Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Halo Hell no

So the thing going around campus right now is the Halo beta from Microsoft. After playing this..game, I can say that I know why it is a good console game, but for PC it is the suck. My roommate and I were playing with some other people on campus and getting a lot of lag. Now I know it's still a beta, but netcode is a pretty big deal in a game which features it's multiplayer a lot. Netcode should be basically done in alpha stages, at least so it's smooth over LAN. We got our asses handed to us, but it was halo, so I don't feel ashamed. Plus, they had some dumb clan name in front of their names, so I am willing to bet they have played a lot of halo on xboxy. The movement in halo seems very consolish, still. Jumping is like you're on the moon or something. I bet it's part of the plot of halo (which I am unsure of) but the reason for it is so you can control your jump better on the gamepad. This feature just ends up slowing you down in PC, because you can point yourself easier. The weapons in the beta are also not up to par with PC games because they are still the exact same games in the console game. On PC it is just too simple to kill people because you can aim easier with a PC (Once you are used to the lag). On of the guns even shoots stuff that follows you, and then you die. And the rocket launcher is too overpowered, etc... People who know Halo in and out will own the multiplayer because they will find these guns and camp them. There is a lot of the classic "I shot him like fifty fucking times!", reminding me of the days of CS. The style of gameplay is different enough from other PC games to make it marketable, but I just don't find it appealing. Sorry to those Halo nuts, I'm still not going to play it with you. Maybe the final release will fix some things, but I can say right now that I will never pay money for this game. All in all, I think I will keep waiting for Half - Life 2.

Halo Beta's Grade = C-