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Halo 2 Direct-feed Multiplayer Video Released
An anonymous reader writes "Bungie made an appearance at last weekend's Major League Gaming competition in Seattle, and they brought along a beta copy of Halo 2 for the contestants to play with. Major League Gaming recorded the games and gave some of that of footage to halo.bungie.org, who have turned it into a 122MB, 18-minute-long Quicktime video which is being distributed via BitTorrent. This is the first non-shakycam video footage of Halo 2 multiplayer to be released, and man, does it look good!"
I clicked that link and...wha? is this an error message? damn, no. its burried in this page.
o 2.mov.torrent
dug around a bit and found the file. here it is.
http://files.mythica.org/torrents/MLG-Seattle-Hal
Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over -- 'conquered' if you will -- by a master race of first person shooter sequels. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the sequels will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new gaming overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground data mines."
Great footage, but why-oh-why did the first guy who got to play the Halo 2 beta and have his footage recorded and distributed around the world have to suck so bad? I'm waiting to see the laser sword in the hands of someone who can actually do more than run around in circles waving it like a third-string high school flag girl while he gets lit up by players whose recorded games might have been far more interesting...
... now that they don't have Major League Baseball any more.
(sorry Ichiro fans)
Because it was his first time playing it - while everyone (or nearly) everyone else in the game has been in the beta for some non-trivial amount of time.
You know how it is. FPS games don't exactly have a steep learning curve, but boy, watch out for that FIRST step. First time in a game, first time on a map - both supress your 'normal' abilities substantially.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
That's a mirror page of direct download links.
Seems ironic that a first person shooter would be called "Halo". Bungie should come up with a FPH (First Person Helper) game where you run around helping people in distress. It would be named "Horns"!
Ummm... this is about Halo 2, not Half-Life 2. Obviously, since Bungie (the makers of Halo 2) are now owned by Microsoft, there's not much chance of a Linux port.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
This looks as good as the first Halo. Sure, there's a rotating gear, but apart from that, the levels are blocky as ever. I've yet to see a game that looks as good or better than Ninja Gaiden on Xbox.
ehhhm ... although this looks like offtopic or even troll, i think it's rather insightful ... or even ... :-P
Never underestimate the power of idiots in large groups
there's footage of Pro MLG players available on the vod section of their site. Those guys are bamazing.
i think they leaked the boob footage to let everyone get a sneak peak
Wow... Halo2 is FUGLY.... I'm sure they're gameplay is still great... but really, what have they been working on for the last couple years? Dual Weapons? ... Sitting on their laurels and collecting money methinks.
I agree with you. I think that they did it so that we can drool and say "Wow, I can't wait to go and kick some ass".
Well I love Halo and have been able to beat it twice by myself on Ledgendary, it is hard. I needed help the first time though. So I have beaten it a total of 3 times. Man I love it. It's the ease of gameplay and mainly I'd say the whole interactivity with most of your environment. To tell you the truth, this is the only game I have actually found a use for the grenade and they are very effective, just like it should be. Everything from the sounds the other species make (Elites- "Wut wut wut"), to the ability to have CPU riders on your Warthog that actually use their AI and fire accurately on enemies. Also, most games have loads of clip. Clip = walking through part of or full objects. I have only seen one instance of this in Halo and it was where I was intentonally overloading the map with grenades on one spot and trying to blow up a Warthog into a tree, only the tire partially went in. I have watched the E3 demo movie for Halo 2 and being able to now hold double weapons and all kinds of new guns and vehicles, it will be great. Better graphics too, they've moved the release date back so much though because Halo was still selling quite well, I wish they would just get on with this one...I already have it preordered, not gonna be available for at least 2 months otherwise.
Ya'll know about http://www.xbconnect.com/ right? Killer app allows system link games to be tunneled over (under) the internet. Legal and free.
will be sweet since I belive they said they will use Marathon 5 errr Halo 2.
