Well, maybe Stuntmutt will have to modify one of his new characters in One One Se7en, as it appears that Mac Halo doesn't suffer from the same performance bottlenecks that PC Halo does-- at least not according to Corey Tamas of Macgamer, who rated Mac Halo 99 out of a 100.

Brandon "vector40" Oto has written a tutorial on flying the Banshee called Banshee Handling in our Halo Articles section. Maybe this will help me a bit; frankly, I've been on the side of the argument that says that Banshees are unbalancing Halo multiplayer, but that may be because of lag... or lack of skill. Yeah, definitely lag... or lack of skill.

Several IMG reader reviews, as well as the IMG review itself, have listed as a con that FSAA (full screen anti-aliasing) is broken in Mac Halo. However, a quick turn around the forums at Gearbox that ported Halo from the Xbox to the PC will turn up the fact that Halo does not support FSAA.

Jean-Luc Dinsdale from InsideMacGames has (predictably, if also accurately) gushed about Halo on the Mac, calling it "the most advanced, the best produced, the most amazing first-person shooter to have ever graced [the] Mac". (All you Half-Life fans, make sure you read that last part carefully.The four-page review is quite thorough, but overall they give the game a 9.25 out of ten (what are they using, the Richter scale?) The review also ends with an important note for those who haven't yet gotten over the Microsoft buyout:

According to SketchFactor, there's another edition of Ask The Cananimators up at Bungie.net; I think this is the third installment. It's about bacon again. And hockey.

Halo for the MacOS platform (MacOS X only) has now shipped in North America; news has spread around the Web from MacCentral, Blue's News, Break Point Halo, and, of course, HBO.

MacCentral has two notes on the Mac gaming scene, which will certainly be getting slightly more attention from the gaming press as Halo finally "returns home" to the platform it was originally announced for more than four years ago.First, Duane Johnson, formerly of Westlake Interactive (the company that ported Mac Halo, as well as countless other games) is becoming the fourth programmer to join the newly-formed

Louis Wu at HBO passed on word from RavenEA that this week's MacGamer Giveaway features five copies of Mac Halo; the subject of the contest is creation of an image of the Master Chief on vacation. The five funniest win.

News of the Mac Halo Gold Master spread everywhere over the past few days; it seems the disc went to duplication on the 5th and is expected to hit store shelves on or near the projected target date of December 11; news broke at HBO, Subnova, Bungie.net,

Under the headline "The Circle Is Complete", MacSoft has put up a page on Halo for the Mac, which will be released on December 11. In addition to the official release date, as well as information on the new maps and weapons (same as in PC Halo), the page has the Minimum and Recommended system requirements:

Gholsbane tipped us off at RHL that Michael "Blades" Bagnall of MythDevelopers will appear on The Gamesome Mac, a show on MacRadio.com. It will be broadcast tonight, between 9 and 11 PM Eastern, and will be available on-demand after that.

Listening requires QuickTime 5 or better and a minimum 28.8 Kbps Internet connection.Further details can be found at MythDev.

Louis Wu at HBO, tipped off by Toxicoman and Howie, posted that there are system requirements for Mac Halo listed at the Apple Store. Look on the right hand side, in the "New to the Store" column, or do a search for "Halo". Nevermind that MacSoft's Al Schilling said only yesterday they weren't determined yet. Here's what the Store says:

MacSoft's Al Schilling told IMG that although the hardware specifications for Mac Halo aren't known yet, the boxes are going to be printed very soon.

Shades of Marathon? Hmmm.... Thanks HBO.

SketchFactor posted at Bungie.net about a note sent to him by Destineer. They claim they've had a breakthrough in performance, netting about a week's worth of improvements in a major late-night session. Beta 4, with network play, is supposedly coming soon.