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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
about time! you can call me ethan from ctrl+alt+del
Opportunities of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity. - Linda Ravenhill
Can't wait to jack one of them Covenant tanks - not to mention the ability to shank someone with the sword.
Woohoo!
I'll stick with Doom 3. How many "demonic aliens are taking over and I am the only surviving space marine who can save Earth from the horror" FPS games can our nerves take (in the dark, no less)? I'll stick with the original.
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77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
about the team behind Halo 2
l
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/halo.htm
It's a good read if you're into the game!
-- 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.
Autocomplete sounds misleading...that'd be where they add bots to your clan until you've got enough to beat someone else.
Perhaps they mean the Outlook "Autoarchive" or Windows "Disk Cleanup" features...
Will a Red vs Blue series foolow? It had better be better than the previous one.
here comes the duke nuken forever jokes in 3... 2... 1..
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?
Halo is a thing where you either love it, or hate it. I've talked to many people over the years about the game, and they all either love it, or don't understand what the hype is about.
I, of course, love it. I love the shield / health system, I love the limited, yet distinct, weapons, all having strenghts and weaknesses, and I especially love the vehicles.
Warthog pwnz0rz.
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.
Yeah I liked it until that level with the swarm of little crab aliens where every room was the same. I spent two days lost in there. It's like their level designers weren't even trying.
People keep telling me that I should put my girlfriend infront of Sims if I want to do some hacking on the computer, that way (according to them) she will be occupied playing the sims for hours and hours, funny enough this doesnt seem to work. However, me and my g/f played Halo1 for loads of hours coop, so this is my chance to get some hacking done.
:(
Oh wait, coop, anyone got any sugestions to keep me hacking while the chance of playing halo2 coop is starring me straight in the face with a wartorn girlfriend screaming "Comeon you bastards" at the top of her lungs while dodging bullets and throwing grenades?
Oh well, I guess this is just another change of totally neglecting work that needs to be done.
I knew that Alexander Seropian (apparently one of the main people behind Marathon) quit, but who else jumped ship?
That would be the Library, which most people agree is the worst level. It's also one of the hardest on Elite.
Will a Red vs Blue series foolow?
Rooster Teeth Productions already announced that they've started working on RvB season 3. I mean, it's called RvB: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, and the action is taking place largely on Blood Gulch when it left off. Thus, the next RvB season is probably not using Halo 2. Even if they weren't limited to Blood Gulch (not that they haven't used other maps), they still probably have to figure out all the nuances of Halo 2 that weren't the same in Halo 1 before making movies with it.
Fetch Text URL - Firefox Extension
That's like saying Blizzard "doesn't exist" because Vivendi Entertainment owns it. Or Retro Studios (the great company that put together Metroid Prime) "doesn't exist" because Nintendo owns the franchise.
Just because MS buys a developer doesn't necessarily make it bad. Bungie still makes kickass games. There's also a ton of other games that have come directly from MS in-house (MechWarrior, Age of Empires, etc).
Bungie is actually still quite intact. The orginal founder you mentioned did leave and start his own game company, which will be using and licensing a modified version of the original Halo engine, but the rest of them, for the most part, are still there. Heck, they started working on Halo 2 immediately after they finished the first game. Bungie is still very much it's own development studio, and not just a name. You might want to check out bungie.net.
I can't speak for everyone, but I think for a lot of people it's the multiplayer experience, not the campaign.
In Halo1, of course, this was limited to split screen and/or system link. The fact that Halo 2 has live support will probably be reason enough for Halo fans to buy the game. Add in some dual-wielding weapons, destructible vehicles, more multiplayer game modes (and maps, naturally)...hard to go wrong.
That doesn't change the fact that it's not for everyone of course, and there's nothing wrong with that.
If you're not into multiplayer FPS, there's not nearly as much there for you. The storyline was pretty good (IMHO), it WAS a fairly linear campaign though. I've heard some rumors about little differences (like, an AI driver while you're gunning on a 'hog), but the single player will still come down to story and creativity in the gameplay. Pretty hard to judge that in advance - I could see it going either way. Maybe they focused almost entirely on multiplayer and the single player campaign will be left behind. Maybe they heard the complaints about the Halo1 campaign being repetitive and linear, and have drastically improved. We'll just have to see.
This post seems to confirm that co-op is back (for the XBox version, at least), that's always a good thing. I wonder if you can do co-op over Live? I have some friends that're hard to get in the same room but we all have Live...
