Halo on PC

[Marcus Telcontar]

OKay, not a gamer, but this has proven rather... interesting. With the Screamer PC now completed and a borrowed G4 MX in place (Note, Radeon coming), it was time to give the machine a flogging to see how it went. Along comes a copy of Halo for PC...... so why not. Load Direct X 9, install, let it rip....

I have not gotten far as yet, but it's actually rather fun for a nonhard core gamer liek me. A great deal of fun so far and learning just what this game is about. I cant say if it's better than the X-Box version, but for sure, the PC version is great fun, good graphics too. Definantly a good time waster

[Charley]

Its pretty fun, but far from the best FPS on PC.

[Master Yoghurt]

Get BF1942, and we can play multiplayer :)

[Morgan Evanar]

It runs like crap.


Get BF1942, and we can play multiplayer LOLOLOLOL TELL ANOTHER ONE!

[Master Yoghurt]

Heh, whats wrong with BF1942? Are you tired of it because it is over a year old? Very few games (if any) have provided the same kind of lasting power, especially when you concider all the mods and extra maps to download. But perhaps thats just me.

The way I see it, BF1942 provides more interesting gameplay than just about any FPS out there because of the vehicles and the large/varried terrain. Its not just running through corridors fragging people, ala CS, Quake etc. There is tactical and stategical versatility involved.

Playing a game like U2K3 gets me bored in 15 minutes. Its feels very one dimensional and quicly gets tedious.

I am simply recommending him the first game I would buy if I had been away from the PC games scene for a long time. I can honestly say, it has provided me value for money many times over. But if you have a better suggestion, go ahead :)

[Marcus Telcontar]

Give me a week to fire up broadbad here again and it's a deal, Mr Green Dude.

[Darth Viscera]

I bought BF1942 more than a year ago, I think I've been playing it since July 2002, and it still rocks. It'll still rock a year from now. You can literally waste 7 hours in a good round of BF1942. Last night I burned a few hours providing overwhelming air support to a panzergrenadier platoon from a Me-109.

It's not as addictive as other games, but it's 10x more fun. Gameplay is outstanding, and the replay value is the highest I've seen in a game. I took exception to some of the latest SA review of BF1942. It was n00bish and uninformed. They basically said that the wasserfall guided missile is useless, which is the opposite of the truth-wielding a wasserfall I can completely clear the skies of enemy aircraft and even use it as an AGM when i need to use it for ground support. It just takes a little skill to control it.

BF1942 even made it into a History Channel show, Tactical to Practical, the other day. They interviewed the BF1942 Devs. It was great.

[ReaperFett]

I don't play BG1942 much any more, but that's because I don't have broadband yet. Fun though.

[Morgan Evanar]

I'd be the last person to knock BF1942, its an awesome game. However, if you and Mark intend to play online, you're fooling yourselves.

Norway to Austraila isn't going to make for a pleasant experince. I ping something like 300+ to AU. Yog has further still to go.

[Master Yoghurt]

Well, admittedly, that is a good point :)

However, I have played clanmatches in American ladders like CAL, TWL and OGL without getting pwned, believe it or not.. :p some of these servers were on the west coast. I am *not* a ping player, and can play up to 300+ ping and still have fun in public games. You're on the east coast, so the ping to Australia is extra high. If Marcus is willing to play on west coast servers, I sure as heck would be willing to ignore the ping just for the fun of playing some games with him! Heck, I'd play on Australian servers just for the privelege of playing with my good old buddy Mark! :rollin

Just ask Viscera. We played ALOT together. 250+ ping for one of us is not uncommon when we roxor the skies. Part of the reason is, we are pilots, and bombing does not rely so much on ping, but on skill and experience. Also, lets not forget in BF, while high ping requires you to lead your targets more, it also mean other have to lead you.

It is true though, I would not want to play a FPS like Counter Strike with a high ping. But CS got client side hit prediction where BF is serverside. Furthermore, its heavily biased towards fast reaction infantry close combat, where BF is much more flexible.

[Darth Viscera]

That's right, the cake can rule the skies like only one other.

[Marcus Telcontar]

As long as the trace route goes via the Southern Cross Cable, ping times will be in the 170 - 190 vicinity to west coast USA, also depending how close to the border router my connection will be. If your on the Optus side of the infrastructure, the connections tend to have very good ping and esp latency times. If your on the BigPond side.......... that could be a problem.

