My 3rd generation iPad became functionally useless after only 6-7 years even though the hardware was pristine. Almost half of the apps on it, including some major ones like YouTube, started refusing to run because they had a mandatory Update, and the App Store wouldn't provide updates for the newest iOS version that the 3rd gen could support.

Meanwhile my Windows laptop that I bought at the same time is still in service after 12 years. Windows going out of support just means you don't get the security updates; Apple going out of support means they'll brick your machine.

Fuck Apple to infinity.

Some things have survived, like CUPS...but yeah, their track record isn't great.

There have been exclusives for a long time, even before Halo. Mostly console, because Windows hasn’t really faced competition. Macs could never decide on a chipset. First it was Motorola, then PowerPC, then Intel, and now Apple Silicon. It’s a moving target. Apple Silicon may not be forever either. If Apple wants to get into gaming, I can see them working with AMD, but not soon.

It's a popular misconception that Halo was intended to be a Mac exclusive when it was revealed. It was going to be released on Mac and PC.

You may know that, but a lot of people think that it was revealed at Macworld because it was exclusive. But it was just a headliner in a statement of "hey, we can play games too!" In fact the literal game they were running on stage was actually running backstage on a PC.

Can you elaborate on CE SE? Is this different from the 2003 Mac port? As far as I'm aware, the port to Mac had lower resolution textures on top of certain rendering issues, poorer AI behaviour etc.

If I recall right, the only exlusive weapon was the Flamethrower, but they also added the missile Warthog. Might be forgetting some other weapons though, as I never had the Xbox version.

I had some fun when I was younger modding the demo. The only content stripped out of it were the levels, so there were all these custom versions of the Blood Gulch map floating around with Ghosts and Scorpion tanks, etc.

I liked messing with weapon properties. Had my own temu/wish.com "cursed halo at home" long before it was a real thing.

• Sniper rifle fired plasma grenades, and you could do fun stuff like stacking two so the first would throw the second into the air and the trail and explosion made it like a flare.
• Shotgun fired a spread of frag grenades instead of bullets, and pushed you backwards a bit.
• Pistol was more accurate, slightly faster, much less damage, and pushed whoever got hit back a ton. You could easily juggle someone up into the skybox with it. It pushed vehicles too.
• Rocket launcher fired a massive ball of rockets that would lag everything.
• Flamethrower fired rockets instead of flames, with a much higher ammo pool, but no other changes. So rocket sprinkler.
• Fully charged plasma pistol fired a Scorpion Tank shot. I think the non charged ones homed in to a stupid extent.
• Chaingun Warthog fired needler rounds with an increased lifetime.
• Assault rifle worked as area denial, setting an area in an orb shape around you on fire.
• The plasma cannon thing would spawn a Scorpion tank over your head, crushing you.
• I think I turned the needler into a shotgun blast thing, but it still fired needles.
• I think I changed the elites' plasma smg thing to start firing slowly but "rev up" to stupid fast speeds, and then the cooldown hurt your shields?
• There was something that would call down a larger version of the plasma cannon projectile from the sky, with a larger explosion radius and a stupid big/strong pushback effect.
• Vehicle crashes called the same kind of system as a projectile hitting, so you were effectively "shot" with a vehicle impact "bullet" as a rider if you crashed too hard. Congrats that's now a frag grenade explosion. That one was shamelessly stolen from a tutorial.

That's what I remember at least.

It's not they don't properly support opengl, is that they intentionally chose to stop any kind of development on opengl 8 years ago, so devs are forced to choose between using an ancient version of opengl or make a native "metal" build.

Their idea is that once devs spent thousands of hours on their "metal" engine, then they will focus exclusively or primarily on apple devices

yes, but not because Apple did anything to encourage it - so when MS came along with a briefcase full of benjamins it wasn't a tough choice

To be fair they did move to a completely different CPU architecture and ARM is a hit or miss in gaming. Some games are fine, but then there are ones like Minecraft that ran better on my 10 year old Intel than on a top of the line M processor

No, he wasn't making a free version of Crossover, but it did the same thing as Crossover. They both use free software made by WINE. The Whisky dev was not stealing from Crossover. However, Crossover gives some of its proceeds to the WINE community, so the Whisky developer felt that users using Whisky were indirectly cheating the WINE community by getting a free ride. Note that Proton and WINE are free. Crossover is the outlier being paid, but Crossover also gives back.

There are no assholes in this situation whatsoever. Not the Whisky dev for giving us a free alternative and not the Whisky users not paying for Crossover. Not even Crossover since they contribute to WINE. If there are any assholes, it's developers who make games for Switch but not Mac (since they're both ARM64 platforms; obviously not counting first-party Nintendo developers), people who pirated Crossover, and developers not developing at all for ARM64. But that's a stretch and I'm not after any of those people, I'm just saying, if someone has to be an asshole, that's where I'd look, not at Whisky/its dev/its users, and not at Crossover/its dev/its users.

If you're only interested in multiplayer then those are solid options. If you like campaign then you should definitely check out 2, ODST, and Reach.