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Greate, Halo 2 is released, but the big question is: does it include a playable demo of duke nukem forever on the CD ?
Umm. No. Jason Jones was and is the main guy behind Bungie and he's still there. He's the driving force behind the story of many (all?) of thier games. Most the original Bungie guys are still there. I can think of one high-profile dude that left to form his own company, but don't feel like digging up the details right now. Should be easy enough to find.
You may not like MS, but don't take it out on Bungie, they are some damn good developers.
They were in a compromising spot some years back where they just could not effectively develop AND publish AND distribute their games -- too many big publishers were doing a better job than they ever could because they had the name recognition and the people and infastructure in place to do so. Bungie was too small. So they decided to merge with a big developer/publisher so they could focus on development instead of having to worry about calling up EB and Gamespot and the rest and trying to convince them to carry their games.
"Hello, this is Bungie and we've got an awesome new game we'd like you to sell."
"Who?"
"Bungie."
"Who?"
compared to
"Hello, this is Microsoft and we have an awesome new game that you will sell. May I put you down for a million copies?"
"Yes, sir! May I have another!"
Halo 2 is Xbox-only until the PC version is released anyway...
0...-1...-2...-3...forever.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I love charging at someone, firing until my clip runs out, then butting them in the face with my gun (something I wish other FPS' had) and then desecrating their fallen corpses while they look on, waiting to spawn again. But yeah, I guess the shield /health system has something to do with that.
Yes, here it is: ilovebees.com.
Anybody remember the game Marathon? Looking back, it seems that a lot of Halo is based off of this game. I remember playing that game for hours trying to get to the end of the next level.
I found the "Any" key.
Great, the MS Office paperclip is runnig the clans now..
My friend won't buy any new XBox or PC games until this one comes out. He's been waiting for it all summer.
He plays the original HALO on multiplayer with either myself or his brother-in-law on an 8' wide, 6' tall wall using a Dell projector -- FOR HOURS ON END. I stopped playing with him about 3 months ago, because he knew where every dude was coming from, and the exact moment the AI would do this or that. He'd played it that much.
I've never seen a game with such replay value, or is my friend just a HALO nut?
At least, when HALO 2 does come out, I'll be able to see it in all it's Dolby DTS and 8' x 6' glory. It's a beautiful game -- unless you're still watching my friend play the levels he knows by heart 1 year after it's been released.
IronChefMorimoto
I wont make a fool of myself in front of all the gamerz by asking in the games shop for Halo2 like I did last christmas! Cool!
Half-Life 2's in a pretty similar situation to how Halo 2 is now
Sorry, you're incorrect. Half-Life 2 is the keystone of a huge legal battle between creator Valve and publisher Vivendi Universal Games (VUG). Microsoft and Bungie are not engaged in a legal battle over the release of Halo 2. Microsoft is not withholding the release of Halo 2 as a punitive action againt Bungie, as VUG is doing with Half-Life 2. The situtations are not comparable. If you want to see Half-Life 2 in stores, email VUG and tell them so.
http://xkcd.com/386/
multiplayer.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
I don't actually own an XBox. I have played Halo at my friend's house VERY often though. The co-op gameplay is fun. The music is great. The story is interesting. The developers added some nice hummor in the cut scenes.
It isn't my favorite game, hell, it isn't even my favorite FPS... but it is a damn good time, and I'm looking forward to the sequal.
On the subject of overly repetative FPS what about game that you walk from one room to the next. When you enter a room, all the lights go out and some zombies crawl out of the woodwork.
Doom 3 didn`t appeal to me with its fancy guns and pretty animations.
That said I like halo, something about the way you put your life into the hands of someone who isn`t old enough to drive, and yet you hop into their warthog and wait to be blasted about 200 foot into the air by a stray rocket...
makes me smile, but then I'm easily pleased.
CJC
Yeah, it is really easy getting lost in there, though they made it rather easy as they did not open up the ENTIRE level which sort of helped (I shudder thinking that all the doors would have worked).
But still, playing the game on Elite is fun, maybe I should play it once more before the second one comes out.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Not to mention the fact that they didn't have the deep pockets necessary these days to develope a cutting edge game.
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.
it's like slow and it's telling you all the stuff you did in the first one then the music kicks in and and the chief comes out and gets a gun the earf is on fire and chief is like fuck this im jumping and HE JUMPS PUT OF TEH SPACESHIP with angels singing and he lands on the bad guys and that annoying ai lady is like GO GET EM TIGER! WILDCAT IS ON TEH SPOKE!!!~`1 and theres less polys but rawkin bumb mappings you can view this on a special MICROSOFT xbox disk that comes with EB games store.
