Best Mac games
Mac gamers, contrary to popular belief, have plenty of top games titles to choose from these days – indeed, the most difficult part is narrowing down the options, and then finding the money to buy and time to play them.
We can’t help with the latter, but the first problem is right up our alley. We’ve collected the best Mac games, dividing them into 10 categories.
ADVENTURE & STORY GAMES
1. A Story About My Uncle
Price: £11.39 from fave.co/3ICTZUx
Every now and then you come across a little gem of a game and wonder why it hasn’t attracted a wider audience. Admittedly, Gone North Games isn’t the most well-known developer, consisting of a group of former students in Sweden, whose biggest hit seems to have been 2014’s Goat Simulator. A Story About My Uncle was also released on PC in 2014, although the Mac version took a few years to arrive, and is now available on Steam.
The story follows a young boy who goes in search of his Uncle Fred, an intrepid explorer who on this occasion seems to have gotten a bit carried away, and has gone missing in one of those Doctor Strange-esque inter-dimensional landscapes populated by floating islands and strange alien creatures.
The game starts off like an adventure, asking you to find clues about your missing uncle, but rather than sticking with 2D graphics and dull swathes of text, the game suddenly goes rocketing across the dimensions, turning into a kind of 3D platform game as you use Uncle Fred’s ‘adventure suit’ to run and jump around the alien landscape and track him down.
The suit starts off with a single power-boost that helps you to jump around the various floating islands and platforms, and then you get a grappling hook as well, which gives you more freedom to explore the world around you. There are alien encounters as well, but this is a strictly non-violent game, so rather than killing everything in sight, you can interact with the beings you meet, learn about their own stories, and maybe pick up a few clues about your uncle as well.
My jumping skills are clearly a bit rusty, and I died quite a few times even in the game’s early tutorial section, but once you get the hang of it, A Story About My Uncle, is a fresh take on the traditional adventure game – and, with its focus on peaceful solutions to problems, is a good introduction to gaming for younger players too.
2. The Banner Saga
Price: £18.74 from fave.co/3lQvhGg
A template for how to do a lot with a little, the 3-man team behind The Banner Saga created one of the most beautiful indie games ever made. Who needs fancy 3D graphic engines when you have this kind of gorgeous hand-drawn artwork? Team Stoic has proved you don’t need a monster computer to have your breath taken away by graphics.
Visual treats aside, the core gameplay is very fun. Taking clear inspiration from the Oregon Trail (but with Vikings and monsters) you lead a caravan across a dying world in search of safety and supplies. Gameplay takes place across different sections of travel, decision making and combat, which all blend smoothly together.
Combat is turn-based and deceptively challenging. You are free to manage your war party and different characters and classes have varying stats and special abilities. Just consider your options carefully, since a wrong choice in a decision making phase can rob you of a major character or valuable warrior. Special mention must also be made of the music, which is haunting and epic by turns, as required.
The story is quite intriguing and the many characters are well developed. We also found the dialogue to be witty and humorous, adding some levity to the grim surroundings. The 2. final battle and events set the stage for even more to come in chapter 2. If the eight- to 10-hour journey doesn’t satisfy you the first time around, you can play again and make different choices, ending up with significantly different outcomes and endings.
3. J.U.L.I.A. Among The Stars
Price: £14.99 from fave.co/31P4UJG
We missed J.U.L.I.A. Among The Stars first time around, when it was originally launched as a relatively simple puzzle game for iOS devices. However, the iOS version isn’t around any more – the tale of CBE’s travails with its original publisher is an epic all by itself – and the current version of the game has been updated and expanded into a more complex adventure game for Macs and Windows PCs.
You play Rachel Manners, an astrobiologist who is part of a mission sent to a newly discovered solar system that shows signs of intelligent life. But as your ship approaches its destination you are woken from cryogenic sleep to discover that the ship has been damaged and that the rest of the crew are dead. That leaves you on your own to repair the ship and then to uncover the mysteries of this new solar system.
Although J.U.L.I.A. is an adventure game, it has a wider scope than many traditional adventures. Instead of simply wandering from room to room and using the standard point-and-click control system to manipulate objects, the game also allows you to interact with J.U.L.I.A. – the ship’s built-in artificial intelligence – and to control Mobot, a reconnaissance droid that can be sent down to explore the planet below. You can also use your computer systems to examine the solar system around you, to upgrade Mobot, or make repairs to your ship. And, of course, there’s the central search for alien life that keeps the plot moving forward, eventually presenting you with a dilemma that will determine whether or not you ever return home to Earth.
4. Layers of Fear
Price: £14.99 from fave.co/3ELkdlc
Aspyr has been a mainstay of the Mac gaming scene for many years, and is responsible for bringing A-List PC titles such as the Civilization and Call Of Duty series to the Mac. However, Layers Of Fear is Aspyr’s first original game, and was developed in conjunction with Polish developers Bloober Team, who claim to specialise in ‘psychological horror games’.
In many ways, Layers Of Fear is a fairly conventional point-and-click adventure game, in which you take on the role of a painter who wanders around his creepy mansion as he attempts to finish his great masterpiece. And, like many adventure games, Layers Of Fear throws you in at the deep end, with little information about what’s going on, or what you need to do next. That leaves you to wander from room to room, clicking on various objects that act as clues to the story that unfolds around you.
What isn’t so conventional is the nightmarish atmosphere that the game conjures up during your explorations. Doors slam shut behind you, or may even vanish altogether, trapping you in a room or forcing you to keep moving forward. It’s a bit tricky to discuss the plot without giving away too many spoilers, but it soon becomes apparent that there’s something weird going on – either in the mansion itself, or in the mind of the painter.
Layers Of Fear emphasizes atmosphere over action, and may be a bit slow for people who like their horror games to come with hordes of shambling zombies. But if you enjoy the slow unfolding of more psychological horror stories then you’ll find plenty of chills to savour in Layers Of Fear.
5. Life Is Strange
Price: £15.99 from fave.co/3GzWWTN
At first glance, Life Is Strange looks like a fairly conventional adventure game. You play a teenage girl called Max Caulfield who is having a bit of a bad day at school. Max
