Junkyard wrote us that they've got another new spotlight feature up, this one on Battleground: Halo's own TankRamp.

The spotlights section at The Junkyard has two new entries: Barak from HaloPlayers and Dinky from HaloJuggalo. Thanks Mhaddy.

Scimitarex also gets props for pointing out a Halo Guide at GameSpot (free registration appears to be required). I'm not sure if this is an entirely new Guide, or if they had one for the Xbox version, but this one mentions new weapons like the flamethrower, so it's clearly geared for PC Halo players. It also includes a walkthrough that covers all the solo play levels.

Drawing on data from Bungie's own PC Halo FAQ, Shishka's Pre-Release PC Halo FAQ, and the recent inter views with Destineer Studios' Peter Tamte and Westlake Interactive's Phil Sulak, we've put together a Mac Halo FAQ. If there are any other questions about Mac Halo you'd like to see answered, go ahead and add a comment to the FAQ; if we can find the answer, we'll incorporate it.

[image:4209 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]OK, first, you'll have to get Canadian citizenship. That's the easy part. Then, you'll have to learn to be an animator. That's quite a bit harder, and to help, we suggest reading John "anim8rjb" Butkus' excellent article at Bungie.net entitled Becoming A Game Animator.

At the risk of enraging parents everywhere, I'll quote this little tidbit:

Contrary to popular belief, college training in art is not necessary if you want to be a successful animator. It most definitely helps hone your skills as an artist, but it is not an essential tool. The level of talent and understanding of the craft you display on your demo reel is what studios will look at first, your resume and experience come second. I have seen some absolutely amazing artists who are completely self-taught and have never attended an art college. What an animation school will do is place you in what is essentially a mini-studio setting, complete with the same group setting, high expectations, and tight deadlines of a working studio. You will also have 3-4 years to completely devote to practicing your craft, and this can give you a definite edge when studios are looking to hire.

Hopefully my parents aren't reading the page today, and therefore won't feel they wasted their money on my sister's art degree. Thanks to SketchFactor at Bungie.net who posted the news about this item.

Michael Evans at Bungie has written up the second in Bungie's series about breaking into the game industry at Bungie.net. It's titled So You Want To Be A Programmer, and has a lot of helpful information:

Some colleges offer specific course tracks in computer games, sometimes described as interactive entertainment or new media. I am highly skeptical about those. I would recommend going to the best traditional school you can get into and afford.

If you want to be a game programmer you should major in computer science. Having a solid math background is quite valuable as well, especially some linear algebra (which might well be required for a graphics course anyway). On the computer science side I would recommend a traditional mix - certainly including algorithms and computer graphics. Even if you are not interested in that kind of programming work, a basic understanding of computer graphics will prove valuable. If you like it, I encourage you to take as much as you can.

That and a single page resume ought to do it.

MacGamer has put up an article by Corey Tamas on Myth: The Fallen Lords. The gist of it is that he never really understood the appeal of the game until he took a second look at it recently, and now he's a real fan:

I don't know what it was or why it was that this last kick at the can was the one that hooked me, but hook me it did. In one night I plowed through about 75% of the single player missions and finished the remaining 25% the next morning. The piece that I had been missing, I believe, was the understanding of tactical positioning. The point is rarely to throw more units at a problem (especially considering that you can't just have more units on a whim). Instead, the point is to learn how to position them to support each other and flank the enemy. Other games profess to be heavy tactics-oriented games that challenge the player to think strategically on the spot, but few bring those skills to bear the way that Myth: TFL does.

Better late than never. Gholsbane posted about the article at MBO.

GameSpy is running a four part article on Mac gaming and porting (one, two, three and four to come), starting with the roots of the Mac community in earlier Apple hardware, like the Apple IIe and vintage games like Wizardry (ah, the memories) through ports of Windows games like Doom, Mac originals like Myst, and up to the current process of porting games from OS 7/8/9.x to the very different underpinnings of OS X.

Halo gets a mention, even though it isn't yet out for the Mac:

Speaking of Halo, during that excruciating wait for DOOM, a small company in Chicago had plans of their own, plans that would include World Domination. But more on that later.

The later in this case comes in History Lesson Six of part 2, which is devoted to Bungie and mentions Pathways Into Darkness as well as the Marathon and Myth franchises.

Part 3 will focus on shareware, and Part 4 on porting houses. Halo may get another mention there if they mention Westlake Interactive, which they surely will.

Vector40 also posted links to a three-part article entitled Playing To Win at Sirlin.net, a site focused on game design and game theory (part zero, part one, part two).

Part two focuses, interestingly enough, on Survivor, which I've never seen, but might watch in syndication after reading this article. It was at least interesting enough for us to add Sirlin.net to our link page.