The appeal for me was coop. Sit down with a buddy on the couch, infront of the TV and play the coop levels. A total blast.
Sure, you can network PCs up, or play online, but it isn't as fun (for me) as playing with someone sitting right there next to you./p?
The *only* thing I can remember from 1997 is Myth: TFL . Companies undergo change, especially good ones - there's nothing new or surprising about what happened there. Bungie will always be one of my favorite game companies and I will always be looking forward to what they're working on next.
> I can think of one high-profile dude that left to
> form his own company, but don't feel like digging
> up the details right now.
Uh, that's Alexander Seropian. If Bungie were Apple, Jones is the Woz, Seropian is Steve Jobs.
He's just as much Bungie as Jason Jones is.
I'd really be doing a disservice if I didn't mention the editable gametypes. Talk about allowing maximum replayability.
Two of my favorites:
RocketRace:
Blood Gulch, max laps, random flag spawn, warthogs, max shields, infinite grendades, rockets only.
AssFlag:
Assault, single flag, three minute periods, all vehicles.
That the warthogs didn't explode really added to it. I hope you can turn vehicle damage on and off in 2.
He's just a Halo nut and probably an addict too. People have been like this with FPS games ever since Wolf3D and Doom hit the scene. It goes beyond FPS games though as I'm still addicted to the original Civilization - I can't install it as I lose my spare time and sleep to it. As far as FPS addictions go, Quake 2 was the one that consumed my life for the longest, but that followed on from innumerable hours playing Wolf3D, Ultima Underworld, Doom, Doom 2, Heretic, Hexen, Quake, etc. Personally I didn't find the original Halo all that great: the campaign or story mode lasted less than a week and then it was just another deathmatch game. I'm glad I only rented it.
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?" `":" #");}
I, too, was waiting for Halo to have some modding potential. Then, as you mentioned, they took forever to get the game out to PC, then waited forever for an SDK, which they promised... And I flat out gave up on it.
The SDK got released, but it's for a multiplayer-only, Gearbox-sponsored version of Halo PC ('Halo CE', for 'Custom Edition'), and is dependent on software I can't afford (3DSMax, although there have been efforts to get it to work with the free GMax).
I'd really been hoping for the ability to build new single-player maps - in the full game the AI's great, the vehicles are great, the graphics and sound are great, but the mapping's either excellent or plain awful. Of course, it looks like that's never going to happen now, and Halo PC will soon be forgotten, like you said.
Apparently there's been very little uptake of Halo CE, so with so few potential players and a technically limited platform for modification, it probably won't be long until Gearbox has to drop it completely.
A game with lots of potential, but sadly impossible to take any further...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Halo was one of the most realiztic while still being fun to play. Anyone could pick it up, even the girls would join in on our 12 player system link games. On xbox all the fps games have been too slow (ghost recon, splinter cell, etc...) or too fast (UT).
Halo is totally the game you pull out when you have a few friends up. This may be a strange thing to some geeks...
Anyway everyone is totally stoked for halo 2. Almost all my friends have mod chips yet everyone is still going to buy it for xbox live.
There are a hacked set of multiplayer maps floating around where you can fly the banshie, all the guns fire rockets and most wepons can zoom. Its increadbly unballanced, once someone camps out its all over. 25 kills in 1 min with 10 players. One of the maps you can even use the plasma tank which is increadbly hard to aim and the only way out it death.
More multiplayer maps, more weapons, more textures, better physics, etc... I'm also looking forward to more coop campaign(its alot more fun working with someone to finish a game).
It would be cool if they had a coop mode for more than 2 people over system link. Have levels built for it, so that you have to split up and regroup and diffrent points. Search and secure missions and stuff. Alot of people I've been playing halo with lately have been asking for bigger coop games but the current maps wouldn't support it.
God, root, what is the difference?
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.
VU has the legal, contractual right to delay release of HL2. They have not, at this time availed themselves of this right. Your statement above is both wrong and libellous. Congratulations.
And I had to pawn off my Xbox for rent money...
"What I cary in this box is your utter subjugation."
The great thing about Bungie games is that neither the multiplayer (when present) nor single-player campaign is skimped on. The single-player campaign is not just a tutorial for multiplayer, and the multiplayer mode is not just throwing everyone into some random maze with weapons strewn around.
