Power Mac emulation?

Only in Japan, and even then no one seems to have found physical evidence of its existence, only anecdotal.

Fortunately, System 7.5.5 is freely downloadable from Apple's website, so you won't have to hunt down a copy. Mac OS 7.6.1 onward isn't free, though, so you'll have to find some old OS discs.

Also, is there a PC version of the game in question, or is it one of those rare Mac exclusives? (Not that it'll faze me much; I have an old PowerBook G3 for old games like this.)

Pegasus Prime did get released on the Pippin, as confirmed on Presto Studio's archived homepage, but as the systems is pretty much a consolized low-end PowerPc Mac running a stripped down version of the System 7.5.2, the Pippin version should run on any legacy Mac if you ever manage to get your hands on it.

I guess an update is a little overdue:

I found a torrent that included not only the game, but a fully-configured SheepShaver emulator. All you have to do is unzip the 7z'd hard drive images, configure the paths in the GUI, and awaaaaay you go. :3

This said, though...I was a little disappointed. T_T;

First and foremost, Pegasus Prime was clearly developed for consoles first and foremost: unlike the original (and its sequels), Pegasus Prime uses an unwieldy mouse/keyboard combination in lieu of a controller, made extra frustrating by the fact that the inventory screen is operated by the tilde and clear keys: inexplicably, the Windows tilde key is apparently not the same as the Mac one, and the clear key is instead the Num Lock key, which must be pressed twice to register for some ungodly reason. And even not considering this, the other keyboard shortcuts are arbitrary, unintuitive, and mandatory.

As can be guessed from its WIP title "The Journeyman Project Director's Cut", Pegasus Prime is the original The Journeyman Project with a graphical overhaul and several new surprises, some welcome, some not. There's more voicework and live-action FMV, which provides some extra exposition and characterization for Gage Blackwood. The creepier computer voices have been replaced with more natural-sounding ones, for the most part (the Aussie-accented computer at the World Science Center is good for a laugh): in particular, all of the robot Poseidon's lines have been kept identical to the original, though sadly his best line ("What do you think this is, human? A game?" while he's standing next to the loading claw) appears to be missing. Ares' "Out of my way, human, or die!" is also delivered by a different voice that seems to have had its menace surgically extracted.

Arthur, of course, won't be a part of Gage's life until Buried in Time, but you do have an AI partner nonetheless...unfortunately, she's a creepy, pasty-white face faintly evocative of pre-Crisis David Bowie. The bad news is, unlike Arthur, you can't turn her off, so expect her to show up frequently to dispense wholly unnecessary information. She's not even funny.

Both Michelle Vizard and Commissioner Baldwin from the later games are in here as well, and the interesting part is they explain some of the plotholes (or at the very least gaps in logic) from the original game: the TSA is empty save for you because everyone has gone off to watch First Contact happen, and you have to review the TSA's protocols as part 1 of your punishment for your famous fourth late arrival (which is no longer verified and logged by the Voice of Doom, but somehow the line is actually funnier delivered in clipped, matter-of-fact fashion). Baldwin's first appearance is almost unbearably hokey, but he gets somewhat better: Alternate Baldwin is pissed at you for a bevy of other reasons and delivers a credible threat (backed by a pair of security robots, but nevertheless), and his pathetic pleas for you not to fix the timeline (of the variety that could only otherwise end with "I want my father back, you bastard!" followed by stabby vengeance) provide your AI with her single genuinely awesome moment as she summarily shuts him up. In the end, Original Baldwin even provides a bit of comic relief as he figures out Sinclair's plot just after you've thwarted it. :3

Unfortunately, most of the modifications to the game itself amount to that most dreaded of words: padding. In the original, it was possible to complete the three time periods in linear fashion; in fact, it was impossible to complete the game without clearing the three time zones in order, as beating the robots (Ares for Trace and then Mercury for Retinal) was the only way you could get the Biochips necessary for certain sequences. Pegasus Prime happily complicates some of the classic puzzles so that they require items from the other time periods; this is nothing new in the later games, but what makes it frustrating here is that time zones reset after you leave them...and they sport numerous lengthy, unskippable (as far as I could tell, anyway) cutscenes. Progressing through the Mars Colony will involve at least two trips down the mine tunnel (the Oxygen Mask is down there, but the filling station is empty - you have to go to Norad VI for that!). Every visit to the WSC will start out with you having to synthesize that damn antidote. And if you get to the end of Norad VI without the Retinal Scan Biochip, for example, when you come back, you will have to sit through that entire five-minute submarine sequence a second time. (Frustratingly, the addition of the submarine sequence is literally the only addition to Norad VI's geography from the first game - it is indeed padding of the most naked and unabashed sort!)

Not all the additions are bad, though: some are perfectly logical extensions of existing locations and puzzles. The Mars Colony now has a reception room, and the mine is now populated with robots (which will kill you if you dawdle in their presence!). The WSC is arguably the most improved location: instead of a trick maze, you have free run of the laboratory area and auditorium entrance, and the puzzle instead is figuring out where to go and how to get there. (Getting the Gandhi bonus is also slightly more involved: it involves a trip to Norad VI, yes, but it's better than how the original game basically handed you both solutions on a silver platter.) Mercury also now gets Poseidon's sniper sequence, standing at the far end of a corridor and trying to pick you off with his particle rifle. The finale adds in a frustrating sequence where you have to find the right spot to snipe Elliot Sinclair with the stun gun before he snipes the Cyrollan ambassador, but the game makes up for it with a brand-new puzzle. In the original, Sinclair hints that his backup plan is to blow up Caldoria: in Pegasus Prime, he makes good on it, and defusing the bomb involves a devilish little "draw the geometric figure without doubling back over any line" puzzle. Six levels, ten minutes, good times, save before you even think about trying it.

I suppose part of the disappointment stems from the fact that I waited maybe ten years to play what amounted to the original The Journeyman Project with a mixed bag of changes. Three of the original game's best musical pieces are even missing: the Pegasus time travel theme is gone, as is the music from the mine sequence, and the race against Poseidon to disarm the nukes before he launches them is mute apart from the sound effects and voices. (Maddeningly, the first two featured prominently in the Director's Cut trailer that came with Buried in Time!) I think it was well worth the two days I spent trying to download it...but I'm not entirely sure it was worth the decade-long wait.

...Though I'd buy a DS or PSP version of this in a heartbeat. XD