The shit hits the multiconsole fan....

[lazyfatbum]

I'm about to have dinner so i'll make it short.

Halo will be renamed - and released on Gamecube and Playstation 2. Those of you who know why get a star. The rest of you need to go do some research.

[Private Hudson]

Umm.. are you aware that Microsoft own Bungie?

[OB1]

Um...

[Dark Jaguar]

Coming to PC I understood, but I was kinda surprised when MS went ahead and decided to port it to Mac. If in fact MS is willing to loose an exclusive in order to get money from the other system's ports, then well, whatever. I give up though lazy, and loose out on a star, where did you hear about this being so?

[Private Hudson]

It's his inside information..

[OB1]

Halo was first shown on a Mac. It debuted at Mac World, in fact.

[MgL]

I don't think neither the GC or PS2 can handle Halo. Only the power of X is capable of doing that.

[A Black Falcon]

The Gamecube could get very, very close if the port was well done... unfortunately most ports aren't, so we get PS2 ports that are worse than the PS2 version.

[Private Hudson]

Originally posted by MgL
I don't think neither the GC or PS2 can handle Halo. Only the power of X is capable of doing that.

Of course they could handle Halo.

Perhaps the graphics would be downgraded (slightly), but it's not as though the game would be lessened at all.

[OB1]

What are you kidding me? Halo isn't even that great-looking. It doesn't look nearly as good as Rogue Leader.

[Laser Link]

But d00d, evry1 noes tat xbox ca ndo 100milion pollys and gaem cube is onyl 10 mills. Nintndeo saids o theriselvs.

[OB1]

Hehe.

Halo looks average for an X-Box game. It's using an old PC engine, people.

[EdenMaster]

Couldn't handle it? The GameCube and PS2 are powerful machines, and they could easily handle Halo, possibly with only minor modifications.

Sorry X-Box fanboy, looks like you may be losing your biggest (only?) gun :D.

[OB1]

Wee, double post!

So what's this about, lazy?

[Private Hudson]

Originally posted by EdenMaster
Sorry X-Box fanboy, looks like you may be losing your biggest (only?) gun :D.

They aren't losing it.

[EdenMaster]

That's why I said "may be". It's only an off chance, besides, what reason do we have to doubtl lazy?

...oh yeah.

[A Black Falcon]

They will lose it once the PC and Mac versions come out... same as Sony will lose GTA:VC's once Vice City comes out for PC... unless you don't count PC versions?

As for Halo on GC/PS2? Yes, they could do it... I'm not sure if it would look quite as good as it does on X-Box, but they could do it. But its Bungie... owned by MS... um, not much of a chance of that happening...

Er, actually... Psygnosis, while owned by Sony, made Wipeout 64. There is hope! :D

[geoboy]

Originally posted by MgL
I don't think neither the GC or PS2 can handle Halo. Only the power of X is capable of doing that.

Does nobody else see the humor in that? It sounded to me like a sarcastic play on the Xbox commercials. :D

[MgL]

I wish that any of you could explain to me how the PS2 (HD isn't out yet) or GC could run Halo's huge ass levels as smoothly without any hard drives? Hmmm? This isn't metroid Prime where the largest area is probably as big as Halo's smallest area... mind you that Prime also contains 1/10th the amount of enemies Halo has on screen.

Oh, and don't knock theXbox's power OB1. Im just saying that the other systems will have problems with the port. The Xbox had a problem with Substance, and the PS2 version of Splinter Cell while good looking is not favorable to the XBOX.

[Private Hudson]

Originally posted by MgL
I wish that any of you could explain to me how the PS2 (HD isn't out yet) or GC could run Halo's huge ass levels as smoothly without any hard drives? Hmmm?

You don't need a HDD to have large levels. Have you ever played Jak & Daxter? An entire game where there is only one load time. The entire world is renderred, with no stoppages for loading. Halo, on the other hand DOES stop to load (recache) every once in a while.

What about Haven? Interplanet travel, but the game doesn't stop. You are in outer space, you fly down, land on the planet, then go around and platform like you've never platformed before. Without any load times.