Bungie has been keeping Halo 2's single-player campaign almost totally secret; the first single-player screenshots are only just starting to appear in media, and virtually none of the plot has been made public. I can't wait for either mode. Now I have to go buy a Live kit...
Now, I'm sure Halo 2 will be an amazing game. But to imply that it's been done by mostly the same people as Halo is simply false.
> I don't have a telly to connect it to
Get this: http://www.x2vga.com/. It hooks your Xbox to your monitor, and does all the 420/1080/3270 transversioneering. It works great!
I've never seen a game with such replay value, or is my friend just a HALO nut?
In single-player, he's probably a nut. However, I've recently restarted the game with a new profile in order to try it in harder modes: I've only beaten it in normal. Playing in the max mode (Legendary IIRC) was too much for me: I couldn't even get off the ship!
I'll stick with my money.
I have a couple friends who worked at Bungie in the beginning and a smaller number who are still up there working for MS.
Don't kid yourself, it was the money.
Bungie wasn't in great financial shape, Take Two already had a partial financial interest (I guess you could call it partial ownership) due to the money they plowed in to make Oni. If MS hadn't bought Bungie, Take Two would likely own them right now.
Games are expensive now, and Bungie simply couldn't make the kind of games they wanted to without more capital. And filling their own pockets didn't hurt either.
The first Halo single-player kicks the crap out of most action movies IMHO. That's justification enough for me to pick up H2 at my local place where I'm on deposit on release day.
It may be that UT2k4's got better multiplayer, that's its whole reason for existing as the single-player is kinda lame. If H2 Live is only half as good as UT2k4, even without Onslaught I'd still get it.
I don't care who bought them, or even who is working on them, all I care about is the quality of the games. In my opinion Bungie peaked with Marathon 2, and has been downhill ever since. The plot and gameplay on Marathon 2 were better than any FPS I have seen since, it was 5 years ahead of it's time for features like team play, customizability, and audio chat as well. I waited and waited for Halo to come out and blow me away again, but after the Microsoft purchase it took forever (3+ years after showing a working demo, and then it was only Xbox and PC. Even so, I tried it immediately on a friend's system. It was, sadly, obviously dumbed down for play on the Xbox, lacking half the features of Marathon 2, without the compelling, interactive story line, and basically without the fun.
Maybe Bungie will be back in all their former glory for Halo 2, but I am certainly not counting on it. I suspect this will be another cookie cutter game with the same crap as every other FPS and slightly more realistic graphics. I'm not sure a console can have enough controls to make a game truly great, and everything they put out will certainly be designed with the Xbox as the primary platform. Prove me wrong guys.
Well...he isn't the only one.
I'm not sure if my friends like it, or hate it, when I say "Okay, when we go through this door, there will be 3 guys, first you go to the right and silently bash the grunt sleeping- then I'll take out the shade, and we can both work on the elite that will come up the stairs". But yes, I know just about every enemy location in the campaign side of the game.
There are a lot of Halo freaks out there. I will only put it in now for multi-player, but I spent more than my fair share of time on this game.
Maybe it's not good to be so obsessed with a game...but it is a really good game...
No reason to lie.
SourceForge needs that feature. Most SourceForge projects are empty. Projects that have neither activity nor code should be archived, just to declutter the open source world.
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
Later I found out that a developer at the Halo 2 site mentioned that a new team member was like an "evil Lord British". I'm still not sure what he meant, but at least I, unlike many Halo fans, know who "Lord British" is. He is the just sovereign of Brittania in the Ultima series. More than that, "Lord British" is the alias of Richard Garriot, the originator of the Ultima series.
Perhaps Bungie's "evil Lord British" is a developer who has personalized himself within the Halo 2 game, but as a bad guy.
- - -
"The sixth sick shiek's sixth sheep's sick."
Yes, it's all shield bar now.
In some ways, this will be interesting, especially in multiplayer. However, in the first Halo's campaign missions, I distinctly remember how having health in addition to the shields lended itself to very interesting encounters:
In "Two Betrayals", for instance, you would use your shields energy to overpower Halo's reactors. Then, of course, a ton of enemies would come in and you would have nothing but your very limited health to keep you alive.
It also had those stupid little poppin Flood things that only damaged your health. They won't be worth squat in Halo 2 if you don't have health to worry about, lol.
I, personally, would say increase the shields, like they have done, remove the health for multiplayer, but have limited health in the Campaigns.
