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One Of The Best.....It Will Go Down In History

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Halo is one of the best video games in history. Here are some of the pros and cons. (not many cons though)

Pros:
Good graphics, fun game play, lots of vehicles and weapons, and 16 player online multiplayer

Cons:
The assault rifle acts like an oversized SMG, the pistol acts like a rifle, the voice acting is not very good, and most of the people never blink in the entire game.

Over all Halo is one of the best video games ever created!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Better than The new games out now.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I just got this game 5 years late.I bought it because all the games out now are just console games adapted to play on the pc and are hardly playable.The graphics may not be up to 2008 standards but then neather is my graphics card and my Dell XPS is only a year old.To play the new games comming out you need to have windows VISTA and upgrade your graphic card every few months.This older game is superier to the more recent releases and it plays better on the pc.I hate what the game makers are doing to pc gamers and wish we would stop buying there crossover games.Then they might start making pc games again.

What was the big deal?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I bought the game, based on all the hype about H3 and H2 for Vista. It was OK, but frankly, HL, a game of the same era was more interesting. Maybe I am just jaded by the current generation of games such as HL2 EP2 or BioShock. In any case, OK for an older game, just don't pay much for it at this point in its existance.

Dated!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is an older game...I got that part. It is a little cheesy, though. It is decent to play but I would not pay over $15 for it.

Fun but no coop

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I had a ton of fun playing this game. Two downsides of it though are:
-it came 3 years too late
-no coop?!? WHAT?!

The story is unique, and the game itself is amazing. Many people say that Halo isn't innovative and is overrated, and they have a point- Halo didn't really invent anything. But it did combine vehicles, melee attacks, awesome, easy to use grenades, fun weapons, a cool protagonist, and great multiplayer effectively and creatively for the first time, and the game turned out to be great.

Still, no coop for the PC version. Again, WTF.

Responsive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

There was a problem with the delivery of this item (but not a fault of the seller) and the seller quickly and responsively resent the item. Item was as described

Why not to listen to fanboy hype--1 easy lesson

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I guess before I say a word about Halo, I should start by saying that I am a PC fan who firmly believes that the PC is fully capable of delivering what CAN be the definitive enhanced version of any game if only the developers will develop the game to embrace the PC's advantages. Unfortunately, the PC is an underdog platform, and many don't. At least not when it comes to console ports, and unfortunately, this is precisely what Bungie/Gearbox/Microsoft have done. After having heard for long and long about how much I was missing out on from friends, not having an X-Box, and not wanting to buy one, I decided to pick Halo up when it launched for the PC. I was pretty excited about it. I anticipated a game that would at least keep pace with, or perhaps even surpass it's PC contemporaries. I was ready to see this legendary, be-all, end-all shooter to end all shooters for myself. BIG mistake. Here's why...

For starters, Halo's systm specs are a flat out lie. Even on a system more than twice exceeding the recommended specs (Athlon XP 1.8GHz, 1.25GB DDR 400 RAM, Radeon 9600 256) at 1024x768 resolution, Halo bogs down with multiple enemies on-screen. Lowering the resolution to 640x480 (the lowest resolution Windows supports) cures this problem, but this is a pitifully low resolution, and not the reason you normally buy a console port. These problems have been largely alleviated courtesy of a recent video card upgrade (Radeon X-800 GTO 256), but even my old one (Radeon 9600 Atlantis 256) should have been more than adequate since it's considerably faster than what the game recommmends (Halo recommends a 32MB T&L capable video card). On my son's computer (P3 1.8GHz, 512MB RAM, GeForce 2 MX 128), Halo looks absolutely terrible, bogs down to slide-show framerates frequently, and is almost unplayable in some places. In short, when you buy a game, and pay this much for it ($50.00), and your system exceeds the listed specs by this much, you have EVERY right to take it home, and expect it to run like a bat out of hell--even at max settings. I truly hate to imagine the experience players with a system right at, or barely exceeding the system specs is having with Halo--they are undoubtedly, and justifiably furious.

