Forums | MacLife

"I wonder if the game can be hacked to allow LAN/System Link PC/360 pwnage?"  I don't see why not. TCP/IP is TCP/IP after all.

Now that we all know how informed I am.  Is M$ making H2V only play online on there subscription network?

Some stores/chains like Circuit City have released it anyway. Long weekend coming up; I just might...

UPDATE] While Halo 2 Vista was officially delayed, that hasn't stopped some stores from selling it. GameSpot has purchased a copy from a Circuit City location, and the retail chain's Web site lists it as currently shipping and available for in-store pickup. As of press time, Microsoft representatives had not returned a request for comment.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6171471.ht … ws;title;1

Anyone have it yet?

Bat wrote:

CC has it on sale this week for $38.

Guess I'll be cancelling my Amazon preorder.

Exactly the reason I never preorder any game anymore. I get myself limited to one store, then I find it cheaper on a special sale elsewhere.

EB just called saying that I could pick up my copy on the 1st!!!!!  Yahoo  I know what I'm doing this weekend!!!

"Disabled people living alone really need their companions; it was awfully hard." Aorry to hear that.

I think to show our support for Bat  who ever has H2v when he gets his copy sould meet online and play!!! 

Who's with me?

Marathionman wrote:

EB just called saying that I could pick up my copy on the 1st!!!!!  Yahoo  I know what I'm doing this weekend!!!

Yay!

"Disabled people living alone really need their companions; it was awfully hard." Sorry to hear that.

Thanks. Worse, if I'd had the money I could've saved her. I only had enough to put her to sleep.

NightCougar_37 wrote:

EBgames actually calls people?

I'll join ya online for H2V probably by the time all of you move onto a new game and therefore are not playing online anymore .

Typical. R6 got you into that habit, right?

Seriously, Vista still just isn't on my list of must buy items atm.

But it's perfect ... anyway, aren't you going Alky and making Ballmer into a Space Coyote?

How soon they forget. And soon H2V will be the only non-WoW [MA] thing happening... and you just quit that bloodsuxxing MMORPG.

Errr...  Well I have been playing H2v for about 3 hr. now.  And I am likening it.  But I keep  falling off this ship...  But I will figure it out.

( I'm not the smartest person so please tell me I’m wrong) But you have to have a Live gold account to plat H2v online.  A Live Gold account costs $8 per month...

O well when more of you get it I will redeem this little one month free deal they give you when you buy H2v. so we can play.  I hope a hack comes out.

"No, a Gold account gets you extras like the Friends list, messaging, notification when others on your Friends list are online, ability to send them "hey, let's play" requests, custom (MS-powered) servers etc. A Silver membership is free and just owning Vista entitles you to one, but doesn't get you those extras. IIRC Gold is $50/year like XBL, so more like $4.16 a month. I already have XBL so Windows Live will cost me nothing for some time. I just have to finish my dual-boot XP/Vista box, hopefully this weekend, before I can play H2V."  Your right

Nah I never really liked R6. Too much emphasis on planning for me. Ghost Recon was what got me. Course now last time I checked the new R6 games, they got rid of all the complex stuff and made it a lil spammy. Same thing has happened to Recon...oh well, its a crappy trend but it sells games.

Would suck if its lacking COOP again like Halo 1. Loved it on the console version but I remember bungie claiming they had problems with it on PC version. Some stupid things that sounded like they could be easily worked around but they didn't want to make the effort. , whatever you say bungie.

OK. According to Shacknews, as of GDC '07 in March, co-op was not being included. Article seems to be pretty close except for a detail or three.

At the helm of the project is Hired Gun, a small ten-person studio hand-picked by Bungie some twelve months ago for the purpose of translating the game to Vista. Conducting today's demonstration was Hired Gun's Jo Clowes, who noted that the team has been working very closely with Bungie's designers in determining how to retain the feel of the game on the PC platform. The team even operates out of Bungie's former offices in Redmond. "Our sole purpose in life is to bring Halo 2 to Vista," laughed Clowes.