Most of the movie trailer images were from either multiplayer or the 2003 E3 trailer. And there was virtually no context from the movie- we don't know what the plot is and where it is going. And aside from the level itself, there's very little there that wasn't in Halo 1.
I've recently moved and thus far, most of the people I've met have really no desire to play X-box. Yeah, I have a 65" HDTV and thought of buying an X-box, but I got to thinking about it and realized that I liked to play X-Box, but it was the multiplayer stuff that was fun...and funny especially after a couple rum runners.
Call me getting old, but I have a couple classic games I still like to play on the PC, but that's about it.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
obStarWarsQuote:
"Your father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So I was right, from a certain point of wiew."
"Blizzard" never existed - they were a corporation, legal fiction, a social construct, a consensual hallucination. There is no person or thing that you can point to and say "That is Blizzard."
HOWEVER, there was once a group of people who at one time could say "I am part of Blizzard." They made some remarkably good games. When those people had all left Blizzard, then the original Blizzard was no more. I think it is safe to say that the Blizzard that existed in 1997 no longer exists.
I've been a customer of Bungie's since 1994. I've beta tested several of their releases and you can even find my name in the credits for the Marathon authoring tools Forge and Anvil.
Bungie left Mac/Windows development and sold to MS for one reason: money. Not only did MS offer them wheelbarrows full of ca$h, but the console market is larger than the computer game market. So short and long term revenue were ensured to increase. Then came Halo to seal that bargain.
Personally I prefer PC/Mac gaming to consoles. Especially for FPS games like Halo. I'm sorry, but aiming with a tiny joystick vs a mouse just doesn't cut it. But if you will notice, Halo PC was done by Gearbox, not Bungie. And the Mac version was a port of their port.
I'd love to see Halo2 for the PC and Mac, but only if it's a solid, refined release that isn't a hastily done port rushed out to milk a franchise.
Halo PC COULD have been a defining FPS game for computer gaming, instead, it was an also ran that was so buggy, you couldn't play it for 2 days online before you started to notice the severe networking problems, issues with weapon balancing and the horrible implementation of vehicles (indestructible, warping, etc).
I certainly won't be playing it on my XBox unless I can use a mouse and keyboard and should it ever be released for the PC or Mac, I'll have to resist the urge to go buy it (I'm weak and full of hope that is often unfounded) until 2 or 3 months have gone by and level headed non-fanboi reviews by end users (not those always rosy 'professional' reviews) hit the net.
N64 goldeneye? Primitive compared to doom/duke nukem/quake, but definitely 4 player deatmatch FPS...
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!
Comment of the year
I think you are right about the multiplayer. Halo is the only game that I have ever played for years straight and never get sick of. Does anyone else play online (the xbox game, not the crap PC one) with xbconnect? It is so much better then even normal system link. People online are nasty, and now when I play legendary I can beat levels (one player) without dying, because online multiplayer is the ultimate training.
The difference is that Fable is a Peter Molyneux game. He's famous for promising features and not delivering (look at Dungeon Keeper I or Black and White). Bungie always delivers exactly what's expected of them. (Not as good as the Unreal team, which always delivers MORE than what's expected, but a hell of a lot better than Molyneux.)
Comment of the year
I especially loved moving around like someone in a wheelchair. Controlling a FPS game with that tiny joystick is great. It reminds me of the days when I played doom I with friends and we all used the keyboards (without the mouse), so we all basically sucked. Dude, if I had mod points, I would mod up to +5. That is the funniest thing I have read in a while. Playing a FPS on a console with a joystick sucks ass. About the whole graphics bit being good on a celeron 700mhz with a gf3.... They designed the game to run at one resolution, 640x480 interlaced. Can you imagine your desktop at 640x480? How weak as that?
True. The two N64 games (Goldeneye and Perfect Dark both from the same developer) do in fact predate Halo, and they prove my point. Because of the N64's limited popularity, most gamers never got a chance to play either of them. Secondly, since its multiplayer lacked network support, many people who did get a chance to play one of these games did not get a chance to experience real multiplayer action.
The N64 games prove my point because they were extremely overhyped overrated games that were enjoyed almost exclusively by the console gamer crowd. Meanwhile PC gamers were not very impressed with a multiplayer FPS game that lacked network support... not to mention a truely 3D world. The N64 games were 2.5D in both physics and world level geometry.
