by Jody - October 10, 2003

Halo, the XBOX phenomenon, turned many dark devious figures that hate the XBOX into active social human beings. Even to this day, Halo is one of the best and consistent selling games for the XBOX. When Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Studios announced that a PC version was coming out ahead of their 2004 release of Halo 2 for the XBOX, the crowd went wild. What exactly could Bungie to make XBOX owners purchase the same game for a different platform? How are online multiplayer support and a jump in graphics sound?

Halo for the PC makes the XBOX version cry.

Just like the XBOX version, Halo for the PC has the exact same storyline. (Wow, I didn�t know that!) You�re a member of the space marines. Your ship is docked outside a mysterious floating object. Suddenly your ship is boarded, and only a select few of your crew survives. Your escape pods land on the mysterious object, and it's up to you to both destroy the aliens, and discover the secret of the object, which presumably is a giant weapon of mass destruction. Rather than have you simply go in and start shooting, you're given missions which push the storyline along, and give you the sense of participating in something big, rather than simply blowing up aliens as an ends and a means. Missions range from taking out enemy gun installations, to rescuing other marines who also made it off the ship, to finding maps. The missions are pretty open-ended, giving you various methods for completing them. I prefer the simple, go in with guns blazing, but a sniper rifle and drivable vehicles give other players their own way of winning.

One area that this version differs from its brother the most is in its online multiplayer support for up to 16 players. Along with the familiar maps from the Xbox version, six new multiplayer maps are here for a total of fifteen. Games include Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Last Man Standing, Race, King of the Hill and Oddball, all of which (except Oddball) can be played as Team games if you desire. In Oddball, one character must hold a skull for a given amount of time while everyone goes crazy trying to take him down. You can't fire a weapon, but the skull does devastating melee damage. Capture the Flag and the Races are easily the most fun.

To spice things up, Gearbox has included some exclusive online content for the PC version. You can now choose between the normal Warthog and a black version fitted with a rear-mounted rocket launcher. Two new weapons are here as well: the Covenant fuel-rod cannon and a flamethrower. The fuel-rod fires consecutive plasma blasts in an arc and boasts a speedy re-fire rate, while the flamethrower is, well, a flamethrower. Rounding out the new bits is the ability to add the Covenant Banshees to just about any multiplayer map for added strategy and fun.

However, after all these years you still can�t play as the aliens in the online multiplayer, which is the way Halo was originally advertised so many years ago. Red and blue versions of the exact same character models are a bit silly considering the inherent warring sides already built into the game. Color-coded Marines fighting each other seems more like a watered-down training simulation than a full-fledged war between factions.

The multiplayer modes also feel a little too simplistic considering the potential. Halo was originally designed as a Tribes-style game featuring a compelling mix of team play and mission-based multiplayer. This changed when it moved to the Xbox, but I really hoped they would have rethought it for the PC version. Instead, it simply feels like just a port of the Xbox version rather than the phantasmagoric PC game we have all been waiting for. Plus, the super-cool co-operative mode is grossly absent from this installment. It�s a real bummer since that was one of the best ways to play through the original, and the multiplayer doesn�t entirely make up for the omission.

When I look at the XBOX version, I laugh.

Gearbox Software did wind up with a lot on their hands when they took the job of porting Halo to the PC. The graphics code pretty much had to be redone due to a few small (but key) differences between the hardware on the XBOX and the PC, and on top of that, Halo also needed to be compatible with a fairly wide range of computers. After playing this game on about five different computers, I can fairly say that Halo does the job good! Even at a 1.3 GHZ computer with 256 of RAM and a 64 megabyte video card, this game runs like a charm.

Many new DirectX 9 features are used extensively; the game looks ten times better! Even though I did not play that much of single player Halo on the XBOX, I can already say that the animations are a lot better. The new shiny feel of everything just makes me dig into the storyline, even know most of the time I don�t know what�s going on. The levels have also been revamped, graphically speaking. Blood Gulch, one of my favorite XBOX LAN maps, looks a hell of a lot better for the PC.

Non-glitchy voice acting and a great soundtrack.. yeah, it's Halo.

The audio in Halo has been translated completely intact and is still first-rate. No glitchy voice acting will be found in this version. A truly superb soundtrack swells up during key moments of the single-player campaign. Chock-full of militaristic percussion, choir-like vocals, and cello strings, this is one of the best soundtracks in a shooter, and it adds a lot of drama to the action. The sound of the various weapons is also well done--each sounds distinctly different, though the Covenant's plasma weapons sound a bit underpowered. The voice acting is also excellent, from the Master Chief's soft-spoken, reassuring one-liners to the marines' variety of elated battle cries. In a nice touch, the marines even have different ethnic accents, and they have a great deal of dialogue, in general, so you'll rarely hear them repeat their lines. Covenant forces sound pretty great, too, as do some of the other characters and foes you'll face.

Wow, and I used to hate this game.

Shooting hordes of ridiculously intelligent aliens and driving a variety of vehicles serves as the bulk of Halo's gameplay. All the weapons from the Xbox version make a return, including the machine gun, pistol, frag grenades, sniper rifle, shotgun and rocket launcher. Covenant weaponry (which can be picked up and used, remember) is back as well. These are energy-based and brutal; Covenant weapons more easily slice through Covenant energy shields, which obviously comes in handy. The Needler and adhesive plasma grenades are two of the coolest weapons you�ll find in any FPS.

LAN Time!

One thing that I love about this version over the XBOX one is the controls. I love being able to kick some ass with master chief using the mouse and keyboard. Consoles are not made for first person shooters, nor do they successfully carry out them, in my opinion � that�s why I didn�t really like Halo that much for XBOX. I also love the addition of the Banshee � the flying Phantom-like craft that can also drop acid-like nukes. Playing in multiplayer servers using this is extremely fun, and so far, no one has overused it. Halo would have been a lot better if it was backwards compatible (being able to play LAN games with XBOX Halo players), but as I�ve checked up, is not. Lanning it up with Halo this time will be far more difficult and time consuming as you�re either going to have to have a LAN center or you must pack up and unpack your computer a lot. All in all though, I say that it�s worth it if you�re going to be playing for awhile. I�ve spent hours upon hours of playing Halo (XBOX) non stop and I�m sure I can find that same fun and satisfaction with the PC version.

Halo for the PC has set new standards. Buy it.

Halo is a game continues to be the benchmark for first person shooters. Quite frankly, it's one of the better ones that I have seen in a long time. A decent storyline, lots of NPC interaction, and graphics that you have to see to believe. Anyway, if you are even remotely a fan of FPS games, this is an absolute must have, and one hell of a ride.