Forums | MacLife

this is excellent news! "And there was much rejoicing... yaayy..."

Kudos to M$ for milking Halo for all it's worth.

Use it to help move Xboxes out the door then port it out to help push the new OS out as well. Nice move.

Bah, buy Vista to play H2. Just great, I hope some hackers hack H2 for XP somehow. Course maybe I could just buy the Mac version only for once. Depends on the specs required tho.

Not so good. Let's hope the "[almost] everything subject to change" aspect applies here... out of order from the FAQ at Bungie:

Q: Will PC players be able to play against Xbox players?
A: We have not yet announced details on cross-platform integration at this time.
...
Q: Will Halo 2 for Windows Vista support cross-platform multiplayer?
A: Halo 2 for Windows Vista will not support cross-platform play.

Right now I'm reading the combo one way, and it's not good for [MA].

Let's hope there's a Direct IP connect option in the shipping version like H1. Other interpretations, anyone?

You guys really take an inch and make it a mile... They never said it was definate and you guys are already camping store front...

Ana way, Maybe Bungie can make a system like Blizzard to prevent piracy. Im pretty sure very few people if any are pirating WoW... with all the confirmations and serials I would think it is a pretty tight opperation...

Well if they do come with a mac version, I hope they dont charge to play online like Blizzard.. It still doesnt make sense to me to pay $50 for the game and then a monthly subscription... The only reason why I play WoW is because somone bought the game for me as a gift and I feel bad not playing it. Granted, its a good game but man.. expensive hobby..

I'm not sure how Xbox works, so do you pay for XBox live the service?.. or do you pay for XBox live for each game? Because thats alot of money poeple are spending if its each game... And you have to pay for your broadband connection at that...

I have a PS2 and almost all the games that go online are free... Except for FF7 online.. I bought it not knowing you have to pay extra to go online and now it sits in my closet... I do use the HD that comes with it tho.. so not a total loss... all the sports games racing games and such go online for free... one reason why i'll stick with Sony.. Hopefully PS3 will be the same.

XBL is, as Llevi said, $50/year.  Any games you've got that aren't MMO's are free to use through Live.  That $50 also covers access to the Marketplace, although content there isn't always free.  "Purchasing" Arcade games, for instance, costs you "marketplace points" (XBL's online currency).  The going rate is about 80 points/$, and you can either purchase your points via Live, or go to a retailer and buy a 1600-point card for $20.

Game demos, trailers, movie trailers, etc are all free on the marketplace, though.

And don't expect PS3's online features to be free anymore; with all the features they keep saying they're going to have, like DVR and TiVo-like functions, plus online voice chatting and whatnot, I expect to see $60-100/year for that kind of added functionality.  That, or gameplaying will be kept free, but added stuff like that will cost an arm and a leg.

This is what happens when your gaming console suddenly becomes your DVD/BR player, TiVo, DVR, streaming multimedia hub and gaming console.  Sony's going to make the PS3 a jack fo all trades, rather than making it truly excel at what it was intended to do in the first place: play video games.

But jeap, the editor won't work on 360...

Halo CE was entirely Gearbox' baby. It was not part of the shipping game or contracted for, but something they did on their own.

Failure to get timely approval from MGS for release of the cool content they did on their own dime eventually brought on the split; MGS has for the last year or so been responsible for patching and maintaining Halo PC. Gearbox does likewise for CE and the HEK; otherwise there is no overlap. Gearbox is not ongoingly involved with HaloPC per se.

Halo 2 PC, OTOH, is entirely MGS, port to maintenance to any upgrades/ extensions. It's essentially an in-house port by an MGS team working closely with Bungie. I'd not be surprised, actually rather expect, it to have features like the uprezzed textures in the "Nassau Station" level in DOA4. I'm also hoping for a physics upgrade, at least for Campaign mode, and a few other blue-sky things. DX10 might do wonders for H2PC, let alone 3; and I'm pretty sure one reason we've never seen any other Spartans on Halo is the (lack of) AI you can get from a 733MHz CPU (if the Marines sometimes disppoint, imagine dumb Spartans- and the Havok physics that allow objects to be blown all other the place in H2, including right in AI's pathing routes, offset 2's improved AI algorithms). More CPU, RAM etc. for H2PC and H3... I look forward.

Anyway...

Although the reworked geometry and many of the textures we supplied were plenty sharp enough for HD, some of our stuff, including the planetscape in the background of Nassau Station, was simply too low resolution for the 360's increased definition. Luckily, we had made a very high resolution future Earth for one of our ad campaigns. Funny how stuff like that suddenly becomes hard to find when you really need it. That sharper Earth was a last minute addition that really made the Nassau level pop.

When you're fighting on Nassau, try knocking your opponent into the Warthog parked in the hangar bay, it has full suspension and glass that will spider if you hit it. That commitment to detail and excellence is exactly why Bungie – normally shy about this kind of stuff, was so excited and confident about working with Team Ninja.

...augurs well for the upcoming releases.

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.asp … ;p=5639649
====
Nice screen in this earlier story, motion blur and all:

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.asp … ;p=5401066

edited for Bungie stuff

Last edited by Bat (2006-02-16 4:26 am)

Leonard Nimoy wrote:

Why don't they just simply release Halo 2 PC in the same form as Halo CE was? It'd remove the whole "Halo PC vs Halo CE" thing.

I'm not quite sure I know what you mean, but if I guess right it's not going to happen.

IP issues, for one. Halo PC is MGS/Bungie's. CE is Gearbox's, or at least the improvements are. There's some bitterness on Gearbox' part, as I mentioned, and 'improving' Halo (1) can't be a priority with MGS unless it's to be bundled with 2 as a deal sweetener- not needed now. Maybe in years to come all three will be bundled for $10; who knows.

Other stuff too, but just on the optimized shaders, those are mainly good in MP as far as framerate- when Bungie ran Timedemo with them, there was a small loss (MP lacks the heavy-duty PS2.0 shaders PC SP has some of; AFAIK those still aren't on the Mac, which is missing a few effects, tho not many now. The Mac's MP shaders are probably feature-complete if not as optimized as might be, Apple's OpenGL being a work-in-progress, esp. for gaming. I really need to see Halo Mac running Advanced Shaders sometime). There is a project to bring Campaign mode to CE that was well along months ago; I need to check on that... second, improvements in CE's netcode would break PC/Mac compatibility again, and after 2+ years I doubt MacSoft would exactly be eager to patch that again, altho it's still a marquee title for them.

Anyway, there's still lots of 'Halo PC 1.0' on shelves; it's still on shelf at Wal-Mart almost 2 1/2 years after release. I think that's a record... anyway there's no profit to be had in recoding and making a new batch of Halo 1 anything at this point. Inventory replacement alone would be a nightmare amd money-loser. (PC games are still on store shelves in the US, jeap! They don't have to be bought online! )

Oh yes bat, I didn't think of that

I'm quite excited to be able to come to a LAN with my kiddos touting XBoxes and being able to finally show them the what-for with my PC. Oh yes.

Right, I read it as "you can share XBL and use it for certain common purposes- like messaging and playing Shadowrun together (Shadowrun is cross-platform, this is definitive word Halo 2 Vista won't be), using Marketplace & so on; but the most you can do with H2 is say 'hey ABC, we're playing H2 Vista- wanna jump on your PC and join us?'"

About the most you can do is show the kiddos your mad m/kb skilz on Live with them watching.