Preview Of Halo For PC Finally Sighted

bmnc writes "After nearly a year in development by Gearbox Software, info for the PC version of Halo:Combat Evolved is finally available at Gamespy.com, in both single-player and multi-player flavors." This is absolutely a big deal, especially since Bungie have been intelligent enough to use Gearbox, FPS veterans who've been heavily involved with extending the Half-Life franchise in the past with Opposing Force and Blue Shift, to do a definitive PC version of Halo.

Comments

Mac port?

[Ziktar]

Hmm... the article was pretty decent in coverage, but has MS officially dropped the Mac port, or will it be another 8 month wait for the followers of Steve?

Especially given Bungie's solid Mac support, it truly is a shame they sold out...

Re:Mac port?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac port is coming

(near the middle)

http://www.macgamer.com/news/

Re:Mac port?

[Gogo Dodo]

Westlake Interactive is doing the Mac port. It's in good hands. Check Westlake's status page

You can also read about the game's status from the programmer in this Inside Mac Games article

Coop is low on priority list

[solopido]

Quote from article:

Will anything be missing? Right now, the only major feature from the Xbox version of Halo in danger of not making it to the PC is the cooperative mode. It may still be included if Gearbox can find an easy way to implement it ("it's high on our list," says Pitchford), but for the moment nothing is guaranteed.

Now I don't know about you, but if there is no coop mode I will not purchase this. Why? Because that's what my friends and I have had the most fun with on the XBox. We complained that there was no PC version where we could have more than 2 players in coop in fullscreen with mouse look. We get plenty of deathmatch from other games but we had a real blast playing this game with coop. We all said we would buy it just to play coop if it ever came out on PC, otherwise I'll just keep on playing it on the Xbox. This would be a major let down to the Halo fans I believe.

Sure, there is no longevity in these type of coop games but who cares? When was the last time you remember playing a coop game and had fun, I think mine was Quake2 and it was definately much funner than just playing it single player.

Controls should be interesting

[nicky_d]

It'll be interesting to see how the gameplay changes with the implementation of mouselook controls - Halo's Xbox control scheme seems to fit the game's style and pace perfectly, whereas many console FPS titles suffer from the move to the smoother, less 'twitchy' control pads. Integrating the vehicles will be another interesting control challenge; a pad switches easily from walking to driving to flying, a mouse perhaps less so. Still, here's hoping a lot more people get to appreciate this great title...

Red vs Blue - Episode 6

[Universal Nerd]

Speaking of Halo...

Episode 6 of Red vs Blue came out.

Short Halo/Bungie History

[peel]

Back in the day Bungie made some very excellent games for the Mac of all things. Including one of my favorite FPS games/series ever, Marathon. They also reinvented the side-scroller with a game called Abuse. Then they took the 3D third person action game to a new level with Oni, where not only could you blow the crap out of people, a la Quake, but also beat the crap out of people, a la Street Fighter.

Then they started on something really ambitious... Halo.

Halo was supposed to be one of the best FPS games of all time. Originally slated for the Mac and later for the PC halo was going to revolutionize the FPS market. It had amazing physics, great texture mapping allowing seamless movement from indoors to outdoors,the ability to use any weapon and vehicle in the game (is this still there?) and, what I think was the coolest, persistent reality (I kill you in room A and when I come back 3 days later your corpse is stll laying there rotting).

And, as many stories often turn for the worse, along came Microsoft to ruin everyone's fun. Since they needed a flagship game for the Xbox and Bungie wasn't doing so well (but were almost complete with halo form my understanding) Microsoft bought them out. They dumbed down the orignal features of Halo to get it out for the Xbox's launch and assured both the PC and Mac fans who were eagerly awaiting it's arrival that they would get their copy.

Well it looks like the PC people finally got their copy, although in my opinion a bit too late. And as many Mac people out there probably suspected, they won't be getting theirs any time soon, if ever.

I held out hope that I might get a version for the Mac but it looks like I'll have to get an Xbox or PC to play it now.

The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Thank you Microsoft for screwing us again... (Well except for all of the lucky Xbox owners out there...Oh, and the PC folks who are going to buy it) -peel

Xbox controller is already USB

[yerricde]

Is there anything like an Xbox-controller-to-USB converter?

The Xbox controller is a USB device with a differently shaped connector and a data protocol that slightly breaks the HID standard, but drivers exist for at least Windows.

I don't work for the ZTNET Store, which sells adapters to connect various game console controllers to a USB port.

Myth???

[bobgoatcheese]

You completely left out the Myth series in your history of bungie! IMO Myth is easily the best RTS game I've ever played, focusing more on actual strategy using landforms and unit formations than resource gathering. Numerous mods and complete conversions have been released for Myth II and while Bungie no longer supports the game, popular fan run servers Play Myth and Marius Net still host mulitiplayer games, and Project Magma is still updating the game with bug fixes and enhancments in patches. Bungie actually forfeited the Myth franchise to Take2 during the Microsoft buy-out, much to the shagrin of us Myth fans, alas Myth III just doesn't have the same bite as the two previous titles. Don't forget this once great Bungie series in a history of the company!