Mac Source Ports

Developer: Midway Games
Release Date: April 4, 1997

OK, now we have all the DOOM games (pre-2016 anyway).

The port of DOOM to the original PlayStation, handled by Midway Games, was such a hit that when it came time to port the game to the Nintendo 64, Midway wanted to do something other than just port the same game again, and wanted to take advantage of the features of the hardware. The result is the most bizarrely unique entry in the series.

DOOM 64 does use the DOOM engine, or at least it started with it, but they took a hard left. The game does use the original game's enemies with reworked assets from the original game, but the levels are new and the engine takes place of the then-novel idea of hardware accelerated graphics. Notably, the N64 could do colored lighting and they use that all throughout the game.

Reactions were mixed. Gamers wanting the original game were disappointed, gamers wanting something new were intrigued, and the critics were mostly just confused. Until recently, it was an obscure anomaly entry in the series with a cult following.

A source port project called Doom64 EX came out, whose goal was to recreate the game using the N64 ROM image for data. In the runup to DOOM Eternal, id and Zenimax decided to resurrect the game and the creator of the source port worked with Nightdive Studios to make a version that ran on PC as well as consoles. In the years since, the Doom 64 EX+ project came out which enhances the original source port as well as gives it the ability to use the data from the PC port of the game. The commercial release did not come to the Mac, but working with the author we're able to offer a Mac release here.

So fire it up and pretend like you're playing on your big CRT having just rented it from Blockbuster Video. It's definitely a unique experience.

  Buy DOOM 64 on GOG.com

Developer: 2015, Inc.
Release Date: January 22, 2002

This is a neat little surprise. The Medal of Honor series started out its life as a first person shooter for the original PlayStation, a console not known for FPS titles, and whose game concept and story came from Steven Spielberg of all people. The series has seen over a dozen games including a reboot but in 2002 they released the third game, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, for the PC on the engine we would now call id Tech 3, with some help from the ÜberTools enhancements made by Ritual Entertainment.

While the source code was never released, the OpenMoHAA project appears to have taken ioquake3 as well as the Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 SDK (which used ÜberTools) and managed to make the game playable on modern systems. The result is not entirely unlike the Xash3D FWGS project.

The game supports multiplayer as well as the expansion packs, though the options for video configuration are limited at this time and the expansion packs need to be launched from the command line. If you're familiar with editing the configuration files for Quake III: Arena however, it's not much different than that. For rhese reasons though, we're labeling this Early Access. Later on we may add a launcher menu to simplify things.

NOTE: if you downloaded an earlier version there is a chance your save file might not work with this newer version. If that is the case and you want to continue from your saved game you can download the previous version here.

  Buy Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on GOG.com

Developer: id Software
Release Date: December 9, 1997
Source Code Release Date: December 22, 2001

Quake II is a first-person shooter, the second in the Quake series. Yamagi Quake2 is the most mature and advanced port actively being maintained.

  Buy Quake II on GOG.com

  Buy Quake II on the Humble Store

Developer: Valve Software
Release Date: November 19, 1998

For the 100th game on Mac Source Ports, I wanted it to be something special. It turned out to be a quite a doozy as well.

It's not an overstatement to say Half-Life changed everything. It challenged what we thought first person shooters, narrative content, and gaming atmosphere in general were capable of. It spawned spinoffs, sequels, and launched Valve software into the massive force it is today. It says something that in a world filled with tons of games to choose from, everyone is still begging Valve to make another entry in this series to tie off the now fifteen-year cliffhanger of Half-Life 2: Episode Two.

Half-Life and the Mac have an interesting history, as well. Long before Steam was even a thought in their head, Valve announced and began work on porting the game to Mac OS 9, but it was eventually canceled. Then in 2013, Valve decided to release Steam for the Mac, the first non-Windows computer platform for it, and ported their games to Steam in the process, so now finally Half-Life was available on the Mac. However, the releases were 32-bit apps so when macOS 10.15 Catalina cut off support for 32-bit apps, Half-Life became unavailable to anyone who upgraded, and Apple Silicon Macs never had a chance to play it.

Meanwhile, a project arose called Xash3D. Since the engine for Half-Life, now retronymed GoldSrc for various reasons, was derived from Quake and Quake II, and the SDK for mods was also available, theoretically someone could reverse engineer the game with a lot of effort. The Xash3D project and the later successor project, Xash3D FWGS, appear to have done exactly that over the course of many years now. The result is a fascinating Frankenstein project meshing various id Tech engines and source ports together, the net effect of which is Half-Life can be played on everything from an Android phone to a Raspberry Pi.

In 2019, the Xash3D FWGS project dropped any official support for macOS and iOS due to Apple's deprecation of OpenGL and decision to move towards signed and notarized code (they have since restored support). As a result, I've had many people ask me to build this project so I figured I'd eventually do it and the one year anniversary of the site and the 100th game seemed appropriate to me. However the one year anniversary of the site was a month ago, but if there's an appropriate project for Valve Time to affect, it would be this one.

They're waiting for you. In the test chamber...

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you used one of the previous builds of Xash3D FWGS that we hosted here on Mac Source Ports, note that the location of the data has changed from ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D to ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D FWGS. If you get an error about how the engine could not find the "valve" folder, this is why.

