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Halo for PC: My take

» Pros

» Cons

1) For my system stats listed below this game ran like CRAP! I thought I had a bad install, downloaded and updated the game to the latest version, and even made changes suggested by the Halo for PC web site (http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo/support.asp ). First, as I said above I can run a game that absolutely rules every single graphical aspect of Halo (Unreal II) at 50-60 FPS with all the goodie’s cranked to the max, with Halo, I noticed issues with staggering frame rates with no AA/Aniso. (Had all settings maxed) however the piss-poor graphical nature of the textures and actual maps should not be an issue whatsoever. I attribute this to very poor code on the part of Gearbox (software vendor who ported Halo to PC). This game doesn’t have enough detail to be able to tax even a GeForce 2, so why does it? It certainly doesn’t look that good even at high resolutions? What the hell is taking so much power out of my system? This issue alone is enough to make a guy want to kick himself for paying $40 (USD) for a 2nd rate old-ass game.
2) The game crashes constantly and always wants to phone home the problem to Microsoft…I have noted several other users in newsgroups etc that have similar issues. This game is the buggiest I have ever played…not one other game I am currently playing (about 5 others) has ever crashed. And remember, I have re-installed the game and updates a couple times, graphics and chipset drivers to make certain that I had the problem isolated to Halo.
3) Did I mention $40 was way too much to dish out for an old game that was ported to PC in a piss-poor fashion?
4) Repetitive level design and crappy textures (the original Half-Life had more spice than this..and that was developed 1997-1998 for Pete's sake!)

» Review

My take on Halo for PC:

I am a bit passionate about what I found and what my results were while playing this game. Let me begin with posting the system stats for the box I used while playing Halo through to completion:

Abit NS7-S (400FSB version)
Athlon XP 1700+ Oc’d to 2266 (11 X 206 FSB @ 1.7V w/Thermalright SLK-800/Vantec 80mm Tornado)
2X512 3200XMS Corsair
2X80 GB WD SE’s in Raid 0
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

I would say that this could be classified as a higher end system, (by today’s standards) one that I can play Unreal II with at 1280X1024 with 4XAA/16XAniso at frame rates around 50-60FPS average and it looks super sweet. Now, I have read several reviews around the web in regards to the Halo port over to PC and I can say that I have found Fireingsquad’s take to be the most accurate. (http://www.firingsquad.com/games/halo_pc_review/ ) on one side and Tom’s Hardwares review (http://www.tomshardware.com/game/20031011/index.html ) to be the WORST DAMN game review in my short history of reading game reviews. I say this, because even though I was keeping in mind that this game was actually two years old and expected crappy-ass graphics that were a bit more blocky than that of today’s games (Unreal II/UT2003, Splinter Cell, etc) Tom’s reviewer was making this game out to be of graphical genius. In all truth? I played this game at 1280X1024 (no AA/Aniso) and felt it comparable to maybe (and heavy emphasis on the “maybe”) a notch or two above the first Half-Life. The reviewer at Tom’s obviously doesn’t game much on the PC, or enjoys playing 4-5 year old games too much…
Overall, I enjoyed it, but there are much better games out there to spend your money on. Unreal II (I keep mentioning this game because in some ways, it is a rip off of Halo, but in my eyes a lot better version with kick-ass eye candy and runs much smoother, it is also of the same genre). If you really must have this game, wait till it drops in price, I guarantee you that you will not be sorry or feel bad as you are not missing out at this point in time. I can see it may have been a ground-breaking experience when it was first released, but it is definitely a game that has seen better days, and as any “has-been” in the technology arena, the price should reflect the quality and “quality” folks is one thing this game lacks in abundance.

Overall, this game doesn't deserve over a 40%, this is mainly due to the poor porting job by Gearbox. And those of you stating how "sweet" these graphics are obviously fit into the same catagory as the Tom's Hardware reviewer I mentioned above...play some modern games for pete's sake!!!