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Games Entertainment

Halo for the PC and Mac 261

Posted by michael from the no-xbox-for-you dept.
smelialichu writes "According to this news article, Halo is finally on its way to the PC and Mac. Gearbox is handling the PC version, and Westlak Interactive is working on the Mac version, but it won't be released untill next summer. The official announcement says "Halo for PC is expected to be available in summer 2003. The Macintosh version is also expected to be available in 2003. Additional information regarding game content, features and enhancements will be announced at a later date." We can only assume they have some cool new features up their sleeves, maybe we'll be seeing Halo with even better graphics, optimized for the new Radeon? Anyway, this is certainly a huge relief to many gamers who thought they may never see Halo on their home PC's."
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Halo for the PC and Mac More

Halo for the PC and Mac

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  • And it only took MS 3 years to get a PC version of a game originally developed for the PC.
    • It only took three years for the general PC market to catch up with the power of the X-box. Not everyone has a GeForce 3+ yet and Halo relies strongly on programmable pixel shaders. The effects for surfaces like ice and water are amazing and cannot be replicated on current (by current I mean what most everyone has, not GeForce 3+) video cards. Halo is a lot better game because it cut out inferior systems like PS2, Gamecube and low-level PCs.
      • Not everyone has a GeForce 3+ yet and Halo relies strongly on programmable pixel shaders.

        While I can't argue as to whether or not Halo relies strongly on programmable pixel shaders, I can say that the graphics weren't that impressive. The Quake3 engine has comperable graphics (imho), and has run on boards 3 generations older than a GF3. I was playing it on my TNT 2 Ultra. Also, always remember that consoles can have a lot of pretty graphics because they only rasterize to 640x480.

        Another thing is that PCs have far more CPU power than any console. I believe that an XBox is ~700MHz Celeron. Since a good portion of the appeal of Halo is in the physics (surely not the level design..), this should translate well to the PC and maybe even be better? And when it does come out, I bet it doesn't require a board with pixel shaders.

        • Sure. Halo isn't pushing many more polys than Quake 3 but it is quality and not quantity, my friend. Quake 3 (and derivatves thereof) don't take advantage of programable shaders and therefore can't do some of the incredible effects you see in Halo.

          My favorite effect is the ice reflection. That cannot be done in software in real-time. The best Quake 3 can do is put a nice texture on it. Halo actually reflects and distorts the environment. The lighting effects also add a lot more depth to the environment.

          Halo is the direction everyone is going. Programmable shaders are going to do for games what 3D acceleration did for games years ago. It is the next big thing and if you don't believe me then look at the Doom 3 project.

          As for X-box's Celeron chip, X-box has a BUS that is more games oriented so it doesn't need a huge on-board catch.

          • Re:3 years in the making; finally (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Sure. Halo isn't pushing many more polys than Quake 3 but it is quality and not quantity, my friend. Quake 3 (and derivatves thereof) don't take advantage of programable shaders and therefore can't do some of the incredible effects you see in Halo.

            My favorite effect is the ice reflection. That cannot be done in software in real-time. The best Quake 3 can do is put a nice texture on it. Halo actually reflects and distorts the environment. The lighting effects also add a lot more depth to the environment.

            I was seriously unimpressed with the graphics on Halo - in general it looks a lot like Half Life, plus a few reflection effects. Quake 3 *does* do environment mapping btw, I suggest you find out a bit more about Q3's shader implementation before saying silly things like that.

            As for X-box's Celeron chip, X-box has a BUS that is more games oriented so it doesn't need a huge on-board catch.

            Don't know a lot about hardware, do you? :-)

        • but pixel shaders DO look pretty. Just the water effect in Morrowind made me want a geforce 3 badly after seeing my friends game.

          it really IS sweet. and with the dark age of camelot expansion pack using them too... oh dear... theres another 200 bucks down the drain.
      • I could have sworn they were demo'ing it on a P3 550 with a Geforce 2 card a couple of years ago... Anybody else remember that?
        • The very first demo (I think) was at MacWorld in 1999, where it ran on a G3 with an ATI Rage 128. From Mac Gamer's Ledge [macledge.com]:

          Bungie Software was featured in Apple's keynote address and used that feature to unveil Halo, a 3rd person game that wowed the keynote crowd...Currently, Halo is expected to release during the first half of 2000, simultaneously for Mac and PC.
          • Ahhh that's right. The p3 550 was the 'minimum requirement', and it started a huge debate on the game site that I frequented. Anybody remember next-generation.com (later called dailyradar.com)? Heh.

