RF Generation Message Board

http://kotaku.com/gaming/vista/hands-on-halo-2-for-vista-227182.php

I saw this in Tan's new thread and it got me thinking, why bother? The reviewer said it look like crap has a bad frame rate so why bother making it for the PC? I think it just makes the Microsoft look bad.

 I think with all the bad publicity about Vista's resource appetite and the slow progress of cross platform online gaming they used Halo like a tired horse to cart the new OS to market hoping it's popularity will sway gamers into the arms of Vista and maybe they thought a 2 year old game would make an easy transition.

IMO I think only a built from the ground up XNA game using DX10 can show off cross-platform live and Shadowrun isn't getting the attention for it they wanted it to so they decided to milk the only 1st party franchise they have that's popular.

I think it's pointless to release Halo 2 on PC now. First off, it's over 2 years old! Why port a game over 2 years old to the PC? I think the only reasons they are doing it are to push Vista on consumers, and to promote Xbox 360. They could have just as easily released it on PC a year or so ago on XP, so why wait until now? Simple, the new operating system is coming out, and what better way to promote it than making the PC port of one of the biggest console games of this decade only run on the new OS! As far as pushing 360 goes, MS is doing that with this port because you can't play people on Xbox Live with it, and it won't look as good and run as well as it would on 360. They are saying, "If you want the full Halo 2 experience and want to play more people online, go buy Xbox, sign up for Live, and get a copy of Halo 2...or better yet, wait for Halo 3!" So, basically, Halo 2 on Vista=marketing tool and more moneygrabbing by MS.

How does showing Halo 2 push the OS? 99.9% of home PC PC's come with a Windows OS. If you want to buy a new PC in the next couple years you will get Vista if you like it or not.

It pushes the OS because it's only available on Vista. Thus, those who want to get Halo 2 on the PC will be forced to upgrade to it.

True so that sells at least 10-20 copies. [/sarcasm]

"it won't look as good and run as well as it would on 360"
Don't know about that. ;)

But it may be a sign that they know Vista doesn't hold true to most of it's promises. I mean Windows Me was censored and was pretty much hated by all, and even then they didn't try any tricks to force you to "upgrade" to it.

XP has been around for a while, but I still remember the joy everyone has to go through each time Microsoft releases a new OS. Chances are your favourite games, apps, and drivers just became incompatible so unless the creators are willing to make what your using Vista compatible you'll have to buy their new Vista version. It's crap, especially when your talking hardware, so unless your getting a new computer your chances of updating to it especially if it's a disappointment at it's price are minimal. So they try this...... lame.

Yeah I'm so excited about Vista I could fall asleep.

Upgrading to vista to play Halo 2 on pc holds the intrest of, as Scott said, probably 10 people, of whom one will buy it, and the rest will pirate it from him.

Why bother, like the first Halo for PC, its a crappy port.  The only reason to maybe consider it is if you're a PC purist that wants to try out this game without purchasing a console.  I have a feeling there will be some good mods out there for it, too.  If you're really cheap, there has already been the Halo 2 CE (http://www.halo2ce.epgservers.com/mod/") mod for the regular PC Halo for some time now.

Whoa that's sweet. If I still had my...*herm*...copy of Halo I'd probably try that out.

I disagree with it being a crappy port, I thought it was better than the X-box version.

You are the only one.

I just tend to prefer mouse and keyboard with my FPS.

WWF Raw was way better on PC than Xbox, and that was a straight port.
It just ran so much smother and faster, plus didn't have the loading times so if the Halo port was a slack ass straight port with the same benefits I would say it is better. Never played it though, and didn't play the Xbox version enough to be the judge.

Vista better hope it's improved a hell of a lot over it's beta, retarded thing wouldn't even go to sleep when I closed my laptop. Came back to my laptop a few days later to find it was boiling hot!

Everyone her that uses it loves it. Why does MS care if gamers buy it?

Loves Vista, or Halo 2?

It's all about linking everything together, all devices, services, games. etc. and OS's are Microsoft's strong suit and solid base to build that foundation. There's a book called Xbox Uncloaked that came out a few years ago that explained it. Microsoft mainly got into the gaming console race because they knew Sony was trying to bring services normally found on PC's into the console market such as web-surfing, IM'ing shopping and such which is a direct threat to PC's. They first tried to build on their relationship with Sega but Sega wasn't interested so they went it alone. They were thinking long term here so they knew 6-7 years ago that  whatever the second machine they made would be, it would be an extension of both the PC world and that of living room entertainment.

Of course here we are years later and they were right on the ball, set top TV web boxes, DVR's, handheld media players, shopping on the Wii and getting weather and news, linux on the PS2 and PS3. So building Vista around the philosophy that they could bridge the gap between devices with it was one thing, they still needed gamer's with 360's to want it so here we are with Halo 2 on vista.

After that comes Forza which will use phones/zune's 360's and PC's for customizable cars and tweaking and be able to swap data between all of them and then Shadowrun which is the first ground up game to use 360/PC connectivity as was intended.

So of course a gamer with devices that are linked in such a fashion will most likely buy Microsoft branded apps, and games which in turn will be Microsoft OS specific, and in turn keeps Microsoft's most important cash maker Windows on top of things because the PC remains the middleman between all these devices.

I am the only one that doesn't give a rats ass about all that shit?

 :laugh:

I couldn't care less for all that crap either, custom soundtracks for 360 games streamed from my PC's HDD is as far as I go. My TV works great and my stereo sounds awesome my DVD's look great and my PC surfs the net very fast and easily. I already have a mp3 player and if I had the time to watch a video on a handheld or tweak my suspension on my phone I'd rather do it on my comfy couch at home where I can test it.

And on top of that there's nothing wrong with Windows XP for what I use it for, compatibility issues a new OS brings will take years to sort out as they always do and I have no interest in finding what hardware/software I can no longer use. Other than that I enjoy Linux more anyway.  :P

I have never done a custom sound track on my Xbox or the 360. I have a stereo in my game room I use that. Hell I have used custom sound tracks since the Genesis days.

Custom tracks is a sweet feature. I copied a bunch of DVD songs onto my xbox1 and use it for racing games. Led Zeppelin's Rock 'n' Roll is a sweet song to race to!

I agree that a lot of users won't care about he Xbox Live Anywhere promotion. But I think that if they're going after new users who may only want 1 of the devices, but still be able to connect with others on XBL, then they're succeeding in their plan.

If you have a 360, but don't care about your OS, you can still play others that have a Vista OS on XBL, and vice versa if you have Vista but no 360. And you can bet they're going to try to make Zune compatible as well. Essentially, you only need to own 1 device in order to be compatible with 3 over XBL. Very smart marketing, and with only moderate risk.

Halo 2 is basically just a good game to pilot the program and gain information on what works and what doesn't...before they bring Halo 3 on board. 8)

Well it's the same idea except you don't need to rip mp3's to the 360's HDD and you can change the songs, adjust the volume of them and have the play controls using the 360 controller without having to fiddle with a cd remote. I've got half a dozen remotes as it is it's nice to not have to use 1 or 2 of them. That and the 360 reads the id3 tags so the songs can be sorted by genre or artist/album.

Maybe one day i will check it out. To bad all my ripped CD's are on my PC at work not home.

Funny you should say that, as using a Action Reply was able to actually remix, rearrange music in games back then since it was all just data on the carts. It was interesting playing the games through again to hear how different later songs would be.

Then on the Mega-CD I use to swap the CD over and there you go, true custom sound tracks  ;)
Just remember to change the CD back over before the end of the level.