Or what about The Getaway? The entire city of London (well, at least the inner city) recreated, without any load times. Even as you enter the buildings, cross the Thames river or what have you.

In comparison, Halo has rather small levels. Gee, good thing XBox has the HDD

Oh, and don't knock theXbox's power OB1. Im just saying that the other systems will have problems with the port. The Xbox had a problem with Substance, and the PS2 version of Splinter Cell while good looking is not favorable to the XBOX.

Of course the other systems would have problems if it was nothing more than a mere port. But that's not what you meant, when you said

I don't think neither the GC or PS2 can handle Halo. Only the power of X is capable of doing that.

[MgL]

You're comparing the graphical power house Halo with it's incredible lighting, huge amount of enemies fighting at once, blazing frame rate, numerous vehicles and other graphical touches to that of the Getaway? You've got to be freakin kidding me man. Come on, get a clue...

[Private Hudson]

Originally posted by MgL
You're comparing the graphical power house Halo with it's incredible lighting, huge amount of enemies fighting at once, blazing frame rate, numerous vehicles and other graphical touches to that of the Getaway? You've got to be freakin kidding me man. Come on, get a clue...

Umm..

No..

You brought up that the other consoles wouldn't be able to handle the size of Halo's levels, because they don't have a HDD. I showed you that this isn't true. As Halo, comparitively, has small levels compared to the games I listed above (and others), which do not require the HDD.

It really wasn't that hard to understand.

[OB1]

Exactly. Substance didn't translate well on the X-Box because the MGS2 engine was made specifically with the PS2's strengths and weaknesses in mind, while the Halo engine could be done on any decent PC, or more specifically a PC in a box (the X-Box).

[OB1]

MGL: Halo's engine wasn't made with any of the X-Box's strengths in mind, which is why I'm so surprised that you think it's so amazing. The lighting is far from amazing and there isn't even more than one texture layer pur surface. Halo is basically a PC port of a game that never came out for the PC. Halo 2 on the other hand should look quite amazing.

[Weltall]

I know what he's talking about... he told me the other night:shake:

[Dark Jaguar]

....

I'm just surprised you actually think that's MgL's real opinion...

[OB1]

Like that old man that always sat on his porch all day once said to me: "Feed the troll before he feeds you!"

Take that as you will.

[Dark Jaguar]

Wouldn't that be "before he feeds ON you"? I mean, what's wrong with eating troll food? Oh right, it's made from people and goats...

[WhiteFleck]

To answer the original question: Maybe some key Bungie people left and are porting it on their own. That, or it's being licensed?

Who cares about graphics, though? The control scheme probably couldn't be reproduced on the Gamecube without extreme ingenuity, and most ports aren't allowed any of that rare resource.

[Great Rumbler]

I think you're giving Halo a little too much credit.

"incredible lighting"

The light from your flashlight looked cool, but other than it was just average.

"huge amount of enemies fighting at once"

You rarely see more than tens guys at once except near the end there are a few parts.

"blazing framerate"

If you call 30 fps "blazing".

"numerous vehicles"

The most I saw at once was two.

Really the only thing that look incredible about Halo was the textures [up close] and the bump mapping.

[OB1]

They only look good up close because there's no more than one single texture layer per surface. RL uses up to six (or was it eight?) texture layers per surface, which is why things look so great up close and far away (just look at the snow on Hoth). The textures in Halo look good when you're about one (in-game) foot away from them, max.

And Whitey, what on earth are you talking about? Have you never played a FPS on the cube before? All three versions of TS2 were pretty much identical, but I chose to get the Gamecube version because I prefer the controller for FPS's, mainly because of the perfect left analogue stick which allows for super-precise aiming.

[Dark Jaguar]

You'll see a lot of vehicles at once if you go for multiplayer. I'm not talking co-op either (No one wanted to play single player with me, at least not for long). Try blood gulch with all vehicles activated, then you can have like 8 or so on screen at once. That's always fun.

[Private Hudson]

Originally posted by OB1
They only look good up close because there's no more than one single texture layer per surface. RL uses up to six (or was it eight?) texture layers per surface, which is why things look so great up close and far away (just look at the snow on Hoth). The textures in Halo look good when you're about one (in-game) foot away from them, max.

