HALO PC, Thoughts

[Ferral]

Bought this yesterday and I personally do like this alot. Loved the X Box version when it was released. Really fun game in general.

Looking at the PC version it looks like its just been ported over. Textures etc yeah they look good but a bit dated and very X Box, nothing new really. I really did think that they would have done alot more with this given the time scale it has taken to be released.

I really hate it when they do this with games, I guess the online multiplayer does inject some new life into it and there are quite a few servers for it already. But they promised a whole new experience for PC players. Looking at it now it looks pretty old and dated just because of the fact that we have had a few really good FPS games since HALO's initial release. Unreal 2 just to name one is virtually the same thing (without vehicles of course) and pulls it off far better I personally think.

Whats everyone else think on this

[Iain]

must be your graphics cards or settings. Once you get past the initial level the DX9 bump-mapped textures kick in and it blows the XBox away for graphics. Also they've tweaked the tank level so you can use it for longer which is nice Personally I think it's better than Unreal 2 which was a bit of a disappointment, especially the last level with the ridiculous gun

[unrealrocks]

I prefer Unreal over HALO although saying that HALO was a great game ... the storyline takes you through the game more.

My MX440 played it in DX8 mode full up (in 1024) no problems although from what others have said there are some GFX issues!

[Ferral]

I'm running it on a Rad 9600 Pro with Catalyst 3.8. Everything is maxxed out and all detals in the game set to high. It runs really smooth but I do think that its just a port over from the X Box.

I do really like the game hence why I bought it yesterday. No doubt things will start looking better the further I get in, at the min though I think it just looks like the X Box version.

Mind you one thing I have noticed is the character shadows, they look really nice and cast in different darknesses depending on the given lighting.

[Trash Man]

Only got Halo today and I have never played the Xbox version so it's all new to me.

I have a Rad 9800 Pro and all the settings are high playing in 1280X1024 there was noticeable jerking due to low FPS but it seems fine in 1024X768.

[Bindibadgi]

I cant be AA on and its SLOW as anything even with a P4 2.8 and 9800 pro

I turned it down to 1024 and turned some stuff to low but its still lagging slightly

[Ferral]

Theres a patch upto v1.02 available already for it, installed it this morning. Its running smooth as silk on mine. My setup is XP 2500+ 'Barton' (333 FSB), 512 333 Crucial DDR and Radeon 9600 Pro.

Check the settings in the game also under video. I noticed when I installed it the game sets the frames to 30 (Options : 30, V-Sync & V-Synce off) and when it was like that I found it quite laggy, soon as I set V Sync off nothing wrong with it at all.

[Trash Man]

Will try the new patch as I am still getting a fair bit of lag. Will also try the 3.8 cats instead of the 3.7's I am using at the moment.

[Ferral]

Just a quick side note on the new Cats with HALO. I installed them and I was getting an error saying failed to initialise D3D on just HALO, nothing else. Make sure you strip the control panel and drivers right out then full reboot etc to avoid it from happening

[Russ]

Originally posted by unrealrocks
I prefer Unreal over HALO although saying that HALO was a great game ... the storyline takes you through the game more.

My MX440 played it in DX8 mode full up (in 1024) no problems although from what others have said there are some GFX issues!

maybe you shoulda got it wen it was released instead of rip

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by Ferral
Just a quick side note on the new Cats with HALO. I installed them and I was getting an error saying failed to initialise D3D on just HALO, nothing else. Make sure you strip the control panel and drivers right out then full reboot etc to avoid it from happening

duely noted! thx.

[Trash Man]

Patched to 1.02 and running the 3.8 cat's now. Seems better, not noticing any lag/jerking anymore. I might replay the first level again, as that is where I was noticing the problem mostly.

Apart from that is this a great game, dunno what the Xbox version is like but I really do like this so far, will have to give the MP ago at some point as well, but I can't see it being up to much to be honest.

And what about them little buggers that lob the nades at ya, there soooooo cute

[Bindibadgi]

God this game is the biggest bit of bolox in ages. It wont load ANY of my save games since i updated to the latest patch! ARGH MOFO! It thinks they are all savegames to the beginning of the start! f00k.

Also the textures now look a hell of a lot fuzzyer and still no AA. Ive yet to update to 3.8s though.

[Gristy]

halo doesnt support AA i dont think

[Jonny M]

If you think the little buggers are annoying, wait until you encounter the flood

[Ferral]

Originally posted by Caged
If you think the little buggers are annoying, wait until you encounter the flood

Oh yes, I forgot about that ! You get the shotgun on that level but its pointless trying to fight. One word comes to mind : RUN !!!

Also when you have to get back out after you encounter the flood, its so easy to go straight past a part where you are supposed to jump on some crates to go up a level.