            People were upset that the minimum requirements were so high at the time. Assuming that's true (and who knows, right?) that would have been rather steep in the year 2000. Personally, I think they made a good choice with XBOX. Halo will probably be purchased frequently for the next two years. That's harder to do on a PC where the market is already over-saturated with FPS shooters.

            About your sig:

            "chmod a+x /bin/laden" -- My boss used to have a poster on his wall that was similar: 'rm -f /bin/laden'

            Heh. I hope I quoted it properly. :)

      • It only took three years for the general PC market to catch up with the power of the X-box.

        The early Halo demos were shown on a ATI Rage 128 based Mac G4 three years ago. Halo was origianlly designed to be a Mac/PC game that would run on commonly available hardware.

        What is important in games is not the glitz, but the quality of the game paly, which is what has always put Bungie games at the top of the heap.

  • I have heard that Halo is the only good game (ie reason to buy) an xbox - no its out on PC the one reason to buy an xbox is gone.
    • You don't think thats the reason why it takes one and a half year to port the xbox version to PC. If they wanted I am sure they could have released a PC version this summer.

      Who do you think buys an XBOX next summer just to play Halo. There will be lots of other better games by then. Isn't Enclave to arrive soon?
    • Halo is really good but Rally Sport Challenge for X-box is fantastic as well.

    • Re: Nice anti-Xbox move (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Glonk ( 103787 )
      I have heard that Halo is the only good game (ie reason to buy) an xbox - no its out on PC the one reason to buy an xbox is gone.
      Except it's not out on the PC now, it's slated to come out in Summer 2003. A full year and 3/4 after Halo came out, and also right around the time Halo 2 should be coming out on the Xbox.

      Maybe MS is trying to get the PC gamers to play the nearly 2 year old version of Halo, and if they like it they'll need to buy an Xbox to enjoy Halo 2.

      Either way, I don't think it'll affect Xbox sales negatively at all. If people were going to buy Xbox for Halo, they would have done it in the 2 years before the PC version came out...
      • Pretty much, the people who wanted an Xbox originally have already gotten it. The people who were waiting for a price drop have already gotten it as well (or may by Christmas, but everything game-wise gets a Christmas boost). Microsoft ought to be looking to expand into the casual gamer crowd/those of us who don't like, don't care, or actively dislike the Xbox.

        The preception remains, true or not, that "Halo is the only reason to get an Xbox". They just removed that reason by announcing it's release, ever. If people have waited for this long, they'll wait another year, and not bother with the $200 for the Xbox.

        Personally, I don't care about Halo, and I'm one of those actively against the Xbox, for reasons beyond its pathetic library of games (PC ports, PS2 and Dreamcast ports, and crappy games, with the odd good one hidden here and there under the massive piles of crap) its crappy controller, and the fact that unless you have an HDTV, it doesn't look any better than a PS2 or Dreamcast. It's Microsoft trying to dominate another industry and that's worth fighting against actively in my opinion. Microsoft, if their Xbox people were at all thinking straight, should never have allowed a PC port of Halo to exist, ever. Even 2 years after the fact. As one of the meager few games that were both worth anything, and original to the system, their shooting the Xbox in the foot allowing others to play it. That's like Nintendo releasing Mario Sunshine for the PC, stupid.
    • Ya, but playing a multiplayer game on a console is awesome. You can yell at your buddies in the room, the game is social, and it is not exclusive to LAN adn 'net geeks. This is why GoldenEye did so well a few years ago. Nothing can beat a smart first person shooter with good multiplayer games and a hand full of controllers.

      Futhermore, Halo 2 for the xbox will probaby be out a good year before it comes out for MacOS and Windows....that is, if it -ever- comes out for MacOS and Windows. Remember, Bungie only promised a Mac and PC verion of 'Halo'...not it's sequels.

  • I'm glad to hear this, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NeoSkandranon ( 515696 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @12:48PM (#3881998)
    Sad thing is, by the time Halo hits shelves, unless they do some enhancement, it will be Old News, and the Next Big Thing will be here.
    • No, the real sad thing is, Halo never deserved to be the Big Thing in the first place. It's an OK game I guess, but it can't touch the real greats like Half-Life or Goldeneye for fun. What I wish is that someone would port Goldeneye to the PC. I don't even care if they didn't enhance it, it would still be able to stand up to any PC game now on the market in sheer funness.

