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XBox (Games)

Master Chief Revisited 42

Posted by Zonk from the he's-not-just-any-chief dept.
vituperation writes "1UP has a feature up today marking the first anniversary of Halo 2. It's brief, but it manages to cover the hype around its launch, how well Bungie has handled its problems, and how gamers feel about the game after a year. From the article: 'Creatively, though, Halo 2 has been a less clear-cut victory. It's a technical marvel, one of the most visually-impressive games on the market thanks to its solid graphic design and gimmicky tricks like normal mapping. Yet it's also jarringly buggy in places, which has created no end of trouble for those who want a fair multiplayer match.'"
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Master Chief Revisited More

Master Chief Revisited

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  • FIRST BLOOD! (Score:2, Funny)

    by zivr ( 902393 )
    FIRST BLOOD!

  • I'll probably get modded down for this.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by daveruiz ( 795156 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2005 @08:42PM (#13994050)
    In its first 24 hours, the game raked in $125 million dollars courtesy of 2.4 million copies sold. By comparison, Spider-man holds the current box-office record for biggest opening weekend take, having earned a comparatively paltry $114 million over three days.

    Not to say anything bad, but this comaprison can't really be made. The last time I checked, movie tickets didn't cost $50 each.
    • Last time I checked, $50 is still $50.
      • The OP's quote was in response to a comment by Bill Gates that "In the first 24 hours we'll have an opening that's [more] popular than any motion picture has ever had in history."
        Popularity implies total number of sales, not total earnings. 1up (taking a cue from Microsoft, most likely) completely misinterpreted that statistic, claiming that Halo 2's 2.4 million game sales were more impressive than Spider-man's "paltry" tens of millions ticket sales.
    • ... plus people don't pre-order movie tickets for months in advance. A better comparison might be to the latest Harry Potter book and how well it did the first day.

      Then again, money is money.

    • Play times (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      The last time I checked, movie tickets didn't cost $50 each.

      Microsoft's Halo 2* is rated ESRB::M, which corresponds to MPAA::R. When you factor in the ticket price, gasoline, popcorn, and babysitting for your kids, seeing a first-run theatrical release approaches 50 USD faster than you would think. Besides, because of the order of magnitude difference in play times between a video game and a movie, it's slightly more honest to compare a game to a theatrical trilogy (e.g. The Lord of the Rings, or Harry

      • Yeah but that amount isn't factored into how much the movie made. They don't say "oh our movie made $114m, plus it cost consumers $25m for babysitting, so we made $139m!"

        You're right about the play times, BUT if you want to go there, then you also have to factor in the cost of the console, divided by the number of games purchased - accessories could be likened to popcorn I guess, some people buy it, some don't...

        Really though, the whole games movie comparison doesn't show us much - the markets are so total
      • Are you going to factor in the cost of the gasoline that you used going to the store to buy your copy of Halo 2? Or the amount of Mountain Dew and Hot Pockets you consumed while playing Halo 2?
    • Not to say anything bad, but this comaprison can't really be made. The last time I checked, movie tickets didn't cost $50 each.

      But on the other hand, a movie is 1.5 hours of entertainment; a video game (especially one with such a large MP component) is potentially hundreds of hours.

      Or, put another way, if a movie ticket is 10 bucks for 1.5 hours, or about $6.6/hour, then playing Halo 2 for just under eight hours, which is about how long it takes for a good player to get through the single player, means

      • then playing Halo 2 for just under eight hours, which is about how long it takes for a good player to get through the single player, means you've made the same entertainment-to-dollars ratio.
        My friends' copy of Halo 2 has easily provided several hundred man-hours of entertainment.
    • The real benefit is the $50 is relative to the production cost, which is about $2 (Maximum) Compared to the same production cost of movies which are sold (by way of ticket) for $10.
    • I think the comparison has more to do with the total $$ than the number of tickets or games sold. $125 million is still > $114 million, regardless of how it got there. That's still a huge take, worthy of comparison against the film industry's biggest weekend take (and after only 24 hours, to boot). That is a noteworthy comparison. Regardless of what anyone thinks of MS, this says a lot about the growing strength of the gaming industry in comparison to the movie industry.
    • In its first 24 hours, the game raked in $125 million dollars courtesy of 2.4 million copies sold. By comparison, Spider-man holds the current box-office record for biggest opening weekend take, having earned a comparatively paltry $114 million over three days. Not to say anything bad, but this comaprison can't really be made. The last time I checked, movie tickets didn't cost $50 each.

      On the other hand, I doubt that Halo 2 cost $100M or more to make. How much did Spiderman cost to make?

    • Actually, it can be made considering gaming is typically a much smaller market than movies. Everyone watches movies...it is amazing to me that they made more than Spiderman.