And Whitey, what on earth are you talking about? Have you never played a FPS on the cube before? All three versions of TS2 were pretty much identical, but I chose to get the Gamecube version because I prefer the controller for FPS's, mainly because of the perfect left analogue stick which allows for super-precise aiming.

It was an average of 5 texture layers. But at the maximum, Factor 5 stated they had 8 texture layers.

I swear, those guys need to start talking to other developers. I've seen interviews (or what have you) from other devs stating that they can't put more than 2 (or 3) texture layers down without messing up the framerate.

"incredible lighting"

The light from your flashlight looked cool, but other than it was just average.

Volumentric lighting from the sun was pretty nifty, too.

"huge amount of enemies fighting at once"

Once you go against the flood, there are "huge" amounts of enemies on screen. But for the most, they are tiny, and poorly detailed. IMO, the amount of enemies on screen is a huge strong point. The second level, where you land on the beach along with a dozen + marines, taking on a couple of dozen covenant is very impressive.

"blazing framerate"

If you call 30 fps "blazing"

Let's not forget the slowdown.

"numerous vehicles"

The most I saw at once was two.

Considering that, at the time, he was defending the game's graphics against The Getaway (for unknown reasons), it was a pretty stupid thing to say. Considering that The Getaway has about 80 extremely detailed cars, each with their own unique physics and handling, and very impressive damage models, and upwards of 2 dozen cars on screen at once etc. etc.

The best thing about Halo, however, are the physics, and the AI. Both of which are completely handled by the Pentium 3, and are completely unrelated to the graphics.

[OB1]

What volumetric lighting? I didn't notice any in Halo.

[Laser Link]

Do any of you even know what volumetric lighting looks like? Would you really recognize it if the reviewers or box art didn't tell you it was there?

If any game ever loaded textures or models off a hard drive, it would probably chug at about 10 fps. A hard drive is the slowest piece of memory in a system and really has no use in graphics. They load the important, current info off the hard drive (or disc, either one) into RAM and build the screen in RAM. NEVER, EVER the hard drive.

The hard drive is just a glorified, mutant-sized memory card.

[A Black Falcon]

But, LL, accessing data off a HDD is faster than accessing it off a CD/DVD... otherwise, PC games wouldn't install almost everything on their CD's onto the harddrive. Its significantly faster to load from there than from a CD/DVD...

[OB1]

Yes I know what volumetric lighting looks like. Rather than just showing the effect of light on a surface, you can see entire beams of light, kinda like in a movie theater. So regular (ambient) lighting would be like seeing the movie on the screen and the light on the projector, and nothing inbetween. With volumetric lighting you would see the movie on the screen, the light on the projector, and then the beam of light going from the projector to the screen because it is bouncing off all of the dust particles in the room.

[OB1]

Here is a nifty little example for you guys to better explain what I'm talking about. Take a look at the logo.

[Private Hudson]

Hmm..

It appears I confused volumetric lighting, with various other volumetric effects that are (supposedly) in Halo.

Forget I said that part. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

ABF AND LL are right! No, they really are, they just misunderstood each other.

Here's the deal, yes it's quicker to load stuff from the HD than the disk, it always has been, but the HD is not nearly fast enough to do the computational work on it. It's put there so it can get into the RAM quicker, when it's needed, so that then the RAM can access it really fast when it's needed for data processing. RAM will ALWAYS be where all the data that needs to be processed is stored. Even standard cartridges just put stuff like sprites and such into the even faster RAM before processing it. Data loaded directly from the HD to be processed would chug along at an embaressing rate. Data loaded directly from the optical disk would chug along at an even slower rate.

