Zardon

Read The Review Here
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Making a two year old Xbox game the first Vista only title was probably one of the most bizarre decisions made by Microsoft lately. First of all, Vista is supposed to be a next-gen operating system, so using a game that barely has any DX9 functionality is kind of dumb. Secondly, from the millions of gamers out there the majority of those who wanted to play Halo 2 already did it on the Xbox. That leaves a relatively low number of PC only gamers as potential buyers, but even then only a fraction of them are running Vista. So what was Microsoft thinking I ask you?

REGENERATION

I tried Halo 2 for Vista for a hour, and I must say I’m not impressed. First of all, the graphics aren’t that good and based on DirectX9. The story is a bit stupid and too odd and it feels like they are aiming with this game to 10 years old kids, even the creatures design proves it. I’d give it six or seven out of ten, but since Microsoft is playing Vista tricks, and using it illegally to promote Vista, I’d reduce the score even more. Why the hell you’re forced to use Vista to play this game? It is not based on DirectX10, and the graphics are a joke.

Zeph

I'm sorry, but I have to laugh at this review. From the moment I read, "using a game that barely has any DX9 functionality is kind of dumb," I prepared myself for an utterly painful experience. The reviewer's perception on game play, history of the series, user interfaces, and even basic technology is poor and flawed. It saddens me that such a thing can be found in a subdirectory of driverheaven.net other than the forums.

Early on, the reviewer talks about the titles original success saying, "Halo 2 refined the original formula, threw in some new features and dropped most if not all of the shortcomings the original had." Halo 2 in no way refined the original formula. It's actually as far away from the original one could be without changing over into a new intellectual property. In spite of the reviewer's particular love for the dual wielding feature, it was one of many things that changed the title in a way the developers of the game realized all too late to, for lack of a better word, fix. Combined with a physics overhaul, the only recognizable aspect to the game was the design language and characters. Vehicles, characters, weapons, and even the fundamental basics of movement were changed from intuitively bounded limits based on ball and spring physics to a declared flaw.

In context with what the reviewer lists as problematic with Halo 2, it surprised the hell out of me when he/she said, "Microsoft still managed to make this port better than the original Halo port (which was a complete catastrophe)." With the only gripes about the Driver Heaven review of Halo for the PC being driver related and AA/AF*, I have to ask where did that come from? I know the reviews were by different authors, but that just came out of the blue with nothing backing it up.

The reviewer for Halo 2 Vista says the title needs pretty 'beefy' hardware to run. The so-called-catastrophic Halo port was optimized by the engineering team of Gearbox Software, contracted by MGS, in less than six months. In the process, they essentially lowered the minimum requirements of the port to the absolute bare minimum needed to display the polygons and base material skin the game uses. This allowed a next-gen Pixel Shader 2.0 title (yes, it was very next-gen at the time) to be enjoyed, albeit enjoyed at a much less vibrant look, by legions of users with integrated graphic solutions. The equivalent is far from being true with Halo 2 Vista, even with the luxury of more than twice the development time and much more support to work with. In the incredibly short amount of time Gearbox Software was contracted to port Halo, they also managed to include hooks to change individual settings such as shadows being turned on and off, texture quality being high or low, and choices for various audio solutions. This catastrophe of a port seems to possess, and execute perfectly, the very things the reviewer finds problematic and wishes to have with Halo 2 Vista.


Any time the reviewer talked about the user interfaces, aside from issues regarding controllers and aiming magnetism, I have to wonder if it was written in as an after thought, completely made up, or the reviewer simply paid no attention to it as he/she played. Video settings, audio settings, server browser option, dedicated server options, mouse acceleration, and much more are nerfed to a point where they’ve nearly lost all functionality. Video resolutions are limited to only a few choices; leaving out widely used settings such as 1280x800 and1440x900. The entirety of audio has been summed up into a single master volume meter, not allowing a user to simply turn down individual audio streams such as game music. The reviewer simply describes the server browser as “working”. He/she is essentially correct, but highly misleading when saying so. There are no filters to be found in the browser. There’s also no way to refresh an individual server, so if you want to try and grab a seat in a full server the entire list will have to be repopulated and that individual server will have to be found again. Or, if the user feels like subscribing the Live service, he/she would be able to bookmark that server and have to sort through a much smaller list. I’m also really surprised this didn’t make it into the review, as having to pay for features that are standard and free in the PC world is unheard of; especially when they’re limited such as in H2V.

