Now that last week's Macworld Expo is only a quickly fading memory, we can look back on it and reflect on the high points-- the stuff that really stuck with us. The only tricky bit is trying to isolate that single product, experience, or entity that constituted the absolute pinnacle of the show. Think it's an obvious choice? Stick around; you may be surprised. Sure, there was the iBook-- it's neat-looking and, judging by the crowd reaction, it's going to sell like crazy. But it wasn't the thing that absolutely knocked our socks off. No, that honor has to go to Bungie Software, those Chicago-based purveyors of insanely great games who are arguably responsible for more lost hours of productivity than all other Mac game makers combined. (We're just making that up, but it sounds good, doesn't it?)

See, Bungie wins by having shown two, count 'em, two incredibly cool works-in-progress at the show. First, there's Oni, the anime-inspired 3D action romp due out later this year. Bungie had a few Macs running a pre-release build of Oni so action-starved showgoers could get a little taste of networked mayhem. We gave it a whirl, and what can we say? We were hooked from the get-go. The lead character, Konoko, is what you'd get if you took Lara Croft, gave her actual human proportions, outfitted her in something a little more suitable for urban carnage, and taught her to fight like Bruce Lee meets Terminator. While we only got to experience networked hand-to-hand slugfests (with no gunplay or exploration of the storyline), what little we were allowed to sample squarely sets Oni in our minds as the coolest action game in the works for any platform.

Or maybe second-coolest. While Oni isn't even done yet, Bungie stunned the keynote crowd by giving a sneak peek at their next game, previously known by its code-name "Blam!" but now known to the world as Halo. The single screenshot at Bungie's site cannot even begin to do this game justice. What we in the keynote audience were privileged to see was a 3D scripted cutscene, all being rendered in real time on a high-end Power Macintosh. Battle-armored cyborgs waving at distant alien creatures to distract them, then turning to run. The aliens giving chase, first on foot, then in a small flying spacecraft. The cyborg fleeing to the outdoors and making his escape in a jeep-like vehicle, its wheels kicking up dust and stones as it peels out. And all of this (and lots more) generated entirely in a true 3D engine the reality of which we've never even imagined. It's like Unreal and Marathon had a baby with a random mutation that gave it six extra "Wow" genes. We are not exaggerating-- the demo was so extraordinarily beautiful it quite literally brought tears to our eyes. If you're a Mac gamer and you still have doubts that it's a great time to be alive, trust us-- it is. But you'd better be saving up for a fast new Mac...