Preview--Halo 3

Yes, we know that Halo 2 has not yet come to the Mac and the original Halo, intended for the Mac by developer Bungie Software, took years to come out on the Mac after Bungie was bought by Microsoft and Halo was diverted to become the signature game for the original Xbox game machine. Halo 2 is the all-time successful game on Microsoft's Xbox and Halo 3 is due out this fall with this story line:

The epic saga continues with Halo 3 in the year 2552, the hugely anticipated third chapter in the highly successful and critically acclaimed Halo franchise. Master Chief returns to finish the fight, bringing the epic conflict between the Covenant, the Flood, and the entire human race to a dramatic, pulse-pounding climax.

GameSpy.com has a hands-on preview of Halo 3 in it current state. According to GameSpy, Halo 3 represents "Unrivalled multiplayer gameplay; all sorts of new tricks and map strategies to learn." Despite this, GameSpy's reviewer and others have bashed Halo 3 as not only not being cutting edge in the visual department but not even being state of the art, looking like "...a very polished version of Halo 2...." Fortunately, several months remain before Halo 3 is due to be released so Bungie can work on the graphics and hopefully make them as cutting edge as the original was in its time. A public beta is due out Wednesday via Xbox LIVE (see this Web page).

The original Halo for the Mac, now a Universal Application, remains one of our favorite first-person shooters and still requires serious graphics iron to play well. We hope that we will see Halo 2 (released 5/8/07 for Windows Vista) and Halo 3 on the Mac in the near future. In the mean time, all we can do short of buying an Xbox 360 is read the reviews. Here is GameSpy's preview. [Bill Fox]