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Halo 2 Ready to Ship
Thanks to pdawerks who alerted us to the post on the Bungie site stating that Halo 2 is ready to ship. It's filled with typical Bungie humor. "If you create a clan, do it because you intend to use it, and enjoy the camaraderie that Clan membership brings. We have systems in place to deal with "dead" or unused Clans. Unpleasant, pointy systems that reek of rust and blood and horror. Think Silent Hill meets Autocomplete."
Whilst many will not know, Bungie originally started out life as a Mac developer... until Bungie sold out to MS, in the ultimate act of treason for many Mac users :)
Even still, I hope Halo 2 makes it off the XBox onto the Mac and the PC. The first one was great, and Bungie make great looking games with a great plot.
-- james
Looks like they're on-time with this release date. That's a refreshing change from the usual cycle of pushbacks we've been seeing lately in the PC market (and to a lesser extent in consoles). Not that they're totally innocent-- they've pushed this one back, what, three times?
Let's hope it meets the expectations of the fans.
I just hope this game is as good as I imagine it will be. Fable was a huge dissapointment for me. I was waiting for it since last christmas, and was sick of it in a week. No where near as epic as I expected. Though I don't really see how they could mess up Halo 2, I am quit sure it is possible. Let's just all pray to the god of Halo.
Bungie Software was a small games house and publisher located in Chicago. Microsoft bought them out a couple of years ago (except the Myth franchaise which was bought by Take2 interactive).
For all intents and purposes, Bungie doesn't exist anymore. Microsoft bought it for Halo to have a big game to promote its XBox. 'Bungie' soon became nothing more than another office on the Microsoft Campus, as its Chicago offices were shut down and staff moved. As far as I know, most of the Bungie people quit then or have since.
So no, Bungie has gone, and is now just a brandname used by a department of Microsoft's games devision.
Although people still play their games (see http://source.bungie.org , http://myth.bungie.org , http://playmyth.net , http://projectmagma.net , http://mariusnet.com ).
First Doom III beats it to the shelf. Then Halo 2. Will Half-Life 2 really ever come out?
:-)
Half-Life 2's in a pretty similar situation to how Halo 2 is now - the developers think they are done with it, and are waiting for final bug-finding and testing from the publishers.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some announcement of Half-Life 2 going Gold pretty soon, followed shortly afterwards by Halo 2.
I'm really hoping Halo 2 makes its way to the PC eventually. I don't buy many games, and when I do it's mainly for the modding potential, so a games console would be a bit pointless for me (especially as I don't have a telly to connect it to) - although having waited the best part of two years for the PC port of the original Halo I suppose I better sit tight.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
so when does it come out for PC?..... If the Xbox is just a PC it shouldn't take that much....
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You're right. Nothing about the game was particularly spectacular, except this: It was fucking fun. Isn't that what counts?
Even Bungie will agree with you on the repeating levels, since they had to re-use some environments in order to meet the Xbox launch date. But if you think the AI is bad, you're just plain wrong. Halo is universally regarded as having some of the best FPS AI, possibly even the best ever. Try playing on something other than easy.
They've had a lot more time to plan this one. Now, instead of rushing out a good game, they have planned an excellent game. I predict the game will look better graphically, because they've had more time to experiment.
Additionally, hardware aside, I assume they've done A LOT of work on the AI. Moreover, they've obviously spent time on making sure it was xbox-live compatible. I know a lot of people who will now purchase xbox live because of this.
The point: Graphically, Halo was probably 90% of how good it was going to get. Multiplayer, Maps, Network Play (What network play?) were meager at best. If they can get those up to the level of what single player was, it will dominate the market for a long time.
Well, some. Some are points that Yolegoman brought up, like the shield/health system.
You only have a few, (what, ten?) points of health, but over that you have an energy shield that will recharge given a few minutes of not taking any damage. This made charging into firefights a risky thing. You always had to be careful of how much health and shield you had. And if you had any tactics, you'd make sure you decently chipped away your opponent's health before taking them on. Of course, in close different weapons were better, so if you had the right ones you knew your chances going in.
And the weapons themselves, a nice selection with one firmly in each of the basic groups (machinegun, shotgun, pistol, sniper, rocket, energy-weapon, enemy-seeking) and all had their disadvantages and advantages. Yes, just like any other FPS. But you could only carry two at a time. This goes back to the tactics involved in your personal style of play.
