Pangea Software — makers of Bugdom, Nanosaur, Enigmo and many other Mac games — on Friday released Pangea Arcade, a collection of three games inspired by classic arcade coin-op games. A playable demo is available for download; unlocking the full game costs $19.95.
Pangea Arcade comprises Nucleus, Warheads and Firefall. While they may be based on classic themes, the games feature sound effects, particle effects and physics that mark them as quite modern interpretations. What’s more, Pangea has included its trademark stereoscopic 3D graphics support into these titles — eschewing expensive LCD shutter glasses or other high-end optical hardware, stereoscopic support in Pangea Arcade relies on red/cyan anaglyph glasses (like the kind you find in 3D comic books).
Nucleus, superficially similar to an Asteroids-style shooter, has you collecting electrons and attaching them to interstellar nuclei in order to build atoms. Along the way you have to navigate through fields of space debris, comet fields, black holes and other pitfalls.
Warheads is a modern-day interpretation of the classic game Missile Command, in which you protect your nuclear reactors and power stations from bombardment from incoming missiles. But unlike the original, you’ll have to adjust quickly as you move from installation to installation to protect your territory from oncoming waves of missiles.
Finally, Firefall is a more abstract game that pits you against an advancing army of worms that descend from the top of the screen — you have to blast through barriers and avoid other nasties in order to defeat them. Evoking the gameplay of the classic title Centipede, this is actually a followup to one of Pangea’s first commercial releases — the original Firefall was produced in 1993.
A Universal binary that runs natively on PowerPC and Intel-based Macs, Pangea Arcade requires a G4/1GHz or faster, Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later, 512MB RAM and 64MB VRAM.