As others have stated to often exaggerated degrees ("IT WAS SO EASY, I BEAT IT IN 30 MINS!!"), PC Halo was indeed a pretty big disappointment, and in allot of ways--from a game mechanics standpoint, Halo drastically needed more attention, and tweaking before it launched. Perhaps most disappointingly of all, it completely and conspicuously lacks it's console bretherens' co-op mode (Gearbox has promised for over a year to add it in a patch, and it STILL hasn't done it). Also absent, is any sort of enhancement, or expansion of the original game--the single player campaign is a straight port of the original, offering no bonus or expanded content for PC players, and not even being an authentic port at that. Veteran jackals not carrying orange shields as in X-Box Halo is one of the most immediately noticable flaws, but with jackals in general, their shields don't turn red as your fire on them (showing you how close to failure it is) is another minor, but still noticable flaw. Other inconsistancies include examples such as not warping between levels as in X-Box Halo. Disappointingly, with Microsoft's history of rarely patching their games, I wouldn't expect to see these issues addressed in a patch. There have indeed been 3 patches released for Halo, but none adds promised co-op mode or addresses bugs and flaws in campaign mode--they all address multiplayer issues only. This is really disappointing as PC ports can sometimes become the developers' chance to address issues, expand content, and add features that didn't make it into the original. Sadly enough, Gearbox does not seem to have embraced this opportunity--the game seems developed solely for the sake of the internet multiplay crowd--not people who didn't have, couldn't afford, or just didn't want to buy X-Box's, but were still interested in Halo, and it shows. In a perverse sort of way, between paying too much for it up front, and dealing with all Halo's frustration and disappointment, it's almost like being punished for not playing the game on the preferred platform, and I'm not convinced that there may not be that sort of thing in play here. So much of what's wrong with Halo could be corrected with quickly and easily written patches and Gearbox just doesn't do it. In the end, it comes across as uncaring, flippant, and just plain lazy.

Level design is absolutely abysmal. Indoor layouts are sterile, and empty looking lacking living/working quarters, computer screens, interactive objects, instrument panel decals, tools, crates, or anything else. It might have made exploration more fun if they'd done a better job decorating the levels, and giving you more stuff to look at. Indoor levels are also very repetetive. The levels seem as though they were cloned, then linked together with tunnels. One room looks more or less like the previous with the only real differences between them being the presence or absence of corpses and weapons. Outdoor layouts are large, and sprawling (particularly on banshee missions), and a bit better overall, but not by much. Despite being large,they are rigidly linear in design, and feel empty--lacking any sort of fauna, or wildlife larger than insects--it's like Halo's biosphere just quit after shrubbery, rocks, trees, and insects. Outdoor textures in general while attractive, seem plain, and lacking in detail. No motion blur, no heat distortion. No 3D, or even textured grass--it's just painted on without a single blade sticking up anywhere. All these were highly lauded features of the X-Box, yet all are conspicuously absent in PC Halo. I've seen older console ports with substantially lower system specs sport all these features, yet you don't get them from a supposedly A-list shooter that legions of fanatical fans around the world swear is the best ever made. Contrasted against other games launching at about the same time like Unreal 2, Far Cry, Battlefield 1942, Medal of Honor, Deus EX, and even RAYMAN 3 for crying out loud, Halo's overall look doesn't hold up well at all, looking like it should have come out 2 years earlier even at launch. In all fairness, PC Halo does look substantially better than X-Box Halo, sporting higher resolutions, better color saturation, VASTLY superior anti aliasing, more texture detail, and 3D depth. But given access to the PC's superior hardware, it's hard to credit the developers for adding these enhancements when the game almost can't help but inherit them for free simply for being a PC port. The fact remains that Halo's overall look is decidedly dated. It looks about the way PC shooters looked in 2000.

