Slashdot Mirror
Halo 2 Released
mjxg writes "Halo 2 has finally hit the shelves for hardcore fans. VNUnet speaks about the long lines and the 12:01am release that many stores participated in. Many people obtained the Limited Collector's Edition. Eventually we'll get word of the final first day sales to see if Halo 2 can top the sales charts for the year, or possibly become the most popular console game in history. It is already estimated to top the all-time opening day entertainment sales charts."
When all of these sources start giving it the highest or nearly highest scores possible, it does make you think that this is the real deal.
And yes, you clown who is about to hit reply and rant about marketing guys twisting arms of magazine editors who live from their adverts, that might be part of it but I doubt that could have infected all of the reviewers out there.
I don't understand how people can play the first game. FPS control without a keyboard and mouse is... difficult to say the least. And even with the PC version of Halo, it just seems like a watered down version of tribes to me. Hopefully Halo 2 is drastically improved (so I actually have something to do with my friends over at their house)
Huh, its $6.00 more there than at lik-sang, and its still sold-out.
What I want to know, from the hard-core xbox players who think the analog pads are ok, is, would you consider it cheating if people brought a Smart Joy + keyboard + mouse to a halo party? I definately would be tempted to do so if I owned it, since I think it would only be fair to play an FPS the way FPSs are meant to be played.
Morphing Software
At first I wondered why the troll-to-serious-comment ratio was so high on this article. Then I realized that anyone who actually cares about Halo 2 is playing their new game, not reading Slashdot. This story is like having an online discussion of Christianity at 9am on Easter Sunday.
Kudoz to the makers of the ILoveBees ARG (= Halo 2 grassroots marketing campaign).
They presented the story incredibly well (and managed to get F O U R times on slashdot)
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
How many of the people standing in line endless hours for this game voted last Tuesday?
--- Ban humanity.
BUT QUEUING UP AT MIDNIGHT FOR A GAME???
Sorry people, but that's just a little TOO creepy for me...
Sure, I may drift down to my local computer store at lunchtime within the first couple of weeks of Half-Life 2 coming out but there's no way I'm queueing in the rain at midnight like some corporate-controlled mindless robot.
It's JUST entertainment, it's JUST a game, please get a life and some perspective on reality - in other parts of the world, people queue for food & medical supplies to avoid dying. Queuing for a game, DVD, CD, concert ticket, etc. is just a little sick in comparison.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Millions call in sick today to work. Turns out a 'flood' of sickness has struck working america. Might be time to call in master chief on this one.
Your mammas flamebait.
Why exactly does Microsoft deserve any congratulations, here? Virtually every single aspect of Halo's graphics, gameplay, and storyline were thought up in 1999 and 2000, by Bungie, while the XBox was still on the drawing board, before Microsoft had any part of it. It was going to be released on the Mac first, then on the PC. Bungie was probably THIS CLOSE to a beta, or at least an alpha, and Microsoft exploded the whole thing and wasted months and months re-writing the whole thing for the XBox.
Why look, Here's one of the original trailers, from 2000, 100% Microsoft-free. There's even a rocket warthog. Just ONE MONTH after that trailer was shown at E3, Microsoft bought the whole thing.
I really do think MS has done nothing but fuck up everything. Mod me down all you want, but I really think Microsoft realised the XBox was going to fail, utterly, without Halo. It's a great game, but Microsoft didn't friggin' make it. Let's congratulate them for making Virtual PC too. And Windows.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Yeah, that greedy Bill Gates should get off his bum and form some kind of Foundation, or something. Sheesh!
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
Why must something be comprehendable to you to be enjoyable? Everyone has different interests. Some folks get an adrenaline rush from being first. Others like the exclusivity from being first. Who cares, folks are having fun. You sound like you are bitter that everyone else hasn't given up the consumerist lifestyle as you aspire to. Oh wait a minute, aren't you using a computer with an internet connection that if you cancelled you could use the money to feed several third worlders for years to come?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I'm sorry, but points (1) and (3) are just not valid. I never move my mouse enough to have to pick it back up since the sensitivity is so high usually, and I've seen quite a bit more junky console controllers that are worn out then I have warn out *optical* mice.
