Product Reviews

Five years after it was first demonstrated on a Mac, Halo has been released for the platform. Not surprisingly, Halo is no longer as revolutionary as it seemed back then. What is surprising, though, is that Halo is still a cracking game. It may now seem like a fairly conventional first-person shooter, but the years of development have allowed the game's developers to hone Halo into a top-notch example of the genre.

The 'halo' of the title refers to the artificial ring-world on which the main action takes place, and which provides some spectacular settings for the various missions you have to undertake.

Shooting gallery

Halo includes both an online multiplayer mode, and a single-player campaign that provides about 15 to 20 hours' worth of shoot-'em-up action against the Covenant bad guys. The missions and level design in the single-player game are fun, but are all fairly straightforward. Recent releases such as Unreal Tournament 2003 probably have the edge in terms of sophisticated graphics and landscape design.

Nevertheless, Halo is still great fun to play, thanks to the intelligence of the computer-controlled opponents and the varied styles of gameplay. As usual, there are all sorts of weapons for you to collect and use against your enemies, such as plasma grenades, a flame-thrower, and rocket launcher. However, Halo's real ace in the hole is the ability to control a range of vehicles. This is something that was promised in the original demo, and which few other games have managed to pull off successfully in the intervening years.

The human forces in the game can zip around in the high-speed Warthog jeep, or use lumbering tanks to attack larger targets. You can also

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hijack enemy vehicles such as the Banshee, a flying attack ship armed with high-power weapons.

The vehicles can be a bit tricky to control at first but they're great fun once you get the hang of it, especially in the multiplayer game. Watching teams of human players careering around the screen is some of the best multiplayer fun we've had for ages. You don't even have to be a very good shot, as you can simply ram into your opponents and watch them go flying. Some vehicles can carry both a driver and a gunner, so you can specialise in driving or shooting according to your taste.

So Halo is still well worth playing, despite all the years we've had to wait for it to reach the Mac. There are some problems, though. The game's system requirements are fairly high, needing at least an 800MHz processor, 256Mb of RAM and a graphics card with a minimum of 32Mb of video memory. However, some people have reported poor performance even on new G5 systems that should cope with the game quite easily.

Set your sights

The problem seems to lie in the various graphics settings. Some options, such as 'full-screen anti-aliasing' simply don't work properly on the Mac right now, due to problems with the graphics drivers built into Mac OS X. Other options, such as pixel and vertex shaders, do work but can have a horrible effect on your Mac's performance if you haven't got the right graphics card. You need to pay close attention to the game's Readme file to figure out how to choose the right settings.

Another problem is the rather inflexible control system. The Mac version of Halo doesn't allow you to use a gamepad or joystick, so you're forced to use the keyboard-and-mouse combination. That's fine if you're an experienced gamer, but not everyone is comfortable with that setup. You don't have much freedom to customise the keyboard settings, either, so some people may have a hard time getting used to the controls.

The high system requirements and limited control options may deter some people, but if you're an experienced gamer with a powerful Mac, then - with the possible exception of Unreal Tournament or Medal of Honour - Halo is the best first-person shooter on the Mac.

Needs: PowerPC 800MHz, Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later, 256Mb RAM, graphics card with 32Mb video RAM