Running a dedicated server is another problem in itself. Thanks to a massive shortcoming in the initial design of Live being integrated in Vista, only one instance of the service could be active at a time. At this time, the service has been updated where one instance can be run per user, but this is still annoying. In order to run a dedicated server and then play on it them self, a user has to be running the dedicated server on a different user account than the one Halo 2 Vista is being played on. Once running, the dedicated server can not be remotely controlled while playing in the game. Mouse acceleration also is problematic. The title ignores any mouse setting the user has specified through the operating system. After reading the reviewer’s reference to Far Cry, which also implements mouse acceleration similarly, I’m not surprised to see his/her affection for the mouse controls in Halo 2 Vista over other titles. Se la vie.

I might not have formal training in journalism, but I do know that things such as reviews should be as objective as possible. This review is a joke and is ridiculous that someone is allowed to talk about things they don’t know about, or seemingly take an effort to learn, under the sponsorship of the domain’s name. For everyone’s sake, take it down and replace it with a proper review.


*AA/AF wasn't included in Halo PC. I honestly have no idea why it was covered in that review, seeing how there's no options or command line hooks to change AA/AF settings. Any attempt to force AA/AF through the drivers would end up with no-effect and simply give the CPU/GPU more to do.

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coldfrontt

I'm enjoying the hell out of it right now.

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[color=blue]TANSTAAFL![/color]

WhO_KnOwS

Judging by your signature and this post you obviously know a lot more about Halo 2 than I do. I would like to hear more about this so called flawed perception of mine though? Care to elaborate (outside of what is written below)?

I just fired up the original Halo (for the PC). As you said there are some differences outside of the faster camera movement, but they are not as big as to be worth mentioning (at least in my opinion). The changed physics are hardly relevant, as only somebody with such indepth knowledge as you seem to posses will notice them (again, I just fired up Halo and I do notice them. I would never have (and didn't) noticed them otherwise).

Back when the first Halo port was released it was next to impossible getting it to run at high settings on even the best machines. I am not sure what the Halo reviewer wrote in his review, but my experience with Halo 2 was far less painful than the experience I had with the original.

As mentioned in the review the only things players can affect graphics wise are the AA levels and the resolution. That said, as I just pointed out a few lines back, the game does perform better on currently high-end machines than the original Halo did on high-end machines from the time it was released in.

To my knowledge payment is not required to play online. The fact that the browser is not state of the art might deserve a mention, I admit, but I have a different approach. If the browser had any fatal flaws or any features worth pointing out I'd have said so. But as you said it yourself, the browser "just works" which is exactly what I said.

I'm not sure where you see the connection between my Far Cry reference and it's mouse acceleration technology!? I did not test the dedicated server of the game, so I am unable to comment on it. If what you describe is true (and I have no reason not to believe you) then it does indeed suck.

As I said before, you seem to be very knowledgable about Halo and Halo 2. With that in mind I am not all that surprised that you have a different view on the subject. Just as half of the WoW playerbase disagreed with the WoW:BC reviews and how I wince every time I'm at the local computer store and I listen to the shop assistant speaking about stuff he knows very little about, you seem to be having problems swallowing my review. I don't mind being called a bad reviewer, but keep in mind that no review in this world can be as detailed or in depth as something you (or any other fan of a specific game) can come up with. That's not even the point of the review. The point is presenting the game to somebody who knows nothing or very little about the product in question. I believe I did an ok job of pointing out the games major shortcomings and the best features. If I missed anything (and I obviously did) I'm sorry, but I can't dedicate weeks upon weeks to only one game, making sure I know it as well as you do.

Halo 2 has AA settings available in the video menu, which is what I said. Not sure why you are bringing Halo 1 into the picture here.

