How to get .htaccess URL rewriting working with the preinstalled apache2?

I've tried and tried to get this to work. I'm switching from windows to this macbook, and for the life of me, I can't get my .htaccess file to work with the URL rewriting. It's like the server isn't even recognizing that it's there. This is what I got in the .htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^games/$ index\.php\?action\=games
RewriteRule ^games$ index\.php\?action\=games
RewriteRule ^events/$ index\.php\?action\=events
RewriteRule ^events$ index\.php\?action\=events
RewriteRule ^downloads/$ index\.php\?action\=downloads
RewriteRule ^downloads$ index\.php\?action\=downloads
RewriteRule ^support/$ index\.php\?action\=support
RewriteRule ^support$ index\.php\?action\=support
RewriteRule ^blogs/$ wordpress/
RewriteRule ^blogs$ wordpress/

By all means it should be working, save for the fact that it's not even being read by Apache! In /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf I edited every instance of AllowOverride None and changed it to AllowOverride All and it still will not work! I also went to /private/etc/apache2/users/achilleus/.conf and did the same in that file as well. For the life of me, when I go to http://localhost/index.php?action=games it works but when I go to http://localhost/games/ it refuses to cooperate. I looked in the error log for apache and it doesn't list anything, neither does the access log. I've been on Google for hours and I still can't find anything.

Can somebody please tell me how to enable the use of .htaccess files in a brand new installation of Leopard? I formatted this thing yesterday and ran all the updates.