Sign In. Home Discussions Workshop Market Broadcasts. Change language. Install Steam. Your Store Your Store. Categories Categories. Special Sections. Player Support. Community Hub. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. Xbox Game Studios. Recent Reviews:. All Reviews:. Popular user-defined tags for this product:. Is this DLC relevant to you? Sign In or Open in Steam. When they do appear, they provide a real tactical element, adding another option to what is already a very open approach to battle.
Taking on a big fight with a hovercraft will be very different than going in with a rocket launcher or a sniper rifle. Saving is restricted to checkpoints, but you can save as many as you like whereas you had a limit on the Xbox. At least the real reason for its PC incarnation, the online mode, is very playable and provides as much vehicle-use as you could want.
And with those PC heavyweights just around the corner and Halo 2 scheduled for spring next year on Xbox, this could soon become little more than an also-ran. Even if it is a very good one. The only modes worth bothering with are the team ones, since Solo Deathmatch is like a less fun version of Quake III: Team Arena, until people get into vehicles, when it just becomes a bit of a mess. Get a team behind you though, and driving while someone else controls the gun-turret or co-ordinating flying attacks turns out to be a blast.
It's well past midnight. I've just staggered out of the offices on to the cold, rain-spattered London streets after a post-work Halo online multiplayer session, a big stupid grin plastered across my face.
Bleary-eyed and haunted by images of plasma weapon blasts, flame-thrower assaults and four-wheeled vehicles slamming ragdoll bodies against walls, I reckon tonight has been one of the most enjoyable evening's gaming I've had for a long time.
Developer Gearbox has taken over a year to take Bungie's groundbreaking Xbox version and mould it into an online PC title, but it's been worth the wait. President Randy Pitchford and his Texas team have used their extensive knowledge to ensure that Halo lines up comfortably alongside other popular online multiplayer heavyweights. Halo on PC retains all the multiplayer options from the Xbox - apart from the co-operative Story mode - and adds six hot new maps for a total of 19 , one new vehicle the three-man missile-firing Rocket Warthog buggy and, best of all, two brand new weapons - the flamethrower and the fuel-rod gun.
An update is supposedly being worked on to add this absolutely vital element back to the game, but it really should have been there from the start. Each new level offers different experiences, encouraging you to use certain weapons and vehicles for tactical superiority. For example, Gephyrophobia takes place on a bridge over a huge chasm and has ledges on either side for sniping from distance, but with the Banshee flying attack vehicles dominating from above. Or there's Timberland, an open level with hills, trees and a river that's ideal for manic tank battles.
Or there's Ice Fields, a snow-covered level that's awesome for skidding around in Warthogs, and is as playable in Race mode as it is in a Slayer deathmatch. Although Gearbox provides gamers with a multitude of game types, the big pull is the customisable Create-Your-Own mode.
You can set one life per game, include a set of the meatiest weapons for UT-style carnage or even add vehicles to Xbox maps - having Banshee dogfights high above the infamous Blood Gulch level for the first time is an experience to be savoured.
Halo's key is the exquisite balancing on display, with each vehicle and weapon having advantages and disadvantages. You can pound numerous poor souls into submission using the Scorpion tank, but the slow-moving behemoth is extremely vulnerable to plasma mortars and rocket launchers. Flamethrowers are useful in tightly-packed corridors, but out in the open, the poor range makes you an easy target for snipers. As Halo multiplayer doesn't involve the high-speed twitchgaming prevalent in games like Quake III, this admirable fine-tuning has paid off with gameplay that requires more tactics and skill.
It's not as team-dependent as Battlefield or PlanetSide, but you cant deny it's huge fun. Solo Slayer games deathmatches are insanely enjoyable - especially in small levels where your default weapon is the rocket launcher -but Team Slayer and Capture The Flag is where the real fun's at. Although Gearbox and Bungie have set the maximum player limit at 16, eight versus eight will provide enough non-stop hectic action for most gamers.
There's a real thrill in jumping in a Warthog buggy with two other team-mates, one mounting the gun on the back and one filing a weapon in the passenger seat, as you take the wheel and bounce merrily over the terrain towards fortified enemy positions. In one particularly intense Team Slayer game, I had a race on with a rival player for a Banshee that another player had just crashed into the ground.
