How to play Arcade Gears: Image Fight & X Multiply on Mac

Game summary

XMultiply (エックスマルチプライ EkkusuMaruchipurai) is a side-scrolling shooter published by Irem, and similar in style to their earlier R-Type. In 1998, the game was released with Image Fight as a one-disc doublebill on PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The game centers around an unusual alien invasion against a colony planet in the year 2249—the aliens themselves are microscopic creatures that invade, infect, and kill the colonists. Scientists have deployed the microscopic fighter X-002 into the body of the hapless woman whose body has been invaded by the alien queen. Image Fight (イメージファイト) is a 1988 vertically scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game developed and published by Irem. The arcade game was also ported for the Nintendo Entertainment System, PC Engine (Japan-only), Sharp X68000 (Japan-only), and FM Towns (Japan-only) in 1990. The player flies a futuristic red ship. R-Type Final identifies this ship as the OF-1 Daedalus, but it is not known if that was the ship's original name. However, the term OF-1 does appear in the NES version's instruction manual, as well as in the official artwork for the sequel, Image Fight II. The game appears to be set inside a holographic simulator, like the holodeck on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the NES version of the game, the first 5 missions are called "Combat Simulation Stages" and the last 3 missions are called "Real Combat Stages". Two separate titles on one very collectable compilation for the shooter fan. X Multiply is similar to Gradius with claustrophobic confines and organic add ons to the ship giving it floaty, stamen like guards. Image Fight is more a chunky R Type tribute with nice multi directional shots and an old school feel. The rarest of the Arcade Gears series.
First released: Apr 1998

Play Arcade Gears: Image Fight & X Multiply on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Arcade Gears: Image Fight & X Multiply on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.

Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.

Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).

Arcade Gears: Image Fight & X Multiply installation steps for Mac

Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Arcade Gears: Image Fight & X Multiply like you would on any PC.
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