Halo's gameplay is also hamstrung by an ASTRONOMICAL frustration factor, as the game cheats absolutely incessantly, either by pulling out impossible moves, making you waste ammo (like a grunt surviving a headshot from a 14.5mm sniper rifle at less than 50 yards away . . . . riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!), special ops elites plunking plasma grenades on you from over a football field length away, jackals targeting, and shooting at you from outside their trigger area (without you being able to return the favor) or by simply overwhelming you with sheer numbers--and Halo seems especially good at that; particularly in the flood levels. I can't even begin to count the times I've had to force myself to stop playing before I snapped the disc. This could have been offset somewhat by implementing a true save anywhere system. But, Gearbox just couldn't be bothered to add this--instead, we get lame console checkpoints which compounds the repetition, and ratchets up the frustration factor (as if it weren't in nose-bleed territory already). By some miracle, or perhaps divine intervention, we actually DID get gamepad support, but no rumblepad support--which is yet another classic console port sin that Halo commits--treating rumblepad support like an optional feature. It's absence is reeeeeeeeeally conspicuous in a game like Halo where rumble effects are not added strictly for emphasis--you NEED it in the flood levels where the force effects let you know when a flood infection is gnawing on you. Also, even with the sensitivity turned down as low as two, the controls over-roll incessantly--making it unnecessarily difficult to aim and fire accurarely. While you do get used to it (to an extent), and learn to compensate for it, that isn't an excuse for shoddiness. As long as we're talking about gamepads and control issues, let's also point out yet ANOTHER example of a classic console port sin that Halo commits--the developers left out any means of being able to map the menu button onto your gamepad, so if you play the game on your TV with a gamepad like I do, this means you get to walk across the room to press escape to pause every time the phone rings because the developers were simply too lazy to add this feature (normally common in console ports). For those of you rolling your eyes at this complaint, ask yourself if it even makes good sense to develop a game that forces the player to switch back and forth between 2 different control schemes--your gamepad works within the game, but not at the menus, and it's not only dumb, but annoying in the extreme. To be fair, you do get gamepad support at the menus in PC Halo, but since because of this oversight, you have no way of bringing up the in-game menu from the gamepad, it's no better--pausing still demands walking across the room to press escape. Combined with a slew of other forseeable, and fixable flaws (rumblepad support could be added in a patch as BioWare did with MDK2), things like this move from mildly annoying to blood boiling within seconds.

Enemy and squad AI (if such it may be called) is spotty, but overall bad as well. Your marine comrades are complete idiots--incapable even of driving a warthog while you man the gattlin gun. Other examples include standing, driving, or walking right over or in front of thrown grenades, banzai charging into gunfights, rarely if ever dodging, or taking any sort of evasive action, charging into yours, and other marines lines of fire, and other such hair-brained blunders. I've literally seen soldiers, and even Captain Keyes himself stand not three feet away from thrown plasma grenades and just wait to die--making no effort at all to get out of the kill zone--so much for the time tested, battle hardened, tactical genius. Was this game ever play-tested AT ALL?! The developers seem to have put a little more time into the covenant AI than the squad AI though, and they're not QUITE as dumb, though I've repeatedly killed jackals, and even elites who got stuck in a corner, or on an object. It's also fairly common (yes, X-Box cronies, on legendary too) to see them dive right off of cliffs to avoid grenades. It is true that enemies call re-inforcements, dive for cover, fight hand to hand in close quarters, and move in predictable, scripted, bullet dogding patterns, but it's still fairly easily outwitted. And don't even bother with multiplayer mode--it only sports 6 new maps (none very good) and 3 new weapons--the fuel rod gun, flamethrower, and stationary shade turret gun. They also tossed in the banshee, and rocket launcher warthog for good measure, but the fact remains that neither of the vehicles, and only 1 of the weapons (the flamethrower) is actually new--they are simply available in multiplayer mode now, whereas they weren't in X-Box Halo before--further bolstering my suspicions of PC Halo being strictly a half hearted concession to the internet multiplay crowd. Worse, there's a conspicuous absence of even basic multiplayer commands, and when it's not lagging or warping (even on a broadband internet connection) so bad you can barely play, you're going out of your mind with frustration as you get repeatedly spawn-killed (getting immdediately killed right after re-"spawning" from being killed) by pre-adolescents screaming profanities that would make a sailor blush in all caps over, and over and over again. . . . . . this is Halo's quickly dwindling "community". To give you an idea, even though they recently released the long-awaited Halo level editor, and user-made Halo levels are becoming available, Bungie's site doesn't have a PC/Mac Halo section on it at all anymore--so you're totally at the mercy of fan sites for finding and downloading user-made Halo levels, and/or help creating them. Also pretty surprising is the complete absence of even a basic info or advertising section on the official site regarding the upcoming PC version of Halo 2 next year, so there's your "community" . . . . .