    • Great point... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by artemis67 ( 93453 )
      Sitting next to Doom 3 on the shelf, this thing is going to look like a relic of a bygone era. It's too bad Bungie really screwed this one up. And I'm not even sure it gave X-Box the big boost it was supposed to.

      A year ago, I was really jazzed about Halo. Now, I would suggest that Bungie forget about giving Mac and PC users some warmed-over port of a two year old console game.

  • halo 2 (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Mr Coward ( 576592 )
    Hopefully, halo 2 (which will come out about a month or two later) will be xbox exclusive, that would be a good strategy of MS in my opinion; i'm sure many people couldn't wait another 1.5 years to see halo2 on pc after they have played halo "1".
    • Keep in mind, this isn't simply a port of the Xbox halo, it'll be practically a completely different game. enhanced multiplayer and enhanced (or dramatically different) single player campain are just two of the things that will differentiate this from the Xbox releases (although there's rumor that Halo 2 will be closer to PC halo)

      For clerification/details read the halo.bungie.org forums daily. that's what I did to 'stay in the know'
      • From what I've read in a few interviews with Bungie staff, and on the Halo.Bungie.Org forums, is that the single player will be enhanced, to the point of maybe an entire new level. And the multiplayer will be totally revamped, with new modes, maps, etc.. Graphics will probably be left alone, because 85-90% of the people that'll actually buy Halo, won't be running GeForce 3 level cards.

  • How Sad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PhreakinPenguin ( 454482 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @12:50PM (#3882003) Homepage Journal
    The guy posting the article link is from the site it's at? Jesus, that story came out about 2 days ago and this guy is pimping his site with. No dignity.
    • Heh, you're right... I like how he gave the URL with the ip instead of the domain name to make it less obvious...
    • Yeah, damn him for submitting a story he was covering that interests Slashdot users. Only other people should be able to report stories, never the ones that know the most about what the article is saying.

  • Anyway, this is certainly a huge relief to many gamers who thought they may never see Halo on their home PC's.
    Huge relief? Jesus, why don't they just shell out $225 for the Halo/Xbox bundle?
    • Maybe they can't/down't want to spend $225 for that bundle when they could just wait and get it for the usual 60 bucks. Its not like all of the suddent people are gonna just give up playing it all at once. I mean there are still people playing Starcraft, Diablo I, and other such games.
    • Because I'm a broke college kid?
      I'm happy when I can pay for maintainence on my computers...

      "sweet, I'll be able to afford that new heatsink fan tomorrow- I just hope that the current one doesn't freeze up....that grinding noise is BAD...."

    • FPS with mouse aiming (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Myco ( 473173 )
      One of the biggest complaints I've heard about Halo from people used to playing FPSes on a PC is that you don't have a mouse, so aiming is slow and tedious and hence no fun. It will be interesting to see how much of a difference this makes in the game.

      It would be particularly cool if Xboxers and PCers could play together in the same game, but I doubt it'll happen that way.

      • a PC is that you don't have a mouse, so aiming is slow and tedious and hence no fun

        I may just be a ham fisted retard, but I actually like aiming on HALO, having everything in the palm of your hand is easy enough. Took me an hour to get used to it.

    • Because I won't under any circumstances buy a Microsoft product?
      • "Because I won't under any circumstances buy a Microsoft product?"

        Oh that's not a problem then. Most of what MS sells was developed by other people. ;)

      • Because I won't under any circumstances buy a Microsoft product
        Bully for you but it doesn't change the essense of my question which was about why people didn't buy one (heavily subsidized) Microsoft product instead of waiting for a different MS product to be released.

        BTW, those of you who pointed out that FPSs suck without a mouse, good point, should have thought of that myself.

        You, however, Moofie, can sit at the back of the class.

  • If they get the multiplayer right. Saying that - multiplayer rocks with vehicles on the Xbox, so I can't see it being worse on the PC/Mac

  • Something worth mentioning (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Y-Crate ( 540566 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @12:59PM (#3882042)
    A lot of people have complained about how Halo was transformed over several years into several very different games. They like to blame Microsoft for this.

    That would be a mistake, I'm afraid.

    I read an interview with one of the Halo team members not too long ago where he explained that the team willingly threw out what they had on several occasions to start over anew because they came up with a better way of doing things.

    Few people seem to know Halo started out as an RTS! The warthog (jeep) was something they were playing around with for some time as an extension of that project, and they had so much fun with it, they ended up creating an entire game around it. A 3rd person shooter.

