David M. Mertz

David M. Mertz is an employee of Gearbox Software, the company that was in charge of porting Halo onto PCs. He was one of the multi-player map designers.

David left behind his graduate studies in Biomedical Engineering at Virginia Tech to join the games industry. While David has been editing levels since the days of Doom, his professional game development career began when he joined Gearbox Software. During his time there, he worked on Half-Life: Opposing Force and co-designed and created Half-Life: Blue Shift. David has had the fortunate opportunity to work on some of the biggest franchises in PC gaming, including Half-Life, James Bond, and most recently Microsoft's Halo for the PC.

He now has moved from Gearbox to Pi Studios the company that is porting Halo 2 onto Windows Vista, the next version of Windows after Windows XP

David uses the username "alpha_male_" when blogging on such places as Gearbox Software Forums

Mertz Quotes about Halo 2 Vista

 * "The end-user will be provided with everything needed to create custom multi-player maps, complete with new textures and even customizable shades from Halo 2." - Mertz
 * "The plan from the beginning has been to release the tools, tutorials and examples with the retail release of the game" - Mertz
 * "With Halo 2 Vista, the tools are available right out of the box. This means that they are both officially supported by Microsoft and will have gone through all the testing, localization, and usability scenarios that is required for a professional software release." - Mertz
 * "Not only will the tools be dramatically more user-friendly, they'll also be much more stable and polished." - Mertz
 * "We really look forward to seeing what new content will be created, not just for the casual player, but for the competitive and tournament Halo 2 Vista communities." - Mertz