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Halo is a true FPS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 30 / 36
Date: October 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Halo rulz. But many people are complaining that it runs bad on their systems. However, it is not a problem with Halo, its a problem with their video drivers. When NVidia's new video drivers come out, the problem should be fixed.

TO RAISE YOUR FPS RIGHT NOW, DO THIS
Note: This only pertains to those of you with NVidia FX video cards. ATI cards and other NVidia cards run perfectly

Find the Halo shortcut on your desktop. Right click it and goto properties. Where it says target, it probable says "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\halo.exe"

Add -console and -use11 after the " marks so that it looks like
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\halo.exe" -console -use11

That will make it run much better. As i said, its a problem with NVidias drivers. When their new drivers come out, the problem should be fixed and you can delete the -use11

I know it wasnt much pf a review, but Halo doesnt deserve to have bad ratings because people say it doesnt run well. Now, it will run well. It certainly made me like Halo more. Now it will be at a constant 30 or more FPS.

HALO? Oh Yeah!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 30
Date: June 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First off, no, I'm not playing an advance copy of the PC conversion of this magnificent game. I've had to settle for the Xbox version with the dual analog sticks, but from what I've seen so far, this game is going to rock like the Andes when it comes to its rightful home.

For those of you who don't know what this game is about -- seriously, where have you been? -- I'll nutshell it for you.

You play as the Master Chief, a new SPARTAN-II cyborg soldier being used by Earth in its war against a myriad of alien races collectively known as the Covenant. Earth is on the losing side, having just lost its major military outpost on Reach, where all the other SPARTANs were wiped out except for the Master Chief. Your ship, the Pillar of Autumn, is attacked by the Covenant fleet as it retreats toward Earth. As the ship crash-lands on a mysterious ring-shaped planet, you have to rally the remaining Marines into fighting the Covenant, and to try to solve the bizarre technology of the artifact ... only to learn that there's something worse than the Covenant here ...

This game is a blast to play. Unlike every other First-Person Shooter, you can only carry a maximum of two weapons and eight grenades, which makes firefights even more tense, and forces you to choose more carefully which weapons you'll take with you.

And then there's the vehicles. So far, I've only used two Marine vehicles, the Scorpion battle tank and the Warthog assault jeep, and one Covenant vehicle, the Ghost hoverbike. But what I've seen so far is incredible. With the Marine vehicles, you can choose either to drive them, with other Marines backing you up, or you can get in the gunner's seat and enjoy some unlimited firepower.

The Covenant is one of the most varied bunches of baddies I've ever seen in a game. They range from "Uh-oh" to "Oh MAN!" to "What are these, Jawas with guns?" Believe me, if you've played it, you'll know what I mean.

So what gives me the right to review this game in the first place? Because I'm sitting here raving over a console game, which is something I NEVER do. I'm a hardcore PC junkie through and through. I also know that Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City are so much better on PC, so based on that, I know this game is going to be dominating my life for at least a few months when it arrives.

Man, September can't come fast enough for me.

PC Version is better then orginal Xbox version!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am going to start doing my reviews in PRO/CON format (at least all of my videogame reviews) and then summarizing it all at the end.

PRO:

1.Graphics are great
2.More guns then the original Halo game for Xbox which include a flamethrower and a fuel rod cannon.
3. More maps then the Xbox version
4. ONLINE and it hardly lags!
5. Audio-music is great!
6. Doesn't require an overly powerful computer.

CON:
1.SOMETIMES can lag, but all games lag every once in a while online, dont they?
2. Campaign mode is to short and easy.

Even though i did add a couple cons, i am not going to take away one star making it a 4/5, because the PROS heavily outdo the CONS.

All in all, this game is highly recommended and if you have an Xbox/PC, you should get the PC version of HALO due to online mode, more guns and more maps.

(However Halo 2 is much better then this game, so i would go with that if you were to choose between Halo 1/Halo 2.

Halo: The finest video game of all time.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: July 27, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I had heard the buzz about Halo for the Xbox for a while but never really investigated the game until I played it at a friend's house. The next day I bought an Xbox and Halo and have been hooked ever since. As with the legendary game Half Life, it is the story as well as the game play that makes Halo great. I found the characters in the game to be very well developed, the weaponry outstanding and the voice acting, especially by Jen Taylor (Cortana) and the Marines that fight along side you to be exceptionally well done.