Pfft. The only thing that makes Halo hard is having any real control using anything either then a mouse and keyboard. Halo on "Legendary" setting is simply just tedious.
Playing Halo isn't exactly rocket science.
1) Pickup shitty weapon.
2) Curse at the hideous controller.
3) Go play a real game that doesn't look like lego land.
At least, that is how I played it any way.
Seriously. Though I must admit I laughed when the guy playing got into the driver's seat of the Warthog, and his teammates all jumped out.
They should have used Sleepy for the cameraman, he was badass. I was mostly awed by the awesome gameplay, dual weapons, etc. I strongly disagree that it looks like crap, it's a poor quality movie but the graphics themselves are much better than what you can see here, if you look at screenshots from http://bungie.com/SlideShow.aspx?Path=%2Fgames%2FH alo2&Slideshow=Screenshots&Slide=0&MSID=B6BC0A056B 9A462AA38C6886DC7D7BE9/ they're quite a bit better than what you can see there. I wish we had seen some different maps and more use of the warthog and ghost, but overall, it was damn cool. I shall be promptly moving in with my Xbox-owning friend.
Love the Third Amendment?
I'm probably going to blow any karma I have left but I need to say what's on my mind.
Look, I've been playing FPS games on the PC since Doom I. And even earlier played FPS games on arcade machines. This, the most advance Halo yet, just seems to be the same old game. What you do is pick up a gun and run run run, shoot shoot, run run run run run, shoot, run run, shoot, run, shoot shoot shoot, run run run, etc. Occasionally you get in a vehicle and drive, but then you get out and do more running and shooting. The driving part doesn't require much effort.
Frankly, as a die hard FPS'er I'm tired of it. When are the game makers going to create a game in which you can have physical talents and abilities as well as a straight shot? When are we going to get devices in the games that take some dexterity with the keyboard and mouse to use? When are we going to get points based on other skills? It's like all they think the keyboard and mouse are useful for are aiming and shooting. Not true.
I'll give you an example. There was once a device called a grappling hook that was added to the game of Quake. In the beginning, this device just seemed to be something that you would use occasionally and seemed to be somewhat of a toy. But to me, I began to use it professionally when CTF came out. The grapple offered an extra element in the game for players that didn't neccessarily want to become excellent shooters, but wanted other "trades" or "abilities" where they might be proficient. In my example I became the best darned offensive flag grabber there was. I could swoop down out of the air, grab the flag, then fly off like Spiderman before anyone could get a shot off. My team would defend me while I got in a base then back out with the flag. I scored flag points as well as frag points. The grapple offered a freedom of expression because it required a bit of finesse of manual dexterity with the mouse while using the keyboard for movement. The better players learn over time that certain keyboard and mouse setups work better for this different "ability". Other abilities were seen as "rocket jumps" for example. Some people developed the skill over time. As well as Quake III offered jump pads that would allow you to move the mouse in certain ways to allow a bit of gymnastics that could be honed over time.
Using "abilities" is a good bit like guitar or instrument playing. It requires you to develop manual skills with your hands and require watchful eyes with a bit of "feeling" for network latencies. You get better than other players over time when you "practice". The same cannot be said of simply running around, aiming, and shooting. Sure, it takes "some" skill to aim correctly, but it also becomes tiresome if that is all you are able to do. This is especially true if someone starts kicking you butt because they developed some "bot" shooting software. If you had some "abilities" in the game you may be able to evade even the "bot" software. For example, I was able to work the grappling fast enough to cause my character to move between frames causing bots to miss. This was a most amazing and enjoyable experience...while it lasted. Some die hard conservative FPS'er from Id decided he didn't like the grapple because it was causing so much turmoil. Apparently people were having a hard time shooting grapple users. Duh! So the grapple was removed. Now, most all games are like Halo, they put you in a box canyon, then you run and shoot. BORE the F' -ing.
