Fast forward a couple of years. Microsoft swallowed up Bungie while outraged Mac enthusiasts wailed and tore their garments in agonized rage. All development was switched to the new "Xbox" system that MS had in the works, and by 2003, Halo had turned into quite possibly the best investment MS could have made for their big black behemoth. It's easily the number one selling title on the system, and the only exclusive AAA game that Xbox owners could claim as their own. Up until now, that is. After many delays, numerous charges of console favoritism, and the usual half-baked fanboy conspiracy theories, Halo has finally been released for PC, thanks to Gearbox Software and Microsoft Game Studios. How does it compare to its Xbox cousin? Did MS supply Gearbox with moneyhats to ensure that the superior version would be the Xbox one? Will wearing this tinfoil hat keep Ed Fries from knowing my credit card number? Answers to these and other shady questions lie ahead.

The Halo story, without spoiling it for the five people who've been living in the mountains of northern British Columbia since 1998, involves a planetary ring, a battle with aliens for control of a secret technology, and lots and lots and lots of shooting things that don't look like you. It's a hell of a ride, with a storyline that twists and turns while keeping the Master Chief squarely in the center of things. As a member of the human forces, genetically and bionically engineered as the ultimate fighting machine, you definitely feel like you're part of a greater whole, thanks to Bungie's unerring sense of the dramatic. Fellow grunts yell with pain, talk to each other, flank enemies and work together, all independent of your actions. That said, that feeling of heroism so important to gaming is tweaked perfectly, since you can turn the tide of battle with your weapons and skill. With the ability to carry only two weapons at any particular time, judging which gun will work best in certain situations is a skill that you will need to hone quickly if you wish to survive in Halo - and all of the weapons are very well balanced indeed. Rocket launchers are powerful, but slow to aim, while the Aliens-style machine gun will do a lot of damage in close, but is less effective at farther range.

All is not well towards the end of the game, unfortunately. Without spoiling the story, you will be trudging back and forth through the same dreary, dark corridors, backtracking through rooms that look like the room you just left. It becomes no longer an issue of wanting to see what's around the next corner out of anticipation, but wanting to see what's around the next corner in the hopes that the damn game will be over with. There are other titles that are guilty of this - Max Payne 2, I'm looking at you - but at least Rockstar's crime drama shooter had varied textures and environments for you to back track through, while Halo's latter levels are outright boring to the eyes and the mind. Was this due to Halo needing to be a launch title on Xbox, requiring that the level design be cropped towards the end? Only the guy on the grassy knoll with the sniper rifle knows for sure, but with the extended development time on the PC version, there's no technical reason why these level design shortcomings couldn't have been ironed out. That is, if you thought it wouldn't piss off Xbox owners who'd want those new levels for themselves. Ah, the politics of gaming development - a new thrill with every bite.

With a newer graphics card in your system, Halo is indeed the shizzle bizzle. Grenades leave pockmarks in the ground, the sun gleams outside, alien crafts look suitable...alien, and everything just feels solid. Running off an ATI 9800 Pro or any other DirectX 9 card will give you results that are pretty close to what you'd see on your Xbox, only with sharper resolutions. If you're stuck with a lower end ATI Radeon card, or a GeForce 4, your gaming experience will be iffy, at best. Framerate problems plague the game, even at the lowest resolutions. Considering that there are numerous shooters available now that look comparable to Halo's graphics while still supporting older cards, the results here don't measure up.

Multiplayer action is choppy to decent, with full LAN-TCP/IP support for up to 16 players. In comparison to games like Electronic Arts' Battlefield 1942, however, Halo doesn't impart the same sense of all-out mayhem, and that's a shame. There are numerous maps included with the game, however, including six which weren't on the Xbox version. No multiplayer cooperative mode with the single player storyline, however, which is a step down from the Xbox version. Hmm.

So, how does Halo stack up after all this time? Worth the wait? If you're a diehard PC owner who swore s/he would hold out for "the best version", I'd recommend a purchase - along with some powerfully strong coffee to keep you awake during the latter cookie-cutter levels. The control with mouse and keyboard is far superior to the clunky Xbox controller, and Gearbox is already rolling out patches to deal with the framerate issues. As an experience, Halo is something to behold - on the right system, you can pull this game out and slap around your Xbox-owning friends with higher resolutions and better controls. As a game, however, it starts strong and fizzles like a wet firework towards the end. Maybe Halo 2 will get the job done on PC...around 2009...