Forums | MacLife

I'm just hoping that H2V won't be another straight console port like HPC. HPC had a terrible multiplayer in-game interface, the control scheme was shoddy, and it was poorly optimized. Hopefully H2V will show some improvements.

{Sigh}... if I've time, what of the above do you not want me to debunk?

IcarusFountain wrote:

It WAS at least a PC game, shown on a Mac.  It wasn't ported to Xbox, though, but completely re-written in under a year.  Correct so far?

Yup. Started as an RTS for PC & Mac, concept art dating to late '97 (even then showing the Flood- they weren't a late add-on as some think, in the evolution to a level-based FPS). Serious dev work probably dates to early '98. Coded first on PC, the needed 3D stuff not available on Mac until shortly before MWNY '99 where it was first shown (very close-run, with Jason Jones reportedly finishing coding on the plane ride). Completely rewritten for Xbox after the acquisition, but even before that evolving thru stages of seamless persistent online world, etc.

Gearbox' job on Halo PC was probably as optimized as the original. Both could've used more time in the oven, had a few bugs, lost a few features... but Matt Soell pointed out last year at IMG that companies ship or die, and every single Bungie game has lost some features on the way to market. The Marathons, Myths, Halo... every one.

If you look at the graphical framerate counter in HPC just after going back indoors after the long outdoor part of AotCT, you'll see some very sharp dips at regular intervals. I've a hunch that's an AI issue since some 32 AIs are nearby, mostly sleeping Grunts, but regardless, something that might've been massaged out of the original code but wasn't. The issue eases as you start fighting, waking and killing them.

That's not a graphical issue, but HPC was also the first major DX9 game and punished hardware of the day pretty badly. Some of that still isn't in the Mac version, like the multiple render-to-texture blandishments. To some eyes that know the original well, changed or missing features like altered shield shader effects, Cortana not changing color in the Core and such are more obvious than per-pixel fogging and the like, which anyway stand out best at very high res. When you cut features you prioritize. I think Gearbox did OK there; and given another month or so might've got those in and made a Thanksgiving ship date- but Half-Life 2 didn't slip until HPC went Gold. HPC didn't slip and went out 9/30 like H-L 2 was scheduled to. C'est la vie.

Halo wasn't written for online co-op play, but splitscreen on one Box. It's a lot harder to synch data tightly enough for co-op on different machines with different hardware over the Net, and Gearbox couldn't solve in time what Bungie hadn't written into the original. Also, the PC version was announced, then nothing was done (like picking a porting house) for 4-5 months IIRC, so Pitchford and Co. didn't have near as long as most think.

Thanks for the feedback. I take the best source[s] I can get and will amend any future accounts.

msoell wrote:

Bat wrote:

Coded first on PC, the needed 3D stuff not available on Mac until shortly before MWNY '99 where it was first shown (very close-run, with Jason Jones reportedly finishing coding on the plane ride).

This is one of those reports I find hard to believe; Bungie had a build that ran (barely) before they left for the show, and Jason knew better than anyone the hazards of messing with fragile code.

Watch that video of Jones showing the game onstage at MacWorld.  Watch the deep breath he takes right after he launches the app.  That is a nervous guy - nervous because he knows the build is held together with duct tape and chewing gum.  I really doubt he would have messed with it on the way to the show.

Makes sense to me. I actually got that part from your old friend Gary "The Battlecat" Simmons a few years ago, so I figured it was likelier true than not.

msoell wrote:

Bat wrote:

Also, the PC version was announced, then nothing was done (like picking a porting house) for 4-5 months IIRC, so Pitchford and Co. didn't have near as long as most think.

Bungie did not officially announce PC/Mac Halo until porting houses had been secured.  That's why there was such a long wait between the release of the Xbox version and the announcement of the PC/Mac ports.  To say "nothing was done" in the interim is correct in the sense that no one was actively porting the game...but Bungie was definitely trying hard to find someone to do it.  Someone was doing something, believe me.

Got it. That I think came from reportage in a magazine interviewing Pitchford and Gearbox before it came out, or maybe secondhand from HBO... but after 4-5 years I could easily misremember. Possibly an impression from the Chavez/Tamte interview Summer '02; anyway it was MS apparently doing nothing, not Bungie. Fixed.

Gearbox did a commendable job on a tough project with the time and resources at their disposal.  I'd rather have an imperfect PC Halo (and by extension Mac Halo, not to mention Mac/PC Stubbs) than no PC Halo at all.

-Matt

Oh yeah. I always thought Gearbox got a bad rap for a supposedly sloppy, poorly optimized port... but by all accounts they put more man-hours into networking than anything else, and their own HCE got the better netcode they couldn't ready by mid September '03. Shame they couldn't get timely approval for all the extras they worked up on their own dime, but that's MS, and Pitchford says that's why HCE is theirs, and the original HPC was handed back to MS to maintain. (MS has done nothing with it since the split, I note, except keep it on shelves). Anyway they came up with a beautiful game using new APIs that I've played more than almost any other, and one that runs well on most modern hardware, can look even better than when it came out (current videocards now have hardware support for FSAA with MRTs like HPC uses). Good on 'em.


Ed. for clarity & sp., minor additions

Last edited by Bat (2007-05-09 7:54 am)

IIRC they also did Blue Shift, the other Half-Life expansion- the one from '01 featuring Barney. Oddly that wasn't in Valve's back catalog on Steam, last I looked (which was some time ago).

I had fun with it. And it had the High-Def Pack and all...

Gotta revisit that sometime soon.