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Master Chief Revisited
vituperation writes "1UP has a feature up today marking the first anniversary of Halo 2. It's brief, but it manages to cover the hype around its launch, how well Bungie has handled its problems, and how gamers feel about the game after a year. From the article: 'Creatively, though, Halo 2 has been a less clear-cut victory. It's a technical marvel, one of the most visually-impressive games on the market thanks to its solid graphic design and gimmicky tricks like normal mapping. Yet it's also jarringly buggy in places, which has created no end of trouble for those who want a fair multiplayer match.'"
FIRST BLOOD!
In its first 24 hours, the game raked in $125 million dollars courtesy of 2.4 million copies sold. By comparison, Spider-man holds the current box-office record for biggest opening weekend take, having earned a comparatively paltry $114 million over three days.
Not to say anything bad, but this comaprison can't really be made. The last time I checked, movie tickets didn't cost $50 each.
"...gimmicky tricks like normal mapping."
Yes, it's barely a step up from the games of yore and their gimmicky texture maps.
The last time I checked, movie tickets didn't cost $50 each.
Microsoft's Halo 2* is rated ESRB::M, which corresponds to MPAA::R. When you factor in the ticket price, gasoline, popcorn, and babysitting for your kids, seeing a first-run theatrical release approaches 50 USD faster than you would think. Besides, because of the order of magnitude difference in play times between a video game and a movie, it's slightly more honest to compare a game to a theatrical trilogy (e.g. The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter 1-3, or Star Wars 4-6 or *gag* 1-3).
*Not to be confused with Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails.
Bungie's Anniversary Page has shots of Halo 1 and 2 on the XBox 360 in 720p (including comparisons with 480p) so you can see how good things can look.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Halo 2 may have flaws, but it's still gaming crack. Graphics and technology aside - the gameplay is really what sets Halo apart from other shooters. It's just so fluid, so damn smooth. It doesn't have the twitchiness of Counterstrike or the nonsense of Quake or its like. Yes, the modders and kiddies make you want to reach through the communicator and strangle someone.....but I keep going back, even a year later.
I never understood why people look down on this game as opposed to he first one or even comparable PC games for that matter.
In my opinion this is one of the best games to come out in recent years. I have yet to see a game that's mor suited to having four friends gathered on the sofa killing each other long into the night. Console gaming kicks ass in this respect since you do't have to bother with LAN setup, moving your computer, etc. or the lag of playing online. I must admit I've never played on Xbox Live, but if it really does suck that much, why not just get some real friends together (you do have real friends, right?) and play with them.
I played the PC version of the first one, and I have to say it was pretty boring. I am not saying it wasn't a good game, only there are so many other shooters out there for PC that beat it. I agree with all those before me that say it is the lack of shooters for the system that made it big...PLUS! Many PC players today are actually scared of playing modern day shooters for some strange reason, and feal more comfortable playing console shooters. It is almost like they are intemidated. That and not being able to afford hardware to play PC shooters at a decent level. All these facts put together show why Halo did good in sales and popularity, and that makes it a winner.
"That said, don't forget that this is "free." If you own Halo or Halo 2 and buy an XBox 360 (and with Halo 3 coming some day, many fans (and most all of the hard core will), you get this visual upgrade for free."
This must be some new use of the word "free" I'm not familiar with.
Where do I get my "free" Xbox 360?
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This game bridged a huge gap between like minds across whole continents.
I mean, what other game would allow the unwashed masses of twelve-year-olds to shout "ALLAHU ACKBAR FUCK AMERICA" or "DIE NIGGER JEW FAG" over the Internet so massively?
Yeah, it's a real classy game.
Halo really did suck the first time I played it through. It was a technically good shooter but didn't feel like anything special. And then you played it the second time through and noticed that in large battles the enemy didn't do the exact same thing. And the third time through they did something else entirely. The great thing about Halo was you could replay it and knowing were the enemies where didn't give you much of an advantage. Add in the fact that trying to beat it on legendary requires a ton of finesse and skill with the melee weapon, and it becomes an awesome game.
It is a poor first person shooter compared to PC ones. But it is a brilliant arcade shooter, and that is what you want in a console. You want to be able to just start up a game and go to a good level and spend an hour blasting away.
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CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
These pictures don't look that different.... In fact, in the first comparison, I thought the "better" picture just looked more blurry. In the second set of pictures, the enlarged versions were hard to compare because they were different sizes! After flipping back and forth between the larger versions a couple of times, I didn't see a noticeable difference.
Maybe the later comparisons were more illustrative of the 360's graphical improvements, but I didn't see a whole lot to get excited about.
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