Halo on PC gains 8/10 from me. It's the first game to hold my attention until completion since Diablo. That's enough to state how much I was able to get out of it. Graphics is pretty good if you can turn em up, but sound gets a big fat rasberry, esp the voices. ANNOYING. Controls are simple and the basic "Lets learn" level is enough to get going and be confident. That's something I like - I hate overly complex controls. I personally really loved the vehicles and the aerial combat. Dog fighting three other Banshees was brilliant.

I really hope they do somethign about the voices for Halo 2. I wanted to put a fist through the speaker with the construct. Ugh.

[Master Yoghurt]

Yeah, HALO is fun. I only played it for a few hours, but its clearly a great game :)

[Master Yoghurt]

I'd suggest you try the multiplayer demo to check out gameplay and ping times etc. Its a free download:

<a href=http://www.bf1942files.com/file.info?ID=5003> Demo</a>

Remember to patch it before you go online:
<a href=http://www.bf1942files.com/file.info?ID=5191> Demo Patch</a>

If youre interested, this program is great at locating servers for MP games:
http://www.udpsoft.com/eye2/index.html

And this is a great program for communicating to your gaming buddies via microphone. Me and Visc use it ingame:
http://www.teamspeak.org/

[Morgan Evanar]

http://www.ventrilo.com/ Ventrilo is even better than Teamspeak, although teamspeak is pretty good.

[Morgan Evanar]

Also, Halo runs TERRRIBLY. Even with Pixelshaders 1.4 forced. For a game so old, so dated looking, it sure is a slideshow.

[Marcus Telcontar]

Originally posted by Morgan Evanar
Also, Halo runs TERRRIBLY. Even with Pixelshaders 1.4 forced. For a game so old, so dated looking, it sure is a slideshow.


On what PC spec? On this box that I use, it runs very well with most video options turned up, 1024x768 resolution, 30fps. The only time that there was any problem was with dust and smoke options set to max and in one specific level. Thats even with a MX440 card, which isnt the best I know and does let this system down somewhat. I suspect with a Radeon card, that may not be the case.

[Syriande Blue]

Originally posted by Master Yoghurt
Heh, whats wrong with BF1942? Are you tired of it because it is over a year old? Very few games (if any) have provided the same kind of lasting power, especially when you concider all the mods and extra maps to download.

Try playing MOH bub, about 10thousand times better than BF1942.

[Morgan Evanar]

Try playing MOH bub, about 10thousand times better than BF1942. Completely different games. And it doesn't have a terrain engine or vechicle combat that compares. No.

Specs:
Athlon XP Tbred B @ 1.75 GHZ (2100+)
Abit NF7-S (nforce 2 chipset)
768 MB DDR PC2100
Radeon 9700.

Compared to say... Unreal Tournament 20003, which looks better yet runs smoother... its very baffling. I'm very framerate sensitive, though. 30 FPS is choppy, and I'd like that to be the worst case.

Its just another crappy console port, IMO. The game is ok, but the way it runs is just unnacceptable.

[Marcus Telcontar]

I have not pushed the fps past 30, as I dont really see the need to - but I think I can see why there's a difference - my present machine is a 3200+. About the only thing in anyway doubtful about it is the card (MX440 with 128mb DDR, AGP8x) and that's only because Radeons are ridculously expensive here. 9800's are upwards of 800 AUD. No thanks. Not yet anyway.

One of my friends who supplied HALO has a similar spec system, but with a 9600, he gets full details very nicely. Plus, he's invested in a good quality water cooling units, which I have not, I only have the power supply fan reversed and an extraction fan.

I'll try again on a lower spec system and see what I get.


WTF is MOH??

[Darth007]

Medal of Honor, a FPS for consoles and PC. I personally only enjoyed the very first one for Playstation, after that the games just didnt seem to compete against all the other games out there.

[Darth Viscera]

Medal of Honor is a great WW2 single player game, nice story, great graphics, great gameplay, etc. But once you're done with the single player story, it gets uninstalled. So it's fun for about 12 hours.

BF1942 = fun for the whole year.

[Sanis Prent]

The MOH series is excellent for first person, story-driven gaming. MOH: Spearhead was like playing through Band of Brothers.

Anything else, it better be BF1942.

[Darth007]

Yeah see thats why you guys probably played the PC versions, its horrible for consoles, controls are sloppy and everything.