Halo series on PC

Technology and Gaming
#1

with the advent of the death of Gamespy, now comes a debate/opinion fair, would/should old and new halo games come to pc (or just windows)?

it seems although halo is one of the ONLY console shooters that, frankly, didnt suck, it too is being overshadowed by the dark wrath of CoD and its unholy disciples

would it be a good thing for the halo series to return back to its platform of ancestry? (i say ancestry because bungie used to be mac/pc, and also marathon; halo was originally fated to be the same before microsoft bought it off to be stuck with xbox for the decade that passed)

such games with high replayability and great lore deserve proper justice on a proper platform

#2

Halo wasn’t even supposed to be an FPS originally. It was first announced as an RTS on a Mac conference.

Anyway, Halo Spartan Assault on Steam was a bit of a surprise, although not completely unpredictable, and MS has hinted that may be more to come. In fact, MS is getting more and more comfortable with Steam, seeing as they re-released Age of Empires 2 and now Age of Mythology on there.

Personally I’d love updated versions of Halo 1 and 2, with full Steamworks support and other improvements, like field of view slider and such. Halo 3 and beyond would probably be too much to ask but I’d love if they decided to go the extra mile there.

MS keeps saying they care about the PC, how about a new exclusive PC game with a decent budget and production values, eh? Hell, maybe even a PC exclusive Halo, although that would be even less likely than a port of Halo 3.

#3

I am also a fan of Halo, as far as pc goes. I’d love to see at least the firt two games on PC with up-to-date (anniversary) edition.

#4

Good from what perspective?

From the PC gamer’s perspective? Of course! From console gamers’ perspectives? Probably good for them too, especially because a lot of them could play the pre-Xbone games on their computer instead of dragging around an old 360 to play the old titles (I really doubt the Xbone has the power to run a 360 emu). From M$'s perspective? Yeah, probably good for them too. I’m sure they’re making basically zero off 3 and Reach by now, so porting those ones and earlier would be nothing but easy cash.

Do I think M$ will actually port the earlier Halo’s to PC? Probably not. Spartan Assault is a good sign and all, but I really don’t see it happening just because M$ has been rabidly pushing the Xbox division at the loss of PC gaming for over a decade now. Maybe the Xbone’s weak showing will encourage them to return to the PC market, but I wouldn’t expect it.
After Halo 2 I think they really saw the PC market as dead to piracy, when really the reason Halo 2 was such a flop was because it was artificially restricted to Vista (some of the pirated versions came with xp support cracked in). I really can’t see them not restricting PC Halo titles to the latest OS, and unless Windows 9 adoption is through the roof that’d probably just backfire again. I lost all hope when CE Anniversary never got a PC port. That was a HUGE slap to the face of PC gamers and I think really made their disinterest in the PC gaming market clear.

I personally consider M$ to be one of the most poorly managed large corporations in the entire gaming market, hell, in the entire tech industry. Nearly every single thing they do is an easily avoidable blunder that makes it painfully obvious that they’re not in touch with their consumer base. Not to mention they have a history of aggressively pushing failing products as opposed to fixing/dropping them (Kinect, Vista, to a lesser extent Win8…).

#5

I would love to see Halo Anniversary on the PC. Halo 2… well I didn’t enjoy that game as much as Halo 1. But nonetheless I guess it would be nice for it to get Anniversary’d. I didn’t bother getting Halo 2 for PC, but maybe I would if it got Anniversary’d.

Ideally, I’d have all the Halo games on PC. Right now the only reason I have an Xbox is for the Halo games that I can’t play otherwise.

(Shhhh don’t give MS any ideas :wink: )

#6

Reach on pc would be glamorous. especially if they let you hook it up with your bungie.net account so you could have all your armor and plaques etc

Firefight with some of you bozos without having to pay 60 dollars for xbox live would be fun

#7

especially with gfwl dead, pc players are free of online subscription fees

maybe M$ will work around this and force server owners to pay them fee?

or otherwise just let the game’s sheer age justify our free online

i wonder how easy halo modding must be…seeing how so much fans were able to port models from halo 4 down to CE (and it doesnt stop at later iterations of the franchise, sometimes i see model ports from various other games like mw2)

#8

Did you need to pay for an online sub to play Halo 2 on PC? I don’t remember that. In fact, I remember playing Halo 2 online on PC with a legit game key for free.

#9

I don’t recall GFWL ever having sub fees either.

#10

oh my bad, GFWL used to have $50 subscription fee, but the backlash already resolved such injustice

#11

I’d be content if they just ported Halo 3 (maybe bundled with ODST) with proper mod tools and never touched it again.

#12

I enjoyed playing Combat Evolved on PC.
That is all I have to say.

#13

800×450 68.6 KB

I just wanna see this in 1080p in 60fps

I mean come on, this aesthetic has so muuuuch room to brreeeeathe

#14

Damn, that game still doesn’t look half bad. A couple graphical mods and it’d look great.

#15

Console game from 2007 - a recent mid-range gaming PC could probably handle 120fps+ at 1920x1080… or maybe even downsample from / play at 3840x2160.

Is the crosshair in Halo 3 offset toward the bottom of the screen as it was in Halo 2?

#16

Yeah, it sucks. I really hate that they did that, honestly.

#17

I’d be very surprised if Microsoft doesn’t start supporting the Halo series on the PC. Whether that means they finally bring over Halo 3 and/or the alleged Halo 2 remake or they start with Halo 5 remains to be seen. But they are absolutely insane if they keep letting Valve steal their thunder on the PC. Then again, it’s Microsoft, so it’s possible they’ll continue to fuck up over and over again until PC gaming finally moves on without them.

#18

I forget, was it Halo that brought regenerating health to the mainstream of gaming?

#19

halo 1 still had health bars (and shield recharge was slowest in series iirc), though Halo 2 could be credited with bring forth such a concept; it is worth noting, though, that Bungie went back with traditional Medkit mechanics of halo 1 with ODST and Reach (meaning either they renounced their influential game mechanic or they wanted to stay consistant with the lore)

at least when halo does health regen, there is credibility in it (lore states modern spartan suits have built-in infinite supply of biofoam dispensers)

seeing present-day soldiers in games get shot in the face by a desert eagle and fully recovering from such a thing in a matter of seconds, on the other hand, is absolutely silly and displays another example of good gaming mechanics gone bad

its sad that some games dont even try to properly immerse players

#20

I really don’t have an immersion complaint with the regen health in Halo. My complaint with regen health is primarily in singleplayer games where it really just doesn’t make sense. It encourages players to pop out of cover and fight wildly til they’re almost dead and then just hide in cover again. That’s not fun and that’s not skill based. It cuts a massive important level of depth out of the game. It completely removes the long term penalty for poor performance. It’s mostly just lazy game design for developers who can’t be assed to play test health kit placement and who don’t want to scare away casual fags who can’t handle limited health or ammo.

In multiplayers it’s really a completely different story. Which is better regen or not, depends on the particular game.

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