I remember when Goldeneye was released in late 1997, and my console-only friends were overhyped about the game. I had been playing Quakeworld for almost a year. Quakeworld had a true 3D world, internet support, and mod support... I had been playing 64 player deathmatches, CTF, TF, and Rocket Arena. So when I saw a primitive 2.5D multiplayer FPS game that lacked network support, mouse support, etc... I was extremely uninterested in the game.
Wow, flamebait because I'm not a halo fanboy and realise that there are several games similar already out? Nice job Mods. This is almost as bad as when someone gets modded troll because they prefer to use Windows, Mac OS, etc. over Linux. Hooray for open mindedness!
Yeah. It was meant to be funny, but apparantly the mods hate me today. :>
-User gspawn, forgotten password and too lazy to care.
As has had to be noted DOZENS of times all over the internet, Halo 2 is NOT ready to ship. They sent it to be certified, the last step before production, which is the step before shipping.
I would expect Slashdot readers to be above the masses in figuring that one out... 0.o
Sure, sure. They're not withholding the game. That's why it's on store shelves, right? It may not be what they are claiming, but that is what is happening. Nice troll, btw, playing the 'libel' card. That one wouldn't even have worked if my comment was a press release. Good effort, though. My opinion may or may not be correct, but I do have the right to hold it and express it. It represents the truth, as far as I can tell. Valve has released the game to VUG but it is not on shelves, nor is it available to unlock on Steam even though the code has been preloaded for weeks. VUG controls the release of Half-Life 2. Valve has already released Counter-Strike: Source*. VUG has not released Half-Life 2, and they are in the middle of a legal battle with Valve. My conclusion is not unreasonable.
*Yes, you must purchase the Steam Half-Life package first, but then CS:S is immediately playable.
http://xkcd.com/386/
When Richard Garriot (aka Lord British) ran Origin, you would know "it's going to be great". Now that EA runs it, you can expect that they start development on the next generation Ultima, spend lots of money, get a lot of people excited, then pull the plug. They've already done it twice in the past 3 years (UO2 and Ultima X).
In fairness EA continues to improve and extend Ultima Online. The party line is that the next generation games were "distractions". But from the peanut gallery, it sure looks like management has commitment problems.
- - -
"The sixth sick shiek's sixth sheep's sick."
My understanding is that the health bar is only visibly gone, in order to save screen real-estate when playing split-screen. You'll still have health after your sheilds are depleted, you just won't know how much, since actually being able to see whether you have three or five bars doesn't really alter how you play anyway. I know the health bar is missing from multiplayer, but I'm not sure about single-player, where it can affect your strategy. It would make sense not to have in in multiplayer, but still keep it in single-player.
Blue team has the flag.
Where did that grenade come from?
Red team-flag returned!
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Small point but age of empires was developed by Ensemble Studios Microsoft was the publisher.
So maybe my machine isn't up to the task of playing this game, if I can't even scroll their webpage at more than one frame per second???
The biggest problem I had with HaloPC was the lack of Co-op.
The graphics and performance were a dissapointment, but co-op was the killer.
One of the selling points of Halo 2 is its Xbox Live support. I currently don't have XBL, because none of my games support them; will there be a 12-month subscription card bundled with Halo 2 similar to the XBL+Crimson Skies package that they're selling now?
Asking what Autocomplete is is legit, since it's contained in the summary. Some of the people moderating here are idiots. And I notice that nobody has supplied the answer. What. Is. Autocomplete?
Valve released a candidate to VU. Any publisher would be insane if they just let it hit the CD publishers, a run of say 100,000 with full materials and not care if there was a show stopper bug (can you say Frontier Developments?). In addition I would expect a minimum of 3 weeks between approved RC and it being boxed, ready to go.
My opinion may or may not be correct, but I do have the right to hold it and express it. It represents the truth, as far as I can tell
I am merely contesting your notion of truth. No need to be so prickly. I never deny people their opinions, but when they say their opinions are truth, then I'd say they have a Messiah complex. Read more by Jacob Bronowski and his opinion of people who belived they knew the truth 'with no test in reality'.
even though the code has been preloaded for weeks
some of the code has been preloaded for weeks. I'm on Steam too you know.
My conclusion is not unreasonable.
It is actually reaching a heck of a distance. I prefer to wait and look. In addition I also see that VU and Valve have a contract. Valve seems to have reneged on part of it and is trying to re-negotiate another part. Hey VU isn't an angel, but I do respect contractual obligations.