Developer: Gearbox Software
Release Date: November 19, 1999

Half-Life: Opposing Force is the first expansion pack for Half-Life. It takes place during the events of the original game, but instead of playing as Gordon Freeman having a bad day at work you play from the perspective of one of the Marines sent into the complex. It was definitely an interesting maneuver, and one that avoided having to explain what happened after the end of the first game, they wouldn't go there until the sequel.

NOTE: the support for Opposing Force as a Xash3D FWGS mod is still in development. You may notice quirks like glitches with weapon animations. For this reason I have labeled the game as "Early Access". If you're willing to ignore the issues you can go ahead and experience the expansion pack on your Mac again.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you used one of the previous builds of Xash3D FWGS that we hosted here on Mac Source Ports, note that the location of the data has changed from ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D to ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D FWGS. If you get an error about how the engine could not find the "valve" folder, this is why.

Developer: Gearbox Software
Release Date: June 12, 2001

OK, so here's the deal: around 2001, Gearbox Software was contracted to port Half-Life to the Sega Dreamcast. Seeing as how they handled making the Half-Life: Opposing Force expansion, it made sense to hand the task off to them. And just to make the port even more special, Gearbox made a second expansion pack, Half-Life: Blue Shift, that would be exclusive to the Dreamcast version of the game. Whereas the first expansion followed the original game's story through the viewpoint of one of the Marines sent into the Black Mesa facility, Half-Life: Blue Shift does the same but from the perspective of Black Mesa security guard Barney.

Gamers were annoyed at the prospect of a single player expansion they couldn't run on their PC, so Valve capitulated and decided to release the expansion retail for PC gamers as well.

And then the Dreamcast port of Half-Life was canceled at the last minute. Like, almost literally the last mintue - some number of press review copies had alredy been sent out. There's a very small number of actual copies of the game.

Then when Blue Shift finally came out for the PC, many gamers were disappointed with its short length, unaware of the Dreamcast back story.

In any event, one of the mods that the Xash3D FWGS project supports is a port of Blue Shift, so I've updated the build to include it. You will need both the original game and the expansion. If you want more Half-Life, duty calls...

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you used one of the previous builds of Xash3D FWGS that we hosted here on Mac Source Ports, note that the location of the data has changed from ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D to ~/Library/Application Support/Xash3D FWGS. If you get an error about how the engine could not find the "valve" folder, this is why.

Developer: id Software
Release Date: June 22, 1996
Source Code Release Date: December 21, 1999

Quake is a first-person shooter, the first in the Quake series, which added polygonal enemies, advanced geometry, and a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails. A fascinating example of grappling with technology changes in parallel to gameplay, it spawned entire industries of modders and mutiplayer gaming.

The vkQuake port was derived from the QuakeSpasm Spiked port and uses Vulkan on macOS by way of MoltenVK. In addition, vkQuake recently added support for the remastered version of Quake from Night Dive Studios.

  Buy Quake on GOG.com

  Buy Quake on the Humble Store

Developer: Raven Software
Release Date: September 11, 1997
Source Code Release Date: November 10, 2000

Continuing the pattern of the first DOOM engine game being a fantasy RPG FPS from Raven Software, the first Quake engine game is another fantasy RPG FPS from Raven Software. Hexen II continues its predecessors pattern of multiple character classes, a hub based structure, and then-innovative use of 3D environments. It's a pretty solid old school FPS experience and the only id Tech 2 game to ship before Quake II

  Buy Hexen II on GOG.com

Developer: Toys for Bob
Release Date: November 1, 1992
Source Code Release Date: 2002

Frequently in the lists of best games ever made, Star Control II is definitely a popular game but the story behind its preservation is even more interesting.

It was released in 1992 for DOS and later ported to the 3DO game console in 1994. In 2002, the source code to the 3DO version was released as open source, and the content of the game was released under a Creative Commons license, so the source port project The Ur-Quan Masters was created as a result.

Effectively, this game is Star Control II but the history and logistics of copyright on the name has been fraught with controversy and litigation, so to play it safe this source port named itself The Ur-Quan Masters, which was the subtitle of the original game. I debated whether or not to list it as that or Star Control II so I compromised and listed it as the full name with the subtitle for anyone who knows Star Control II but wasn't familiar with the Ur-Quan Masters source port project.

Note that the original DOS version is available on GOG but this version is native to Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

Developer: Looking Glass Studios
Release Date: September 23, 1994
Source Code Release Date: April 5, 2018

It would be hard to overstate the impact of System Shock on the games industry, and probably a lame cliché to try, but just suffice it to say that for better or worse many of the elements that became commonplace in games like audio logs and PDAs came from this game.

In 2018, Night Dive Studios (a developer whose initial existence was to work out and re-release System Shock 2 for modern systems) came into the possession of the Mac OS 9 source code for the original game, and subsequently published it on GitHub. Soon after, the Shockolate project was born (think the Chocolate Doom project but for System Shock) and the game is now playable on modern machines. I'm not sure if this is the first time a build has been released with Apple Silicon compatibility, but fire it up to experience it on at least the third Mac architecture for this codebase.

Note that you will need the original System Shock files, not the ones from the Enhanced Edition. Digital retailers such as Steam and GOG feature the Enhanced Edition for sale but they both come with the original as the Classic Edition, which is the one whose files you want.

NOTE: If you previously installed a version of the game, note the new location for the game data.

  Buy System Shock on GOG.com

  Buy System Shock on the Humble Store