Another Halo PC Review
Another promising Halo PC review is up over at DailyGame, it is pretty much positive on most notes, and gave Halo PC a 9.5 overall score. They say that the port was worth the 2 year wait. Check it out.
Death by intelligence.
Dangerously Dedicated... To Halo
Grenadiac over at HaloMods located a list of Halo's dedicated server commands over in the Gearbox forums. Killing went digging into the dedicated server package itself to find them and guess about their functions; there are slightly over twenty of them documented there.
GR Sends PC Halo To Front Of The Class
Game Revolution's Shawn Sanders has given the port of Halo to the PC an A- report card, citing superior controls on the PC and online support as reason enough to buy it.
No Points Off For Good Behavior?
Jake 'Evergreen98' Billo at The Junkyard has reviewed PC Halo and given it a 9.3; several points were deducted from a Perfect 10 to account for performance issues, authoritative server model... and a cardboard sleeve? Can't please everybody,I guess.
A Screenshot Is Worth A Thousand Words
Steve at Cortana.org took some PC Halo in-game screenshots and added them to their PC Halo gallery.
Chutes And Ladders
The Total Assault Gaming League has launched a ladder that supports Halo; they say they're the first such system, and who are we to argue? Their Halo ladder page also has some useful PC Halo info, such as how go gain access to the console and how to enable in-game screenshots. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.
Shacknews Opens Halo Reader Reviews; Early Results Disappointing
Louis Wu at HBO wrote that gaming site Shacknews now has added PC Halo to its list of games for which users can write reviews. So far there are three submitted there, and while the average result is "good", two reviewers were actually quite disappointed, and the third was upset that cooperative mode didn't make it in, although he generally likes the game on the PC. (Add us to that list of those missing coop mode, too.. although we're still holding out hope for a patch.)
Killtastic!
Got my copy of Halo for the PC the other day and have been playing for a while. Heard "Killtastic!" for the first time today from the game's announcer. That was pretty funny. I was attempting to take over the hill on "King of The Hill" and when I arrived at the hill on foot I saw maybe 6 or 7 enemies defending. Happily I had Invisibility, Shield, a handfull of grenades, and the Fuel Rod gun. Heh. When I gleefully unloaded on them with a big grin on my face I heard, "Double Kill!", "Triple Kill!", then "Killtastic!". What a riot.
First Halo Mod Available
Well, somebody has to be first, so this is it. A site called HaloBunker.net has a modified version of Blood Gulch, with some weapon and vehicle modifications (namely, the LAAG fires rockets) as well as some movies of the modded map in action. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.
Incidentally, that site is also running a contest, which ends October 10, on who can produce the "sickest" Halo PC desktop image. I think some of us here at Rampancy are too old to know what's meant by that.
What Do You Want In Sparkedit?
Halomods.com, the site that is home to the only currently-released (although unofficial) Halo map editing tool, Sparkedit, is running a poll on what new features users would like to see in the next version. Head over and vote if you're planning on editing Halo maps.
Thanks to Anonymous who pointed it out in our forum. If you're having trouble signing up and logging in (so we can credit you) drop me an email.
More On Half Life 2 Code Theft
Blue's News has linkage to Wired and BBC stories expanding on the story of the source code stolen from Valve by crackers, as well as word from Valve's own Gabe Newell, via Shacknews, on how the attackers gained entry. Apparently they used a remote administration tool as well as a few other things to gain access to their internal network over the Internet. They are still finding machines that have been compromised, and are also unsure about how the crackers gained access initially.
Half-Life 2 Source Code Stolen
Well, it was announced earlier today that Valve software's source code for Half-Life 2 was stolen.
"In a bit of shocking news, Valve recently confirmed rumors that a copy of the source code for Half-Life 2 has indeed been stolen. According to a preliminary report from Valve's Gabe Newell, hackers used flaws in Outlook Express to get into Valve's network and retrieve the code..."
Sure that may sound like good news to the people that say "0MG H4L0 2 PWNZ H4LF-LUFE!", but you must realize that things like this are not always good.
Patchmaker, Patchmaker Make Me A Patch
OK, sue me for re-using the same bad joke inside of a week. There's an old adage about blood and a stone that applies to the results.
Anyway, there is a hotfix-- ahem, I mean, patch, for PC Halo that brings it up to version 1.01. There's no list of changes with it, and apparently the auto-updating feature of the game will also retrieve this patch.
Blue's News and HBO have lists of mirrors for the patch.
Dedicated PC Halo Server Mirrored... Everywhere
We've added mirrors of the full PC Halo Dedicated Server (106 Mb) as well as the PC Halo Dedicated Server without maps (1.7 Mb) created by BOLL. HBO, as usual, has a list of all the mirrors and a mirror of the mirror list. Just a note; this is a pre-release version, so Louis Wu at HBO has warned to read the destructions carefully; thanks, Louis.
Users who download these files might want to drop in on Gearbox's forum for server administrators, also.
Both these files are also available via Hotline at RHL.
PC Halo Gets Mixed Reviews
PC Halo has been reviewed at: GamingNEXT, Telefragged, Gamers Depot, The Wargamer, GameSpot and GamePro. Thanks for heads-up to HBO and Blue's News. Some had issues with "old" graphics, others with framerates and... yes, you guessed it... repetitive level design. What do reviewers get for repetitive complaint design?