DH: PC Halo Review

zerodamage · Jan 1, 2004, 05:50 AM

I've read at rage3d.com forums in the gaming forum from some source named "David" that there will be a patch out soon possibly with Co-op mode and some major performance enhancements. I will post more when I have more information and I can confirm what I've seen is true and from a realiable source.

Here is what I've seen in the post as improvements:

We have a massive performance boost, but we're negotiating with MGS to get it included in an update (it's a big change that touches lots of stuff. Risky. We call it "fast shaders" - we're seeing 30% to 50% increase in ps 1.1 through 2.0 performance (no affect on fixed function). We'll get more information out about soon.

DX8 doing DX9 shaders: We're getting slammed enough about performance as it is!

Is this possible and is this what is causing such performance issues?

That is a couple. Like I said, this could be bs but I am awaiting confirmation. Will post more when I have the information.

WaltC · Jan 1, 2004, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by @/2ct!<
Which level would you have used for the demo though, I thought it was a farily adequate representation... You fight covenant, have a multitude of available weapons and get a warthog, not too bad Imo, also had indoor and outdoor environments, seemed like an adequate depiction of rest of the game to me.

I can't speak for Mac Daddy, but my main objections to the demo, not necessarily in this order, were the use of much lower res textures than are included in the game itself from what I recall, the fact that there was almost nothing in the demo to introduce the story line (the game itself actually does a nice job laying out the story in the very beginning, but in the demo I'm dumped out on the beach and I'm thinking "What am I doing here? What's next?" Death arrived quickly to answer those questions. Heh...

I'd like to point out that the demo was my first experience with Halo in any form and I knew almost nothing about the game, but didn't know a lot more after running the demo, either.)

Then there's the fact that although the demo itself was abbreviated to a level or so as all demos are and is expected, Gearbox felt the need to deliberately frustrate any chance I might have had to enjoy the demo by making it impossible to save my position so that however far I wanted to go I'd have to do it in one sitting (or restart a level), and then they compounded that sin 100-fold by tacking on a really, really rotten 90-120 second low-res, fuzzy 2d "Halo infomercial" hardcoded to run whenever I quit the demo, which deliberately and rudely insisted on playing itself out regardless of me pressing every button on my keyboard to cancel out of it! I grew irritated fast with the cigar-chomping stereotype of a space-cadet sergeant screaming at me to "shape up" or something and "buy a dozen copies of this game, jerk!" or something equally witty and profound. Looking back on it I'm amazed I actually bought a single retail copy of the game after sampling the demo. That's why I say the demo wasn't representative in many respects of the actual game. Those are the kind of specific gripes about demos in general that I've had on more than one occasion in the last year.

I don't really care, personally, how short the play in a demo is (within reason), because I expect it to be short, because it's a demo, the purpose of which is to whet my appetite for the full product. So how do game pubs think people's appetites are going to be stimulated by providing them with demos which:

(1) Provide barely a clue as to the story line of the game (No need to include the full intro in a demo, but some of it should be there, certainly, at least enough to get a customer interested.) I don't think it's particularly wise of game publishers to put out game demos which assume the people who sample them will know enough about the game's story line so that they have no need to be apprised that there *is* a story line in the actual game itself, and of course what that story line might be...

(2) Provide lower-res, fuzzy textures for the demo that degrade the demo so that it displays noticeably worse IQ than in the actual game itself. Yes, it's *real smart* to try and cleverly trick your market into believing your game has worse IQ than it actually has. Uh, huh...

I hear all the time the same lame excuse from game devs: "We had to make you think our game looks worse than it really does because we were trying to hold down the total size of the demo, and so we used lower-res textures than those which ship with the game." Bzzzt. Wrong answer. If you are concerned about demo size then *shorten* the demo, or truncate your levels, or find a more efficient file compressor, or something. But please don't cheat yourselves or your game by degrading its image quality in a demo which is supposed to *represent* the actual quality of the game you are trying to get your audience to buy. I'm amazed that this simple concept is not readily appreciated by game devs & pubs these days.

(3) Provide sound quality which is inferior to the actual game's. Again, same as with IQ, it's not too swift to degrade the quality of your product in a demo which is created for the purpose of representing your actual product in such a way as to motivate the people who run it to go out and buy your game ASAP.

(4) Provide an hour or two of demo game play, which is supposed to represent the game you are trying to sell, but then decide to make the demo non-representative of the actual game by removing the ability of those running the demo to save their forward progress. This kind of thing most definitely does not represent a game which actually has a save-game capability--it degrades the quality of the demo's gameplay in relation to the actual play of the full game itself. If the game you are trying to sell has a save-game function, then please include that functionality in the demo. There's no excuse for game devs to ignore just how much not having a save-game function can ruin the way a game plays--and it's no less true of a demo, of course. Again, such limits degrade the demo in relation to the quality of the game you are trying to sell.

