[canaryman16]

I've been thinking about buying Halo for Mac and now have a system powerful enough to run it- is it the best fps on the Mac at the moment?
Thanks for the help!

[griffman]

Depends on what you like. There are lots of good FPS for the Mac -- I loved Halo, still like Quake3, all the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty World War II games, Unreal Tournament 2004.
As I said, it depends on what you like. I believe there are demos for some or all of these; invest the time to download and test them, then buy the one you like the best...
-rob.

[Peter Cohen]

Halo and UT 2004, are, in my opinion, the two best overall First Person Shooters you'll find on the Mac right now.
Halo easily wins over just about anything else for the depth of its single-player storyline. It's also got beautiful graphics.
Unreal Tournament 2004 is the better online experience, if you're looking for arena-based combat against other players, and offers many of the same features you'll find in Halo, like the ability to operate vehicles. Only everything in UT 2K4 has the volume turned up to 11, to borrow a phrase from Nigel Tufnel.
Call of Duty and Medal of Honor are great if you're into World War II shooters; Call of Duty has better graphics. Battlefield 1942 is another viable World War II-era shooter, if you're looking for something that's a great multiplayer game.

[nerd_co21]

yes. i bought halo, and i am very pleased with it. i would recommend it. it is highly ranked in my book.

[digidan]

Glad you like Halo!
Anyhoo, the Editors are correct, it all depends on preferences.
I'm a Halo and BF1942 nut, and play some Quake 3. I don't have Unreal 2004, and I don't have a machine that is capable of playing Call of Duty.
As far as the various games go, Halo's got a fantastic single player, but mutiplayer often suffers from too many "newbies," "kill joys" and other inexperienced players - and a lack of good team play - it's hard to communicate w/others in-game. It's great for "quick action", however, and the Race, Free-for-all slayer and CTF modes are pretty good! The clan-hosted servers and clan players are generally pretty good, and many have rules (and moderators) in place that make the game more balanced. I'll point out that it's probably best to learn the ropes on single player first, as competing in mulitplayer is much more difficult if you're inexperienced. If you play multi, then play single later, play on one of the harder modes - I beat Normal difficulty in one night after a year of multiplayer games.
Battlefield 1942 is a much better multiplayer game if you are looking for strategy-based team games. Unlike Halo, it's almost impossible to win a battle without at least some teamwork, and many of the players are very good - particularly on clan servers. The downside is that it's not exactly suitable for fast, high-action games, due to the large maps and teamplay nature. It's a good way to suck down an hour or two! It's single player mode is ok, but it's more or less a multiplayer game vs the AI. That is, it's a sequence of battles using the multiplayer maps, and the AI as an opponent. After playing a lot of mulitplayer, I breezed through the single in under 4 hours.
Quake 3 is another action-orientated game, and while there is a mulitplayer team mode (Q3 Arena), it's designed as a free-for-all. Unlike Halo and BF1942, there are hundreds of user-created mod maps for Quake 3, from small indoor maps to gigantic outdoor "rocket jump" maps. I like Q3, but the fast arcade-like feel just isn't my favorite way to play, and I have a heck of a time using the weapons well - I can't "rocket jump" at all, for example.
While I realize that canaryman is happy with Halo, I'll post my two cents in case anyone else is looking at the thread.
-Dan

[fpoon]

Mr. Cohen or anyone else - where is a good place to buy Mac games? I'd really like to get my hands on UT 2003, I used to have that game on my PC and I loved it. I've got the demo for Mac, but can't find the complete game. UT 2004 is awesome, but it runs SLOW on my 1 ghz powerbook with only a 64 Mb GeForce 4 card.
How about Halo as well? Or Jedi Knight 2?
With a Halo 2 port to Vista close, can we be far behind?

[Peter Cohen]

Quote:

---

Mr. Cohen or anyone else - where is a good place to buy Mac games?

---

Macgamestore.com carries many recent releases. Amazon.com also stocks a lot of stuff. You can find Mac games at the Apple store -- both brick and mortar retail stores and their online store -- and at Comp USA as well.

Quote:

---

With a Halo 2 port to Vista close, can we be far behind?

---

Yes, precisely because Halo 2 is close to being released on Vista.