How to play M.A.D. on Mac

Game summary

M.A.D. (which stands for Missile Attack and Defense) is an arcade action game somewhat similar to Missile Command. You control a photon cannon at the bottom of the screen, and your goal is to protect six energy stations located to your left and right. Waves of rockets and other ships will fly by on the screen, and occasionally one will drop in an attempt to destroy one of the stations (as a warning on most levels, the enemy will turn white just before it drops). You need to make sure you shoot it before your energy station is destroyed! When all six energy stations are gone, the game is over. A two player variation is also included; one player will control the photon cannon, and the second player controls a cursor and can select when and where an enemy will drop. The players alternate between offense and defense in this version.
First released: Dec 1982

Play M.A.D. on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play M.A.D. 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).

M.A.D. 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 M.A.D. like you would on any PC.
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