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Oni

Note: This refers to an older game which will not run on modern Macs.

Oni is a very cool combat game, originally produced by Bungie Software, before they were assimilated by Microsoft! The original version was written using Carbon so it should work under Mac OS X, but there were a few issues which made it hard to play and buggy. Since then Omni has released a full Cocoa version which doesn't suffer from the same problems as the original. The Omni conversion is free, but you still need to buy Oni because you need the CDROM to play.

If you have an older Mac and are running Mac OS 8 or 9, you can still play Oni because it doesn't require a really fast CPU or graphics processor, a 300 MHz G3 and a basic ATI Rage are enough.

Most of the action involves unarmed combat, but there are a few weapons as well (nothing too outrageous). The thing that makes Oni better than other games of a similar type is the fluid, realistic animation of the figures, especially Konoko, the heroine. The scenery and game play is also a level above most similar games. It takes hours to master the huge list of moves possible, using a combination of keys with the left hand, and the mouse with the right, amazing moves are possible!

Its nice that this game is fun to play against the computer but it might be even better if there was a network multi-player option. I guess not though, Bungie are too busy writing software for that abhorrent XBox now!

Title Image. A scene from Oni where Konoko is about to leap down the stairs and deal with those two bad guys below! The dials on either side of the screen indicate your status, the direction to travel, etc.