Just beating them to the ship, I then managed to take off turn the craft around and plough it at full speed into his helpless body, killing him instantly -beyond magnificent. Comparing Halo with other current online favourites is tricky because it doesn't really have the tactical finesse of Battlefield or the sophistication of PlanetSide, but for sheer no-nonsense fun and laugh-out-loud hilarity, nothing else can ahem kiss its ring had to get it in, folks.
One other major criticism is that you do need a very high-spec PC and a broadband connection to enjoy games without annoying slowdown and lag, but patch updates should mean the network code -completely written from scratch for the PC version - should improve with every new version.
Plus, Gearbox has already pledged its support for the online community with free tutorials and mod kits to follow very soon, ensuring that Halo really will shine brightly online.
It's typical of the kind of admiration Halo inspires, and just one reason why, nearly two years after the game first appeared on Xbox, gamers are still clamouring to get their hands on a proper, PC-optimised version of the classic shooter. A small team at Gearbox has jeen working on Halo for a solid year now, painstakingly re-making the game from Bungie's Xbox code, collaborating closely with the original developer to make sure, in Pitchford's words, "that we don't screw it up".
The process is nearly complete. The new multiplayer modes and maps are in, the graphics have been overhauled, the gameplay sharpened. And now, confident that they have not, in fact, screwed it up, Randy's letting us play it. For any hermit-like gamers out there who haven't had the opportunity to play the Xbox's best game, Halo is an FPS set on a colossal and mysterious ring-shaped world, casting you as a super-soldier fighting hordes of alien Covenant.
When it was released to launch the Xbox in , it immediately staked a claim to the title of best console shooter ever. Back then, it had graphics to match any PC game, along with an enthralling sci-fi plot, superb human and alien weaponry, fantastic vehicles, and, as Randy says, some hugely impressive troop and enemy Al.
Bungie also innovated in several areas of the genre, only allowing your character to carry two weapons at any time, thus forcing you to make strategic decisions on the fly.
Halo introduced the idea of a gradually recharging shield, a superb convention that added tension as you skulked in the darkness praying that your personal force field would power-up before the next wave of aliens attacked. Plus there were the vehicles, which handled beautifully due to the game's excellent physics model. You could skid around the varied terrain in your three-man Warthog buggy, climb inside a massive Scorpion tank and pound the enemy from afar, or even commandeer the Covenant alien vehicles like the Ghost hover-ship and the Banshee flying attack craft.
With Gearbox's intervention, the single-player game on PC now supports the latest video cards, running up to a resolution of x Mouse and keyboard support goes without saying, as does a proper quicksave function, but Gearbox has also tweaked the gameplay ever so slightly, taking the best bits of the Xbox PAL and NTSC versions of Halo to make the definitive version.
For example, the sniper rifle, always a favourite, has the less extreme European 8x zoom, rather than the USA's original 10x zoom. Halo's multiplayer modes on Xbox were also great, but completely offline - to play with or against friends you all had to cram around the TV like laboratory animals or create a crude network by painstakingly connecting several Xboxes together. Gearbox believes it is about to deliver the ultimate Halo multiplayer experience, with a host of original and new multiplayer modes, maps, vehicles and weapons - all playable with up to 16 players over LAN or Internet.
Online multiplayer is a vital part of this product. For existing fans of the game, you'll be glad to hear that all the maps and modes from the original Halo are still in the game. So you'll be able to enjoy King of the Hill, Slayer deathmatch , Oddball future sport , CTF and Race on levels such as the infamous Blood Gulch, which featured two bases at either end of an open battlefield. But it's new content that we're really concerned with, and of this there's no shortage.
For starters, there are six additional maps designed to cover as many different kinds of multiplayer mayhem as possible. Ice Fields is a snowy map that's as fun in Race as in CTF, causing any vehicles to skid around hopelessly on its frozen surfaces, whereas Timberland is a very open level with lots of cover -perfect for tank combat.
Gephyrophobia 'fear of bridges' is hugely playable and takes place on a central bridge with sniper platforms on either side - great when you take control of the aerial Banshee and swoop down between the struts to pick off any enemy soldiers below.
Also new is Death Island, a variation on the Silent Cartographer level in Halo, which kicks off with a dramatic Private Ryan-styie beach-landing among dozens of aggressive Covenant troops.
