story is plain shit, and that is the most friendly term for it. Its graphics are as un-starwars like as anything. Its combat system is crappy and it features tons of bugs), or, if you are into modding, i would recommend FarCry.

If you don't value graphics very much, you could also go for the Aliens vs. Predator games, which have IMO a rather movie-like gameplay (if you have seen the Aliens or Predator Movies)

Yeah, at least try out the Alien Vs predetor demo. I've played the oldoldoldoldold version for Os 9 and that demo KICKED ASS. It was insanely fun playing mutliplayer. I'd try out the newer versions no sweat.

Oh, and using cheats you can fly several ships in JKII...But still, JK II is better then JKIII. JKIII had a sucky story, sucky gameplay (sabercombat is all luck, or doing the best movies over and over again) and was made just to look really spiffy. I mean, it looks cool when you do a flying diveroll, stab someone, then flip over another person and neatly slice off his head, but it gets old quick. And multiplayer sucks. And lightsaber combat is all about jumping around and not staying in the same place (or you'll get killed quickly) It's not really in the starwars spirit.

JK II had much better (and slower, allowing for some actually attack-counterattack) saber combat. Still, I wouldn't recommend it unless you try out the demo and like it...

Meh, you're not playing JK3 right if its just jumping around (that was JK2). Unmodded, the best players in JK3 carefully aim strikes to hit the most damaging areas and chain various specific combos to inflict the most damage at the given moment. It's more than just jumping around spamming the Dual Saber's "Saber Barrier" move.

And there are a bunch of mods for both if you know where to look. JK3 has JA+, Movie Battles (if you're looking for more authentic lightsaber action), Open Jedi Project Enhanced, and more, along with several thousand skins, models, A.I. scripts, multiplayer levels, lightsaber hilts (or swords!), and more. Though JK3 seems like a game that was built gearing towards multiplayer primarily, hence why the single player experience is rather...lacking. JK2 feels like the opposite. I might also add using the mods you can spawn all sorts of vehicles for use in multi (and with cheats in single), including Taun Tauns, X-Wings, Rancors, Swoop Bikes, AT-STs, Y-Wings, etc.

Not trying to sound like a JK3 fanboy though. I'd still recommend the demos, which can be found if you poke around online. Though watch out, the JK3 demo is like 300 megabytes for some weird reason. Though it does let you try out all the saber styles.


Is Turok 2 available on the Mac/PC? Without emulation? That game was great, whereas most of the series was simple "okay".

The demo is definitely not UB, and is incredibly choppy even on a high-end Mac Pro. The game itself is though. If you have access to a decent PPC-based computer try the demo, then run the full game on your Intel mac.

Marathon?

Marathon is not moddable, and not really vehicular either. Other than that it is good.

And UT2K4 is pretty good, but HL2 is several orders of magnitude better.

JK3's okay, though I haven't had great experiences with it: The latest update never installed properly, I can never play MovieBattles because it pretends I have connection issues, OJP never worked at all, regardless of what I did, and the weapon balance always seemed messed up with the stock game, regardless.

I was always fond of Battlefront.

Marathon is moddable...

if you happen to have OS9 and can use Forge and Anvil...

He's got an Intel Mac, so no OS9.

I've heard that Intel Macs can emulate Mac OS 9. This from somebody on the Apple website...

I think Sheepshaver can do it.

Man, I thought JK3 was basically the same game as JK2 but spiffed up with slightly more saber battle variety, better force powers and better graphics and a so-so role-playing system, nicely complemented by a shitty story. It's true there were some shitty levels, but there were also a number of awesome ones. Like, really awesome ones, like Chandrilla.

I certainly couldn't stand multiplayer saber duels in JK2, but they had a little more entertainment value in JK3.

This notion is predicated on Sheepsaver being functional software, which it isn't.

This topic inspired me to go back and play a little more HL2, and I would like to once again say that it is the best FPS in existence at this time. You really should Bootcamp yourself some XP and get Orange Box as soon as it comes out.

I can't believe how much misinformation is flying in this thread.

• First, I don't think we're clear on what you meant by moddability. Did you mean you want to play mods, or you want to make mods? You said "easily moddable," so I assume you want to work on mods personally, because if you just wanted to play mods, you wouldn't care much if they were hard to make.
  
• Half-Life 2 is a Windows-only game. You can buy it within your $30-$60 budget, and it is moddable, but you can't play it unless you have a way to run Windows. I'm unaware of a legal way to run Windows programs that won't end up costing substantially more.
  
• The UT2k4 demo's performance sucks. I don't know if it's because it's not universal, or because there's some glitch, and I don't know if the full game runs better. But there was no way I was going to buy it when the demo was so jerky on the lowest settings on my 2.16 GHz machine with what was the best graphics card available at the time.
  
