The Forthcoming World of Halo

During November 2001, geeks everywhere took a deep breath and sat down to try out Bungie's Halo. The ambitious shooter was in development for ages, but it soon emerged triumphant as Microsoft's launch title for the company's first console - the Xbox. Even though this was a major disappointment for hardcore PC gamers, who have patiently been waiting for a new game from Bungie for a long time, Halo turned out to be the corner stone of next-generation console gaming. Well, here we are, six years later, and the hyped gaming masses are still crying out for more Halo. So, while the PS3 is making its debut across remaining corners of the world, MS is waiting for the right time to hit the market with Halo 2 Vista and Halo 3 for Xbox 360. In other words, nothing has changed since 2001. Microsoft is still keeping PC gamers on a leash, as they hunger for Halo, which should've been released on the PC in the first place (Originally a Mac game as far as I can remember. - Ed). At the same time, they mean to treat all X360 owners with the long-awaited third iteration of the popular shooter. But there's more to it.

Halo 2 - Via Vista

This sort of looks like my living room.

No, I'm the real Master Chief!!! Take that!

In case you didn't know, the development of Halo 2 (PC) is handled by Hired Gun, an internal division of MS working in conjunction with Bungie. Being one of the flagship titles for Windows Vista, you'd expect Halo 2 to offer a number of improvements in line with the recent introduction of DX10. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Oh and, unless you have Vista running on your system, you can forget about enjoying all of the new enhancements that were promised (*cough*bullshit*cough* - Ed). In fact, you can forget about playing the game altogether because it won't run on any OS other than Vista. Also, minimum specs needed to run the game are a 2GHz CPU, a strong DirectX 9 graphics card and at least 1GB or RAM. The good news is that an expensive top-of-the-range graphics card isn't necessary. The bad news is you won't see a DX10-flavored makeover.

More bad news follows. In terms of content, nothing has changed since the old Xbox version. The single-player and the multiplayer portions of the game have remained exactly the same, with slight variations and subtle changes made here and there. Normally, when it comes to controls, the game is being tweaked to suit the PC keyboard/mouse standard (albeit, if you want, you can experience the game via the PC-compatible X360 controller, in which case the commands are the same).

When the initial line-up of Vista-powered games was uncovered, Microsoft kept raving about Live Anywhere and connecting Xbox gamers with PC gamers in online multplayer matches, regardless what platform they are playing on. Many have expected to taste this feature in Halo 2 PC. Sadly, this cross-platform support is set to premiere in Microsoft's approaching title, Shadowrun. The PC version of Halo 2 is being hailed as the first game to allow gamers to set up dedicated Live servers. It's, basically, going to offer support for Games for Windows Live, to allow matchmaking, locating friends, gamer score, etc. The developers unveiled that players won't have to be gold members on Xbox Live in order to play the Halo 2 multiplayer. Fundamentally, anybody can set up open dedicated servers for others to play on. On the other hand, to anyone who already has gold membership on Xbox Live, there won't be a need to pay for a separate service on Games for Windows Live - since it was essentially described as being the same service.

Halo - Take Three

With all the teasers, trailers, speculations and the usual media hype, there's still much we don't know about the single-player portion of Halo 3. So, let's downshift to what we do know. As far as the storyline goes, only a few details were revealed thus far. Although I should probably point out that most of the info related to the plot was seldom discussed officially.

The scoop is that Master Chief has returned to Earth, most of which had been taken over by Covenant forces. Cortana is a prisoner of Gravemind (who we all know from Halo 2) and Elites have reportedly abandoned the Covenant and are waging a war of insurgency. At present, it is unknown if any of the alien races have allied with the Humans or between themselves, but we do know that Grunts were seen fighting alongside Brutes. It's been said that more familiar characters, aside from Master Chief and Cortana, will make an appearance, such as Commander Miranda Keyes, Sergeant Major A.J. Johnson, Gunnery Sergeant Pete Stacker and others.

Bungie is hard at work on improving a number of aspects. Friendly and enemy AI features see some major enhancements, allowing for a wider range of tactics displayed in combat. We were also told that the Covenant are a lot more active while out of combat. This means you won't see them patrolling a few steps here and there and waiting to be taken out by Master Chief's sniper. Dual-wielding, the commendable feature from Halo 2, is making a comeback in H3. This time, however, when you're carrying a secondary weapon, it will be slotted on the character's back or into his leg holster (if the weapon isn't too large, that is).

Not that long ago, Bungie said they intend to institute the so-called "A-Hole Button," used to mute gamers and for bringing up a score list with everyone's tag on it - you simply use the right stick and quickly select whichever player gets on your nerves, and you won't hear from them again.

Other subtle innovations will, apparently, be thrown in for the game's multiplayer mode, like call signs used instead of a small HUD mark allies. The matchmaking system in Halo 3 consists of two different ranks, skill and experience, which should reflect the effect of experience on players' profiles.

The UI was redesigned since Halo 2, making it easier to generate a custom game in Halo 3 multiplayer. We've also heard unconfirmed reports of in-game gravity being adjustable when creating custom games. We still have to wait and see if this feature will wind up in the final game.