    Then, they threw that out and went for first person.

    And abandoned the whole "We'll simulate the entire surfance of Halo and let you wander around doing what you wish, ala Morrowind" idea.

    These were THEIR decisions.

    The one negative aspect of Halo you can blame Microsoft for is the fact they imposed time constraints on the team. Halo needed to be ready and thoroughly bug tested by November 2001. They didn't have all the time they needed to make all the levels as nice as they could have been, and that is why there is some pretty awful repetition.

    Give credit and blame where they are due, but don't blame Microsoft for every damn thing you don't like about Halo, or why feature X that was described in 1999 didn't make it into the Golden Master copy 2 years later.

    • Re:Something worth mentioning (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SimplyCosmic ( 15296 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @04:19PM (#3882770) Homepage
      You've forgotten the one, simple and probably most important thing that we [i]can[/i] blame Microsoft for.

      The fact that PC and Mac users will end up with a warmed-over port that should have been out last year, but has been put on ice solely to benefit the XBox.

      Add to this the fact that it's a port from Gearbox Software, which with their track record means it'll be supported for a few short months, then all updating will cease no matter how many critical bugs remain.

      "Microsoft issued a media alert to formally announce the development of Halo for Windows and the Mac," says the press release.

      Oh thank god, now development can start on ports to Windows and Mac of a game that was originally developed for Windows and Mac.

      *sigh*
    • Whatever the decisions were, and whoever made them were bad decisions in the long run.

      The thing that made pre-Microsoft Bungie so fun was the fact that the games had an engaging storyline. The Marathon series for the Macintosh was fun because it was so original with mad AIs guiding the player along a twisted story. Myth presented a world mired in horrific war, with a deep layer of lore behind the plot line. Halo and Oni were developed as plots, then the game maps designed to meet the demands of the story.

      After the buyout, this story aspect began to suffer. Oni got sanitised (some early demos had more wounds and blood), and Halo's MMORPG premise got axed. I don't know how much of the storyline survived, and I'm not sure if I want to know.

      Bungie had its moment, but Microsoft has killed the goose that laid the golden egg. It's hard to keep a scrappy attitude when you're owned by the largest software maker around.
  • Too bad Halo 2 for the XBox is due out in 2003. They plan to start showing things from the game in August.

    Although its a little nasty, its a nice marketing strategy for the XBox.

    "Sure we'll give you Halo on the PC... right after we have Halo 2 on the XBox!"
  • that because the release is set for summer 2003 that they must be adding stuff to it and polishing it.

    I doubt that it would be very hard to port from the XBox to PC (there will be some driver issues, but nothing that should take too long). I mean its essentially PC hardware isn't it.

    So if they are waiting that long it will be to add stuff to it, or to keep Xbox sales going as long as is possible and try to urge some PC gamers into buying a XBox...
  • So I could wait a year and shell out $300+ for a new graphics card that would probably be needed to run this game (I have an "old" GeForce2), or get an Xbox and Halo now for $242.

    I'm leaning towards the instant gratification bit...

  • Great, although when news first came out of a game being developed by Bungie called Halo... the PC crowd (including me were so happy), then Bungie got swallowed by everyone's favourite company.

    I seriously hope that this PC/MAC version will be how the game was meant to be before it became an X-Buck$ only (initially) fare.. in that the dumbing down of certain game aspects to make it more 'console friendly' will be resolved.

    This also reminds me of the Freelancer situation (or lack of it) that was previewed years ago, and the 'buy out' that M$ did, although it 'still' isn't out yet - I wouldn't be surprised if M$ thought 'hey this might be another game to repackage as X-Buck$ only, it MIGHT jump start sales again'... yeah right.

    PC and MAC gamers will only be playing second fiddle to the X-Buck$ until it hopefully dies a horrible death.. but then again they're planning on the X-bucks 2.

    • Do you actually understand what kind of idiot things like M$ and XBucks make you look like? It's not clever, it's just stupid.

      Making a convincing argument is a lot more than just (not-so) clever variations on names.
  • I think the most interesting aspect to this news is speculating as to what graphics API the Mac version is going to use.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no Direct3D port for the Mac. In fact, isn't Apple pushing OpenGL accelerationg heavily for OSX? So, is Microsoft going to go to the trouble of porting DirectX 8/9 to OSX or are the going to allow the developers to use OpenGL? To me, neither of those sounds like likely options, but if I had to guess, I'd think that they'd half-ass a port of DirectX. Much like they half-assed the ports of IE to other systems.