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Zardon

Your post is long winded, rude and overly aggressive, Just because you are clearly a Halo buff and obviously have plenty of issues with the PC version, does not give you the right to come onto the forums and rant about editorial training and journalism and calling the review a joke. Your views of Halo 2 might not be the same as a casual gamer. I know I personally have enjoyed the PC implementation (and im talking about the often missed "playability" aspect so sadly lacking in many games..... and I beat the original xbox version many years ago - in fact both halo and 2. (which incidentally had its own share of issues such as framerate and bogging down on later levels, this doesn't happen on the pc version).

Ill take it down if you send me a review that is better. Put your money were your mouth is. you have my email address, easy to find. However if your review is as boring as your post it wont be going up, there is a fine line between boring people with fine details and expressing an opinion and in fact reviewing a game. We are here to cater to the masses, not extremely fanatical and exclusive gamers in specific fields.

interspaced

The game comes with a free month of live gold true? Do you have to pay only to play with 360 users?

Would be grateful for any response

Erroneus

I was so dissapointed by it's GFX quality, seems very 2004'ish to me.

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brutusmaximus

I got something to say. I liked this review, it gave me enough information today and I went out and bought this game based on the review. I knew I wasn't going to get good graphics but I wanted a game maybe a bit like the old star trek first person shooters of old and I got exactly what I thought. The game is a lot of fun and plays really well.

Zeph, I think you are in need of some serious help man, if I wanted to read all that crap you wrote I would be hanging in a Halo clan forum or something but I have a life and I want a game that I can play without too much complications. I miss the old days of good solid gameplay rather than HDR out the ass, and all sorts of slow down graphic effects which add little to the game. I actually think companies should make games on older hardware so the game plays and flows well, rather than concentrating on getting 40 thousand graphical effects in one room.

Halo 2 on vista is a refreshing game and it plays well, for god sake Zardon don't let Zeph put up a review, it would probably be 40,000 words, 10,000 of which deal with the history of the flood and some boring crap no one wants to read about.

I like your review who_knows, they look well, read well and generally have enough information to give me an idea on whether the game will personally appeal to me.

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GutterPunk

Nice review, I wasn't too impressed. Halo 3 demo ruined me of halo.

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BlueMak

I like the review. To the point and without writing an essay on the fine point of physics in space. I am not going to get the game since I have it on the xbox, but still it looks like an ok fps.

Zeph, I do not doubt you are correct on everything you say, apart from the "this review sucks" parts. You are over alalysing the game. Too many details do not make a good review. Or too much whining about the details of a game. You remind me of people in the 90s bitching about the authenticity of combat flight simulators. People that would write endless letters and later emails and forum posts about how a particular missle doesn't have a range of 4.2 as it should, but 4.5. Over reacting and making too much noise that in the end ruined a whole type of games. While this is not going to happen with FPS games (too popular), your attitude towards reviews needs adjustment. A review of a game is not an analytical examination of a graphics card.
People get bored.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Zeph

I'll start off with the thing you said which prompted me to rant. Halo 2 Vista barely using DX9? Why dont you try forcing DX9 to be disabled on a few games?


Odd, you seem to be very knowledgeable about the game yourself, with your talk about bump maps, pixel shading, dynamic lights and all . I wouldn't begin to say I have indepth knowlege, unless you consider noticing that things move and interact differently between the two games. Honestly, I haven't taken the time to do so nor will, with the various limitations I found the game had. Anywyas, the last time I checked, two vehicles colliding in Halo 1 looked incredibly different than it would in Halo 2. In response to things you didn't seem to directly reply to, reiterating my point, the ability to wield a second weapon and changes with physics drastically changed the game. I mean, try to jump off a ledge in both games and see what happens. I doubt anyone would say Counterstrike Source 2 would be a refined version of the first if the sequal included dual-wielding and removed fall damage by default.


You just had bad luck then.

Good job mentioning that in your review.


No it's not required, but the free membership is incredibly nerfed. I'm surprised you were actually able to get into a game right now with the free membership. A lack of filters is a serious flaw in my opinion. Assuming the title ever kicks it off and starts getting users, there's potentially one server for every online user. Knowing that wont ever happen, lets try to make it more realistic and suggest one eigth of 25k people had their own servers up and 500 clan servers sit unpopulated. That's more than 3500 servers a person would have to sift through without filters available to aid them.