Halo doesn't even do a convincing job at selling it's self as an A-list game. The game's production values are down in the dirt as you get no box with an opening flap, or any type of embossing, or debossing, or even a jewel case (you get a cardboard CD sleeve). This was somewhat surprising as (then) new, $50.00 games usually sport very good presentation, and production values. But EVERYTHING about this game--right down to it's overall look, and generic-looking red banner across the top of the box seems to scream out "I AM A VALUE TITLE!", yet it remained at it's $50.00 launch price for over a year when other titles drop in price much more quickly--usually a few months after launch unless they're VERY successful (particularly with down-in-the-dirt producition values like these). I also experienced extensive difficulties with Halo hanging and crashing, and Microsoft's tech support was unable to help me reslove this issue. By "hanging and crashing", I don't mean crashing to desktop either--we're talking about the whole system locking up, and forcing a hard-reset (a risky proposition that can lead to even MORE problems if you're unlucky, and have a fussy system). To be fair, these issues have been alleviated courtesy of a recent video card upgrade (Radeon X800 GTO 256), and has dramatically improved the games' overall look and performance, but considering that the old video card (Radeon 9600 Atlantis 256) was considerably faster than what Halo recommends (and ran games with MUCH higher specs than Halo [like Far Cry] at max settings and high resolution just fine), this is totally unacceptable performance/behavior. Halo does have fairly advanced setup options so those experiencing technical problems can experiment with a variety of settings, but this doesn't excuse shoddy programming, or hardware support--it's a really bad sign when a game BY MICROSOFT that launched in 2002 won't run on an XP Service Pack 2 machine without a patch.

To be fair, Halo does indeed have a fun factor and addictiveness which will keep you coming back if you give it the chance--it's great fun to fly and ride around on the ghosts and banshees, and also hillarious (as well as deeply satisfying) to see a grunt or elite go berserk after having a plasma grenade plunked on him. And Halo does have many good elements. But the game's boring and repetetive level design, AWOL rumblepad support, dated graphics, technical issues, missing modes, incessant cheating, and STRATOSPHERIC frustration factor all but completely negates it. To me, Halo is sort of a love/hate relationship--there is allot about the game that I like, and I see allot of potential for a good game. Unfortunately, that would demand refinement, and at least one more patch it's obviously never going to get. So with all these issues, I can't help but feel more than a little burnt, and I certainly couldn't recommend it in good conscience to anyone with expectations similar to mine. But maybe that's just me. Maybe I have weird standards. I guess the key question then becomes: "is it worth all these problems on top of the ever-present threat of technical issues?" That's your call to make, but as a jaded early buyer, I've learned a hard lesson I won't soon forget about buying games based on fan boy hype.

Great Game (Not as good as XBox though...sigh.)

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Remember back in the day when the PC version of a game was WAYYYY better than any of its console counterparts??? ...well I do and this is NOT a prime example. Although it does have the HALO feel and vibe of the XBox version, it just lacks the controls and awesome imagery. The controls on a keyboard and mouse are a little rigid to play at first and I thought the graphics were kind of "blocky" and not as detailed as the XBox version. As for multiplayer mode....not bad to spend some time, but definitely not as involved nor as fun as....you guess it....the XBox version. All-in-all 7.5/10

Halo didn't fulfill my expectations

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I remember the big hype about Halo, when it was released. I would have bought it right away if my machine had fufilled the minimum requirements. Lucky me, I had to wait until now and could get the game for a low price. Here is why:
The graphics are not great. Even for the time Halo was released, the textures are not too detailed and the landscape looks like cut from cardboard. Unreal did almost as well in 1998. The story is good enough with three parties, each stiving to achieve their own goals. Also, the use of vehicles makes the game some fun. But the rather lame and very linear construction of the levels don't live up to the possibilities.
Multiplayer might be great with MODs, otherwise it is just slow and boring.
It was ok for 10 bucks, but I recommend to get something better (e.g. Far Cry, Max Payne).

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