I know mouse/keyboard purists will tear me apart, but having a decent controller (Yeah, I dig the XBox one. The old one, at that.) to play a game like this on is fun. It actually got the 'fudge-factor' right. The "precision" that everyone whines about losing? Screw that. If you can't manuver that joystick to where you want it, you're just not trying or have some kind of mental/physical disability. Okay, not really, but note that mouse/keyboard purists are in the minority of console game players right now, even if it is a very vocal minority.
But what I'm betting is the most important factor for Halo's success... Was the fact that it was system-link only.
Absolutely nothing beats having fifteen friends divided between two rooms shouting and whispering plots. Then looking at the single player/coop? Solid plot, good characterization, excellent music... What more do you want in a single player game? Sure you have Unreal2k4, but that's just this year. And there's a few others, but they don't have 'everything' that Halo had. Just parts. Halo, to the fans, was everything that they had been asking for in a FPS. The question isn't why did they like it. It's what was NOT to like about it? (Aside from a few occassions of monotonous level design.)
Though, Halo was missing one thing for me. It didn't allow you to toss grenades or shoot rockets through teleporters like Duke Nukem 3d did. C'mon. That was good stuff.
Well of course not everybody will like it, but multiplayer Halo is a LOT of fun in the right company, especially with 8 or more players over System Link. You don't run as fast as in Counter-Strike, but that doesn't make it bad, just different. Multiplayer is the main reason Halo has such a large following today. The single player game was OK; it was the best thing out on the XBox for a while at the beginning, so it's what people played. The repetition is bad, but the combat itself is fun and has a lot of depth because good variety and balance in the weaponry. Bungie is specifically avoiding repetition in Halo 2 levels, so that particular problem of Halo 1 has been addressed. I'm hoping the story is better too; Halo 1's story was good for an FPS but there's so much more potential there. With Halo 2's xbox live support, 8-16 player games will be available 24 hours a day in your living room, so it won't be a big deal involving transporting XBoxes and TVs to experience the coolness of larger Halo games.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Is Autocomplete a game I've never heard of, or a reference to the feature in some computer programs? If the latter, the joke needs a little work.
if you really think halo is a rip off of doom, then you haven't played halo. cuz to be honest, halo is one of the most originial games out there, its not doom where the story line is basically akin to that of a porno, just there as an excuse to shoot your shit, the story actually matters, and people actually put time and effort into it. go read up on marathon, precursor in many ways to halo, used to be a mac game back in the day, made by the same people. halo's not about running through dark corridor after dark corridor killing the same guys over and over again. why don't you actually play it for a bit before you go on your little rant
I should've added that he's beaten the single player about 5 times on Legendary. Sadly, I just wait to die and respawn if I play coop with him on that level.
IronChefMorimoto
The difference is that in Doom 3 you get attacked by zombies that look like aliens because "they're evil" with no other story or reason given.
In Marathon, you're being attacked by a race of slavers attempting to enslave your colony ship built inside a hollowed-out asteroid while one of the ship's built-in AIs has gone insane (more or less) and is using the teleporters to jot you from place to place to do his bidding. You're stuck in the middle... the aliens are a threat but then again, so is the Marathon rogue AI (Durandel) seeing as he wants to survive until the end of time where he can basically shield himself from the Big Crunch and become a God in the next universe that forms. Your job is to save as many colonists as possible while staying alive yourself.
Doom 3 has missions where you run around and kill aliens. Marathon has missions where you have to rescue colonists, or where you have to activate a specific machine or device on the ship, or where you're teleported to the alien ship and have to scout out its layout and their weapons. Hell, the game doesn't even really end all that well... it's not a happy cheerful "look the colonists are all ok" ending, it's more of a Empire Strikes Back bittersweet ending.
You're talking Apples and Oranges here. The Marathon universe, where HALO and HALO 2 take place, is a real breathing science fiction world where all the races and characters have actual motivations for what they do.
id demonstrated with Doom, Doom II and Doom III that they can build a graphics engine and populate it with monsters. Bungie demonstrated that they can create a living, breathing world and an intense story, plop you down in the middle of it, and marvel at what transpires.
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Ever played Marathon? Bungie invented MOST of the conventions of the FPS genre back in 1995. Hell, Marathon even had real-time VOICE CHAT in networked games!
It's not "just another FPS" it's like if Lord British said they were making another Ultima, or if Blizzard was working on a brand new RTS. Even if the genre and theme is repetitive, it's going to be great and you know it. It's Bungie, it has to be!
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