Played on:
Windows
It's been a long wait for Halo fans who wanted to play the game on the PC. A couple of years back, Microsoft bought out the developer, Bungie, and had them turn Halo into an Xbox exclusive. Now, almost two years later, Gearbox is delivering a PC port of Halo - it promises higher-res graphics, mouse and keyboard controls, and an enhanced multiplayer mode. So is it worth the wait for PC gamers? Can a game that's this old still compete with today's FPS juggernauts?
Gearbox Software did wind up with a lot on their hands when they took the job of porting Halo to the PC. The graphics code pretty much had to be redone due to a few small (but key) differences between the hardware on the Xbox and the PC, and on top of that, Halo also needed to be compatible with a fairly wide range of computers.
Many new DirectX 9 features are used extensively, but I honestly am having a tough time seeing the visual impact. The animations and special effects are rarely better than what was seen on the Xbox; was the console version of the game just that advanced or something? All of these features eat up your video card's processing power, and it just doesn't seem like they do all that much for Halo. Since I can't turn off any of the advanced DX9 effects, it's also difficult for me to see what difference they really do make - if at all.
The one huge problem I find with Halo is that it just doesn't run that well; on my computer listed above (the Radeon 9800 is overclocked past Radeon 9800 Pro speeds), the game would not run well at full detail in 1280x1024. The frame rate was all over the place, and I wound up settling with medium details and 1024x768. I left FSAA off since it caused a major performance hit in Halo without improving the visuals all that much. This resulted in a frame rate that was usually over 30fps, so it was certainly playable, but this is kind of sad performance for computers that are this powerful.
Update: adding either "-use10" or "-use11" to the Halo shortcut will force the game to use Pixel Shader 1.0 or 1.1 effects instead of 2.0 effects. This helped out my frame rate immensely with what seems only a small cost in visual quality. Of course, these options needed to be in the game itself, not as a well-hidden command line option. Also, FSAA ruined my frame rate and didn't help out the visuals much - PC gamers expect these kinds of options and features, and Halo does not deliver them.
Gearbox wound up having to totally rewrite the network code, as the Xbox version of the game only supports LAN play and internet lag was not coded for in any form or fashion. For this reason, just about the whole network system had to be redone in order to make internet play even remotely feasible.
All of the control and interface options in the Xbox version of Halo are present in the PC port, but the obvious new feature here is the inclusion of mouse and keyboard support for aiming. This really does change the way the game is played, and it's a welcome change from struggling with the Xbox controller's dual analog sticks. First person shooters can be certainly playable on a console, but I find that a mouse always works better.
The multiplayer modes do include plenty of new features and custom modes, all of which are easily set up in-game. The actual feel of the mouse movement still felt a little, well, "swimmy"; it took me about an hour to get used to the slightly quirky mouse movement.
Apparently, the problem comes from the game forcing mouse acceleration on; you can get rid of it by starting the game with "-console" at the end of the shortcut, hitting the ~ key during the game, typing in "mouse_acceleration 0", hitting enter, and pressing ~ again. I've tried this and it definitely helps, but this still needs to be an option in the game's menus. Mouse acceleration also seems to revert back to its original "on" setting every time the game starts, which means one has to type in the console command to turn it off every time Halo is fired up.
Halo's graphics were considered to be mostly phenomenal way back when the Xbox version was released in late 2001; not only was the engine very competent but the art was distinct and very unique. We did get several levels that feel very repetitive both in terms of visuals and gameplay, but even those are still at least decent compared to other FPS games.
Some of the textures seem to be of a higher resolution than the Xbox version, but not all of them do. Many character models were recreated, again due to differences in Xbox and PC video hardware. Sadly, they just don't look quite as good as they used to, but I am having trouble putting my finger on exactly what it is.
Graphically, just about everything else seems to be either the same as the original or better. The levels and gameplay are largely unchanged, although the game's water seems to have some new pixel shading effects. The special effects don't seem to have been played with either, although some of them just don't look quite as good when shown on the PC.
In fact, there are quite a few graphical rough edges that were difficult to notice on a TV, but are kind of obvious in high-res on a monitor. Zoom effects, textures on a few enemies, and a couple of the major special effects just aren't as sharp as they could be; the game is still graphically impressive, but everything feels a little disjointed somehow.
One thing that Microsoft insisted on with the PC version of Halo is that the single player experience stay almost exactly the same - except with the new controls, that is, which is enough of a change right there that Halo veterans should give it another play through.
