Big Metal Box
Feral Interactive
Price: $60 (includes shipping from UK)
Pros: Separate discs, complete manuals, dated but best in class games offer something for everyone.
Cons: No DVD case art, no OS X native Oni installer.
by Gerrit Dalman
It can be hard to find entertaining time wasters, but Feral Interactive makes it easy with their Big Metal Box. The Box is a collection of four older titles that are still worth playing despite dated graphics.
The box's over-sized DVD-style case - which is strangely undecorated - contains separate discs and complete manuals for each game. An extra "Make Your Play" DVD contains the latest patches, trailers, demos, and documentation for all Feral games and a nice interactive magazine to show them off.
Black & White
Have you ever wanted to play a god? The critically acclaimed Black & White answers the prayers of a simple people by endowing the player with the powers of a deity. Using an ethereal hand and a fanciful animal avatar, you manipulate your worshipers and your world in an effort to increase your power and expand your influence.
It is a humorous, novel, and fairly open-ended mix of real-time strategy, puzzle, and world-sim. The literal "hand of god" control metaphor makes most actions intuitive, though it contrasts with the few clunky menus. As a nice plus, the tutorial has been made Mac-friendly by depicting an Apple one-button mouse, though two-button tips are still used during play.
With other gods to compete with, creatures to raise and train, a world to subordinate, lots of creative extras, and online competition on GameRanger to test your might, this game has a lot of play time in it for those who enjoy it. I'd say fans of the Sims series or digital pets will be particularly fond of Black & White. If it sounds like a game for you, the only question is whether your rule will be guided by good or evil!
Oni
(demo available)Oni was Bungie's last project before churning out the Halo franchise for Microsoft, but it is a stand-out action game in it's own right. As rookie agent, Konoko, you fall into the middle of a government conspiracy that, when unraveled, could change the world and unlock the secrets to what makes you... "Special."
With an anime aesthetic, Oni offers a masterful combination of stealth action, hand-to-hand combat, and third-person shooter action. It's sort of like a Japanese-punk blend of Mortal Kombat and Splinter Cell. Like Halo, action falls into an addictive tempo - shooting, running, and then closing for fantastic melee combos to finish even the toughest opponents.
Even without multiplayer modes, Oni is immensely replayable too. A great plot, two possible endings, exotic characters, and codes that alter the game make it worth revisiting time and again. Just remember to skip the installer and just copy the game folder if you don't have Classic.
Max Payne
Soon to be a major motion picture, Max Payne, is a third-person shooter that garnered fame for a gritty visual style and Matrix-inspired play and cut-scenes. It follows ex-cop Max Payne's tortured descent through New York's criminal underground and the bowels of government and corporate corruption to avenge the deaths of his wife and infant daughter. It's a dark game for an adult audience.
The interface is simple and there are no puzzles, you just have to run, slow down time, and shoot everyone as you fly through the air. The "bullet time" effects are used to dodge bullets, show explosive action, and dramatize particular enemy deaths.
The bullet-spewing action is punctuated with stylish but well-integrated plot tools. As you slaughter a significant percentage of the city's lowlifes the story unfolds through comic book panes with convincing voice-overs. The dialog spills over into the game at times providing continuity as well as hints along the way like a Bogart detective movie.
F1 Championship - Season 2000
(demo available)Finally, the Box offers a fix for racing fans. F1 Championship shows more polish and modern features than other early drivers for OS X. With great HID support, including force feedback. The game benefits greatly from a steering wheel, a gamepad, or even a joy stick - anything other than a keyboard will help!
The game is very scalable. With default settings and a third-person perspective it plays like an arcade-style racing game, but with the assists turned off and damage on, it is a challenging and highly technical racing simulation. The graphics and gameplay still stand up too, particularly because of immense detail in the real-world courses, characters, and cars. To quote EA's recent slogan, if it's in the game, "it's in the game."
Conclusion
The Big Metal Box is priced like most new games and every title is great in it's own right, so it's clearly a good value. While it's about time for the price to come down, the age can actually be a plus since the top-quality gameplay is accessible on any recent systems. If even one of these games is up your alley, the package is worth it. My personal favorite, Oni, will probably never leave my hard-drive again.
System Requirements:
* Mac OS 9.1 or X 10.1.3 or later
* 400MHz
* 128MB RAM
* 2 GB of disk space
* 16MB or better video card
* DVD drive (for Black & White and extras)