(5) Provide "game infomercials" which consist of 2d animations running as blatant advertisements for the game within the body of the demo. This one is especially baffling to me and the Halo demo was the worst of them in this regard in recent memory. You know, that's what your game demo *is*--its an *advertisement* for your game! You don't need to add cheap and gnarly looking 2d animated ads to your demo--all you do in that case is to significantly degrade the quality of the demo in relation to the game you are tyring to use the demo to promote and sell. I mean, unless you place those kinds of ads into the body of the full game itself they certainly are not representative of the actual game, are they?

Simply put, a game demo should itself be the ultimate advertisement for your game, or conversely it can become an obstacle you wind up having to overcome. I hope in the coming the new year we'll see game devs in general putting out short but sweet game demos that represent the quality levels of the games they are promoting. I have a feeling, somehow, that such an approach would help game pubs sell more games, which I assume is what they want to do.

BiGBrOwNPimpsta · Jan 1, 2004, 08:25 AM

this game was just far too overrated, halo 2 should be good though. i mean as an xbox game it was far too overrated like too many xbox games

Mac Daddy · Jan 1, 2004, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by WaltC
I can't speak for Mac Daddy, but my main objections to the demo, not necessarily in this order, were the use of much lower res textures than are included in the game itself from what I recall, the fact that there was almost nothing in the demo to introduce the story line (the game itself actually does a nice job laying out the story in the very beginning, but in the demo I'm dumped out on the beach and I'm thinking "What am I doing here? What's next?" Death arrived quickly to answer those questions. Heh... I'd like to point out that the demo was my first experience with Halo in any form and I knew almost nothing about the game, but didn't know a lot more after running the demo, either.)

Then there's the fact that although the demo itself was abbreviated to a level or so as all demos are and is expected, Gearbox felt the need to deliberately frustrate any chance I might have had to enjoy the demo by making it impossible to save my position so that however far I wanted to go I'd have to do it in one sitting (or restart a level), and then they compounded that sin 100-fold by tacking on a really, really rotten 90-120 second low-res, fuzzy 2d "Halo infomercial" hardcoded to run whenever I quit the demo, which deliberately and rudely insisted on playing itself out regardless of me pressing every button on my keyboard to cancel out of it! I grew irritated fast with the cigar-chomping stereotype of a space-cadet sergeant screaming at me to "shape up" or something and "buy a dozen copies of this game, jerk!" or something equally witty and profound. Looking back on it I'm amazed I actually bought a single retail copy of the game after sampling the demo. That's why I say the demo wasn't representative in many respects of the actual game. Those are the kind of specific gripes about demos in general that I've had on more than one occasion in the last year.

I don't really care, personally, how short the play in a demo is (within reason), because I expect it to be short, because it's a demo, the purpose of which is to whet my appetite for the full product. So how do game pubs think people's appetites are going to be stimulated by providing them with demos which:

(1) Provide barely a clue as to the story line of the game (No need to include the full intro in a demo, but some of it should be there, certainly, at least enough to get a customer interested.) I don't think it's particularly wise of game publishers to put out game demos which assume the people who sample them will know enough about the game's story line so that they have no need to be apprised that there *is* a story line in the actual game itself, and of course what that story line might be...

(2) Provide lower-res, fuzzy textures for the demo that degrade the demo so that it displays noticeably worse IQ than in the actual game itself. Yes, it's *real smart* to try and cleverly trick your market into believing your game has worse IQ than it actually has. Uh, huh... I hear all the time the same lame excuse from game devs: "We had to make you think our game looks worse than it really does because we were trying to hold down the total size of the demo, and so we used lower-res textures than those which ship with the game." Bzzzt. Wrong answer. If you are concerned about demo size then *shorten* the demo, or truncate your levels, or find a more efficient file compressor, or something. But please don't cheat yourselves or your game by degrading its image quality in a demo which is supposed to *represent* the actual quality of the game you are trying to get your audience to buy. I'm amazed that this simple concept is not readily appreciated by game devs & pubs these days.

(3) Provide sound quality which is inferior to the actual game's. Again, same as with IQ, it's not too swift to degrade the quality of your product in a demo which is created for the purpose of representing your actual product in such a way as to motivate the people who run it to go out and buy your game ASAP.

(4) Provide an hour or two of demo game play, which is supposed to represent the game you are trying to sell, but then decide to make the demo non-representative of the actual game by removing the ability of those running the demo to save their forward progress. This kind of thing most definitely does not represent a game which actually has a save-game capability--it degrades the quality of the demo's gameplay in relation to the actual play of the full game itself. If the game you are trying to sell has a save-game function, then please include that functionality in the demo. There's no excuse for game devs to ignore just how much not having a save-game function can ruin the way a game plays--and it's no less true of a demo, of course. Again, such limits degrade the demo in relation to the quality of the game you are trying to sell.