    Or is there some third option I'm missing?

    • Westlake has been porting PC games of all sorts over the years to the Mac. They already know how to port DirectX code. It is a non-issue.

    • Re:Macintosh -- What API? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Etcetera ( 14711 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @01:14PM (#3882098) Homepage
      Much like they half-assed the ports of IE to other systems.

      Although that definitely used to be the case (IE 4.5 for Mac - let along Office 4.2.1 (!) ), the Mac versions of MS programs are now all written by a specific sub-unit of MS, the Macintosh Business Unit, and are generally considered best-of-breed. In other words, they are not direct ports, but are (re-)written specifically with the Mac in mind.

      The Mac versions of Office and IE are considered by many to be better and more standards compliant that the Windows versions.
    • Halo was almost done for the Mac and PC until M$ bought Bungie, Bungie showed a demo at MacWorld before being bought by M$.

  • Suck It. (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by majcher ( 26219 )
    To all my dear friends who gloated that the long-awaited Halo would only be available on their beloved tool of corporate domination, I have but one thing to say.
    I got a new hat. [penny-arcade.com]

  • Better graphics? Me thinks not! But... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Traa ( 158207 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @01:21PM (#3882124) Homepage Journal
    I am wondering if the poster has actualy played Halo or if he/she bases their opinion on the horrid .mov files of Halo gameplay. Because if there is one thing that does not need to be improved about the game it is the graphics. That said, I am hoping that the time spend before the PC release is spend on the three things missing/bad about Halo:
    - the oft mentioned level repetion (I am willing to swallow this as a time contraint mistake trying to release the XBox version).
    - network play. Not a thing you want to try with the XBox version. This will be the biggest issue making the game fail or succeed on the PC.
    - user interface / customizing settings. We (the gamers) need mouse input, and we need to be able to mess with settings. Having the FOV (field of view) set to something less then 90 degrees ticked me off pretty badly.

    Just in case those great people at Bungee/Microsoft are reading this, I would hope that you guys would consider letting us save the game (quicksave!) when we feel like it. Checkpoints are silly, anoying and show that some of the programmers are just to lazy to figure out how to save gamestate at any moment (instead of the checkpoint right after a horrible battle leaving you with 1% health). No really, I 'broke' my Oni game CD 4 hours into the game after getting so pissed about this lacking feature.

    Besides those minor issue *grin* Halo is ofcourse the greatest game ever!
    • Um, checkpoints aren't due to programmer laziness. If you can get the game to save in the middle of a level, you can get it to save at other places in the middle of a level with no problem. It's an intentional 'feature', so that you don't do the classic technique of turning the corner, saving, turning the next corner, saving, going three feet forward, saving. This way you have something to shoot for, and it's not so tedious. Bungie did the same thing with Marathon, so it's not new for them either.
      • I know it is not programmer laziness, just teasing them with that. I did give an explenation of why I didn't like this system though. The checkpoints are mostly 'after' a heavy battle area and you don't know exactly where they are. I found myself cursing when walking though some of them with only a few percent health left ... knowing I would never survive the next battle. Back to the beginning of that level it was, so much fun on those repetitive spaceship corridor levels. Not.

        As far as I am concerned, this is an actual Bungie feature. As you mentioned in the game Marathon and also in Oni. I just don't get it.
        • At least they let you save. Anyone remember Dark Forces? After battling the droid trooper prototype *12* times, each time having to fight my way through the ENTIRE level, I was about ready to go insane. Of course, I always played first person shooters on the most difficult setting...
  • Forget their bad software (which has improved a lot over the years). Forget their strongarm (and illegal) business tactics.

    For people who have been with Bungie since the original marathon, this is totally proof of MS's evil.

    Bungie brought great gaming in the dark days of the Mac...they put twists on the FPS that were later imitated by the big boys at id (such as enemies getting mad at each other).

    As soon as Bungie got acquired by MS, they rushed the terrible Oni out the door (obviously half-finished) and went Xbox only. I might have to buy one of those hideous green beasts (used, of course) just to play that excellent game called Halo.

    On a completely unrelated topic, has anyone noticed that there's something different about the karma? It's now "excellent" on mine instead of a number. Anyone else getting this?

    I hope this isn't permanent...I like to keep my karma around 30 (close to my age :). If it got too high , I would burn it, and it would make me feel younger :).