Finally - remember VU & Valve have no duty to release HL2 - it isn't like some basic human right to play HL2 - it's a game, untwist your underwear and relax. And look up the definition of 'libel' - a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression . Until your 'truth' becomes more than an opinion (and you said your truth is just that) then your comments were libel.
Uh no buddy. "Ensemble Studios" created Age of Empires and AoE:RoR. M$ bought Ensemble Studios, but its still Ensemble Studios that makes those games - AoK, AoK:TC and AOM, no banana-boy Ballmer and his loser troope of codemonkeys.
Valve released a candidate to VU.
Yes. In August. What's today's date, again?
I am merely contesting your notion of truth. No need to be so prickly.
Um. You accused me of libel. That makes me prickly.
some of the code has been preloaded for weeks. I'm on Steam too you know.
Yes, over a GB of code. I suppose it's only 1/4 finished or something, huh? You're acting as though the game hasn't been finished when Valve say it has. They have said they are simply waiting for the 'go' from VUG.
It is actually reaching a heck of a distance.
Let's see...game company has dispute with publisher....coders say game is ready to go pending publisher approval...over a month later, publisher has not given approval...boy, it sure is a stretch to think there's a non-code reason for that.
In addition I also see that VU and Valve have a contract. Valve seems to have reneged on part of it and is trying to re-negotiate another part. Hey VU isn't an angel, but I do respect contractual obligations.
That is a straw man. As I am not party to the lawsuit, I'm not going to comment on its validity. Either way, VUG is holding HL2 up. I don't care if Valve 'started it', I am merely stating that they are doing so. It is not in question whether HL2 is out yet, the only question is the reason it is being delayed.
Finally - remember VU & Valve have no duty to release HL2 - it isn't like some basic human right to play HL2 - it's a game, untwist your underwear and relax.
How many straw men do you need to set up in order to make your argument seem valid? I never said anyone had any sort of duty to do anything. I simply said that VUG is, in my opinion, withholding the release of HL2 punitively. I will either buy the game when it comes out, or not buy it if it never comes out. I don't have any personal stake in it at all. Never did I imply that I did. After you knocked your straw men down, my point still stands.
As for your 'libel' take, you are wrong. I did not defame or harm VUG in any way. Note that as long as I believe what I am saying about you or VUG or anyone else to be the truth, I am free to state it. If VUG would care to take me to court over a posting on slashdot, which as you very well know they wouldn't, I am confident that I would easily prevail. If you'd like, I can say a lot of really mean things about you so that you can claim libel. Then you can take me to court, since you're such a concerned citizen.
http://xkcd.com/386/
A candidate. Your understanding of software release terminology is feeble at best. Are you saying, you have firm knowledge that the candidate released to VU is of Release Quality and that VU can with all certainty bet the farm on it going gold?
Yes, over a GB of code
If D3 is anything to go by, the final RC will be of the order of 1.5G - 2.0G. Anyway, do you actually read the news items with the pre-loads? It has so far been audio and static texture data. I saw no mention of maps etc.
I suppose it's only 1/4 finished or something
Ahh, you have a crude command of rhetoric - this is I believe called a straw man - creation of a ludicrous postulate - putting the words into the mouth of the questioner and then attempting to use this 'straw man' as a target for ridicule. Note: the attempts to call later comments 'straw men' is I'm afraid incorrect.
[the contract issues and VU holding HL2] I am merely stating that they are doing so
You have put supposition on top of postulation. You have no firm evidence that they are doing that. Again, you assert that your supposition is fact. I state that it is supposition.
Finally, about is being a game, you declare that as a straw man, well it would be if it was an argument in defence of VU actually delaying the game. It is, in fact a statement that games are not that important in the greta spectrum of life. If you want to take it as an argument that VU are not holding HL2 then I can't stop you but it is rather silly.
As for your 'libel' take, you are wrong. I did not defame or harm VUG in any way [..]If VUG would care to take me to court
Did you actually read the definition I posted? A libel is merely a statement that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression . It's legal actionability is... guess what? a straw man! Congratulations! You've finally used one!
I actually did submit that to the "Ask the presidents" thing, but I don't think it's going through - edited out at a high level, no doubt. Too bad as the whole presidential race is in dire need of a little levity!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
OK, lets agree. If VU holds the game, without comment on the suitability as an RC beyond the holiday season optimum (Dec 11th in case you were wondering) then they are holding onto it for leverage. They would be fools to release before as sales would be hit by things like Halo 2, and to release after would miss the market by miles.
Until then all else is speculation and nowhere near fact.
