Halo PC Preview Preview

Halo, one of the flagship titles on the XBox when released and a huge success, is coming to the PC late this summer. With Halo2 already announced on the XBox will PC owners merely be getting a port from the Xbox without any extras? Derek dela Fuente spoke with a number of key people associated with the game to find out more.<br><br>The first words from Microsoft to allay any fears are that no way is this a mere port but with new ideas added and a positive focus by the team to make this an even better experience than that on the Xbox.<br><br>For those PC owners who may not have seen the original Halo, it is a futuristic tale set in the year 2552. It is an action romp with incredible visuals. <br><br>The backdrop story - Planet Earth still exists, but overpopulation has forced many of her former residents to colonise other worlds. Faster-than-light travel is now a reality and Earth's unified government, through the United Nations Space Command, has put its full weight behind the colonisation effort; millions of humans now live on habitable planets in other solar systems. A keystone of humanity's colonisation efforts is the planet Reach, an interstellar naval yard that builds colony ships for civilians and warships for the UNSC's armed forces. Conveniently close to Earth, Reach is also a hub of scientific and military activity. Thirty-two years ago, contact with the outer colony Harvest was lost. A battlegroup sent to investigate was almost completely destroyed; only one badly damaged ship returned to Reach. It’s crew told of a seemingly unstoppable alien warship that had effortlessly annihilated their forces. This was humankind's first encounter with a group of aliens they eventually came to know as the Covenant, a collective of alien races united in their fanatical religious devotion. Covenant’s religious elders declared humanity an affront to the gods, and the Covenant warrior caste waged a holy war upon humanity with gruesome diligence.<br><br>After a series of crushing defeats and obliterated colonies, UNSC Admiral Preston Cole established the Cole Protocol: no vessel may inadvertently lead the Covenant to Earth. When forced to withdraw, ships must avoid Earth-bound vectors - even if that means jumping without proper navigational calculations. Vessels in danger of capture must self-destruct.<br><br>On Reach, a secret military project to create cyborg super-soldiers takes on newfound importance. The soldiers of the SPARTAN-II project rack up an impressive record against the Covenant in test deployments, but there are too few of them to turn the tide of the war.<br><br>Existing SPARTAN-II soldiers are recalled to Reach for further augmentation. The plan: board a Covenant vessel with the improved SPARTAN-IIs and learn the location of the Covenant home world. Two days before the mission begins, Covenant forces strike Reach and annihilate the colony. The Covenant is now on Earth's doorstep. One ship, the Pillar of Autumn, escapes with the last SPARTAN-II and makes a blind jump into deep space, hoping to lead the Covenant away from Earth.<br><br>You are assigned the task of fighting for humanity against the alien onslaught as you race to uncover the mysteries of Halo!<br> <br>High octane, adrenaline-pumping action is the order of the day. What distinguishes this from other games is the incredible amount of action, attention to onscreen detail and the way it has been choreographed, which comes over like a high production movie. So what's the deal, you may ask, especially as Halo 2, Xbox, was getting centre stage at the recent E3, but with Halo on the PC also getting its fair share of critical acclaim with running code. With Bungie, the original coders, the PC version is passed over to Gearbox (Half-Life, Tony Hawks and James Bond - previous titles) with the original team keeping an eye on development.<br><br>A little known fact is that Halo was originally intended to be released on the PC before Microsoft spotted the game and thought it would make a superb Xbox title and it was only after many requests by PC gamers that late last summer Microsoft announced its PC development. It was only recently that the PC version was officially sanctioned. <b>“Our intention for the PC version is not so much to change things and it’s design but to improve the technical aspects. (Optimized for the PC. With the precision of mouse and keyboard support. Gamers can take advantage of their high-end graphic cards and see Halo in super high 1,600x1,200 resolution).“ </b><br><br>The all-important multiplayer feature is also a special focus for the team: <b>“There will be new maps, weapons and vehicles. Halo may also support 32 players per server and there is even talk referring to a mod pack that would allow fans to create new levels for Halo. The ideal is for Halo is to take full advantage of what the PC has to offer and you know we obviously want to take full advantage of the multiplayer aspect.“ </b><br><br>The exact number of maps and weapons has not been finalised but important to say the additions are more than cosmetic but very integral to making the PC version a fresh and revitalized offering. This is not to say that the game is vastly different in concept and feel to the original, as most of the missions and AI remains the same.<br><br>One of the main criticisms thrown at the XBox version was that the controls were very fiddly and when confronted by the intelligent aliens frustration usually set in, as things were not as intuitive as you would wish. This on the PC has been rectified and speed in execution - aiming and firing - is as slick as you could ever wish.<br><br>All the nuances that made Halo such a hit on the Xbox will be enjoyed by PC gamers, including the clever way the enemy work as teams, the armour and the different feel and look when in action both indoors and outdoors. With all good games, and this is exceptional, comprising nearly a year’s extra work when completed on the PC will ensure that this is no mere port and presently around 60% of code has been completed.<br><br>As far as shooters go, you can have your Quakes or any other shooter - Halo looks supreme with its HUD that presents the right kind of information required with your weapon, navigation, enemy, direction of fire, health, and shield indicators, with easy manipulation for further information. The Halo world is vast and so the vehicles you have on hand, that range from a M12 to a Banshee, will allow you to get around at speed. The cast within the game is complex and extensive, which is why Halo is so exciting. From The Grunts, which are 5 foot tall with plasma weapons, to the Hunters, who stand 12 foot tall with their impervious metal shield and melee weapon, you know you will confront an enemy with guile and stealth.