(5) Provide "game infomercials" which consist of 2d animations running as blatant advertisements for the game within the body of the demo. This one is especially baffling to me and the Halo demo was the worst of them in this regard in recent memory. You know, that's what your game demo *is*--its an *advertisement* for your game! You don't need to add cheap and gnarly looking 2d animated ads to your demo--all you do in that case is to significantly degrade the quality of the demo in relation to the game you are tyring to use the demo to promote and sell. I mean, unless you place those kinds of ads into the body of the full game itself they certainly are not representative of the actual game, are they?

[color=red]Simply put, a game demo should itself be the ultimate advertisement for your game, or conversely it can become an obstacle you wind up having to overcome. I hope in the coming the new year we'll see game devs in general putting out short but sweet game demos that represent the quality levels of the games they are promoting. I have a feeling, somehow, that such an approach would help game pubs sell more games, which I assume is what they want to do.[/color]

What he said

I highlighted the part in WaltC's post which I felt was my main concern from a marketing standpoint.
I don't think Walt or I (and in rebuttle I can't speak for him either) set out to bash Halo .. we were just stating our opinions

Zardon · Jan 1, 2004, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by zerodamage
I've read at rage3d.com forums in the gaming forum from some source named "David" that there will be a patch out soon possibly with Co-op mode and some major performance enhancements.

thats DavidGT on these forums.

Mac Daddy · Jan 1, 2004, 06:51 PM

Yes it is and I hope there is a patch out soon Zero to help resolve those initial problems you faced.
We all appriciate you taking the time to deal with them yourself to provide a review for DH.

Very cool man

Zardon · Jan 1, 2004, 06:59 PM

Very interesting debate going on in this thread. I loved the XBOX version of Halo, and when it was released I actually think it was the reason the XBOX is still alive, there was a serious shortage of quality playable titles on that console for many months. My brother and myself played and beat it in cooperative mode, very enjoyable !

I have to say though I enjoyed Chrome alot more on the PC than PC Halo, I think I am the only person alive to feel that

Mac Daddy · Jan 1, 2004, 07:05 PM

Interesting .. my brother and I played Halo on his Xbox some time ago .. and we had a blast man ..
I have Chrome PC here .. haven't played with it much .. my singer loves it ..
Will have to investigate further

Jan 1, 2004, 08:25 AM	#33
BiGBrOwNPimpsta HH's #1 Hustla and Pimp Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: The Dirty Dot Posts: 7,706 Rep Power: 105 System Specs	this game was just far too overrated, halo 2 should be good though. i mean as an xbox game it was far too overrated like too many xbox games __________________ Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music \| Logitech Z-5500 THX 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers \| 2 Lite-On 20x S-ATA Burners \| Logitech G700 Mouse \| Logitech MX5500 Bluetooth Keyboard

Jan 1, 2004, 06:51 PM	#36
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 78 System Specs	Yes it is and I hope there is a patch out soon Zero to help resolve those initial problems you faced. We all appriciate you taking the time to deal with them yourself to provide a review for DH. Very cool man __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Jan 1, 2004, 07:05 PM	#38
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 78 System Specs	Interesting .. my brother and I played Halo on his Xbox some time ago .. and we had a blast man .. I have Chrome PC here .. haven't played with it much .. my singer loves it .. Will have to investigate further __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Jan 1, 2004, 05:50 AM	#31
zerodamage HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Virginia, USA Posts: 3,478 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I've read at rage3d.com forums in the gaming forum from some source named "David" that there will be a patch out soon possibly with Co-op mode and some major performance enhancements. I will post more when I have more information and I can confirm what I've seen is true and from a realiable source. Here is what I've seen in the post as improvements: We have a massive performance boost, but we're negotiating with MGS to get it included in an update (it's a big change that touches lots of stuff. Risky. We call it "fast shaders" - we're seeing 30% to 50% increase in ps 1.1 through 2.0 performance (no affect on fixed function). We'll get more information out about soon. DX8 doing DX9 shaders: We're getting slammed enough about performance as it is! Is this possible and is this what is causing such performance issues? That is a couple. Like I said, this could be bs but I am awaiting confirmation. Will post more when I have the information.

Jan 1, 2004, 06:59 PM	Thread Starter #37
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 177	Very interesting debate going on in this thread. I loved the XBOX version of Halo, and when it was released I actually think it was the reason the XBOX is still alive, there was a serious shortage of quality playable titles on that console for many months. My brother and myself played and beat it in cooperative mode, very enjoyable ! I have to say though I enjoyed Chrome alot more on the PC than PC Halo, I think I am the only person alive to feel that