Ares (Antares Windows edition)

Game: Ares (Classic Mac OS, 1998)

An unofficial Windows fork of Antares, the open-source port of Ares by Nathan Lamont (Bigger Planet), with its own changes: a native MSVC build, integer interface scaling, rebindable controls with presets (classic, modern with mouse, and modern with WASD), box selection, right-click orders, control groups with a bar, wheel zoom, XInput and DirectInput gamepads, and an Arena mode with four battles. It removes network play and the demo from the menu. It ships the original art and a 2× and 4× AI-upscaled version (Real-ESRGAN) chosen in the video options. Ares appeared in 1998 and its source code and media were released in 2008: the game’s data is in the repository and the release, under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, and the code under LGPL 3 or later. Version 1.0 (October 21) is a zip of about 142 MB; on first launch it downloads about 12 MB of sound effects. 98 of its last 100 commits list Claude as a co-author.

You needYou don’t need your own copy: the game’s data was released by its author in 2008 under a non-commercial Creative Commons licence and is included. 64-bit Windows 10 or 11, and an internet connection once, on first launch, to download the missing sound effects.

How it gets to PC

Port of the released source code

Console

Classic Mac OS

Original studio

Bigger Planet

Year

1998

Author

Hardpartying4u