Basically, all the machine ever sees is everything that's currently in RAM, it has to go and fetch the stuff on the HD or the disk before it can do anything with it. If it's not in RAM, it doesn't exist (well, they do know that it does exist, and where to find it, but it can't do anything to it until it goes into the RAM). So, why the HD? Well, it's quicker to dump and load stuff from that to the RAM than from the disk. RAM is the most important aspect for data access. The speed of the disc access and the HD access is all just to get the data into RAM faster. When you play a level in a game like Halo or Metroid Prime, you aren't seeing the data on the disks being used, you are seeing data on the RAM. In fact, you can remove disks (even the HD, if any system didn't have a constant check to make sure it's still there) and keep all of that out, and just play the game until more data is needed. You can't do that with the GCN or XBox because they both have methods to do a constant check to make sure the disk is there (pretty simple really, the second the tray is "open" the check has been accomplished), but the PS2 and PC doesnt' have such a check (unless it's built into the game) so often you can eject the disk, then use some potions or run around and kill something, all without any data needed from the disk. The exception to the rule is with "streaming data" where often data will actually bypass RAM and go to a small little "area" where it's dealt with and tossed very fast, such as straight audio like with a CD.

[Private Hudson]

^
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| Captain obvious.
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In case anyone is wondering.. it's pointing to Dark Jaguar.... stupid 20 posts per page...

[lazyfatbum]

What very few people know is that Halo came out 4 years ago on MAC under a different name from Bungie. Microsoft bought Bungie from MAC under a timed contract, desperately trying to find a killer app for their new toy. (Mac owners were pissed)

Presently, Halo is about to hit PC's and MAC's under the HALO name. However, Bungie will be selling the code to other devs who in turn will release Halo inspired games under different names. To the point of actually slapping some different art work on and calling it something other than Halo.

Now you know why Halo looks like ass compared to anything else on the XBox. All they did was take a 4 year old game and add some special effects here and there. I'll be playing the original MAC-made 'halo' this week so I can see what it's all about, i'll let you guys know how close it is to Halo (which is a rip off of PD).

[Dark Jaguar]

How is it a rip-off of Perfect Dark? Halo is a shoot them all until you get to the end of the level classic style FPS. Perfect Dark is a thoughtful objective based FPS where you must do many different things, most of them not requiring killing, and in fact many requiring NOT killing and instead sneaking, to reach the end of the mission, which is in different places depending on the order of the objectives you take. The only lacking in PD is really that the objectives don't update as you go along, so the second you start each mission you know all the twists the plot will take from the start.

Well, unless you were either joking (now that I think about it, that does sound just like you) or PD stands for something else...

[lazyfatbum]

You're right, but I was talking mostly about the game play mechanics and the multiplayer. Compare the 2 and you should see what I mean in those catafories. Halo seems like a slower version of PD.

[Private Hudson]

Halo was... not released under a different name.

It was in production for years, taking on different forms. It was originally going to be an FPS Deathmatch game, ala Quake 3, or Unreal Tournament. Are you saying this Mac game is a Deathmatch game?

Otherwise, it later evolved into a single player (haha, no sorry, I mean co-op) based game, but had to be rushed to make launch (hence the repetitive levels).

If it was simply porting code over, we wouldn't have had those problems.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, it was originally going to be multiplayer-focused... but then on X-Box they couldn't do that, so maybe the single player game was rushed some... but still it was very well done. I don't think I'd call it a direct Mac port... the game changed too much over time to say that... but a decendant of that original Mac game? Yes... still, I very much doubt that Halo will be coming out on other systems... though the possibility of Bungie somehow managing to get out the Halo engine for other developers to use on other platforms is interesting... if unlikely-sounding.

[OB1]

Actually Halo waas originally supposed to be more of an RTS-type game, and you weren't even supposed to be able to drive in any of the vehicles. It started out as a very ambitious game but then dwindled into a fairly formulatic FPS.

[A Black Falcon]

RTS? It started, I'm pretty sure, as a PC/Mac online-focused FPS... and it stayed that way until moved to X-Box... unless it was something before it was made a online-focused FPS? If so, I sure don't remember that...

[OB1]

It's all in the Halo commentaries on several OXM demo disks.

[WhiteFleck]

Okay OB1, here's what I meant: Halo was configured for the XBox, and the XBox's controller. The XBox's controller has more buttons than the GC's. They must consolidate.

And personally, I think the PS2 is the ideal controller for shooting.