October 8, 2011

Tomb Raider on the Macintosh (Part 2)

Welcome to the second installment in our series on running the Tomb Raider games on Mac and Linux systems. Here guest blogger Trevor, webmaster of MacRaider, gives us an overview of the series on Mac so far, announces an updated TR2 soon to be released for Mac OS 10, and links to resources for running the classic games on newer systems. (If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.)

Tomb Raider on the Macintosh? I guess I have to remind myself that there are people that don't know the game exists on the platform, living in the Macintosh world as I do.

In fact Tomb Raider has existed on the Mac for almost as long as it has been on the PC. I say 'almost' because the first TR to be ported to the Mac was TR 2. TR 1 came later.


Tomb Raider Trilogy
for Macintosh
Tomb Raider games have spanned several incarnations of the Mac operating System. TR1 through to The Last Revelation are all playable in OS9. Chronicles and Angel of Darkness are optimised for OS 10. Anniversary is the first TR not to run on Power PC Macs and as such can only be played on Macs with Intel chips.

As stated by Matt in his post, Tomb Raider for Macintosh (Part 1), the only games that aren't available on the Mac are Legend, Underworld and I would include Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

Actually some of the classic Tomb Raiders can be played on a Mac running anything form OS 7.5 (TR1) to OS 10 (Chronicles). As the early TRs wont run (easily) on Intel Macs, I have found the best way to keep playing these games is to keep an old Mac lying around. Fortunately I have a few ;-) one of which I still use to produce MacRaider.

The other alternative for playing Tomb Raider on a Mac is to run Windows and play the PC versions, as Macs have the ability to run both the Mac OS and Windows on the same system. Of course you would miss out on the Mac exclusives like bug fixes, Easter eggs and a generally better Angel of Darkness, but it is an alternative.

There is software emerging that might allow us to play the classic Tomb Raider games on Intel Macs, but at present the results are variable and as such aren't really worth mentioning at this stage IMHO. Aspyr Media has also recently announced plans to re-release Tomb Raider 2 for OS 10.7 (Lion). (Read more at InsideMacGames.com.) When asked about the possibility of the other classic Tomb Raider games receiving the same treatment, an Aspyr spokesperson responded, "We are assessing the re-release of multiple titles from our catalogue to be released in the same manner." Slightly cryptic but encouraging. ;-) Keep checking MacRaider for any new developments.

If you would like to see a more detailed analysis on which Tomb Raider games will run on which Macs head over to MacRaider and check out the Old Tomb Raiders on Newer Macs page.

–Trevor

UPDATE: The updated version of Tomb Raider 2, for Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later, is now available in the Mac App Store.


Macintosh Tomb Raider: Anniversary screenshot courtesy of Switching to Mac.

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for the info: now, the big question for me: What information do folks have on controllers? As up till now I have been primarily a sony player of Tomb Raider, I am not interested in using the keyboard. Are there any recommendations of d-pad type controllers I can use with my MacBook Pro?

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  2. i know this is way off topic, but the pic above looks like she jumped off to hit the ground, lol

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  3. A little off topic, but what controller can I use for TR4 and 5 on my PC? It's computer gaming. So... ;)

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  4. Hi Gary, It depends on what Tomb Raider in what OS etc. If you're playing Anniversary on an Intel Mac your PS3 Sixaxis controller will work. See MacRaider for info: http://www.users.on.net/~macraider/tombraider/tr7a.html#PS3%20Controller
    I can't suggest a controller for any of the other games at this stage, sorry.

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  5. Thanks for the link! I'll look into that further.

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  6. Hi! this is a bit out there, but I've just got a copy of the Mac Tomb Raider Trilogy, which is working great on my old powermac G4, except that TR2 gold refuses to run, and i can't figure out why. all it says is a 'type 2 error occurred'. googling shows me that there was at one point a post in Aspyr's own support pages about the very problem with a fix of some sort, but the page seems long gone from Aspyr's site along with many others of its generation and earlier. I don't suppose anyone has any ideas at all for how i might be able to fix this?
    thanks!

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    1. Hey, Squelch. I'm sorry but I'm afraid I'm totally ignorant on the Mac side. I would suggest visiting MacRaider http://www.users.on.net/~macraider/ to start. They have a section on the classic games. I'm not sure if Trevor, the webmaster, still answers email there but it may be worth a try if your issue isn't covered.

      You might also try asking about this on some of the TR forums. Maybe other players will have useful advice. I'd start with the Square Enix TR 1-6 support forum http://bit.ly/1VmQWm7 and tombraiderforums.com tech support board http://bit.ly/1ZcRxqu since they're probably the most popular.

      Good luck!

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