New Halo 2 Details

Grinn writes "Gamesarefun.com has obtained some new information about Halo 2. Most interesting is the ability to hold two weapons at once, each operating individually on the left trigger or the right." Although apparently sourced via a German site, this may be similar info to that contained in the new June issue of the US Official Xbox Magazine. And even if it's not due for a while, the Halo series continues to be a serious killer app for Microsoft's console.

Comments

killer app

[Zed2K]

Shouldn't that be: Halo series continues to be THE ONLY serious killer app for Microsofts console.

Is AI driving that much harder than walking?

[The Evil Couch]

Well, the player doesn't have to worry about being the driver anymore. AI controlled marines will now also take command of vehicles. But, watch out... they seem to have gotten their licenses from a box of Cracker Jacks. They'll drive erratically and in fairly dangerous ways. Much like drivers on the LA freeway during rush hour.

Virtually every game I've seen that has both driving and walking AI characters, the ones driving are either total pussies or complete psychos behind the wheel. Battlefield 1942, the entire GTA series, Operation Flashpoint, the botpilot mod for Tribes 2, all of them are either a danger to themselves and their own team or they're so timid that they can't bring themselves to do anything useful.

I would think that the path-finding AI involved would remain precisely the same as on foot. The only additional processes involved would be trying to compensate for a larger bounding box and not trying to roll the thing.

anyone else got any ideas on what's going on with this crazy bots?

Re:Is AI driving that much harder than walking?

[PaleZer0]

AI has to operate by constantly checking the environment, running through a series of checks, then decide what it should do. Sometimes what it should do is continue what it was doing before, other times it should start something completely new. Now picture yourself playing a game with driving and walking. When you walk, you can quickly jerk the stick in the opposite direction, and (with the exception of some slight skidding) change directions. Therefore the ai can make these same quick decisions. Now, when you are driving a car, you can jerk the stick in the opposite direction, but in a realistic driving game, its going to slowly arc in that direction like a real car would. Now, this extends the time it takes for one of these things to actually execute completely. When you as a player are driving a car, you predict where you want the car to be by looking into the future further than you would if you were just walking your character around. Basically, this looking farther into the future is exactly what makes creating a proper reacting ai for a car that much more difficult. er something... =)

What's the big deal?

[WildBeast]

I own an Xbox and there's nothing so great about Halo. It's just another shooter, nothing to see here. Halo is the game I play the least on my Xbox. Sorry if I shocked you :) But seriously, I prefer playing Splinter Cell, Buffy, etc. I'm tired of shooters.

Nice Troll, but I'll bite.

[tino_sup]

The Xbox provides something you overlooked, competition. With this console on the market other companies are forced to address their price matrix, and adjust accordingly. Who wins? We, the gamers do. Your inability to form a coherent thought without the intentional adolescent misspelling leads me to believe that my points are wasted on you.

An interesting read It is a little more recent than your vauge statistics from "last November".

"Video game sales disappoint

Reuters

Sales of video games in the United States rose 8 percent in March over the same month last year as Japan's Nintendo lit up the charts with three hit games, industry analysts said on Tuesday, citing market research.

Sales of games for the latest generation of consoles -- Sony's PlayStation2, Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube -- rose 36 percent, Deutsche Bank Securities' Jeetil Patel said, while sales for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance handheld rose 32 percent.

Patel and other analysts based their figures on monthly market research from the privately held NPD Group.

SoundView Technology Group analyst Shawn Milne estimated Nintendo's sales for March at $101.5m, or about £65m, up 168 percent from a year ago and well ahead of No. 2 Electronic Arts at $62.3m.

The top-selling game of the month, he said, was "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" for GameCube, doing nearly $41m in sales on 826,352 units sold.

"We view the March industry software data as disappointing, noting that, excluding the strong software sell-through by Nintendo, industry software sales would have been down 8.3 percent," J.P. Morgan analyst Dean Gianoukos said in a note.

But Gianoukos also said he expected EA, Activision and THQ to meet or beat their estimates for the March quarter.

Sony's PS2 ended the month with a 37.8 percent share of the hardware market, Gianoukos said, followed by 14.7 percent for the Xbox and 10.7 percent for the GameCube.

There was a 70 percent decline from a year earlier in sales of games for so-called "legacy" platforms like Sony's original PlayStation and Nintendo's last-generation N64, Patel said.

That decline was a drag on overall sales growth, he said."

Re:Killer app alright... killing the Xbob...

[papadiablo]

Halo is the ONLY thing I've ever heard anyone talk about being so wonderful on the Xbob

Ever heard of Splinter Cell? Yeah, thought so.

Sony's Answer

[nick_davison]

And even if it's not due for a while, the Halo series continues to be a serious killer app for Microsoft's console.

In other news, Sony are hyping Final Fantasy 17 for the PS4. While they accept that neither game nor console are out yet, they don't see why Microsoft should have all the fun claiming killer apps that aren't anywhere near release.

The graphics are reported to be in a different league to anything X-Box users have ever dreamed of.

Doom III

[boomerny]

Well, Doom III is coming to Xbox and no other platforms, I'd say that is a pretty killer app. I've read that Brute Force should be good, too.

two hands, two guns

[goon america]

The gun-in-each-hand thing is something Bungie did with its earlier shooter, Marathon 2. One of the guns was a shotgun... the readme file had a little joke about how it was "too complicated to detail" how actually you could reload it without using your other hand.

Re:two hands, two guns

[papadiablo]

Please refer to the movie Equilibrium for how to load a gun without using your other hand... has something to do with attaching clips for the guns to your pants and waving your arm so that the clip goes right into the gun. Easy, right?

Individual triggers, nothing new

[mrseigen]

On Marathon, one of Bungie's earlier (and IMO better) games, you could use the spacebar to fire the right weapon and the option/alt key to fire the one in your left hand. Red Faction II also just did this, allowing you to fire with either trigger.

Re:Gamepro forums?

[Dot.Com.CEO]

If you consider yourself a gamer, get a Cube NOW. Metroid Prime is a gem. The experience is excellent, it is truly an original game.

On a sidenote, I own a PS2, an Xbox, a reasonably powerful gaming PC and a Cube. I have ONLY played Cube games in the past four months.

Halo is an average game compared to the "rehashed" Nintendo titles. Don't trust me on that, just play Metroid Prime. You'll thank me.