Then there's Danger Canyon, which has a nasty L-shape in the middle allowing you to launch a major assault without the enemy spotting your approach. Finally, there's Infinity, which is a large figure-of-eight that Pitchford says was inspired by a childhood toy called Criss Cross Crash, where vehicles can race around the loop before smashing dramatically into each other in the middle.
Crucially, Gearbox has added full vehicle support to all these maps, as well as introducing a new Rocket Launcher Warthog - a buggy packing explosive missiles for powerful long-range strikes.
But we reckon the biggest thrill for Halo fanatics will be the chance to unleash the firepower of two brand new weapons - the flamethrower and the Fuel Rod Gun. The flame-thrower was something that Bungie has wanted to include in Halo, but didn't have the time to implement. Pitchford and his team have made sure that this new weapon hurts big time, so just a few bursts of flame will toast any troops nearby in seconds.
It works a treat and is great in confined spaces, but is balanced by its range - wielding a flame-thrower makes you hugely vulnerable to snipers. The Fuel Rod Gun is basically a huge mortar, pumping out devastating plasma shells that can be fired far into the distance. The coward in us had a great time with this weapon when we tried a multiplayer match, as it allows you to stand at the back and shell enemy positions while your teammates surge forward.
Both weapons are a hugely welcome addition, offering many new possibilities for team tactics in multiplayer games. Throw in the fact that you can now take command of many more vehicles on all the maps, and you can have battles that are more intense than UT If there's something we don't like, we're not afraid to say it. On top of all the gameplay tweaks and additions, the enhanced graphics make a massive difference. All the latest whiz-bang bump-mapping and specular lighting techniques are in place, at resolutions that offer 1, times more pixels than the original game.
It's like having a new pair of glasses after years of looking through broken Coke bottles. If there's any remaining worries about Halo on PC, it's that the slightly slower pace of the game may frustrate hardcore shooter fans, and the notable lack of a co-op campaign mode so superb on the Xbox could significantly weaken the package.
However, having spent some time playing the game in an all-but-complete state, there's little doubt in our minds that Halo is absolutely still worth playing on PC. With Bungie's groundbreaking creation finally playable online, including new maps, weapons and vehicles, Halo PC could be every bit the classic we've been hoping for.
Set on a strange ring-world, you play the part of a human recon soldier who wages a one-man war against an alien race. It may sound like your usual run-of-the-mill plot but, believe us, Halo promises to be something very special indeed. The main reason for our enthusiasm is the inclusion of a graphics and physics engine of the kind we have literally never seen before. Every vehicle in the game of which there are loads - including flying and driving moves in such a realistic way, you can't even tell that they're computer-generated models.
We watched a running demo and it was like watching a film. There's still plenty of work to do, but rest assured - Halo is one game we will be keeping a very close eye on.
There were three two-hour long queues at E3 this year: one for the shitter; one snaking around the Microsoft stand to snatch a peak at Microsoft's X-Box console; and the other camped around the Bungie booth, with people waiting patiently to see the third-person game Halo in action. The difference between the latter two queues was that while the line for X-Box was filled with Satan-worshipping marketing types, those encamped around the Bungie stand were predominantly games developers, curious as to what all the fuss is about - the people in the know, basically.
Being awarded VIP status and herded around the back, we were able to jump the line and sneak in through a secret entrance to take all the best seats.
The presentation, although brief, certainly had impact. Action Adventure Open World Shooting. ELEX Free Download, is a handcrafted action role-playing experience from the award-winning creators of the Gothic series, set in a brand new post-apocalyptic Science Fantasy universe that puts players into a huge seamless game world full of original characters, mutated creatures, deep moral choices and powerful action.
Game Details. Action Shooting. Microsoft Studios. Join our Discord. We also added the patch to update the game to version 2. Install the game, then install the patch and enter the serial. It will allows to play Halo on your Mac in multiplayer mode, and install mods. Review by: Manu Published: 23 March am.
Halo MD for Mac - multiplayer mini versions of Halo with mods 1. I'm using OS X Yosemite If you want to play Halo, don't upgrade to Catalina. Alternatively you can install a Windows 98 in a virtual machine using VirtualBox on your Mac.
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