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Team killers and absent features ruin the online experience

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 89 / 185
Date: October 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Halo is a fun game, no doubt. The graphics are pretty, the gameplay is challenging, and the storyline is fantastic. Everyone knows the single-player game is phenomenal; the single-player game in this PC version is identical to the Xbox version.

What this PC version adds to the Halo experience is true online multiplayer. And it's terrible.

Oh, the new weapons (flamethrower, fuel rod cannon) and vehicles (Banshee, various Warthogs) are neat. The maps are okay. It's the lame players that drives Halo multiplay into the ground. At the time of this writing multiplayer Halo is filled with dweebs who enjoy nothing more than killing their own teammates while swearing in all caps.

This is not fun.

Worse, cooperative play through the single-player storyline--easily Halo's best feature--is simply absent. Inexplicably, there is no way to play through the game alongside a pal. Other PC games (Serious Sam, Tom Clancy games) have featured cooperative gameplay. Halo PC supports over a dozen simultaneous players. Halo Xbox had cooperative play. So... why is this feature absent? It makes no sense, and it makes the game much less appealing.

Stay away from this game until a patch implements such standard multiplayer controls as Banning, Voting, and auto-kicking for excessive TKs.

Only for very small kids

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 18
Date: February 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In one of my frequent internet searches, I read something about a game called Halo. The screenshots seemed good, the text described it as the Nirvana of all games. I became really interested, so I kept searching for more info on the web. It seemed good, so the following day I bought it for about 30 dollars.

I laughed at the minium requirements; They were so low that I would be able to play it even on my old PC. I was surprised, however, to see that it didn't work on my new, 3.6 Pentium 4, Windows XP home edition, 160GB hard drive space, 512MB of Ram, with a top-of-the-line Ati Radeon Ultra 9600 (The name might be wrong), even setting the graphics to 'medium', I couldn't play it for more than 15 minutes without experiencing a crash or some kind of bug. Weird, I thought, because the newest games like Half-Life 2 or Far Cry work nearing the maximium graphics settings.

However, I still got to play it for about 30 minutes or less. I was utterly shocked; People considered this a revolution in gaming?

Having played the old Jedi Knight series (So old that instead of cutscenes, there were REAL PEOPLE acting), Deus Ex, Starcraft, Diablo, Monkey Island, Operation Flashpoint, and Half-Life, I didn't see any revolution. All I saw was a cheap game with biblical advertising. I'll explain why.

There is no plot. The kid who can consider it one, has obviously started playing video games a couple of months ago. Linear, predictable and yamn describe it perfectly.

The graphics are very, very outdated. Obviously these 5 stars rewievers have never played Far Cry, Half Life 2 or Riddick: Return to Butcher's Bay. The poor, flat graphics of Halo pale in conparison to these games's.

Level design, as other users have mentioned, is simply terrible. The people who did this were obvously lazy or very short of time. The only difference between going backward and forward is that ahead of you there are no bodies of aliens, and forget about interacting with your surroundings; In Medal of Honor, a so-so game, you could at least shoot the spotlights, and destroy most of the things in the rooms, like equipment, boxes, etc. Here, the only thing you can do is to walk forward and massacrate more and more mentally challenged aliens.

The AI (If you can call it one) reminded me of the Jedi Knight AI. Enemies stand there, shooting at you, sometimes moving to the sides in a very scripted -and predictable- bullet dodging move. Example: Stand between two enemies. they'll try to melee attack you. Just move out of the way and they'll hit themselves or any other alien nearby. Fun? No, sad.

The gameplay: You move down the only and most obvious path, across the same rooms and hallways, while the computer throws more and more aliens for you to exterminate, without having to use you brain, just aiming and clicking. You go like this for about 15 minutes and you reach the end of the level. A cutscene plays, and you do the same thing again. You might get a vechicle, but since the allied AI is too stupid and can only be gunners in the back of the vehicle, you have to drive around the aliens, waiting for the stupid gunner to finish killing them. Fun for the first 10 minutes, then repetitive and boring.

The multiplayer? I thought that, after seeing terrible lagfests and connection problems in Battlefield 1942, it couldn't get any worse. It did get worse. In fact, even with the bugs, crashes, connection & compatibilty problems, lagfests and etc, I expected the game to be worth getting trough all the truoble of downloading patches and calling tech support, but instead, I get a game where whoever shoots more bullets in the shortest time wins... no teamwork, just plain, wild, childish, shooting. Ok, bloodbaths would be fun, but only 16 people can join a game. Battlefield 1942 allowed 64 people!

Conclusion: As other person stated, this game is for very small kids and people who like games that have to no depth. If you have a very small cousin, nephew, son, or maybe even grandson, I recommend buying it for him/her. Don't worry about what computer she/he has; When a game is so badly programmed, even if you have a computer the U.S Army envys and wants to use as a hi-tech spy plane, Halo won't work well on it. Poor programming=Bugs and crashes. The computer doesn't change that.