    Now I'm stuck with "Excellent," which was great on my first-grade conduct report, but seems a bit off for Slashdot. I need the objectivity of numbers!

    What would the Hindus do if their karma wasn't measured in numbers? They'd have no idea if they were being reborn as a flea or a donkey! :)

    • Karma numbers (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by Animats ( 122034 )
      Yeah, that "excellent" rating thing sucks. I miss the numbers.

      The rules for karma have changed several times in the last year. Originally, there was no karma cap. I was up to almost 200. Then there was a karma cap, but your old karma points didn't go away at once. They just leaked away slowly, because, above the karma cap, you could lose points, but never gain them. Now, I suspect that the numeric values have been capped, and the "Excellent" thing is to hide the karma loss.

      Yes, Slashdot management likes to bitch about "karma whores", but from the people behind VA Linux [nasdaq.com], that's hollow.

    • they put twists on the FPS that were later imitated by the big boys at id (such as enemies getting mad at each other).

      Hmm, unless they did this in Pathways Into Darkness, DOOM beat them to the punch. Enemies would get mad at each other and attack their friends.

      As soon as Bungie got acquired by MS, they rushed the terrible Oni out the door (obviously half-finished)

      Oni was produced by the half of the company that was purchased by Take Two. Microsoft had absolutely nothing to do with it.

      I might have to buy one of those hideous green beasts (used, of course) just to play that excellent game called Halo.

      The Xbox is black.
      • "Oni was produced by the half of the company that was purchased by Take Two. Microsoft had absolutely nothing to do with it."

        Microsoft had nothing to do with it with the exception of taking the large pool of talent that was known as Bungie and leaving a half finished game to be finished by a third party.

        Let's face it.. talent has a big part to do with a games success... and Bungie had a LOT of it!

        Let's also face another fact. Timelines for games won't be at Bungie's discretion any more. They will be on MS time.. and Halo, as good a game as it is, was still rushed and it shows. To me that's a little tarnish on Bungie's name as a direct result of their acquisition by MS.
      • Within the marathon engine, they innovated :

        1. Actual 3d environments. You could have people above and below you and shoot at either of them. Doom and Doom2 are really 2d environments, but do a good job acting 3d.

        2. Cooperative bots. In Marathon 2 I think they were called "bobs". They ran around and killed some of the enemies for you. You couldn't really coordinate them much, but it was cool having them.

        3. Interesting storylines.

        4. Two pistols firing one in each hand. I don't think any version of Doom had this.

        I agree with the people who espouse the belief that Microsoft purchasing Bungie has only reduced the company's innovation rather than assisting it.

        Seth
        • 1: nope, Marathon is 2.5d like Doom. This does mean you get to have 5D space (overlapping geometry) 2: "Frog blast the vent core!" :D 3: That's an understatement- Bungie's use of terminal text and the insane mindfsck plot twist have never been equalled 4: You think that's fun? Try two shotguns one in each hand. No, I'm not making that up :) now, if only you could have two fletchette guns... or two Spankers...