You have to play on separate TVs. Otherwise he can just look at your screen and see where you are.
I understand what a candidate is. I also understand that the Valve coders have said that the game has been ready to ship for a while. I suppose you know better than they do, however. I suppose their understanding must be as feeble as mine.
I have very firm evidence that HL2 is not in the stores. Your attempt to claim otherwise is ludicrous. Really, you must be an employee of VUG. No one else would go to such ludicrous lengths to defend them. Of course, I don't *know* that you are, so I'm not asserting it as fact. Too bad for you, there's no room for your favorite charge here.
You did indeed put words into my mouth, and yet again you do so. I never stated nor implied that games were of any special importance. You have stated twice now that they are not. You have stated this in apparent disagreement with me, when I never made such a statement in the first place. That is a classic example of a straw man argument.
I did read the definition that you posted, and I looked up the legal definition, which mandates the causing of harm. You declared my post to be libelous, but you were wrong. Then when I called you on it, you claim that the legal actionability is not at issue. Why then, did you use a legal term?
http://xkcd.com/386/
It's very important to me in multiplayer. If I just won a battle, and my partner lost one, whether I stay and try to finish the opponent or run for health depends almost entirely on how close I am to dying. I know the other guy's hurt, so if I'm on say, three yellows, I'll figure I can finish him off. This is just one example. It has a big influence throughout on the decisions I make.
They have released no comment on the code since receiving it. They have not bothered to comment on possible release dates, except to kill any rumors of them. It is common practice to reveal release dates months in advance. HL2 has had several of them. It has not shipped on any of them. The latest rumor, November 23, has been denied by VUG. Valve will only comment that VUG has not given them permission to release the game via Steam. If VUG is really worried about making the holiday season, why are they releasing no information? Really, for you to declare that there is no possibility that VUG is holding up HL2 makes you seem either impossibly dense, or impossibly naive. Again, I said you seem that way, no need to pull out the 'l' word here either. As I've stated many, many times...it is my opinion that VUG is doing this because of their spat with Valve. What is not my opinion is that they are doing it. To say that it is normal business for the publisher to have a release candidate for months without even a tentative ship date is to show less understanding of the video game world than you claim I have. (especially when the game is expected to sell as well as HL2 is)
http://xkcd.com/386/
Ever wonder why you can't jump or fall in Goldeneye?
Man, firefox scrolls that webpage slowly...
(.10 on xp)
IE does ok.
The question ins't when but if if will get released on the PC.
Microsoft promised the PC version of Halo, because it originally started as a Mac and PC game, and people were clamoring for it.
Microsoft has made no such promise for Halo 2, though.
And, it could be argued that Microsoft actually likes the fact that Halo PC seems more unrefined than the Xbox version of Halo, because it makes people want the Xbox version. Halo is the best selling Xbox game to date, at almost a 1:5 ratio of copies of Halo to Xboxes.
And, I agree, UT2004 has a great multiplayer mode, it is the main draw of the game. And I can always get into UT2004 multiplayer, but have a hard time getting into Halo (Xbox) multiplayer as much. Halo just moves too slow for multiplayer, and playing splitscreen (4-8 people on 2 Xboxes) just isn't as much fun as playing UT2004 multiplayer. Hell, I found splitscreen GoldenEye more fun than Halo's deathmatch.
Halo's co-op is fun as hell though.
Or should I wait for a Halo 2 Bundle Pack?
Heh, I suppose I deserved that one.
Just too much hassle. For some, leaving to go to a friend's house involves getting a "Hall Pass" from the SO. For others, they're simply too far away to make a trip practical (one guy I keep pestering to get live is on the West Coast, and the rest of us are in NC).
Basically, if you want to get people in a room to play games, that's an *event* - you end up feeling like the host should ensure food/beverage supply is arranged for, you might feel obligated to clean up a bit, and so on. With Live, you can just turn the game on and play. You might go so far as to call friends up and say "hey, let's play some PGR2 at 8pm tonight". Similarly, an "event" needs to go on for a certain amount of time to really be worthwhile, whereas meeting up via Live can be a much shorter experience (even 30 minutes) and still be worth the (reduced) effort.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Amen to that. Heck, I'm mad that Doom3 didn't have Co-Op, for that matter.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Nope. I'm a PC gamer as well. A game doesn't have to be outstanding to be fun. Halo and Goldeneye are examples of this. If I could articulate exactly what makes these games fun, I would have a different job.