Games

Virtual Grand Prix 2 with HD textures

One of the most notable games available for MorphOS is definitively Virtual Grand Prix 2, published by Alassoft. It is a very realistic Formula 1 simulation (probably one of the most realistic for any platform), with nice 3D accelerated graphics, and the mandatory support for analog input devices, that in MorphOS is available thanks to the Poseidon USB stack and the new lowlevel.library. The MorphOS version has been released shortly after the Mac and Windows ones, due to the Amiga roots of the main programmer Paolo Cattani. Notably, the MorphOS version is completely free. The game includes most of the true circuits, very nicely realised, and highly recognizable. Those not included can be found as additional packages created by users on the net. The game is quite fast and playable also on low end machines, including the 400MHz Efika with just 128MB of RAM. Moreover, the game was conceived with the maximum freedom to customize the graphics and this led to the creation of higher quality textures and more detailed circuits that can be used in the MorphOS version as well. As a consequence this game is at the same time enjoyable on the lowest end machines and yet can be one of the most graphically advanced available on MorphOS.

Wipeout 2097 running in a window

Other commercial games available for MorphOS include all those released for classic Amiga computers with PowerPC CPUs. These include the Wipeout 2097 port released by Digital Images and the Heretic 2 port released by Hyperion Entertainment. The former was a very nice version of the famous game, that took the best from the PlayStation version (the most playable one) and the Windows version (the higher resolution graphics, for instance), making the Amiga conversion the best incarnation of them all. Wipeout 2097 is a WarpUp executable, using the Amiga Warp3D software for graphic acceleration, but, as usual, MorphOS users have little to worry about, since the OS includes Goa3D, a wrapper for the Amiga's Warp3D. Wipeout 2097 runs transparently, both in full screen and in a window on the desktop, supports graphics and audio boards not supported by the classic Amigas, and can be played using USB controllers. It is of course faster than it ever was on any classic Amiga.

Quake III on Ambient

Many open source games have been ported to MorphOS, including several commercial games whose sources have been released, like id Software masterpieces Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake II and Quake III. The Quake series supports 3D acceleration, and in particular in the case of the old first Quake episode, even the better looking versions Fodquake, Fuhquake, GLQuake and BlitzQuake have been ported. All the games run quite fast in high resolutions thanks to the 3D acceleration.

Speaking of first person shooters, also Cube, AlephOne and the freeware game Warsow have been released. Warsow is probably graphically the most complex project ever ported to MorphOS (even though it is based on the old Quake II engine), and in fact might not run at a decent speed on a G3 CPU with Voodoo graphics. But it is also one mean to show that better hardware does not sit unused with MorphOS.

Icculus' Freespace 2

HomeWorld port

Other open source projects ported include the icculus.org games Freespace 1 and 2 (that of course need the original versions to be fully operational), and games like NeverBall/NeverPutt and the 3D pool game FooBillard. Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe, the open source reimplementation of Microprose's Transport Tycoon Deluxe, is available, too. The MorphOS version (that, as well as all the other versions, needs the original game files to run) is synchronised with the official releases. This means that it is available directly from the project home page, since MorphOS support was inserted into the main source tree. Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe makes use of the PowerSDL.library to run. This library (whose special features are described in the section dedicated to MorphOS key applications) facilitated already the porting of dozens of free and open source SDL games to MorphOS. A recent addition to this list of ports is the space real strategy game called HomeWorld, that is probably the first game requiring at least MorphOS 2.1. Also in this case the user needs the original PC version to be able to play this game on his MorphOS system. Other open source real time strategy games are available, notably Warzone 2100, while fans of turn based strategic games have the chance to get some hours of fun with the famous Battle for Wesnoth.

Robin Hood

In the past at least one commercial software house had been releasing specific ports for MorphOS, and that is RuneSoft (formerly known as Epic Interactive). They released Knights and Merchants and Robin Hood. Knights and Merchants is a strategic game in the fashion of The Settlers, just with much better graphics than the first release of that famous saga which started on the Amiga in 1993. Robin Hood, on the other hand, is a strategic arcade game in Commandos style, originally released on PC by Spellbound. The graphics and audio are probably the best ever seen on MorphOS in a 2D game, and, even if a bit demanding, were carefully optimised to run smoothly even on a G3 Pegasos. RuneSoft had more games in the pipeline, and hopefully they will resume their support to MorphOS if they find again some viability in this market thanks to the broader hardware availability brought by the support of PPC Macintoshes. They always release demo versions of their conversions: therefore users can test the game, before voting with their wallets for more support.

Sam & Max Hit the Road on MorphOS, courtesy of ScummVM

Of course, on MorphOS the user can entertain himself not just with more or less native executables: there are also many emulators and virtual machines. One of the best known is ScummVM, the free reimplementation of the engine behind most Lucas Arts/Lucas Games adventures. The newest versions are also compatible with some games from other vendors (just like Beneath a Steel Sky or Broken Sword from Revolution) and luckily available for MorphOS, too. The nice thing about this is the possibility to run some of these adventures that were never published in an Amiga-like environment (Lucas Arts left the Amiga scene after Indiana Jones 4). The engine works flawlessly and nicely, and these games, with their retro appearance, are always fun to play.

The arcade emulator MAME

PlayStation emulator FPSE

The category of the "real" emulators includes Genesis Plus and SMS Plus for the Sega consoles, SNES 9x for the Super Nintendo (or Super Famicom) console, VICE for the VIC series of Commodore home computers, MAME for the arcade machines... All of these are quite good at their work and are not just fast ports, since, for instance, they all support overlay (in order to enable transparent real time resizing of the window) and USB joypads. A nice addition is FPSE, the PlayStation emulator that supports even 3D graphic acceleration, enabling the possiblity to play games at video resolutions higher than the original.