Though Halo 2 Vista's multiplayer mode has been widely previewed, today was the first demontration of the game's single-player campaign. There has been no new gameplay content added to the campaign, so players who have experienced the Xbox version will have seen all there is to see in that regard. Unfortunately, the Xbox's cooperative play feature will not be included in the Vista game, the co-op mode in the original game is conducted in PC-unfriendly same-screen fashion. [my bold- Bat]

Visually, Hired Gun has removed the game's three levels of texture fidelity that on the Xbox resulted in the frequently criticized popping effect particularly common in cutscenes. On the PC, only the game's highest resolution textures are used. In addition, certain textures such as bodily fluid splatters have been redone at higher resolution, and shader effects have been rewritten for the game's DirectX 9 engine. However, Hired Gun has not actually recreated the game's main textures and geometry at higher resolutions or polygon counts--a time-prohibitive hypothetical effort--meaning that, particularly during close-up shots in cutscenes, Halo 2 is still clearly behind the modern PC game graphical curve. Of course, it will run at any resolution supported by the player's video card, which in itself helps the game's visuals.

It may be capped at 1920x1200 or not; Bungie did once write weapon models were being tweaked to look better, going back to original source art. However the LOD improvement should make the biggest difference- running on a 360 at 1280x720 reveals numerous texture shortcomings at a distance.

I'll make my own grfx appraisal when I have it up and running.

All of Halo 2's controls are fully customizable, with any function assignable to any mappable button on the controller, keyboard, or mouse. In fact, both the controller and mouse can be used at the same time, allowing creative players to take advantage of both the analog movement of a controller and the precise aiming afforded by a mouse. After playing a bit with a standard WASD setup and feeling amusingly powerful with the Covenant sniper rifle, I gave the hybrid method a shot and discovered it feels remarkably satisfying. It of course requires some significant control remapping, but also offers a fairly close translation of the trigger system for dual wielding, with each hand controlling one gun. By default, both guns are mapped to the mouse; when holding one gun, that gun is fired with the left mouse button, and when holding two guns they are mapped to the left and right mouse buttons respectively.

Along with FASA Studio's Shadowrun, heading to Xbox 360 and PC later this year, Halo 2 will be a showcase for the Windows Live service that will launch on Vista. Unlike Shadowrun, Halo 2 will not allow cross-platform multiplayer between console and PC users. Hired Gun determined that implementing that feature would have been overly limiting to the PC version of the game. For example, included on the disc will be a complete set of level editing tools, which are intended to be more complete and extensively supported than those included in Gearbox's PC version of Halo.

Clowes is hopeful that the internet community will take advantage of the low-level scripting capabilities of the level design tools to provide a wide variety of game types and environments. She demonstrated one of her own creations, a version of capture the flag that replaced the flag geometry with that of a large physics-driven soccer ball that players manipulate with vehicles or rockets. Players joining online games with custom maps will be able to have the maps streamed to their machines automatically.

H2 Overpower anyone?

More at

http://www.shacknews.com/extras/2007/030607_halo2pc_1.x

Marathionman wrote:

Thanks Bat.  I'm past that part now.

I though I was going to fly that big ship so I got out of my Banshee and ended up surfing on the big ship past a check point (bad idea).

Yikes! You're halfway thru the game already. Sounds like you were already on the gas mine, not Cairo Station. Good progress.

Now I'm dying trying to kill Regret.  We will see what happens.

That can be frustrating. There's a bit of a trick to it... sounds like you've already met his defenses; everyone should see them in action at least once. I think at least Cortana prompts you about what to do after a bit. You're probably past that by now.

What you want to know is Halo 2 is running well enough on my system.  It does get a little choppy at some parts.  I think I need to wait for the next NVIDIA drivers (if they ever come out).

Hardware:
DFI Motherboard
AMD 3700+ CPU
2 GB Ram
HDD: WD 80GB Rapture (OS, Halo)
HDD2 WD ATA 150 GB
Video: NVIDIA 7800 GT

Good deal, NV just issued new ones.

This morning NVIDIA released new drivers for Windows Vista and XP users for GeForce 6 and newer graphic processors. The Windows Vista drivers are up to ForceWare Release 158 version 158.24 while Windows XP users are stuck with ForceWare Release 90 version 94.24.

The new Windows Vista Release 158 drivers increase 3D performance in applications, add PureVideo HD support, DirectX force vertical sync and an updated NVIDIA Control Panel. The driver supports DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and OpenGL APIs for single-GPU GeForce 6, 7 and 8-series configurations. NVIDIA only supports DirectX 9 and OpenGL on GeForce 6, 7 and 8-series SLI configurations.

New drivers the day after H2V is released... hmm.

And yes, I'll be happy to try out multiplayer with you and whoever else we can muster as soon as the Vista box is ready.

NV Windows Vista 32-bit drivers, release date June 1?

Good deal.  i'm done and I have to say I have not enjoyed a game that much for a long time.