Tribes was a game that offered a bit of "abilities" playing. But it was more of a "trades" game. Depeding of the weapons you could choose, you had to pick a class. Class playing is OK, but it isn't quite the same effect as "abilities" playing because you can't decide at any point to switch classes, drop what you are doing, and start shooting or grappling like you can in the real world. If I "see" an "instrument" I think I can use, I should be able to pick it up and try it at any time. I may "become" good at it, maybe not. May
I don't blame you... I went to the website, started the torrent download, but only after reading through the comments did I realize that this *wasn't* Half Life 2.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I don't know why more sites don't have legal bittorrent downloads. Right now I am getting around 250 kB/s which is about what I would get downloading from FilePlanet. Good speed and the people hosting the file don't have to worry about the bandwidth.
SIGFAULT
What really sucks is when a few of my friends that I play Halo with never make it past that first step. Some how they always end up on my team too...
SIGFAULT
It's kind of like UT - all the weapons are useful, but one needs to know how to use them. This includes the needler. You can't just sit around sniping forever and expect to "be a sniper".
-insert a witty something-
After thinking about this over night it occured to me that what I'm suggesting is that their be more "instruments" in the game to use AND more combinations of capabilities with those instruments.
Let's start off with your characters own body movement. You can stand and you can crouch. I think most games have that. But what about rolling or the lean dodge (like in the matrix). How about something I can do with my hands other than hold the weapon. At least Halo allows you to whack your opponent over the head with a gun. Jumping is good, but it doesn't have much use other than to get up on something. How about I be able to run, strafe, jump, flip and roll, all while dodging some bullets, finally grabing the flag, which I may use the flag pole to catapult myself to freedom? Mostly this is about using combinations of keys seperately or all together so that I can do multiple things at once to "avoid getting shot" by a guy who just runs around and shoots. What I'm looking for is the ability to hone your movements so precisely that someone else in the game thinks to himself "Whoa! I cannot believe he did that!" The more keys and combinational effects there are, the more it seems like a real world experience. Being versatile is good.
Let's say you have eight buttons you can press for various effects on each instrument, including your body. That gives you up to 256 different movement and instrument combinations. The problem however is that the left hand (or the right hand, if you are a leftie) generally only has 5 fingers on it. So you can really only do 5 things at once right? Right, well sort-of. See most key press effects disappear as soon as you let off the key. What about allowing the movement or "ability" to continue for given amount of time. That way when you let go of your previous key you can go to another key and use it "in combination" with the last. In that way you can get more than 2^5 combinations. The physics engine for the body needs to allow for forward momentum effects as well. I should be able to need to run to perform some gymnastic effects. Also, even though you might be limited to 2^5, or 2^8, physical effects, you have much more flexability with the mouses almost analog turn capabilites. I should be able to "bend" in the air like a "reed" to achieve some physical effects.
How about some instruments or weapons that also require some combinational keys to perform different actions. Granted, the grappling hook only had a one button click on/off option, but the person who thought of it in Quake allowed timing to be a part of the effect. You click your mouse button and the grapple starts to shoot out, but you could release the button "before" the grappled hit anything at it would retract. So using this feature allowed you to click really fast for close range opponents to "stab" them to death. Or, you could alternatively allow the grapple to "stick" into the ceiling, then as you are being pulled up, release the button before you reached the top. When that happened you would be catapulted up, over, and around things because you gain the grapple momentum while being pulled up.
The only thing that didn't really work with the grapple that would have been fun would be ability to swing around corners. You could accomplish that by pressing a key to stop the grapple pull at a certain length. You simply aim and shoot while running at a corner or stationary object, then get swung around.
You can be I will be playing Tribes Vengeance. I absolutely loved Tribes and Tribes 2. Halo to me is really an FPS shooter for beginners. A sort of "FPS for Dummies" kind of game. Tribes had a much richer experience and depth.
By the way, I am refering to on-line multiplayer combat, not the single player experience. I don't like single player games anymore. AI simply doesn't have any aggression or motives behind it. Playing the computer is like having sex with a blow up doll. Although I commend id software for making Doom III. I get no thrills shooting dumb automatons.