In 1999 I went to my first MacWorld expo in New York City. This was a special thing not only because I was thrilled to be part of the giant religious fervor of Mac users from all over the globe, but because this was the first time anyone in the world laid eyes on the brainchild of Bungie's Jason Jones (the man who gave the world Marathon and Myth), and it was called Halo. When Steve Jobs introduced Jones and the lights went down, what we saw was the game that would impregnate our imaginations as a collective of Mac users and vindicate us as gamers. Halo was a compelling panorama of sprawling outdoor scenes, impossibly huge landscapes, gorgeously detailed models of soldiers firing weaponry at a strange alien race and, lets not forget, the Halo itself: A breath-taking ring of mystery which turned silently in space.

I remember it well. Jaws dropped. People gasped. A lot of naughty words were uttered in astonishment and stupor. This was Halo; brought to us by the company which was known for stalwartly bringing out Mac games of high quality. The mystical part about it is that we really felt, as Mac users, that it was ours. It was running on a Mac. It was shown first at MacWorld. It was promised to us. It's the kind of thing we really need from time to time, and we fell in love with Bungie again for delivering it.

Then the event which broke the spines of our morale like twigs: Roughly a year later the word went out that Bungie had been bought. This, in itself, was sobering news, but when the world realized that it was Microsoft that had done the buying it completely stopped us in our tracks. Microsoft had not only purchased Bungie but had secured Halo as the flagship game for their upcoming console, the X Box. Those who aren't Mac users probably wouldn't understand what an affront this was for us: It was like the meanest, nastiest, richest kid in school marrying your favorite sister. It was the one company Mac users wanted to have nothing to do with absorbing the one company we prayed would always belong to us and us alone. A whole lot of Mac users wrote off Halo immediately, deciding to sit shiva for the game legends and move on to Starsiege Tribes 2 (which, at the time, we thought was a sure thing. Riiiiiiight).