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Soon, Lord willing. Village I live in is making life difficult (long story and undeserved), so I'm a bit behind even without the recent flooding. Still plan on getting there, tho, and meanwhile Halo 2 Vista (H2V) is shaping up nicely. Even Vista seems back on schedule and in better shape with RC2 than anyone expected... gonna be an interesting new year, Lord willin' and the creek don't rise (again). And I've enough practice on the controller again now that I'm probably up to 'average' on the 360 .

Howdy everyone. It’s Matt Priestley again with some Halo 2 Vista crumbs to scatter for the pigeons.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the newest Halo 2 for Windows Vista screens we have up in the Vista section. I can blather for pages about lighting and texturing (paid by the word) but the screenies do the game more justice. We still have some bugs, but you can see H2V is becoming more beautiful with each passing month.

The screenshot process we use to take these pictures is super high-tech. We “borrow” the highest resolution monitor in the building when its owner is at lunch, then play Slayer for half an hour while a hireling furiously pounds the screen capture hotkeys. It takes about two days to sort through the trash and pick the best images. We get a lot of ass shots.

There’s been a swirl of PR around H2V these past few weeks. The biggest splash for us recently was our exhibition at X’06 in Spain, where for the first time we showed off Ivory Tower in multiplayer play. We have a few US marketing events this week that I can’t tell you much about, but that hopefully will earn us some Halo 2 Vista articles in the gaming press. And, I just heard today that we’re getting a booth at the World Cyber Games grand final in Italy later this month. So yeah, lots of stuff. As Sketch put it, if you “happen to be in Italy” on the 18th, drop by and check out the game.

Halo 2 Vista shows really well now, thanks to some visual enhancements. The game runs at 60fps in most cases, and the world is lit dynamically as you can see for yourself in the screenies. The art for the Master Chief, the Arbiter, and the multiplayer “skybox” scenery have gone through a touch-up to make them shine at our preferred resolution of 1920x1200. Honestly, the game looks so hot these days that I want to call it Halo 2.5.

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.asp … evdiarytwo

Yup. Meanwhile, check out the news on H2V's Sprint 7 milestone:

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I wish I could give you more details on the networking and graphic improvements the devs made just this month, but that would only ruin the surprise. Hey, did your parents let you open presents three days before Christmas? I think not. What I can promise is that we’ll be updating the Halo 2 for Windows Vista FAQ in short order. Until then, keep those Halo skills sharp!

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.asp … printse7en