• Halo 1 should be available within your price range. It's a very good game, but you can't truly mod it on Mac. Read up on the halo hacking kit for what you can do. It has vehicles, including flying vehicles, and is rated Mature.
  
• Call of Duty 2 was a solid FPS. Don't let the fact that people are talking about CoD 3 and CoD 4 fool you: it looks pretty and has sophisticated, well-thought-out gameplay. There are vehicles, but only in singleplayer. It's also rated Teen (I'm looking at the DVD case right now).
  
• Jedi Knight II was, at one time, one of my favorite games. If you like Star Wars, it's a solid choice. I can't speak to how it compares to other games in the series though, since I've only played the JK:JA (and Dark Forces, for that matter) demos. It does have vehicles, but only one drivable one: the AT-ST, which you 'drive' (walk?) in one level (screenshot). I can't speak about the game's mods.
  
• Star Wars: Battlefront was ok. It's not a first person shooter. It's basically a much scaled-up version of UT's Last Man Standing gametype with poor multiplayer support (I don't know if UT invented LMS, it's just the game with which I'm familiar)
  
• QUOTE
  Halo for Mac came out about 3.5 years ago. Halo 2 is forthcoming.
  
  I'm very interested in this. Do you have a source for your claim that Halo 2 is coming to Mac?
  
• QUOTE
  Marathon is not moddable
  
  
  Marathon is the most moddable Mac shooter in history. It's moddable on an Intel Mac if you have working emulation software, such as SheepShaver. SheepShaver can be functional on an Intel Mac. I know because I worked extensively on the mod Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge on my MacBook Pro (screenshot).

The clincher is, I was the one that put a drivable vehicle into the Marathon (technically Aleph One) engine for the first time. So yes, there is now a mod with drivable vehicles in it for Marathon .

Finally, I'd like to add Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory to the list. It's free, it's Mac compatible, and it's moddable. It has vehicles, but not drivable vehicles. The disadvantage is it's multiplayer-only. However, it's been the game I play the most pretty much since I downloaded it.

Getting Windows is the only real choice if you really want FPS games. Sure, they come out for the Mac eventually, and it looks like iD is going to be doing a lot more Mac support on the Tech 5 engine, but Windows is the gaming OS. So yes, it's more expensive to buy Windows, but it's worth it for HL2 and is a good long-term investment for the playing of games.



According to the Apple page on Halo 1, Bungie is "working hard on Halo 2." I don't think this is solid proof, but it does seem to suggest that Apple thinks that Halo 2 is coming to Mac, which is worth something. Also, Halo 1 came out on PC and then Mac a little later. I would be suprised if the same doesn't happen with Halo 2 also, though I suppose it could ruin the whole "Games for Windows" thing.



I stand corrected. I assumed that there would be no easy way to mod a game that old, but it seems I was wrong. Oh and congratulations on your modding achievement.



ET is good, mainly because it's free, though the Quake 3 engine is much harder to mod than Source.

Edit: And look what article is on the front page of the Apple gaming site.

You have a point there. I was only pointing out that you can't run Windows games, and buy a FPS to play, within that $30-$60 budget he wanted.

Hmm. I read that differently. Namely, that article was written a few years ago, so I take it to mean that Bungie was working on Halo 2 at the time, i.e., working on it for the first release on the Xbox, and Apple was hoping people would assume that means it's coming out for Mac eventually too. Don't get me wrong, I'm waiting for it to come out for Mac, but I don't know if it will actually happen.

I'll take your word for it. I'm trying to learn to mod Quake 3 engine games, but I haven't looked at HL2 modding. It's been tough so far, although it helps that modding is pretty similar between different Q3 games.


Nifty. I looked at Marathon:Resurrection again and it looks like they actually finished it last month! I had given up on that project years back. I'll have to download the full thing and check it out.

HL2, and anything based on the Source engine, is supported on Linux under Cedega (which unlike Windows is a $5 a month fee) and I believe you can run it unsupported with WINE. Now it doesn't fully support DirectX9, so you loose some of the fancier effects, but HL2 is still a damn good looking game without them.

Setting up a Linux system just to run those programs on would be pretty easy too.

As I stated earlier, the full game is UB, the demo is not. The full game runs beautifully on an Intel mac. If somebody wants to see how the gameplay is, they should try the demo on a PPC, and see that it runs just fine, and then realize that with a modern Intel machine it will run even better.

UT2k4 is about the best there is for Mac-Compatable FPS games. Its several years old, but it performs well, and if you want a multiplayer FPS then UT delivers fast-paced twitch based action like no other game can.

Halo has an OK storyline, but again its several years old, and has poor graphics and runs shoddily on the system specs it was ment to.

Half Life 2 has a fantastic story and fantastic looking graphics. Highly recommended if you've got boot-camp and a machine with the specs that can run it.

