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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Halo's PC Upgrades Explored 43

Posted by simoniker from the banshee-banshee-banshee dept.
Thanks to GameSpot for posting a new hands-on preview of Halo:Combat Evolved for the PC. This long-awaited title is making a "conservative" but professional transition from Xbox to Windows, courtesy Gearbox Software, and the enhancements are sparse but notable: "..the [in-game] resolution can be turned all the way up to 1600x1200, and the game's textures look much sharper and more defined than they ever did on the Xbox.. zooming in close to a grunt, we noted specular-mapping and bump-mapping effects on the grunt's gold-colored armor." Also discussed in more detail are the six brand-new PC multiplayer maps, plus mention of "..editing tools that will let creative players create new maps and significantly modify the game" - is there enough time for player-constructed maps to make it into Halo 2?
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Halo's PC Upgrades Explored More

Halo's PC Upgrades Explored

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  • Of course, some of the other improvements are multiplay via network, two new weapons in multiplayer and a semi-new vehicle (Warthog jeep with rocket launcher instead of the regular machine gun).
    I think that multiplayer over the internet is definetely the biggest improvement, at least the most interesting.
    • I think that multiplayer over the internet is definetely the biggest improvement, at least the most interesting

      You can already play over the net with Xbox Live

      • Re:more (Score:3, Informative)

        by ceejayoz ( 567949 )
        Not with Halo, you can't.

        Gamespy provides a program that tricks your Xbox into thinking you've got a LAN connection with people who are actually on the Internet, which allows some internet play (laggy as hell, though), but Halo doesn't support Xbox Live.
        • Xbconnect is much better than Gamespy IMO, and while there is the occasional lagged game, most games run perfect as long as all the boxes start out with and generally sustain a 55-140 ping.

  • Remember Bungie? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by calebb ( 685461 ) *
    I remember watching a video of Halo when it was being developed by Bungie Studios, [bungie.com] for MacOS / Windows. It looked awesome! My roommate has an XBox & Halo, but I don't really enjoy it that much. The graphics & gameplay look good, but I need my keyboard & mouse for FPS games.

    My dream of playing Halo on a PC is back :-)
    • Yeah, I thought I would never get used to, let alone PREFER an XBox controller over a good ol' mouse and keyboard, especially after so many years of playing FPS.

      Took about a day for them to become equivalant. Now I prever the pick up and play on the couch aspacts of an XBox and controller. You can always tweak the rotation speeds of the joysticks in most games (speed them up).

    • I just can't play an FPS with a controller to save my life. Give me a keyboard and mouse any day. That said-- this game was originally demo'd back in 1998 for the Mac, and it would have been cooler than anything back then. By the time it was bought by MS and retooled for the XBox, it was an average FPS at best, on a console limited to TV resolutions, with no option to play with anything but a controller.

      Halo for the PC is apparently the same game, with a few extra multiplayer maps, and the ability to tu

    • Re:Remember Bungie? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Cassius105 ( 623098 )
      Its still being made by bungie

      its just microsoft decided to buy bungie and make halo Xbox exclusive
    • I didn't think I'd like the controller, either, but now I'd want the Xbox controller and Halo control scheme for my PC if I could.

      Part of that probably stems from them making the melee and grenade attacks easier than in most FPSes - they're usually an entirely different weapon, which means it takes a lot of time to use 'em. Halo, though... there's nothing better than taking down an Elite's shields with a melee attack, pumping some rounds into him, then sticking a plasma grenade to him and exploding his su

  • Sell well? Yes. Sell great? Not so sure. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by unclethursday ( 664807 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @08:16AM (#6451545)
    While I enjoyed Halo on my Xbox, I don't know how well it will now do on the PC.

    When we consider there are newer titles coming out like Deus Ex 2, Half-Life 2, and Doom III that people are really eager for... well, I just can't see Halo doing as well on the PC/Mac as it could have done.

    By the time it comes out on the PC, it'll be around 2 years old on the Xbox. How many PC gamers actually cared after it took over a year to get a true answer as to whether it was coming or not?

    I think by then, most had gotten an Xbox and played it, or played on the Xbox of someone they knew.

    Of course, you could say this was Microsoft's plan all along...to string the PC gamers along, promising the PC version...but never letting them get any info for a long time; all in the hopes that they would give in and buy an Xbox and the game.

    It may have backfired in a way though....for those who still held out, most probably don't care about Halo anymore and are looking at the other games I mentioned above.