Far Cry uses, at least as far as I can tell, mouse acceleration the same way as H2V; Halo 1 does not. You found Halo 2's camera system more preferable over a title which does not use it. The english language is quite forceful and bland without transitions, so I looked back on something I could use and Far Cry was it. I probably wouldn't even have mentioned it, but I recently found a copy of the title to buy and had trouble aiming due to the acceleration. You're one of the few people I've found to think mouse acceleration like that is attractive in gaming, so there it was. If I was wrong, I apologize. If not, so is life.


I'm not one to expect an incredibly detailed review covering miniscule details, nor have I ever seen an incredibly detailed review of a game. Not to say you didn't do that at all,

Because you referenced Halo 1 PC as a catastrophe, yet it had the very things you wanted in Halo 2 Vista. As far as I know, suprscripts would be disabled should I try to use them here. With that being the case, an asterick took its place.


The english language and the internet typically make such things appear so. Halo buff or not, I still stand by my points I made. I fall into the latter category and only enjoy the first game's multiplayer. If you wish for me to rewrite my critisism into a title-neutral piece, I'll do so for you the next time I have an hour and half downtime while waiting for my car to be serviced. Should be Tuesday afternoon.

<3. I dont believe I've ever the word fanatic be used quite like that before. It's somewhat ironic, seeing the names of the forums in your ownership. At least I do believe you are the one who owns this site. I'll take you up on it, for as it stands, your average reader is missing out on quite a lot.

Heaven forbid you read the actual review, which was about twice as long as my short rant. It was essentially scratch paper for what I've had to write for my classes.

Dont get me wrong, I understand the reactions of the staff here. I've run into the same kind of thing in my days of staffing news/review related boards. While many simply shout profanities to express something is bad, I at least try to explain myself. Were you one of those who simply flamed and trolled your way around without reason or more like myself, listing reason to madness? If it's the ladder, then I think a big "uh-oh" is in order as I doo indeed enjoy the news portion this site has to offer.

Your opinion. You see me as over-analysing the game, I see myself worrying about why people cant play the game at 1440x900 or why a person who pays for a service cant play a multiplayer match with his friend, even when he's putting forth the bandwidth as host.



I wish I enabled threaded or even hybrid mode before I started that.

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SFOSOK

Dual wielding sucks. I'm sorry but it ruined Halo 2 for completely. Halo 1 had the perfect balance making use of grenades and melee attacks. Its 16 player LAN is much, much better than what Halo 2 ever had to offer online. I have played Halo 2 on a Vista machine and I like it on my 360 better but even that doesn't mean much.

Halo 2 was horrible imo because of dual weilding and I am happy that it is either not as important in Halo 3 or not there at all.

I agree with everything on the review except the gameplay score. Dual wielding dumbs down the experience ruins Halo for me. It pretty much just turns into who sees who first.



Then again I'm mostly a sniper but I did love the new assault rifle. Though I wish it was single shot and more powerful.

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METAL!!

Tipstaff

<yawn>

You know, agree or disagree, that's everyones prerogative. If you agree, great, if you disagree, then at the very least tell me why (doing so with much respect as you would want in return), so that I can understand and discuss your reasons. No need to over analyze, no need to argue, no need to be disresepctful. Just state your opinions, and let us decide to either agree or disagree with you. But above all BE RESPECTFUL!

So, with that, keep it clean, SHORT, to the point, and respectful, cuz I, for one, will not backup anyone elses opinion if they aren't the least bit respectful of another persons opinion... even if they are right.

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brutusmaximus

Seriously dude, please don't. I think the staff have explained why the review didnt contain quite the amount of information you desired and I as a reader have also disagreed with you. I feel the review would appeal to 90% of the readership on this site. Equally so perhaps 25% of guys on halo forums like yourself - this is a game review site, not a clan or game obsessive support site. This is publishing a review for a specific audience, and you in this case are not that kind of audience. After all with all the gaming reviews on this site, have you ever felt they didn't offer enough information. Obviously the fact you appear to have never replied before would answer that. The simple fact is, you are a halo fanatic and this review didn't suit your tastes, it is written to the same standards as all their other reviews and this is the first time you have commented in such detail. This is clearly the actions of a specific title "fanatic". Surely you can even see this yourself!


