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No Online/LAN Co-op for Halo 2
BlueMoon writes "It has now been confirmed that Halo 2 will not include support for co-op mode on Xbox LIVE or LAN play. The co-op mode will remain for offline play only. Bungie made all attempts to implement it however with the complexity of the game it was simply impossible to have a worthwhile co-op experience." You may not be able to play together, but as consolation, check out the Halo 2 Ads pointed out by an anonymous reader.
Well, you have to give Bungie some credit. They at least tried to implement it into Xbox, but complexity got in the way.
Anyways, when I played Halo, I had more fun playing with many people in the room, and with one people as my partner going thru the game. I am sure that actually being side by side would be a better experience than talking via a mic.
You guys still get Co-op in Offline mode, and I am sure everyone will still enjoy for the great game that it is.
The Galatic Freedom Force marches on! Defend!
"Mark my words - they will release a pay-for addon for this... it was all in the plan."
Wow. I mean, wow. That's amazingly ass-backwards. That's like you have your head in your ass in someway that actually makes it look forward, but is still wrong.
Think about what needs to be done to maintain states. In multiplayer, you have a nice, small set of rules on a tiny map. All you need to note is where players go, whether or not X Warthog rolling over Y player will be valid given the physics, etc.
Contrast that with single player. Bunch of AIs running around doing their own thing. Cutscenes (How do you handle this? Play a movie while the other player is running around?) Scripted moments (what happens when the warthog driven by AI drives off with one player, while the other is left standing. Is he to just chase the original?) There's a lot going on, bub.
What more likely happened is they designed the engine in such a way that on-line, or even LAN co-op would require too much state being sent back and forth. Really their levels aren't that big, nor are there that many enemies that sending AI state would be a huge issue, I mean multiplayer games generally have support for at least 32-64 players simulataneously, and you wouldn't even suffer from bad lag on a couple of them (or maybe all of them if your connection sucks?). Perfect example, Serious Sam often has well in excess of 50+ enemies on the playing field, but it can somehow manage to send the state of those players.
The more likely story is they picked up where they left off with the Halo 1 code and tweaked it to add in the new features and bump the graphics up a notch. Co-op over the wire wasn't supported then, isn't supported now and most likely will never be supported in the Halo series.
Bungie was a much better studio pre-MS.
You took it back? How? Did you say "I bought this game on the belief in features not advertised on the box. Those features were not present, so I'd like a refund."
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
Yeah, the widescreen support is a pretty big deal, but has been known about for some time. Come to think of it, I can't recall another 16:9 FPS, at least of decent profile, on the Xbox at all. Riddick is widescreen, but doesn't really count, since the splitscreen doens't come into effect, seeing as there's no multiplayer component. That being said, vertical splitscreen in 16:9 racing games is pretty common (see PGR2).