Halo 2 Coming To Windows Vista

[tarey_g]

"Halo 2," the game that redefined first-person combat and multiplayer action for millions of gamers worldwide, is set to explode onto PCs exclusively for Windows Vista. "Halo 2" for Windows Vista will be developed by a dedicated Microsoft Game Studios team in partnership with Bungie Studios.


Only for Windows Vista, "Halo 2" will offer gamers both the single-player campaign and multiplayer experience of the original, as well as the additional maps offered in the "Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack." Gamers will also have the exciting opportunity to build, create and customize their own multiplayer levels.

source

[vij26]

Halo What on the Whatnow?

Halo 2, on Windows Vista. Halo 2, you may remember, is a "shoot them up" featuring the adventures of Master Chief and his wacky sidekick, Cortana. Well, Halo 2 you know about, but Vista, what the heck is that?

Windows Vista is the next generation Microsoft operating system that will by turns, be sweet, awesome, radical, and potentially translucent (in places). It will also add layers of new functionality, speed, media processing and so on. I have heard a rumor, in fact, that it will replicate a lot of the functionality of them new-fangled Media Center PCs so that you can stream HD and whatnot to your Xbox 360. If that's true, that would also be nice.

The game WILL be for Windows Vista, as in, not for Windows XP, so you have a while to get used to that and complain to me about what a jerk I am to Windows 3.1 users.

But back to Halo 2. We're working with another team at MS to make this not only happen, but happen in a super-sweet radical fashion. To that end, we're going to be helping with a lot of aspects, but don't worry, we are not doing the actual coding work – we're too busy with ONP (Our Next Project). In fact, a lot of you spotted the job postings at Bungie.net asking for, "programmers who are awesome at programming Halo 2 Xbox to work on a PC," and other subtle clues.

Using your Sherlock Holmes-ian powers of deduction, you probably figured it out. Anyway, there will be significant differences between the PC and the Xbox version. The PC for example, invariably runs at resolutions that aren't 480i. So there's that. The specs and features have been targeted, but not carved in stone, and things will change, so we're NOT going to announce anything more specific than you find here today.

One HUGE difference between Xbox and PC versions is the absence of Xbox Live. Now, much as a subset of you likes to ***** and moan about Live matchmaking, most of you agree it's a very nice way to find games in a hurry. But don't worry, we'll have a cool system for that, no doubt.

There will also be some kind of map-customization ability. Does that mean you can build your own maps from scratch, pixel by pixel, importing your own textures, scripts and detailed shaders? Or does it mean one empty room and a crate? Well, we'll have more news on that later this year, but it will be cool, we guarantee that.

There's loads of questions the Bungie faithful will ask, like, "Will there be a Mac version?" We can't answer that yet. It's not out of the question, but it's not definitely happening either. We promise to keep you posted, and in the interim, you can read the PR-ified version of the press release and FAQ below.

From http://bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx...unce&p=6136047

[Nemesis]

Not a good move. It will take time before Vista gains wide acceptance. Most people will need upgrades to run Vista efficiently and I don't think Halo 2 will force people to upgrade. Initially, the number of people using Vista will be a small fraction of computer users and gamers will form a fraction of that fraction so you see how it will be difficult for Microsoft to sell Halo 2. You can get people to buy a $300-400 console if you make a killer game for it (example: Halo for the Xbox) but you can't people to change OSes and upgrade their computers for a game.

On a side note, unless Bungie make significant changes to the PC version, we could be in for a disappointment. I mena Halo 2 for the Xbox was a good game but it carried more hype than it delivered and there wasn't much improvement over Halo. Halo 2 multiplayer though was a different story with Xbox Live driving online gaming on the Xbox.

Threads merged.

@vij: There was already a thread on this topic right here. Why did you go and post the same topic again? Don't tell me that you didn't see it or that you were too excited to read.

You've been around for a year and should know better than to make a new thread on an existing topic.

[coolendra]

guess now i have 2 buy vista wen it is released jst for playing HALO 2............



sad .........

[Charan]

things to do for my pc to run halo 2

get a new grafix card
upgrade ram from 256MB to 2 GB
setup a 5.1 sound system
upgrade processor
upgrade other sutff ????
buy vist

he he he i guess its not gonna happen for me

[abhijeet_ghosh]

Originally Posted by Nemesis

...but you can't people to change OSes and upgrade their computers for a game.

Well you PC gamers do keep upgrading your comps to play the latest games. Doom 3, HL 2, FEAR... just some of the games which made people upgrade their PCs. But obviously forcing an OS upgrade is a completely different thing. But I think many people are gonna do it b'coz of the hype surrounding Halo 2.

[moshel]

Vista is not in my site atleast in the near future, i used win 98, until it got obsolete, same thing with xp, maybe xp will stay for 3-4 yrs more
until them im sticking to xp

[maina231]

When it comes lets kick some ass in the multiplayers.