Halo is loosely based off of several Sci-Fi movies from Aliens to Star Wars. The story begins at Reach, one of the worlds that humans have colonized. Reach is suddenly attacked by the covenant and your ship is forced to make a blind jump to lure your enemies away from Reach so that they do not discover the location of Earth. Your ship arrives at Halo but the covenant has somehow tracked you and follow closely behind. The covenant armada attacks your ship and you are forced to crash land on Halo, an ancient and mysterious ring world where the covenant horde attacks you at every turn. The covenant is made up of several alien races who find humans to be an affront to their gods. Their blind devotion to these gods has incited their leaders to declare a holy war against humanity with the ultimate goal of killing every human being. After several breathtaking missions and just when you think you have the covenant on the run, a new, more vicious foe appears. The Flood as they are known, are nothing more than human and covenant soldiers who have been infected by a mysterious disease that has but one purpose, to infect the entire galaxy. In an attempt to stop the Flood, the main character of Halo, the Master Chief attempts to activate Halo's weapon systems but his AI sidekick Cortana discovers the horrifying truth about Halo's true purpose.

Halo is quite simply the finest video game ever made. The story behind the game is phenomenal, the characters in this game range from the Master Chief, an experimental warrior with cybernetic enhancements to Cortana, his AI partner to the comic relief of the covenant foot soldiers known as grunts. The maps in this game are incredible with realistic natural effects that are stunning to behold. All of these elements are welded together to form the best video game experience of all time.

Halo PC just rocks!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 19
Date: September 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Wow, the multiplayer battles are just intense. This is the best online multiplayer FPS ever! And just wait until the mods start coming out, the replay value will be infinite. People on the XBox still play Halo after two years and there are good reasons. There is just nothing like it. The vehicles are masterfully integrated into the game and give you a sense of a large-scale war going on.

Best PC game to be released in years

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 20
Date: October 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This seems to be hotly contested here at Amazon, but I have to say, Halo PC is wonderful. But its not like there aren't issues.

First, to all the folks saying things like "it shouldn't be like this with my video card" and "not for a 2 year old game" and other such things (in regards to video performance): hate to burst your bubble, but welcome to the future of gaming! I would direct your attention to Anandtech.com and their last review of all the latest graphics cards running 15 of the latest and upcoming games. Guess what? The days of 160FPS in Unreal Tournament are over. The fastest card available, the Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB, only gets an AVERAGE framerate of 43 in Halo. And not just Halo. Halo, Jedi Academy, Final Fantasy XI, Half Life 2, Doom 3 -- all the most anticipated games of the year -- are DirectX 9.0 games. And the very latest hardware can only run any of these games in the ranges of 30 to 60 FPS, average. Sometimes you'll only get 20 frames. Yes, even with a Radeon 9700 or 9800. The 9800 Pro 256MB only averages 19.9 in Final Fantasy XI! Its not the game producer's fault, nor does it mean that a game sucks. It means that your hardware sucks in comparison to what it could be. Nothing personal. Your self-image shouldn't be wrapped up in what video card you bought and installed. But game hardware is obviously going to need to advance more still in order to keep up with software requirements. I personally think that you should blame both ATI and Nvidia for doing a poor job of actually getting the market ready for DX9. (One tip: Halo doesn't support Anti-Aliasing yet -- not many DX9 games do -- so make sure your drivers are set to "Application Preference" so that the card doesn't try to set AA. That will really bog things down.)

Also, although the core of the game is 2 years old, it was completely recoded from the equivalent of a DirectX 8 game (on Xbox) to a DirectX 9 game. So in terms of coding, its brand new. Much newer, in fact, than even Unreal 2 or Unreal Tournament 2003 (both Direct X 8.1 games).

Also, keep in mind that there is a lot of controversy over Nvidia graphics cards and their performance in DirectX 9 games. They optimized their drivers for benchmark performance, but they don't actually "fully" support DirectX 9. As a result, you get less than anticipated performance in any DirectX 9 game, of which Halo is one. Yes, even a 5600 or a 5900 Ultra. Sorry. Don't kill the messenger. (Again, I recommend you peruse Anandtech.com for much more detail on this). I wouldn't be surprised if most of those reporting poor performance here are using newer Nvidia cards.

As for Halo itself, its simply wonderful! It truly is visually incredible. I'm using a Radeon 9500 Pro and a Pentium 4 2.4C at 1024x768, everything set to high. I personally have only had minor performance problems during very large combat scenes (30+ characters, lots of fire, lots of decals (blood), and lots of sky and ground textures). Be sure you update to the latest driveres for your video card.

The gameplay is pretty much perfect. Better than anything else out there. Someone finally made a PC game where you don't have to switch to grenades in order to use them! And you get lots of them (so use them liberally). The weapons are diverse, but there are none (with the exception of the perennial favorite rocket launcher) that is clearly more powerful or useful than any other, which keeps the gameplay balanced. And the bot AI is awesome. Some of the Covenant foes are really clever. Some are really not. The little ones (forget their names) are hysterical. "He'll kill us all!" "Down in front!" "Run for your lives!" I find myself (morbidly) laughing out loud in the middle of major battle scenes.