  • They missed the train (by a year) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @01:25PM (#3882145) Homepage
    When I first played Halo (on a friend's xbox), it was fun, enjoyable and all that good stuff. It had the ability to amuse me for a couple hours or so, but got old after a couple weeks. If they are planning on doing a 75% recycle (25% new content/features), I do not think Halo will be anything close to what Half-Life was to the PC FPS community. Their only chance to make Halo a massive hit on the PC is to make sure it has extensive mod support and good communication with the mod developers. Gearbox did a great job with Opposing Forces, Blue Shift, and Half-life PS2, so they have that in their favor, but in general console to PC conversions generally seem lacking. GTA3 is a good example of this: I had never played GTA3 before when the PC version came out. According everyone I talked to, it had sweet graphics, awesome gameplay, the interesting music feature, etc. However, once I started playing it I was sorely dissappointed, especially by the graphics and gameplay. I was never a big fan of GTA1 or 2 since the gameplay was way too simple, but I figured they had solved this problem with 3 but I was wrong (though it was greatly improved). The graphics sucked, period. Sorry, after playing Sacrifice (came out in 2000), GTA looks like crap, and the post-rendering filters are just a cheap way of covering up how low poly everything is, along with the lowres textures. Halo has graphics on its side, but my question is whether it's gameplay with retain that 'console' quality. PC games are often more complex than console games these days since there are less limitations in certain respects. I just hope Halo does not follow the direct-port route, since that would be a waste.
  • Well, after the disappointment (to my mind) that was GTA3, I really don't hold out much hope for the extras the article seems to portend. GTA3 did have the mp3 thing, but performance/quality were really not much better than the PS2 version... there was no new content... how long after the PS2 version was released? You would think that the code should be reasonably portable as the XBox is effectively a computer? Why wouldn't Microsoft just write an XBOX->DX8 wrapper? -d
  • I don't quite get why it is going to take them a full year to port this thing to the PC. It was my understanding that the X-Box is more or less an x86 architecture computer running a stripped down Windows, with a modified version of DirectX and a controller plugged into it. Shouldn't it be a matter of weeks for them to change the input code to use a keyboard, and plug in some of the original high-res textures? It only took about six months to port GTA3 to the PC from the PS2, and those two platforms have much larger differences than the PC and X-Box. I hope Bungee has some serious overhauls planned, otherwise no one is going to give two craps when the port is finally released.
    • well, it wasn't that it was going to be difficult or take a long time... It's that M$ wanted to MILK the game for everything they could so they could get people to by their X-Box..
  • I enjoyed playing Halo on the X-Box, however, I find that using my thumb to look/aim was damn near impossible for me! It'll be good to see Halo come to the PC, then I can use my old trusty mouse and keyboard!
  • I don't suppose I'll be blasting away on my Linux box then. Oh well, back to tribes2!
  • I have Halo and an XBox. Halo is probably one of the worst XBox games I've played. It's just an FPS in the long tradition of Doom, Quake, Unreal, etc. Nothing special at all, you aim, you shoot, you keep shooting and reload a few times (so much for realism) until you or he dies.

    For me, nothing beats Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault.

  • Finally ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tjwhaynes ( 114792 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @02:23PM (#3882343)
    So here we are, umpteen months after the launch of the XBox and the debut of Halo on Xbox. Its been a while since the launch of the XBox and for a lot of that time, Halo has been the only thing worthy of buying an Xbox for.

    Now we get the announcement that the PC/Mac version will be another 12 months away. Odd that a game which was originally developed for the PC/Mac should take so long to reach it's original target platform.

    Such a delay can be interpretted in many ways and unless hanging around on the hbo servers making a nuisance until questions are answered actually has an effect, we'll probably never know precisely why the timeline looks like it does.

    My personal rumour mill suggests that moving the project to the XBox opened out the graphic capabilities and closed down the outright flexibility of the game. Given any console controller, there is a limit to the number of controls and options you can present to a player. A mouse is actually the perfect tool for directing strategy on a map. Keyboards allow for many 'fast' commands and more complex controls. So the first thing you cull when moving to a console is the complexity of the interface between player and game.

    PC/Macs also offer a more established platform for excessive memory usage, something which tends to be tight on a console. So the next thing to bin on a console is enormous worlds loading in the background as you cross 'tile' boundaries.

    So Halo is another year away. And no Linux version either. Lets hope that the restrictions that the console version imposed are loosened/removed from the PC/Mac version. And lets hope that some of the more exotic ideas that originally made Halo sound like the next generation of gaming actually make it back in.

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • OK great. Now what about an Oni sequel? (Score:3, Informative)

    by JamieF ( 16832 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @02:39PM (#3882391) Homepage
    Halo, some FPS on the Xbox, whee. But I really enjoyed Oni, which is available on multiple platforms, but will never have a multiplayer version nor sequels because the same company that made Oni made Halo, and that company is now part of MS.

    Go play Oni, it's like $9.00 now new. It's hella fun, but disappointing because as cool as it is, it has no future. :(

    Maybe MS will resurrect Oni as a product and keep it alive? OK, I'm just dreaming. But if they are porting Halo maybe they would make sequels / expansion packs to Oni.
    • Sequel? Why doesn't MS just let them go back and finish the game? Oh, right because they have to make more XBox exclusive titles now. Stopping Oni short was a horrible management descision and pretty much cemented the community's stance that MS was going to hose Bungie over and have them cranking out XBox titles as fast as possible for all eternity.
    • Take 2 Interactive [take2games.com] got Oni during the Microsoft buy-out (in exchange for their Bungie stock, IIRC). And if I further recall correctly, the game was then published buy Gathering of Developers [gatheringo...lopers.com].

      So, if you want a sequal to Oni, you need to talk to them.

    • Yeah, I have to agree. Oni was an amazing game - to bad the timing didn't seem right for it. It's been a long time since a decent 3rd person figher (remember Final Fight?) hit the market, and Oni got my hopes up for a little revival.

      Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. As the gaming industry gets larger, expect the number of top-tier games that challenge the status quo to go down, a la music biz.
    • I *hated* the feature of Oni that made you start off the game with virtually no moves, and slowly unlock moves as you progressed. I can't imagine a more annoying game.

      Also, the lack of multiplayer killed Oni. They said, "Screw it, it's too slow over a modem." What about broadband players? What about LAN players? Bungie wasn't thinking too far ahead when they put Oni out.

      I agree with another poster, Bungie must have rushed Oni out the door when they were in talks to be assimilated by the Borg cube.
  • Now that Halo will be out (or so they say) for the PC we can all go back to waiting for Team Fortress 2... 4 years over due now.

  • No, no.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by evilviper ( 135110 )
    Please don't port Halo over to the PC/Mac... Then people will never know the joys of trying to play it with a 5-friggin-pound controller bigger than their own heads.

    I don't think it's the force-feedback that causes carpal-tunnel... I think it's just caused by holding that damn controller for hours.
    • Yeah, good thinking... I post at +2 because I'm a troll. My karma got to +50 because I'm a troll.

      Yet more fuel for those who dislike the /. moderation system.

  • Wow (Score:2)

    by The Cat ( 19816 )
    ooh, even BETTER graphics? will it go 80 FPS and have tesselated-voxel-optimized-mip-mapping and gigapixel-super-flex-capacitor-alpha-blended vertex buffering too?

    YAWN

    Will it have any new GAMEPLAY features or a well-written STORY or interesting CHARACTERS or a compelling SETTING?

    Or will it (more likely) be another overpriced framerate-fest with one more feature on top of the tired FPS design that was new almost TEN YEARS ago?
    (ooh look we can drive trucks now!)

    Knowing the "game industry" the answer is fairly obvious.

  • In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by merlyn ( 9918 ) on Sunday July 14, 2002 @06:26PM (#3883150) Homepage Journal
    According to this news article, $RANDOM_PRODUCT_THAT_COULD_BE_A_WINDOW_MANAGER_OR_ A_PIM_OR_A_GAME_OR_SOMETHING_ELSE is finally on its way to the $PLATFORM_THAT_I_USE and $RANDOM_OTHER_PLATFORM_THAT_I_COULD_NOT_CARE_LESS_ ABOUT. $SOME_COMPANY is handling the $PLATFORM_THAT_I_USE version, and $SOME_OTHER_COMPANY is working on the $RANDOM_OTHER_PLATFORM_THAT_I_COULD_NOT_CARE_LESS_ ABOUT version, but it won't be released untill next summer. The official announcement says "$RANDOM_PRODUCT_THAT_COULD_BE_A_WINDOW_MANAGER_OR _A_PIM_OR_A_GAME_OR_SOMETHING_ELSE for $PLATFORM_THAT_I_USE is expected to be available in summer 2003. The $RANDOM_OTHER_PLATFORM_THAT_I_COULD_NOT_CARE_LESS_ ABOUT version is also expected to be available in 2003. Additional information regarding game content, features and enhancements will be announced at a later date." We can only assume they have some cool new features up their sleeves, maybe we'll be seeing $RANDOM_PRODUCT_THAT_COULD_BE_A_WINDOW_MANAGER_OR_ A_PIM_OR_A_GAME_OR_SOMETHING_ELSE with even better graphics, optimized for the new $WINDOW_MANAGER_OR_MAYBE_VIDEO_CARD_OR_SOMETHING? Anyway, this is certainly a huge relief to many gamers who thought they may never see $RANDOM_PRODUCT_THAT_COULD_BE_A_WINDOW_MANAGER_OR_ A_PIM_OR_A_GAME_OR_SOMETHING_ELSE on their home $PLATFORM_THAT_I_USE. For details check their $SLASHDOTTED_WEBSITE.
    {sigh}

    Don't the editors ever think to add maybe even two or three words to describe even the category of a random proper noun that some of us might not have heard of?

  • You know (Score:3, Funny)

    by Treeluvinhippy ( 545814 ) <liquidsorceryNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday July 14, 2002 @09:03PM (#3883542)
    It just won't be the same. I mean how can you get the same X-Box experience by playing Halo with a halfway decent controller?
  • . . . I could get a PC version of Dead to Rights I'd be all set. . .
  • Then I can teach my Warthog to jump [bungie.org].

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