I Disagree, and you ignored my last post. I am an "average" reader, and the game presented enough information to me to warrant a purchase. I have played the multiplayer, it runs fine on my machine and I have had no complaints. If on the other hand you had reviewed the game I more than likely wouldn't have bought it as I would have closed the review in 2 minutes. I want to read reviews which are concise, to the point and give relevant information without going into infinite detail. I will lose interest, most of the public would.



Again, it is not the quantity of the writing, it is the wording and content. Again I do apologise for generalisations, however you do appear to me to be the kind of guy sitting in a room with a master chief action figure in Halo 2 PJ's. With Halo artwork all over his room. This is not meant as an insult, just an observation, and this is certainly not the person I want to be reviewing this partcular game on any site. The information would be extremely clouded with emotional responses, much like your forum posting.


Well the fact you seemingly haven't been banned and are still debating it, while the other guy who obviously is an idiot has been, shows the moderation on the site is pretty spot on. I don't think you are a flamer, I just think you are totally missing the point of a review on a gaming site, not a clan site.



I have been playing multiplayer on it, perfectly fine and it runs fine on my machine. As a member of the public and a reader I stand by this review. It didn't miss anything I needed and I bought a game I am enjoying on the basis of the review.

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Sandok

Wow Zeph you have a lot to say... But sorry, I have to agree with what Peter and most of the other memebers about Halo 2.

WhO_KnOwS

Ok, let me phrase that a bit differently. As you might be aware the original Xbox was barely Pixel Shader 2.0 compliant (actually it wasn't). Because of that both Halo 1 and 2 don't actually use any real DX9 effects. Sure, some of the code was ported from the original DX8.1 to DX9.0, but that was mostly done to achieve higher framerates, not because they actually needed DX9 for better effects or something. The most obvious showcase of this is the water.
I am not sure how knowledgable you are about pixel shading technologies, but until DX9.0 real water reflections were impossible to recreate, hence the water in Halo 2 only reflects a static map. If you want to see what I'm talking about fire up Half Life 2, load a water level and then change between 9.0 and 8.1 rendering modes.

You keep mentioning the physics in the game. As noted they changed somewhat since the original Halo, but nowhere near enough for me to notice before I actually started Halo 1 again to check. Two vehicles colliding is hardly something I would want to focus the review on, as it barely has any impact on gameplay at all.
The dual-wielding part of the review seems to be bothering you a lot. I agree, it changed some of the gameplay quite a lot. But seeing how wielding two weapons is only a choice and most of the combat feels exactly the same as it did before (at least to the casual player) I'd hardly say it changed the game completely.

Be that as it may, I've found far less "Halo 2 is poorely optimized" threads around the net then there were "Halo port suxxxxorz" back in the day. So I doubt it was just bad luck.

You do realize that Battlefield 2 had a severely lacking server browser at the time of the release? And yet thousands upon thousands played it every day. Did reviews complain about it? Some did, some didn't. And even the ones that did barely touched upon the limited functionality and took more time to bash the extreme bugginess of the browser (crashes, failure to refresh, etc.)

I still fail to see what mouse acceleration has to do with anything. The original Halo used a very slow, almost lagging mouse view, based directly on how the game was controlled with a gamepad. With Halo 2 MS did (IMO) a better job and tried to bring the mouse controls closer to what it feels like in a regular FPS on the PC. Personaly I like that, as I'm used to it.

Halo 1 wasn't a catastrphe, only it's technical side was. I still enjoyed the game a lot, more then I did on the Xbox due to the mouse+keyboard controls. For that reason I was able to enjoy Halo 2 even more, as it runs better (for me), it has a deeper storyline and the overall experience is more polished.