Multiplayer is really fun and reminds of my days playing Team Fortress Challenge. I dig it. But you HAVE to download the update before you can play in multiplayer. Otherwise performance will [smell] or multiplayer will crash repeatedly.

In the final analysis, this game really is ahead of its time. You can't blame the game or Microsoft, no matter how much you want to, if your hardware can't keep up. Blame the hardware manufacturer. Send them a letter and tell them that you demand better. And if your able, definitely consider upgrading to a Radeon 9500, 9600, or 9700 card. They all perform well in this and other new games, and are all under $...now. The investment will be worth it if you want to play any new games this year.

Easily one of the best first person shooters of our time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 17
Date: August 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It's the summer of 2001. I get an Xbox. I immediately rent 007 AUF and SSX Tricky. I kept seeing awsome reviews for Halo, but it seemed too good to be true and I didn't really care for the commercials. I beat 007 and I look at the back of the Halo box at blockbuster. I decided, "what the heck, maybe it isn't as stupid as it looks."

The menu screen was a turn-off at first. The music was starting to annoy me, too. The intro was pretty cool though. I had a very hard time with the controls, but it really is the best way to play FPSs so its best to just stick with it.

I thought going around shooting little red guys and an occasional blue dude was pretty stupid. I stil stayed with it. By the end of the second level, Halo was starting to warm up on me. The fourth level pretty much got me hooked. I loved the battle on the beach!

After that I became just another Halo lover. It was and is my favorite game mostly because i'd never played anything like it! The story was absolutly amazing, and the book added to the game alot. The graphics and sound were definately revolutionary in its time but I still gasp as the sun filters through the trees.

The multiplayer is awsome, but once you beat the single player campaign its good but not as good as the campaign. There are lots of game modes, and you can make your own. Like Goldeneye? How about Slayer, Pistols, no shields, 25% health. Just like the golden gun.

There will probably be LOTS of good mods and maps .etc after this ships. And a split-screen Co-Op mode is going to be added in an offical mod or patch. Not to mention a flame thrower, fuel rod gun, rocket-launching Warthog, the Shade stationary gun, and the banshee will all be added to the multiplayer goodness!

Time for the down-side of the game:
-No Xbox Live support, but you can still game online via XBConnect/Gamespy Tunnel.

-The game runs at 30 FPS when 60 is the Xbox norm. It can get a little choppy sometimes but this can easily be overlooked. You probably won't have to worry about this in the PC/Mac Version.

-The pistol is unbelievably good. You can drop someone from short to long range in 3 shots. Cheap!

-There is some redundancy in the levels, but your going back the way you came and it is mixed up a bit with short-cuts and vehicles. This is probably the worst part of the game. Still pretty easily overlooked.

Buy this for your PC/Mac/Xbox and if you don't like it at first STICK WITH IT! You'll be doing yourself a favor.

What's so great about Halo?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: January 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you were like me, then you have heard about what a great game Halo is, but you couldn't figure out what was so great about it or what made it so special. It first glance, it looks so ordinary. You look at the box and see that you are fighting a bunch of aliens with laser guns and assault rifles. Sounds like a cliche doesn't it? But what is so great about this game is that it is just really fun to play. It gets all of the little things right. Halo isn't innovative as far as setting and storyline go, but it is a big breakthrough as far as gameplay goes. (Gameplay, remember that?) Even during the mind-numblingly repetitive spots, it still manages to be somewhat fun.

Here are five reasons why Halo is a great game:

1. Weapon balance - every weapon in the game is useful, and none are overpowered. Every weapon has at least one advantage, and one disadvantage. The pistol is accurate at long range, which gives it an advantage over the assault rifle, which is lethal, but only at a short range. The plasma rifle is good for taking down shields, but can't hold much ammo, and the rocket launcher is very powerful, but also slow to reload. You can only carry two weapons, but you will frequently find yourself changing them out for various situations. The fact that all of them are useful gives you all sorts of ways to fight differently.

2. Fantastic AI. The aliens in the game (called "The Covenant") give you some very smart enemies to fight. They will use cover to let their shields regenerate and if you are trying to run them over in a vehicle, they will dive out of the way. They will also use grenades sometimes to flush you out, as well as try to rush you and/or outflank you. Sometimes they will jump onto nearby turrets or vehicles. Not only do the enemies have great AI, but so do your marine teammates. This all makes for some very exciting battles, which never quite play out the same twice.

3. The game actually makes you use your skills and tactics, instead of memorizing where enemies are scripted to ambush you. I love this aspect. There are very few surprises in Halo. Winning battles requires skillful use of cover, smart weapon selection, and good use of grenades too. I am kind of spoiled now, because every other first-person shooter (except for maybe Serious Sam) seems inferior in this area. Most games require you to abuse the "quick save" key in order to get through the game.