Halo has a... OK storyline? You make sulk sad. *fanboy attack*

I wholeheartedly recommend Halo. And the Marathon Trilogy. And UT2004.

The main problem for Quake 3 modding is that there doesn't seem to be one comprehensive suite of tools that is free, well-programmed, and does everything you want it to. Source, on the other hand, comes with the SDK that Valve used to make HL2, which comes with the Hammer map editor, Faceposer for creating those creepily realistic faces, and a model viewer for viewing and importing models. There is also a free version of Softimage XSI for HL2 modding only, which helps, and the SDK can automatically configure itself for creating a mod.

My experience with the program can be accurately summed up by the following phrase: "The application SheepSaver has unexpectedly quit..."

Also, none of my old Macs are bootable any more, so I had to find a ROM online, and the one I found apparently cannot boot either my legit and non-hardware-specific 7.6 or 8.0 disks, and just crashes and burns with my iMac's 9.0 disc (the only one which gets past the "this CD is intended for another computer" message, ironically). ###### that, as they say.


I played ET for a while, until I realized that it's sole saving grace was that it was free. Other than that, it's a showcase for everything that's wrong with the Quake 3 engine, and more frustrating than Counter-Strike while being infinitely less satisfying, if such a thing were possible.

Thanks guys. I'm not quite sure if this topic has clarified things for me, but it has given me a couple free alternatives. After playing the game in stock form I will attempt to create a mod for it.

Whoever said PowerPC games were not worth playing on an Intel Mac, I knew that already. Ever since I got my new computer I noticed that EV: N was acting a little sluggish.

I have to disagree with you there. Graphics-intensive PowerPC games are limited more by your graphics card. For instance, the PowerPC version of Halo runs just fine on my Intel Mac. As for non-graphics-intensive games...I can't think of a PowerPC game that needed a really beefy CPU, going back to when graphics cards became standard. In other words the performance hit from the emulation layer should be offset by the fact that you have a faster CPU than the ones that were available when the game came out. I'm speaking from theory and practice here. Sure, a lot of programs glitch, but I wouldn't give up on them entirely.

As a footnote, one annoying aspect of running games under Rosetta is that when they do crash, the crash logs OS X provide are pretty worthless in tracking down the problem.

Yeah, a lot of older OpenGL games work fine in Rosetta, provided they ran on a 500 MHz G4 to begin with. Because that's about the level of performance I got in Warcraft 3 before it went UB and most other PPC games, except a bit worse because emulation is inconsistent and in a way that slow hardware is not and chugs on odd things. I can't believe anyone would claim that WC3 was playable. I think a lot of Mac gamers just have low standards after the way the platform has been shafted on performance (both in CPU speed and game optimization) for so many years before the Intel switch.

A blast from the past. Yes, I know grave digging is not appreciated. I have even told others that, but I think I have some leeway because I created the thread in the first place.

It has almost been a whole year, and (surprise!) I have yet to spend the gift card.

I am seriously interested in the Orange Box after having played HL2:EP2 and Portal at a LAN party hosted by my university's computer club. However, Microsoft just loves to overcharge for their very much buggy software. Last I checked, Windows XP cost $180 dollars, which is $50 more than I am willing to spend on an OS. Still, better than the ultra buggy Vista for $220. I would still need to buy Apple's Leopard for the Boot Camp drivers and the ability to partition my hard drive without wiping it clean. So, the Orange Box is out of the question for a while.

Battlefield 2142 looks interesting, but seems to be primarily based around multi player game play. Does it also have single player game play?

Return to castle wolfenstein is a really good fps you can download the demo here

Orange box is $50 and great. It's the best deal evar 4 srsly. BF2142 is full of hackers, or so I have heard, and is really not all that fun. TF2 will be better multiplayer, if that's what you're intersted in, and HL2 is the greatest singleplayer experience in existence. You also might consider Bioshock, if you have the machine for it, as it's also fantastically good, though not as good as HL2 in my opinon. Good multiplayer will also be found in Call of Duty 4, recently released. If you're still intrested in modding, Source is probably your best bet, though when UT3 comes out, it will be extremely moddable.

Edit: these all assume windows and a reasonable graphics card. I realize that Bioshock, UT3, or any other Unreal 3 engine games is not going to be both smooth and pretty on one of those Radeon HD-craptastic 2600 jokes Apple has been foisting upon iMac users, but if you've upgraded the card they are definite options. If you're planning on saving up that gift card for another year or three, iD is coming out with a new IP, Rage, and a new engine to run it, iD Tech 5, which should be both pretty, moddable, and Mac-compatible out of the box.

I've been looking for that game myself. Let me know when you find it!



IF you can run it. It looks like a real harddrive-killer.

I don't know about hard drives (I bet it won't be more than 8 gigs) but I'd worry about my graphics card.

Still got about 100 GB available. I did say that hard drive space would not be a problem.