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WaltC

Well, it's a console port, isn't it?...;) Albeit it may be a couple of notches better than the average console port, but it's still a console port. Don't know about you, but I've never been much of a fan of console ports in general. Not only that, but it's an xBox *1* console port in particular, isn't it? That alone makes some of the graphical "shortcomings" (and such things are always in the eye of the beholder, anyway) completely understandable. Lots of console games are aimed at "10 year olds" directly, so that isn't much of a surprise. Besides, one man's trash is another man's treasure, and so on. What I like other people don't, and vice-versa, sometimes. Variety is the spice of life. One size does not fit all, etc.


Well, I'm going to take a wild guess that since you've played the game you had Vista installed before buying Halo 2, and take another guess that the reasons why you bought and installed Vista had little or nothing to do with Halo 2. So, just how do you personally feel put upon by the fact that the game requires Vista? You'd have had Vista installed, Halo 2 or no, it seems to me. I mean, are you trying to say that you'd have enjoyed Halo 2 a lot more if you'd been able to run it under XP? If that's the case, then why'd you buy and install Vista in the first place? Heh...;) I mean, it's just a bit difficult to understand your particular problem with the Vista requirement, since it provided no obstacles to you at all, apparently. If you are attempting to speak for other people, people who haven't yet bought Vista, why bother? You're not one of them, are you?....;)

As far as your "illegal" comment goes, then I guess Microsoft is also doing something illegal when it writes/ports a game that runs on Apple's OSX but not on Windows, or on distinct versions of the classical Mac OS? Hello? It seems to me that every software house that creates versions of games to run on OSX would be doing the same thing, since those OSX versions won't run on Windows, or OS9, at all, will they? No--gee--you have to buy the Windows/OS9 version of the game--if it exists--to run it on Windows or OS9, don't you? I've got lots of old Amiga games tucked away that won't run on either OSX, OS9, or on any version of Windows or DOS ever sold. Does that mean my Amiga games are "illegal", too?

Here's another fact for you to consider: did you know, for instance, that the vast bulk of people who now own Vista and use it every day do not currently own a DX10-class gpu? Yup, that's true...;) Vista runs just great on my DX9 ATi x1950 AGP card at the moment, as does every single pre-DX10 game I currently have installed.

I think your real problem might be that you've confused Vista the operating system with DX10. The two are decidedly not the same thing at all. Your beef would make sense if Microsoft said "DX10 gpu required" in relation to Halo 2 instead of "Vista required." As you've discovered, you need not have either a DX10 gpu or a DX10-required game to run both perfectly well under Vista, do you? A pre-DX10 game and pre-DX10 gpu will run just fine under Vista. I know, I do it every day. If you are one of those people who has rushed out and bought a DX10 gpu to run under Vista, simply because Vista supports all flavors of DX up to and including DX10, and you are disappointed in the fact that there aren't any DX10-required games yet shipping for Vista, then I'd advise you to develop some patience because you are probably going to have a long wait ahead...;) Eventually, most games for Vista will require DX10, but I believe we are still a couple of years away from that situation at the moment.

What's important to remember is that "Vista required" doesn't mean "DX10 required." You should temper your expectations in that regard accordingly.

Last, I'd like to say a couple of words about this review. I personally thought it was just fine. I mean, let's be honest, reviews are merely opinions, aren't they? What's important to me in a review is not whether I agree with the reviewer, but whether the reviewer is clear in stating what he likes and what he doesn't like, and *why.* That's all I ask from any given review. I may, or may not, agree with his conclusions, but that's beside the point entirely--he and I may just have different tastes and preferences, which is not a big matter at all. The things that bother him may not bother me, and vice-versa. As long as I know why he reaches the conclusions he does then I am able to take a stab at whether the software would appeal to me or not. I think that's as much as we can ask from any review.

REGENERATION

Microsoft claims it requires Vista, but you can run it on XP without any problem if you make a few modifications. There is no real need for Vista to run DirectX 9 Applications. Microsoft just thought about how famous their Halo series are, and they said: “Let’s make more money out-of-the children by forcing them to buy Vista in-order to play their game”.