4. In Halo, you are always moving forward. The game just flows so fast. This is due in large part to the regenerating shields mechanic, which is being copied by lots of other games. This simple innovation means that you can fight 15 or 20 battles without losing any health, as long as you are smart when you fight them. Thus, you don't have to backtrack all afternoon for a powerup. In addition, the game throws lots of ammo your way, so you don't have to spend much time scavenging for it.

5. Halo has vehicles and turrets seamlessly integrated into the game. There are vehicles scattered throughout the game that you can get into and use to mow down your enemies or fly around and blast them from the sky. When you get into the jeep, marine squadmates will jump in with you and take the gunner positions. The vehicles in this game are so much fun. Sometimes the best way to defeat a group of enemies is to drive around the perimeter and let your gunner blast away at them.

6. Surprise, surprise, grenades are not only useful, but crucial to surviving the game. This is thanks to a separate hotkey just for throwing grenades. You can be firing your assault rifle and throw a quick grenade, and then fire your rifle some more. You don't have to switch weapons to throw grenades, so they become that much more useful. This is another very simple innovation that substantially changes the gameplay.

OK I lied, that was 6 reasons. There are actually more, like the wonderful soundtrack, which makes the game's big battles so memorable. Lots of people dislike Halo's repetitiveness, especially towards the end. The infamous "Library" level gets pretty boring, but this is still really a great game despite being two years old and having some technical problems.

No reason to complain

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: October 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Halo is a great game. It truly rocks. And if you arent getting more than 20 FPS its not because you dont have an Athlon processor. Like the guy who complained, I also have a geforce 4 fx 5600 256mb video card. THE PROBLEM IS WITH THE VIDEO DRIVERS. The new nvidia drivers should help when they come out. For now, if you are getting bad FPS and have an NVidia card, right click on the Halo shortcut and goto properties. Where it says Target, it will probably say "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\halo.exe" Anyway, after the second " marks after the .exe, add -console and -use11

It should now look like "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\halo.exe" -console -use11

That will fix it. You should now have a pretty constant frame rate of 30+. I know this wasnt much of a review, but I love Halo and I dont liek when people act like their smart and try to diss it. I also want everyone to have a better experience with it and not give it bad ratings because of something that doesnt even have to do with Halo. When the new detonator drivers come out, the problem should be fixed and you can erase the -use11.

There. NOW HAVE FUN PLAYIN HALO! Multiplayer rocks. So does single player. If you like FPS, you should be very pleased. Also, expect a demo to come out in the next few days, so try it out if you want to.

Awesome game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: September 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Overall I'd say that this game was very satisfying. I'm not really a hardcore gamer, and I was just really bored one day and I decided to buy a computer game, and Halo was the only one that would work with my Dell laptop, so I got it.
The thing that pleased me the most about this game was how well it worked for me. I'm not an experienced first person shooter player, but I was actually able to beat the game (which I did less than half an hour ago). That, and I could have the graphics turned up all the way in the game most of the time despite the fact that the stats on my computer are less than perfect. So this game is definitely worth getting if you aren't that experienced with these types of games and if you're computer is kind've old or weak.
The game had less weapons in it, which is good because in other games like Unreal there's just way too many weapons and it makes you unsure which ones to use. In this one, you know exactly which ones to use and they're fun. You have a shotgun, a machine gun, a handgun and a rocket launcher. You also have a few alien weapons, which makes it even more fun, but I didn't use those that often. You can also operate human and alien land and air based vehicles, which is unreal because I've never experienced something like that in a game before. You can use tanks, ATVs, alien vehicles that hover just above the ground and ones that fly all over the place. You also have grenades, which were loads of fun. Some that stick to enemies and other, human grenades that we already know about.
The game had some flaws, however. The AI was a little redundant, not much better than Unreal. Actually, exactly the same. The "elites" would shoot at you, move to the side and duck, or dive and roll to the side and you'd either have to run up to them and shoot them or play I shoot you and you shoot me and we wait several hours until one of us dies. The grunts were kind've fun, but there were so easy to kill it seemed like a waste of ammo to take them out, but you had to. The hunters were extremely hard to kill, and I was a little irritated by their presence at times.
I found the plot to be great and made perfect sense. There's no pointless, boring cinematics like there are in other games. Each "cinematic" is short and to the point and conveys a vital part of the plot to the player. I wasn't bored or anything and actually found them fun to watch.
I'm actually more into the "darker" first person shooters, such as Painkiller, Doom, and Hexen (older game). At first I didn't like the idea of playing a science fiction game, but I found that I would always be anticipating going home after work so I could sit down on the computer and play Halo for an hour or two.
Lots of fun and worth buying.

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