(2) is only valid if you play like an idiot. I can do quite a bit with my mouse and keyboard, to the point where a xbox controlls clearly has less buttons I can use at once. My mouse has 5 buttons on it, one of which is the wheel that has 3 actions (click, scrollup, and scrolldown), so that is in effect 7 buttons on my mouse, plus the movement of the mouse itself. On the keyboard I can use the sides of my hands to hit other keys as well as my other fingers. I play with the arrow keys and can hit or hold control or shift with the left side of my left hand and still use my pinky or ringfinger to hit enter or the single-quote key, while using my pointer or thumb to hit keys on the number pad.
(4) I dont think is an issue for games either since its all in how you control the keyboard. It is not the same to compare a text editor to a game, since they access the keyboard in a different way. I've never ran into a limitation with holding down many keys and mouse buttons at once while playing Quake or RTCW, and I often have every single key on my entire keyboard used for something, although many of the keys off to the left are just quick-chats.
Morphing Software
No one seems to be mentioning Metroid, which is generally considered to be a superior game to Halo.
1)Apparently you have a rather old computer, as anyone with a modern computer would have an optical mouse and thus not need a mousepad. This may explain your affinity for consoles. If you run out of room with an optical mouse, you probably just need to clear some dirty dishes of your desk.
2)With a mouse my aiming hand can also press up to 4 buttons at one time, while aiming. While your control pad only allows you to press one button while aiming, and you have to stop aiming briefly to reload, change grenade type, switch weapons, hit someone, turn on a flashlight, or jump. Meanwhile your hand moving your character only ever has access to two other buttons, while my keyboard hand, which at last count had 5 fingers not 2-3 (woodshop accident?) in fact my left hand has access to 27 buttons, although I havent had to program more than 18 more easily reached keys for any game i've played. This leaves me with 24 keys, 4 of which are devoted to movement, thus I have 20 keys to do what I want with to your 10, although with the game interface simplification required to support the limited interface of a DJC, I probably won't be using 10 of my buttons when Halo 2 comes out for pc. I've never noticed an issue with a keyboard not accepting commands in a game because I'm pressing too many buttons.
3)if you're going to spend $200 on a nice grapics card you probably spent $30-40 on a nice optical mouse too, and I've never noticed an optical mouse glitch. And of course my mouse is made by Microsoft, who at last check, also make the X-box, and my keyboard. Enough said about quality
4)Never noticed the keyboard being overloaded in games, thus it isn't a problem, but it might be helped by a usb keyboard if it becomes an issue.
Well, I did try out a DJC, last night on Halo 2 until 3 am, and having played Halo on a pc before, I can say that I would be twice the player I was last night back on a proper keyboard and mouse interface. DJC controls are just awfull and frustrating when compared to the venerable mouse and keyboard combination
what sig?
No jab against Super Mario Bros. (since that game was awesome), but I think's really easy to be all time best selling video game when the game was packaged with a large portion of Nintendo Systems. Same with Tetris and the Gameboy.
Of course, I owned both games, and Tetris is ultimately classic. I can still remember the sound of a goat having sex whenever you got a Tetris.
www.google.com
Okay, this is too much to ignore. I have many times enjoyed the FPS console experience, especially with goldeneye back in the day. I think the [PS2] controls for GTA are among the best I've ever experienced, and I have a great deal of experience in PC FPS with my peak of performance during the Q3A and CS heydays.
But the parent comment is just simply incorrect on all numbered points:
1. If you run out of mousepad, try increasing sensitivity and learn the skill of picking up your mouse during play. It's not that hard and it comes naturally.
2. Generally I only absolutely need my middle finger for forward/back movement at all times. My pinky is always available to any of the 3 keys I use with it. My ring finger can reach 4 extra buttons I use in addition to strafing. I use my index finger for 3 additional keys, though I can reach more. I also have a free thumb for spacebar action. And that's only my left hand. Compared to a DJ controller, I only have the trigger available to me while I keep my thumb on the joystick for movement. I can use the dpad, but not while moving. As for the right hand on a DJC, try pushing more than two buttons at the same time with your thumb, or two buttons opposite each other.
3. If your mouse is crappy, that's more of a personal problem.
4. This is just ignorant. Keyboards send a message for keyup and keydown. Text editors don't handle keyboard input the same way games do.
The art of manually targeted headshot is completely abesnt with a DJ controller. And unless the gameplay compensates for it, the slow movement speed (where you'd use a mouse) with a DJ controller is just painful.
And above all, nobody is allowed to have any fun. Rules first, fun second.