Perhaps have three different people review each game. One from a eye candy-performance standpoint, one from a gameplay standpoint, and one from a general view. I learned more about Halo (PC) by playing it with others (LAN and talking about the game) than just the solo mission.
Halo
Today we are testing the First Person Shooter PC game developed for Microsoft by Bungie and Gearbox Studios. First we will consider the game in general, what it has to offer a player and the basic game theme.
Bla bla bla, man boobies. $29.95 at Wal-Mart as they hope some poor schmuck will buy it since he has never played Halo but saw the commercials for Halo 2, doesn't have Vista and doesn't realize that you can have Halo 2 for XP.
7/10 As some game companies made games and the price is still almost as high and no patches have been made to fix the masses. That is at least worth two higher points with me. Bang for the buck if you are new to this game or genre or gaming it is a OK place to start and get a feel for online and single player for the price. LAN's with the game are fun and cheat free.
the second aspect we have is that of the gameplay and character and theme development. I found Halo to be a all areola good game for the alien interaction and human forces. For the ring planet it was based on the feel of the planets continuity and viability along with the sheer size of some of the areas you will play in make you truly feel that you are there. The underground caverns are intriguing and the ever present ominous music and sounds can make your spine shiver. Most controllers work with the game that I tried and work as well as can be expected for a FPS. I prefer a keyboard and mouse, but there are some out there who cant let go the their controllers. Online is fun, but is plagued with cheaters and young kids who like to talk shit or whine and call you a cheater when you throw a sticky bomb on them and run.
Overall gameplay deserves 2 scores, one online multi-player, and one for the single player game.
Single player 7/10
Fun, fast, can be as hard or as easy as you like. Plot ties well togeather to create a good experiance.
Online Multi-player 6/10
Fun, fast. But with alot of cheaters, it could use a better anti-cheat system to help it keep going. It has potential to rival CS:S if cheats are kept to a minimum. Online setup for a server is easier than many games, and fast. Mods are available but not as popular as other online games.
The third aspect is performance and eye candy. Lets face it, the game is a port, and a mediocre port at that, not that it can't be played but if you want all the eye candy you had better be bringing more than minimum specs machine. the lowest playable system with the following settings I have found are as follows.
1024X768
2X AA Driver forced
6X AF Driver forced
Medium quality in game settings.
For this I used a 2.8Ghz P4 Prescott with 512Mb of RAM and a 9600XT at stock, onboard sound. This ensures decent gameplay and almost no lag along with a good looking game. Specs below this should look at upgrading their whole system if they want any sort of filtering and higher resolutions.
The next system I tested was a 3200+ AMD system and a X800XT with onboard sound, all stock settings.
I used 1440X900 widescreen and it should be noted that that is the biggest resolution this game supports natively, you can I have heard force a resolution on the game but it just stretches the pixels. This was done to prevent some from havening largely unfair advantages in game from larger monitors and higher resolutions.
1440X900
4X AA Diver Forced
16X AF Driver Forced
All high settings in game.
Even with the better hardware the game is still a bit laggy in some areas with alot of enemy's or players. A system with a bit more power should run this game fine with max settings.
5/10
Performance score directly reflects my disappointment with a MS backed game using so many resources, and being so mediocre. HL2 well outperforms this game, and with better graphics.