I don’t like the idea they used a computer game for children as a tool to promote their operation system. Yet again they are exploiting their position and forcing kids to buy Vista to play their video game, when their Vista is not needed. Try to emulate Vista’s version number, and you could play it on XP. The press is known for protecting consumers’ rights, and I think this action should affect the score as well. Using this game as a tool to promote their Vista sales is lame, unfair, unethical and possibly illegal.

You want to make more sales out of Vista? Do it fairly, do not exploit children and young fellows and force them to buy their OS just to play some DX9 game. Do you know the Vista pricing in Europe, Asia and in the middle east? In my country Vista Ultimate Retail costs around to 400 USD. Why would I spend so much money on an improved XP OS just to play their game? The average salary in my country is far away from the avg in the US. Imagine to yourself a 12-year-old kid asking his mother for 450 USD to play Halo 2, while their income is around to 1000 USD per month.

Halo 2 is an DX9 software, which means it should work on Windows XP technically, it doesn’t because Microsoft is playing marketing tricks with the public (if $os is not Vista = $quit), and they deserve some kind of penalty for this unethical behavior. And please don’t compare it to Apple, the difference between Windows Vista and XP isn’t that far, and Halo 2 should technically work on XP. Get me a copy of Halo 2, and I will force it run on Windows XP.

I'm not going to spend 50+200 bucks on some badly_console_to_pc_ported_game. I can live without it. Just for the records, I do have Vista, but I still think it is unfair for the public.

BlueMak

How is Microsft forcing people to buy Vista? Are suddently al XP licenses invalid and require upgrade to Vista? Has Microsft come to an agreenment with hardware manufactures to stop support XP? Do they send agents in your house and threaten you to install Vista or else?
If MS wants to release a game, be it Halo 2 or Sensible Soccer (...) for Vista only, that is their right. They have no moral or legal obligation to release a game for a specific OS, even XP.

I do not own Vista yet. Even when/if I do, I will not get Halo 2.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

OmegaRED

I got this game last week but it won't run (some driver problem with 7900's in Vista) but I'm itching to play it soon as I can. I played Halo for PC but got bored 3/4 of the way through so hopefully this one is a little more interesting.

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brutusmaximus

Your views are naive. MS are here to make money, all companies are. They are trying to make vista appealing to more people by tying in gamer points etc to 360 etc. You could actually say the same about windows 98 when XP was launched. some games were created for XP and didn't run properly on 98. This is just the evolution of mainstream gaming, it has happened for as long as I can remember, and its the same with Mac OS X. No one is forcing you to buy Vista and I doubt many kids will buy vista just to play Halo 2, if they are really into their computers they will already have vista.

So let me make it clear. you want review sites to rescore or mark down games based on the OS they are created to run on. Meaning if a game deserves for example 90% and everyone loves it, a reviewer should mark it down to say 80% because "ethically" it should run on a last generation OS. Im a little confused by your thinking, especially the comments about it being an unethical standpoint. What about the PS3? is it unethical sony make people buy new hardware to play new PS3 games? shouldnt they in theory give Playstation 2 owners upgrades to the PS3 for a reduced price? Obviously this analogy isn't perfectly correct, but if I read your thinking, your views are, that everything new, whether its an OS or hardware shouldn't be promoted and no one should be "made" to buy them. If that was the industry viewpoint we would be on service pack 55 of Windows NT right now with DX10 capability, at no cost to the consumer. meanwhile microsoft are paying 10,000 staff from no sales or income.

Well did you? I thought you said on your site that Vista wasn't actually an improved XP and was slower than XP, hogged more ram and was generally a poor OS? How much do you spend on games or hardware every year? Let's take an average of 400 euros on hardware upgrades, and 150 euros on games. that hardware in a year will be out of date, and the 150 euros spent on the games will be no longer used as you either beat the games or got bored of them long ago. Will you be no longer using Vista in a year? I think not, most MS operating systems have a life span of at least 5 years. I think thats really good value if you logistically think about it. Wish to hell i could find a game I could play for 5 years every time I fired up my pc or hardware that would last that long.