  • Halo 1/2 on XBox 360 looking good at 720p (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Wednesday November 09, 2005 @09:05PM (#13994235) Homepage
    Bungie's Anniversary Page [bungie.net] has shots of Halo 1 and 2 on the XBox 360 in 720p (including comparisons with 480p) so you can see how good things can look.
    • *Yawn*

      Yeah, screenshots look nice. How much of a frame rate does it take when you bump the resolution and crank the FSAA?

      Besides, if I wanted something to look pretty, I'd play it on a PC. UT2004 even looks better than that.
    • These pictures don't look that different.... In fact, in the first comparison, I thought the "better" picture just looked more blurry. In the second set of pictures, the enlarged versions were hard to compare because they were different sizes! After flipping back and forth between the larger versions a couple of times, I didn't see a noticeable difference.

      Maybe the later comparisons were more illustrative of the 360's graphical improvements, but I didn't see a whole lot to get excited about.
      • The comparison in the second picture was this: the Xbox could only handle a 480p resolution for Halo 2. The 360 can handle a 720p resolution for Halo 2.

    • Agreed. When I realized that Halo 2 came out a year ago yesterday, it hit me pretty hard that I've been going an system linking at a friend's house, once or twice a week, for a year, and it's still never gotten old. And before the whiney bitches come in and say crap about Halo being overrated or sucking, it's fun, and it's not the only thing to play on the Xbox. Rainbow Six (not Lockdown), Farcry Instincts, Ghost Recon 2 are just some examples of other good FPS titles on the Xbox as well. To say Halo is the

  • Console gaming's version of crack (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SalaciousPucker ( 911419 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2005 @09:27PM (#13994380)
    Halo 2 may have flaws, but it's still gaming crack. Graphics and technology aside - the gameplay is really what sets Halo apart from other shooters. It's just so fluid, so damn smooth. It doesn't have the twitchiness of Counterstrike or the nonsense of Quake or its like. Yes, the modders and kiddies make you want to reach through the communicator and strangle someone.....but I keep going back, even a year later.

  • best...game...ever (Score:2, Insightful)

    by manboy9 ( 891227 )

    I never understood why people look down on this game as opposed to he first one or even comparable PC games for that matter.

    In my opinion this is one of the best games to come out in recent years. I have yet to see a game that's mor suited to having four friends gathered on the sofa killing each other long into the night. Console gaming kicks ass in this respect since you do't have to bother with LAN setup, moving your computer, etc. or the lag of playing online. I must admit I've never played on Xbox L

    • Re:best...game...ever (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I have yet to see a game that's mor suited to having four friends gathered on the sofa killing each other long into the night.

      Keep [ign.com] looking [smashbros.com]. Halo's looked down upon because it's overhyped. By a lot.
    • Umm... I love to frag on Halo as much as the next guy, and I hate playing on Live. In fact, I doubt I ever will again. Every time I give it a chance, some 12 year old whose parent's aren't home physically or mentally makes me wish their parents would take a belt to their backsides and bar of soap in the mouth. Anyway, here's a list.

      MarioKart... pick an iteration. DS version looks to be amazing.
      Perfect Dark on the N64. I had much more fun with this game than either Halo. In fact, when the Revolution co

    • "I have yet to see a game that's mor suited to having four friends gathered on the sofa killing each other long into the night."

      For some the following are more fun:
      Devil Dice (PS2 version called Bombastic)
      Bomberman (5 players on the Turbo Duo) on ajust about any platform.
      Thril Kill (silly over the top but fast)
      Propeller Arena
      Toy Commander
      The Next Tetris

  • PC version vs XBox? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Taulin ( 569009 ) on Thursday November 10, 2005 @12:06AM (#13995215) Homepage Journal
    I played the PC version of the first one, and I have to say it was pretty boring. I am not saying it wasn't a good game, only there are so many other shooters out there for PC that beat it. I agree with all those before me that say it is the lack of shooters for the system that made it big...PLUS! Many PC players today are actually scared of playing modern day shooters for some strange reason, and feal more comfortable playing console shooters. It is almost like they are intemidated. That and not being able to afford hardware to play PC shooters at a decent level. All these facts put together show why Halo did good in sales and popularity, and that makes it a winner.
    • Halo really did suck the first time I played it through. It was a technically good shooter but didn't feel like anything special. And then you played it the second time through and noticed that in large battles the enemy didn't do the exact same thing. And the third time through they did something else entirely. The great thing about Halo was you could replay it and knowing were the enemies where didn't give you much of an advantage. Add in the fact that trying to beat it on legendary requires a ton of fine
    • Intimidated by shooters? Like many other PC gamers, I own Half-Life 2, Far-Cry, and a plethora of shooters. I'm able to run newer games on two year old hardware without any issues. I'm not sure how you can justify your comment without pulling facts straight out of your ass.
  • This game bridged a huge gap between like minds across whole continents.
    I mean, what other game would allow the unwashed masses of twelve-year-olds to shout "ALLAHU ACKBAR FUCK AMERICA" or "DIE NIGGER JEW FAG" over the Internet so massively?

    Yeah, it's a real classy game.

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