AlexMax
03-11-2004, 10:19 PM
Wow. I never thought I would enjoy playing Halo as much as I do. I jsut got a brand new computer using somewhat up to date parts. So I decided to try and play Halo Trial on it. After a night of staying up until 3:00 in the morning playing on the dozens of public demo servers (there is a LOT of people playing the demo servers, if you ever want to download the demo yourself), I finally purchased the game today.
So, my thoughts. It's every bit as decent as the Xbox version was. I say decent because I really enjoyed only playing through the first game by myself once, and the rest of my playtime was multiplayer The multiplayer, in my opnion, is the best part of Halo. I have no idea what it is that makes it so fun. The game is unique where that if you are playing a small game of Hang em High with three buddies, it feels fast paced and small scale. If, however, you managed to get into a 8 or 16 player CTF match on Blood Gulch or Sidewinder, it almost felt like Tribes in it's sense of being in the middle of an epic battle.
The Xbox version was perfect, for its type of gameplay, as it gave a few maps for epic gameplay (Blood Gulch, Sidewinder) and left the rest for small 2 on 2 or 4 player skirmishes. The PC version, however, ups the ante. I beleive every single new map in the PC version is another big map, since with an Internet Connection it is a lot easier to get together a large amount of players. And they're all very good, and capture the spirit of Halo's outdoor maps perfectly. The addition of the rocket warthog is perfect and they managed to balance it to make it not overwhelmingly powerful. If there is anything that is way too powerful, it's the Banshee, but it's biggest foe is surprisingly the origional warthog's machine gun, something that has traditionally only been useful as cover fire.
The new weapons are neat too. They are, however, not as nicely balanced as the vehicles. The flamethrower is very useful, but you have to go out of your way to find it on most maps. The fuel rod cannon is like a rapid fire grenade launcher, and although it doesn't kill in one hit (usually two to three) in the right hands it's the cheapest weapon in the game. However, they both can be disabled, and because fuel rod cannons aren't used as much as the more balanced Rocket Launchers, its not that big of an issue.
The best part of Halo, however, is that multiplayer games are controlled almost entirely by the server, which means that client modifications (aimbots) are nearly impossible.
And for some reason, I am compelled to play the single player campaign all over again. It's just cooler on the PC, and you tend to take more notice of your surroundings.
If there is one bad thing I can say about the game, it's that it has been five months, with no release of the Halo Editing Kit. There have been screens of it, but no real information about it. But then again, Halo PC is two years late itself, so I guess we'll just have to see. Actually I lied. My GeForce FX 5700 Ultra runs it decently, but in higher resolutions it seems to stutter too much with a lot of action going on, and since I don't want to sacrifice any detail (it just doesnt feel like Halo with low detail) I run it in 640x480.
If you like, you can try out Halo yourself. The Trial Version of Halo (http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo/downloads.asp) includes one single payer map (The Silent Cartogripher, one of my favorite maps in the game) and one multiplayer map (Blood Gulch, the most popular Halo map) with two included gametypes (Slayer and Capture the Flag). You're getting some very nice content with the demo, and last I played (last night) there were tons of people on the public servers. You might need a somewhat beefy video card to run it with full detail, but give it a spin, you might like it.
So, my thoughts. It's every bit as decent as the Xbox version was. I say decent because I really enjoyed only playing through the first game by myself once, and the rest of my playtime was multiplayer The multiplayer, in my opnion, is the best part of Halo. I have no idea what it is that makes it so fun. The game is unique where that if you are playing a small game of Hang em High with three buddies, it feels fast paced and small scale. If, however, you managed to get into a 8 or 16 player CTF match on Blood Gulch or Sidewinder, it almost felt like Tribes in it's sense of being in the middle of an epic battle.
The Xbox version was perfect, for its type of gameplay, as it gave a few maps for epic gameplay (Blood Gulch, Sidewinder) and left the rest for small 2 on 2 or 4 player skirmishes. The PC version, however, ups the ante. I beleive every single new map in the PC version is another big map, since with an Internet Connection it is a lot easier to get together a large amount of players. And they're all very good, and capture the spirit of Halo's outdoor maps perfectly. The addition of the rocket warthog is perfect and they managed to balance it to make it not overwhelmingly powerful. If there is anything that is way too powerful, it's the Banshee, but it's biggest foe is surprisingly the origional warthog's machine gun, something that has traditionally only been useful as cover fire.
The new weapons are neat too. They are, however, not as nicely balanced as the vehicles. The flamethrower is very useful, but you have to go out of your way to find it on most maps. The fuel rod cannon is like a rapid fire grenade launcher, and although it doesn't kill in one hit (usually two to three) in the right hands it's the cheapest weapon in the game. However, they both can be disabled, and because fuel rod cannons aren't used as much as the more balanced Rocket Launchers, its not that big of an issue.
The best part of Halo, however, is that multiplayer games are controlled almost entirely by the server, which means that client modifications (aimbots) are nearly impossible.
And for some reason, I am compelled to play the single player campaign all over again. It's just cooler on the PC, and you tend to take more notice of your surroundings.
If there is one bad thing I can say about the game, it's that it has been five months, with no release of the Halo Editing Kit. There have been screens of it, but no real information about it. But then again, Halo PC is two years late itself, so I guess we'll just have to see. Actually I lied. My GeForce FX 5700 Ultra runs it decently, but in higher resolutions it seems to stutter too much with a lot of action going on, and since I don't want to sacrifice any detail (it just doesnt feel like Halo with low detail) I run it in 640x480.
If you like, you can try out Halo yourself. The Trial Version of Halo (http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo/downloads.asp) includes one single payer map (The Silent Cartogripher, one of my favorite maps in the game) and one multiplayer map (Blood Gulch, the most popular Halo map) with two included gametypes (Slayer and Capture the Flag). You're getting some very nice content with the demo, and last I played (last night) there were tons of people on the public servers. You might need a somewhat beefy video card to run it with full detail, but give it a spin, you might like it.