Original HALO

[DarthTofu]

Hey, is the original HALO for PC any good? Just wondering, 'cause i might get it. Wanted a review and all...

[Mad78]

I played it on XBox and enjoyed it even if i found it rather limited. But if you can find it at a bargain price i would recommend jumping on the occasion.

[Krytos]

Hey, is the original HALO for PC any good? Just wondering, 'cause i might get it. Wanted a review and all...

 

Hmm, ok - the pros and cons:

 

Pros:

The game is the same as the XBox version - no surprise there. But, if you're a PC Gamer, you'd probably find Halo very 1 dimentional and not that exciting as well as being very repedative. Gameplay is altered because of your controls being different. And, being a fps player - using a mouse and keyboard is far better than a gamepad. That much alone would make me choose between the two (xbox and pc).

But, that's about all the pros I can think of . . . except maybe multiplayer online if you dont have an Xbox live.

 

Cons:

Halo on PC is a straight port, and a very bad porting job at that (Which means that they've taken the Xbox version and "altered" it to run on PC - which in this case seems to be done with an emulator that runs like crap). Even though Halo has mediocre graphics etc. and by all means would require a relatively low performance PC (simular to what the XBox's hardware is) it will run bad on your computer. So much so, Halo is STILL used as a benchmark for new hardware. It is one of the worst porting jobs I've ever seen. My old AMD Thunderbird 900, 512mb RAM and a GeForce 2 32mb run it at the lowest settings.

Also, while the game uses software shaders (and not hardware) I've only been able to get the shaders to work with a hardware capable gfx card, so excpect bland textures unless you've got a Direct X 9.0 compatible card.

Game wise, I personally found it repedative and boring. The first few levels were alright (fighting on the ship, and then rescuing crew members on the "planet"). After getting close to when the flood entered the game the game got not only predicable, but boring - and the repedative nature became extremely apparent in the level designs with you going through these ring like rooms that were all the same over and over.

 

Over all, if you like the gameplay and storyline of Halo - you'd consider the game. But that being said, you only gain the advantage of the PC interface - with the disadantage being performance and textures (assuming you dont have a new shader driven graphics card).

 

So, like Mad said - if you can get it cheap, go for it I guess

[Mad78]

I think actually the main element that makes it worth buying is the multiplayer which i am told but on the otherhand i guess you could also find Unreal Tournament at the same price which is actually a far better game.

[bobandrubert]

DEFINITY get it for PC. MP is SO FUN! and there is over 50 mods!

[Defender_16]

Halo PC is one of the few games I have ever played online with any consistency. The mods are interesting on occasion but mainly I play for the larger 16 player games that are hard to put together with X-boxes.

(Here anyways where I'm one of ten people in town that has an X-box.)

 

Another thing that's nice if you have the full retail version of the game is that you can download and run Halo CE. Custom Edition allows players to add maps built by players from scratch, new weapons,

 

Halo Custom Edition has been released and is available at FilePlanet. What is Halo CE? It's a multiplayer only, standalone version of the PC game. The game is not supported by either Microsoft or Gearbox and requires a retail Halo PC CD and CD key to install. Halo CE also allows players to use user created content created with the Halo Editing Kit. For more information about Halo Custom Edition and the Halo Editing Kit, visit http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/halo.

To download the program, visit FilePlanet now.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_CE

 

http://xs37.xs.to/pics/05280/YoyorastIsland1.jpg

 

Before I stopped following Halo CE news somone had come out with a nearly complete Zelda map pack. The only this that didn't work too well were that the horses still behaved more like jeeps. [/b]

[Mad78]

THe idea is original and it seems that the mod is very well done well worth trying... But i still prefer the N64 Ocarina of time

[DarthTofu]

Krytos... Didn't understand a word of the port and graphics capabilitys except for the word "Bad" which leads me to guess that this game get's what I like to call "Herky-jerkies" which is where you're playing, the game freezes for a second, and then it comes back into motion with you either several feet from where you were or dead. I saw it for about $10 at Circuit City a while ago, and i don't think it sold yet... Was thinking about asking for it for Christmas. Is online play free?

[Krytos]

Krytos... Didn't understand a word of the port and graphics capabilitys except for the word "Bad" which leads me to guess that this game get's what I like to call "Herky-jerkies" ...

 

Ok, I'll try to explain - this'll be lengthy.

A game programmed to run on the XBox can't run on a PC or any other system. Like wise, a game programmed for the PC can't run on an XBox or other system.

This is basically because the software is programmed around the machines architecure (what kind of hardware it has) as well as it's Operating System.

However, it is possible to do a few things to change this. There are emulators, which make the computer run/act like another gaming system so you can run a game for a different system - like a Super Ninetendo emulator will allow you to run games programmed for the SN to run on your PC.

 

Another way, is porting it to that system.

Basically, instead of completely re-programming the game for the new system (which could take a long time, and cost a lot), porting modifies the game to run on another system.

The problem with porting is that it can be done very poorly, such as in the case of Halo. They've pretty much made it so the game will run on a computer, but there isn't any optimisation and the computer also seems to need to constantly compute extra data to let it run.

So, it runs slower than a game of that quality should - so, your herky-jerkies might occur (which sounds like loading lag - where the program needs to load sounds or images from your hardrive and cant do it fast enoguh), or you just get continuous lag.

 

Shaders are small peices of software that are used to control something graphical in the game - making something reflective, glow, morph etc. Shaders were originally "software" driven - where they'd be run in the game though your computer. Quake 3 was one of the first games to use shaders.

More modern games like Doom 3 and Half Life 2 require hardware to do their shaders for various reasons.

Now, Halo has the software shaders as mentioned before (after all, the xbox's graphic's card doesn't have any shader hardware) - however, when the game was ported it seems that the software shaders were over looked, which means without a graphics card with hardware shaders somethings in the game wont look very good. A prime example, is when you're inside a covenant ship. All the walls look like a constant grey, with a little patern in them. With shaders, the walls are shinny and have a purpleish tint.

So game wont look as good as well (depending on what graphics card you have).

 

Still for $10, it'll probably be worth it - just for the multiplayer if nothing else.

[DarthTofu]

Alrighty, then. Moy gracious, folks... now if I can just get past the "It's a beatiful day- go play outside so that I can play solitare" obstacle of my parents, I'll be good to go

[Mad78]

good luck.

Try the "I am just going to meet some mates at the mall" trick

[General_Crespin]

I haven't finished the game, waiting 'til I get my new computer, but... the books are very good.

[Mad78]

The game ain't that hard. Just walk through the level shooting anything that ain't human to bit (or drive over them with your warthog ) and use your shotgun against the floods.