I think the option of buying vista will be to remain futureproof, and to have all the cool new options, as well as security protocols that Vista brings over XP. you are underestimating the intelligence of a kid with his mother. Sure enough, if he said "ma, I want Halo 2, give me 450 dollars" she would probably bitch slap him around the house, but kids are more intelligent than that, and parents want their kids to be safe, enjoy using the computer and Vista can be sold easily on that point alone. Most parents I know, even on tight financial income have already picked up a lower end vista package knowing it will last them well into 2010+

Ok we get the point, you are really cool and can mod Halo 2 to run on XP. big deal. You are claiming Microsoft are unethical, yet are publically breaching Microsoft EULA's by modifying their game to run on XP? that is rather rich.

Ok, so after all this bitching, you actually have vista anyway? You said earlier "Why would I spend so much money on an improved XP OS just to play their game?". So either you already had it before Halo 2 came out because you wanted the latest OS like most other people, or you warezed the operating system, which totally negates 95% of everything you have said.

You seem a rather confused fellow !

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Mazuko

So about the review....

I purchased the game at release and the thing that ticked me off the most is the xbox live implementation. I "sign in" and I go to play my single player game and it says I am not connected to XBL. I then try to create an account and no matter what happens it will NOT connect. Minus one huge point for me...online play is worthless and not working.

Graphically it was alright the flying seemed a bit different than the first and the game just played alot easier. I have to agree that the dual wield made things a bit different but you are not FORCED to dual wield at all and you still can play through using one weapon at a time.

Audio was great as is usual with any Bungie title although I was surprised not ot actually hear the "Halo Theme" song we are so used to for more than a few bars during the game.

Game play was I rather enjoyed it but oh my goodness was it short. I felt jipped out of my $50 USD as I only got about 8 hours of game play. I have gotten more game play hours out of online chess than I did this game.

Not alot of replay value and I am still irked about the ending of which I shant go into any detail for those very very few who don't know it already. Although I will say the story line RULES. Nuff said.

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Da_Jewish_Fonzy

Wow. Microsoft is charging full price for a near 3 year old console game that requires Vista to play and it gets a 89/100? lmao

OmegaRED

Well I got this game to work and played it for a bit. I wasn't overly impressed with the game but for a port it was pretty good. One gripe I have with the DH Review is the 95/100 sound score...this game has barely any sound effects it's like playing in a vaccum only with scattered sounds the Covenant guys make (which are really childish) and your own gunfire. There's no ambient sounds like you'd expect when you're defending a space station from invasion.

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REGENERATION

brutusmaximus, if you want me to reply to your post, you will have to treat me with respect, despite to our different views and opinions, and not make this thread into another flame-zone thread. Maybe for you that thing on the left is just a nick, but behind that nick there’s a human-been with its own experience, thoughts and feelings, so please respect that. If someone has different views then you, it does not make it right for you to flame him/treat him disrespectfully.

coldfrontt

Children and young adults likely already have tha console and have played it there. Maybe you've forgotten that it's a 2 year old game? You could get an Xbox for 85.00 US and the game for 25 USD on Ebay right now. Who's forcing you to buy Vista?

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[color=blue]TANSTAAFL![/color]

brutusmaximus

dear lord you sound like my ex girlfriend ! So let's kiss and make up

I wasn't aware I offended you, I simply don't think you make much sense, you might think you do but you really don't. I think i made my points clearly enough, if you don't have a response thats fine, but don't hide behind the veil of being offended. You didn't answer Waltc very eloquently either and as far as I can see neither of us started to question your parentage or call you vast array of names. If you are going to put forward a point on a tech forum, a point which really isn't grounded on anything factual, then you can be sure to expect responses questioning your comments. If you can't deal with this and get offended so ridiculously easily then I suggest you might want to stop posting on tech forums and get another hobby.

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brutusmaximus

and you sir, really should really stick to the flame zone. No wonder at least 50 regulars on this site would like you removed because everytime you post outside the flame zone a small baby far away curls into a fetal position and cries his heart out - its nature's karma. You are like the constantly drunk idiotic guy who annoys everyone when they are sober.

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Da_Jewish_Fonzy

You're a little hostile Brutus, I was just staying on topic and voicing my opinion.