This worries me a lot. Tommorrow, microsoft changes the name, characters, weapons, and levels of Halo, and release it saying it's the new Nirvana. The kids will throw Halo away, will play this game, then switch to next one. For those that know what I'm talking about, it's like the spanish colonizers selling good-looking mirrors and cheap stuff to the indians at astronomical prices: Computer gaming has sunk to a new low.

Why????????

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 13
Date: December 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game with the notion that it would be as fun as Halo for xbox. Be warned, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME. While it is fun for a while, by the third or fourth level, you will be asking yourself what makes this game worth the money. The controls are a pain to set up and will have your hand going all over the place. With normal games, your right hand is on the mouse and the others on the left side of the keyboard. Halo has such a problem setting up controls, that i ended up playing not even watching the screen so i would press the right buttons. Another thing, while playing online there is NO VARIETY. Im running a p4 w/3.2ghz, 1gb ram, cable connection, and a radeon 9800pro. Online, there was no ground and weapon models were as bad as an old NES game. Granted in one player the weapons were fine, but that doesn't explain the shuddering movements and terrible resolutions. I played this game for hours upon hours on the big green box and this disgraces the name Halo. COMPLETELY A WASTE OF 50 BUCKS!

Sluggish, Slow and un-responsive

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: October 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have yet to return a single game, but this will be the one. Halo: Combat Evolved, has breathtaking visuals, a better-than-average storyline and great weapons. But the PC version is hampered by horridly sluggish game play. I have a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 and a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra (128 MB), Serial ATA Hard Drive and 1 GB of DDR 400 system RAM. The game is still sluggish to the point of being unplayable if there are more than 6 characters on the screen.

It's an exercise in frustration trying to aim with the effective frame rate of 8 frames/second or worse. This performance (or lack thereof) is simply unacceptable. If the game can run on a 733 MHz Xbox without dropping below 30 frames per second why can't it do the same on my PC?

This game hasn't yet "evolved" for the PC, despite it's availability on store shelves

Great for Multiplayer only..........

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: December 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

For the most part I enjoyed this game. I gave it a rating of 1 star to get your attention and to point out that this is only HALF a game. It offers both single player and online multiplay.

If you love multiplayer games and have a broadband connection...this game is awesome. WARNING - Most of the Halo Multiplayer servers, groups and games I played were filled with immature 14 year olds that curse 4 letter words at you and accuse you of cheating all the time because they can't shoot straight. I prefer more mature surroundings!

If you are looking for a great single player experience...forget it.

First of all the graphics are pretty...but dated. Look at UT 2003 on a high end vid card and compare it to Halo. Halo is bland, the levels are redundant. The outside levels are pretty but nothing impressive.

Even on the hardest settings this game is way too scripted, the enemy AI is pathetic and predictable. It is not intelligent AI. All the programmers did was setup scripted actions and triggers to generate hoardes and hoardes of enemies to come at you at set intervals as you proceed through a level.

Want to beat them easily? Say your in a level exploring...just walk slowly until you trigger some enemies to appear, back track a bit for protection and keep your back to a wall. Kill the enemies as they approach, then step back to where you triggered the enemies, see if you can trigger more and repeat these instructions until you are clear. Proceed and investigate further until you trigger more enemies. Repeat this strategy throughout the level and the rest of the game.
If you get into a heated, heavy battle, just use cover...pop out, shot some aliens and duck again. They almost never pursue you. Only the weird, mutants chase you. Just shotgun them. Nice and simple.

There are some tiny little parasite style aliens that are more annoying than dangerous. Don't waste your ammo on them, just let them crash into your shield, let your shield recharge and proceed. PIECE OF CAKE. I walked through this game on the hardest settings, without breaking a sweat, the AI is disappointing. Not horrible, but very PREDICTABLE.

Online Multiplay is where this game shines...the weapons are so-so...but having vehicles to drive around is a blast.

If you are thinking of buying this title...I would wait. February 3rd, 2004 is the release of Unreal Tournament 2004.

************ Unreal Tournament 2004 **********
It has vehicles, awesome weapons, a huge online following and BOT AI that will bring you to your knees. I have sampled the beta versions of it and all I can say is WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

bad karma for taking over bungie...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 12
Date: March 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

After all the hype, I expected a little more.

To this game's credit the both the plot and vehicle piloting are very good, as well as the music. It stops there though.

First of all, the level design is horrible. Outdoor levels consist of nothing but grass, rocks and the occasional tree. Indoor areas are nothing but blank metal walls with a rare decal. Covenant areas are exactly the same, but curvy and purple. There is a total lack of garbage, living quarters, furniture, or anything. Just corridor, room, corridor, room, corridor, big room, etc., all just as empty as the last.

The weapons are 'interesting' but grossly underpowered save the sniper rifle. The gunshots are pituffly muffeled, and the assault rifle, instead of making the harsh, earsplitting stereotypical machine-gun noise that it deserved, makes a lame thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.

The AI is pretty good but falters when you stick grenades onto them at which point they charge into their comrades screaming "get it off" and end up blowing their whole squad to pieces. Aleins can drive but human AI can't!? thats fair...

