A dear friend of mine and I recently discussed ways to reduce stress. I've told her many times that playing games is a wonderful stress-reliever. Bad day at the office? Go after a few Supermutants. Argument with your spouse? Knock out a few guards and break into a Bank.

She finally agreed that she would try it. I could easily come up with a list of games she would love (she is heavily into Science Fiction and Fantasy, as am I) and so I would steer her in the direction of Dragon Age, Morrowind, Oblivion, Dishonoured, and other games of that ilk.

The catch is, she has a Mac. She needs games that will run on Mac (not anything that has to have a Windows platform installed on her Mac. She tried that once and it didn't work).

So, far. I've come up with: Star Wars Kotor, Witcher Enhanced. BG2, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Divine Divinity and Torchlight. However, I'm guessing that 3-D rather than top-down would be better because they are more immersive.

Also, my friend is not likely to be able to handle difficult controls. The simpler the better.

Anyone have any other suggestions from Steam or GOG?

You've already mentioned most of the ones I would recommend. Planescape: Torment and Wizardry 8 also have Mac versions, but I sure wouldn't throw a newbie into Wizardry 8 (unless you used cheats).

You know, I just loaded up Witcher, and I think even the tutorial on would be too much for a complete noob. Of course, I was playing it on the difficult setting, but even so....

KOTOR would be okay, but I wasn't able to load it up in full screen mode on this laptop, so who knows what it would be like on a Mac?

I really wish there were better games available on Mac.

Of course, I could just gift her the Steam version of Witcher, tell her to try it on Easy, and then if she has problems she could come here for help from he nice Boomies. I think that's what I'll do.

Quest for Glory 1,2,3 (need to be extracted, but can then be played in ScummVM on a Mac). I don't know why GOG doesn't preconfigure the Quest for Glory installers for Mac. Maybe they are waiting for ScummVM to support Quest for Glory 4 or something.

Quest for Infamy - You do have to pick your fights, and know when to run away. It's as much as an adventure as an RPG though.

If she wants simple controls, wouldn't an adventure game (where there are no stats to keep track of) be better? Or is she looking for combat? If she wants to go around beating things up, maybe using god mode with what's generally considered to be a more difficult game (without the god mode) might work. If she wants to do this, make sure the Mac version has the cheat. Sometimes only the PC version has the cheat.


Don't have her invest in too many first person 3D games before you find out whether she'll get motion sickness from them.


I agree.
I never got past the tutorial.
But then it had been some time since I'd played any action-type games.

Yes, even on Easy Witcher is far too complicated.

I would suggest BG, but the graphics are terribly dated, as are all of the original RPG games I love. She was interested in games that look like Fallout 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition.

I would get her a copy of Dragon Age 2 but Origin does not have a Gift function on their site (which seems really short-sighted).

I'm at a loss. There has to be something to get started on. Has anyone played Mount and Blade? Is it difficult to get going?

EDIT: Okay, then, forget 3_d worlds. What about Divine Divinity? Would that be a good intro RPG? Just to get used to what to expect?

I hesitate to recommend the Original BG because, frankly, it's a bit slow. But perhaps BG 2 might work.

I've never played it, but I've heard many recommendations for Fable as a beginner RPG.

Never heard of it either. I wonder if it was ever made for Mac.

I tried the opening sequence for Deus Ex Human Revolution, and it is a possibility, especially as it's sci-fi.

The other one that I keep mulling over is Dragon Age 2. It's the least good of the three in the series, but it is available for Mac. And it's a decent enough game. EDIT: And it's not very hard, either.

How about one of the Tomb Raider games? You can play in easy setting.

I expect you've already found THIS site hagatha ??

But scrolling down a way, it looks like there could be some to choose from there ??

I'm going to go "off the reservation" a bit here. I know you are talking about RPGs. But if she likes SyFi, you might consider the newly released game SOMA. It's not an RPG and you don't hack up enemies, but there are monsters to evade and an incredible story. It is controlled with the WSAD keys and the mouse. Controls couldn't be any easier. This is a game which I absolutely hated to have end - that's how much I enjoyed it. flotsam's review is a good place to start...

http://www.gameboomers.com/reviews/Ss/SOMA/SOMA.htm

It is available for the Mac - this is the GOG page for the game.

https://www.gog.com/game/soma

So here was what I came up with.

I gave her an overview of the difference between RPG, Action and Adventure.

I suggested she start with an adventure game, and recommended SOMA, which looks pretty good, though she may not like the horror elements. Anyway, I directed her to GOG.com to browse at her leisure so if the horror is not to her liking she can find something else.

My recommendations for first-time RPG's were Dragon Age II and Star Wars KOTOR. Both are pretty newbie-friendly when played on Easy.

Much as I love the old Bioware games, they are dated and would be disappointing as a point of entry for a new gamer who was seduced by my showing her Fallout 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition.

My main concern is whether her video card is powerful enough to play games like SOMA. The card on my 4-year-old computer is very marginal for a game like that. It barely meets the requirement and would probably need many graphics options turned down to be playable at all (without sticky cursor). Of all our reviewers, flotsam is the only one with a computer that is clearly capable of playing SOMA.

If she's not already a gamer, she may not have a graphics card that is capable of playing some of these games.

Good point, Jenny.

Yes, a very good one.

The Banner Saga 1 is currently available on Steam for 4.99 and works on Mac. The graphics are closer to a flash style game so most cards should handle it. The gameplay is turn based, so it's play at your own pace. The rule engine is nowhere near as complex as an older D&D game, so fairly easy to pick-up. The story is interesting, although some of the dialogue is a little simplistic

Her Mac is a new machine bought for her birthday by her hubby, who would never dare buy her anything less than top of the line () , so it should be fine.

You might want to have her check anyway - Apple is not known for putting higher end video cards in their machines. A lot of them - just like Windows computers - use the graphics integrated into the Intel CPU chips. And even the ones that do have stand-alone video cards use ones geared to run their Retina displays which is not necessarily a good video card for gaming. I was helping a friend look for a new Mac a couple of weeks ago to replace her aging Mac laptop. Only the 15" Macbook Pro and the 27" iMac had available video cards that would work for gaming. All the rest have integrated graphics.

True -- she doesn't know to look for specs.