    Thursdæ

    • Though you make a good point, I'm not so sure if I agree.
      Example: GTA3 and GTA: Vice City. They were both huge successes on the PS2 and later, the PC, despite the games being out on the PS2 a long time before the PC versions finally emerged.
      True, it was "only" little over a year between the versions, but the games still sold quite a lot of copies on the PC. And the graphics weren't even all that great, compared to the "standard" of the day.
      • True

        however GTA does not have the same sort of competition halo is facing

        there are very few games that are at all like GTA and none that really follow the same exact theme

        however Halo is facing up against HL2 Doom3 Tron 2.0 DeusEx 2 and more
        being 2 years old i think it will probably get vastly outclassed and depend upon its reputation from the Xbox for sales

        ill probably buy it but i think i will be waiting for its price to go down a bit before i do so

  • Ohhhh....ahhhhh.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AlexMax2742 ( 602517 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @08:40AM (#6451661)
    The one thing that never ceases to amaze me about Halo is its longevity. Sure, the single player was...although pretty nice...rather forgettable, but then again, who played single player goldeneye after they tried multiplayer?

    Two years after release, and Halo is still being played by my hall. The addition of the grenade and the melee to the 'normal' FPS mix, as well as the crux of only being able to carry two weapons at a time, just adds so much depth...you can actually hit someone and lob a grenade on the fly, rather than having to switch to some cumbersome underpowered grenade or fist 'weapon'.

    Halo PC will most defeniatly be a success. Finally, the thing that people have been having wet dreams about (mods and internet play) will become a reality.

  • there was going to be a Mac version, like Jobs demonstrated on the G4 Cube. I suppose that well have to wait another few years for that one i assume? Although by then ill have my G5 so no worries playing it on my G4 400.

  • Flop (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Morgahastu ( 522162 ) <bshel ... fave bands name> on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @09:17AM (#6451843) Journal
    Halo wasn't a particularly enjoyable single player experience on the console.

    What made it such a great and popular game was it's co-operative play mode.

    That mode has been lost in the conversion and I tihnk it's a serious blow to the game. Even if they had included it to play coop over the network it wouldn't of been as good as playing with a friend on the same couch.

    I have no doubt it will be an above average game, but it won't be all that it was on the xbox.
    • Preach it.
    • I agree whole-heartedly...i wasted a couple semesters of college on a couch playing through co-op legendary again and again...

      but where has it ever been said for sure that co-op won't be included? every time another article comes out i look for some mention of what they're doing with co-op, but have never seen anything...
    • Hear, hear. Co-op mode is one of those things that is almost always overlooked by game developers (and/or publishers), and the lack of it is one of the top reasons I purchase so few games.
  • all i want to know, is will the pc version support LAN/interne coop.
    • In a word. No

      In two, Not yet.

      You see, in Halo for the Xbox, you only had to have one instance of the game running for the two screens. However, when you play a game like that over the network, you need two instances doing the EXACT SAME THING in order for the game to not jump out of sync. It's easy with Deathmatch, but Co-Op...especially playing a game with as complex AI as Halo has is a while nother story. You either need to ensure that the EXACT same thing happens in BOTH places, or transmit data a

  • I was going to hold out for the PC release of Halo myself, until I realised that the Xbox needed to play it today cost less than the new graphics card I'd need to play it when it eventually got to PC.

    They practically give Xboxes away in cereal packets now (I'm sure they would actually do so if they fitted - b'dum tssh) so it does seem pretty pointless.

    As for the whole mouse thing, it only takes a short while to get used to it; certainly a lot less than it took to get used to mouse rather than keys in the
    • I agree about you point in getting used to the controller quickly. A pain in the arse at first which puts most people off immediatly (usually those who come round to have a go on your XBox to see why it's so amazing, then call it crap after spending 10 mins trying to come to grips with controller), but spend a day or so and it becomes part of you.
  • The article makes no mention at all about the apperance of the cooperative mode.
  • When Halo was first being processed in the rumor-mill, the big hype was that you could use vehicles, both ground and air,and it had lots of details that were small, but greatly enhanced the gameplay, such as when you were shot with the spike gun thingy, the spikes stayed in you.

    Well, guess what, every FPS game for the PC now lets you use vehicles. I'm hooked on bf1942...huge mod community with INCREDIBLE (read:rivaling the original product ala CounterStrike) and there's ground vehicles, air vehicles (even

  • I think I will. I'm a Counter-strike player and Halo on the pc might be the change of pace that i'm looking for. I've tried other fps games but non are as fun online multiplayer as CS.

    Also with the $30,000 tournament [slashdot.org] sponsored by the CPL, maybe some competetive players from the CS leagues will move over to HALO PC.
    • As a proud owner of Halo for XBOX, I will definately pirate this game.






      ...I'm not buying the same game twice! Bungie can have my money when they release Halo 2.
  • Can you fly banshees in multiplayer!?!?!?!11 Oh please for the love of God!! I want DOGFIGHTS!!!1
  • Same company totally f'd up the Nightfire release for PC...

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