I recently had the chance to go down to Gearbox Software in Dallas, Texas to get a sneak peek at their upcoming game Halo PC. I already know what you are thinking. "Halo? What the hell is an Unreal Fanboy doing preview Halo?". Well the answer to that is a simple one. A different perspective. This is the reason I went down there. Well, that and to pay homage to the game I paid $400 for (I was one of the suckers who bought the Xbox for the game, doh!). The event was called Halo Fanstock and was put on by Microsoft and Gearbox. It featured people and webmasters from the Halo Community such as HBO, SubNova and even some the Red vs Blue (more on these maniacs another day) guys. Now most of the other sites have put up normal details on the whole experience. Well you know here at UO we don't do anything normal. :) So I have decided just to focus on the game itself.

One of the biggest things that Halo PC has going against it is it's history. The game was the best selling Xbox title of all time and was argueably one of the best looking games of all time on ANY format. Combine that with the fact that a lot of people felt betrayed by Bungie and the fact that it didn't come on on the PC first. Could the PC port live up to the hype and be worthy of the name Halo? Well the answer to that question is definitely YES. Before we delve into what was and wasn't changed let's have our first look at the game (all of the shots where taken here at the UO studio, more on that later).


The first thing you will notice is that the game looks better than ever! Gearbox managed to make a great looking game even better. Ok enough drooling let's get down to the brass tacks. One of the first things I asked Randy Pitchford of Gearbox what they were and were not allowed to do to the game. Microsoft and Bungie were adamant about them not changing the Single Player experience at all. At first you may be kind of bummed about that. However they did get the green light on the Multiplayer part of the game. Time to get into the single player experience.

When you first fire up the game you feel kind of strange looking at the Halo splash screen on your monitor instead of your TV. However you settle right in once you hear the incredible soundtrack (I am listening to the CD version as I sit and right this, god I am a nerd!) blaring out your PC speakers. After you get past the familiar opening sequence and get past the only level I really hated (getting off the ship) you finally get to see the game in all it's glory. When you are on the Halo itself and you take a look around you will definitely notice how much better it looks at higher resolutions. Upon looking at the ship, walls and water falls you start to see some of the neat effects this game can create. I was told that both NVidia and ATI had a hand in helping Gearbox with the Pixel Shading in the game.


Let's move on to the Multiplayer aspect now. The two screenshots above are of the multiplayer maps called Timberland and Gephyrophobia. The MP part of the game features a couple of different things that the console version didn't have i.e. new maps, new weapons and new vehicles. The some of new toys are the Convenant Fuel Rod gun and the Rocket Warthog. These both are cool but what made me love Halo was the Banshee! Besides that all of the original vehicles are in it and funner than hell to mess around with.

These three things (sound, shading and resolution) put together make a pretty believable world. If you were worried that the porting of this game would make it lose it's ambience, you don't have to worry any longer. It manages to pull you in once again. All of the maps, sounds and even vehicles are exactly the way they were in the console version. I am definitely looking forward to playing this game co-op online with some friends. What was that you said Tycho? Yes, you heard me right. One little secret that Gearbox managed to keep quiet was that they will indeed be putting in a Co-Op mode! They didn't go into details ,so I don't know if it is going to be added on later or shipped with the game. All I know is that the single player isn't going to be a problem with this game!


One of the highlights in MP are the new maps and damn do they look nice. Besides the afforementioned Pixel Shading we found out that the game is a true Direct X 9 game and requires it to play. The graphics are tuned for today's cards, meaning that they actually play SLOWER on lower resolutions. The newer build I saw in Dallas was ran on an ATI 9700 (woot! get mine installed tomorrow!). The pictures that you see here were taken on my GeForce Ti 4200 so you know that it still looks good on older video cards.

The new maps, besides looking great, also played really nice as well. The first thing I noticed was that you move a lot slower than in UT2003 and that definitely takes some getting used to. However your movement isn't as assnine as RL games like Counter Strike (god I hate the movement in that game). The interesting thing about MP in the PC version is that you can configure all of the different modes i.e. CTF, Slayer (Deathmatch Halo style), King of the Hill and others. For example you can play a map with the standard XBox weapons or you can play with the custom mode which allows for use of the new weapons. Fragging people online is definitely going to be addictive.


What the heck is that in the picture above? Well besides the grand tour of Gearbox and the great food, we were given a Demo Beta of the game. The Beta is an older build of the game and only includes one SP mission and a couple of playable MP maps. Microsoft nuetered the Internet capabilities of the game but it is still fun to plan in on a LAN. Just ask the people at the Big Donut LAN who got to try it out yesterday.

Is Halo PC worth your hard earned cash? The answer to that is absolutely! Gearbox has a great window of opportunity with this game. It's only head to head comptition this fall will be with UT2004. While Halo PC isn't as high tech or good looking as UT2004, it should get a place on your hard drive. I look forward to reviewing the full version of the game sometime soon. The game is slated for a September release and a demo will be out shortly after.

I want to take this time to personally thank John from AEG for making sure we got there and back safe and sound. The Bungie team who was cool enough to talk to me and show us a Live! demo of Halo 2 (god that game is probably going to cost me a girlfriend). The Halo Fansite webmasters for being cool and showing me insane Warthog tricks that I couldn't believe a person can do. Last but not least I want to thank Randy and the whole gang at Gearbox. They all were a class act and I am glad I got to meet them. I will miss Randy's chef though. :( Thanks again for taking care of us and I can't wait to play the game.

Tycho