Stealth is clearly a verboten word in this game. There are no silenced weapons in the 26th century (okaaayyy...) , and apart from shooting you, the covenant do nothing but stand there making it impossible to sneak past them.

I by _NO_ means recommend this game to anyone.

This Game Sucks Like a Dyson Vacuum

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 23
Date: October 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Combat Evolved. A subtitle like that just makes you jiggle with the anticipation of creaming nice, original characters, blowing up tanks, and killing every thing in your path. But, after playing this game, the only thing I wanted to kill (besides myself) was my computer, who would kill itself anyways if I let a hunk of digital revulsion like Halo soak into it. The characters in this game are uninspired ripoffs of characters such as the following: the characters from Unreal and its counterparts, those from Half-life 1 and 2, Deus Ex, Quake 1, 2, 3, and 4, and Doom 1-3. Among others are Dick Cheney,George Forman, Hannibal Lecter, and Scarface. Usually when I play a crappy game, I like to find and tease other games by the same software company. This one, however, just left me feeling empty, with an incredible urge to slit my wrists and bleed all over the Halo disk.
If you agree with me, follow me to Canada, because I'd sure hate to be a member of a country that's stupid rich and greedy and made this worthless broken heap of digital sacrelige!
And I hate Halo, if you haven't already gotten the picture, because it was made by a bunch of retards with nothing better to do than to make a game so a bunch of stupid dorks could buy the Halo books, clothing, condoms and enima machines. There was no creative inspiration, just a fat dork with giant glasses and a constant supply of acid and donuts at the ready, going over concept art from another more creative game. I hat this game, and you should too. Goodbye.

Framerates are killing me!!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 15
Date: October 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First off, I lowered the res, lowered the textures, the game can hit 60 fps, if you run it at 640 x 480, with the textures low and the rest of the settings off. I even lowered anisotropic filtering on my card settings, it made some difference.

This game should NOT be more GPU and CPU intensive as a game like Morrowind. I'm sorry whatever argument you can come up with won't justify the terrible optimization that went along with this game.

It's the new standard in videogame production these days. Concern yourself with graphics and the rest comes later. Let's gouge the people by making games super graphic intensive that they have to go out and buy $500(Can) or $200(US) worth of a videocard.

This computer age is just barbaric, it's really good what we can do, but it's nothing more than strong-arm tactics.

Xbox owners feel proud, your $500(Can), $200(US) system lets you play games that are optimized properly.

Majorly loved it on the XBOX. Less so on the PC. Why?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 11
Date: October 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I can honestly say that I loved Halo on the XBOX. Yes, the levels were repetitive, but the combat was revolutionary! For those of you that don't know - the XBOX joystick has (among other buttons) 2 thumbsticks (one for each thumb). Halo was the first FPS for the XBOX - so the Bungie programmers had to decide what these two joysticks controlled. They chose so well that countless other programmers have copied them, and those that didn't - wish they had! One thumbstick controls the motion of your character based upon the direction he is looking. The other joystick controls which direction the character looks. Did I mention that the Xbox jostick has triggers for both of your index fingers? Within 10 minutes of playing Halo on the XBOX - I was pretty good. Within 48 hours - I was one lethal trash-talking Marine! I have two problems with the PC version. First, let me prefix this by stating that I am running Halo on a P4 2.4-HyperThreaded/800MHz FSB/512MB/XP Pro/Nvidia GeForceFX 5600 Ultra 128MB. Suffice it to say that I should be able to play EVERYTHING (expect for DOOM 3) at the highest detail level while having processing power to spare. Guess what? When playing Halo for the PC and there are more than 2 aliens on the screen - my system begins to crawl under the strain. This is in the very beginning - imagine what will happen when I reach THE FLOOD (hundreds of aliens at a time)? This is unacceptable. But it is a shame that somebody messed-up Halo PC, because there will be gamers that will never know how awesome the game really is. My second problem is actually more of a realization. I now realize that Halo was so revolutionary because of the two-thumbstick/trigger controller. It is extremely intuitive to control movement with one thumb while looking with the other thumb while firing your weapons with actual triggers. The keyboard cannot begin to compete. I read a review on a reputable gaming website that basically stated the exact opposite - he loved Halo on the keyboard. To each his own - I guess. Make up your own mind, but I suggest each of you just try it on the Xbox for 10 minutes to see "what all the fuss is about!"

Halo is for XBox not PC

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 10
Date: February 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If this had been the X-Box version, then this would be given 5 stars easily. Yet, the PC version has much to be desired. I find it hard to believe that Halo was originally a PC game that was rushed out for the X-Box by Microsoft. The contrast between the two games on the two systems is quite frankly scary.

I own a top of the line system. AMD Athlon 2600, with a 128 MB video card and 512 MB RAM. And I had major problems running the game. On the first level, it lagged like molasses in January. I liked the multiplayer levels, yet I prefer not to pay to play games online, and system linking the computers is as much of a waste of time as the whole PC version itself.

If you want to know what Halo is all about, please go get the X-Box version. It is much more enjoyable, and a lot less nerve racking.

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