AN: I was originally going to post this under the Bungie forums for Halo, but it wouldn’t let me post because I’m not a Destiny player. Figured it was worth a shot here.
I know this likely won’t be viewed, but it’s a combination of a review for Halo CE (PC) and Halo 2 Vista, as well as one major complaint for Bungie/Microsoft
So, over the past several weeks I’ve been exploring these two games. I had played CE on the original Xbox and a combination of the bulky controller and lack of interest was enough to stop halfway through. I own all the halo games with the exclusion of the Xbox One standalones and the CE Anniversary edition, as I only have a PC, Xbox Original, and an Xbox 360.
First off, Halo CE runs like a champ, even on my crappy spec laptop (I’ll be sure to list the specs at the end), If I wanted to, I could even play with a 360 Controller, which I did for my first play through, and than I moved onto mouse and keyboard. I didn’t have any complaints, I even enjoyed the graphics and control set-up (Of course you can customize these too). Now, one complaint is that if I hand’t done research first, I wouldn’t have known to download the Software Patch (However there isn’t much you can do about that as Halo CE doesn’t have automatic updates). Halo PC/CE 1.0.10 now available > All Topics | Forums | Bungie.net
I did not see any of the issues people had previously complained about and I was exhilarated to know bungie hadn’t forgotten about it’s early games.
Halo 2 I had a similar issue with, where gameplay was far better than expected (Likely due to the automatic soft-patch done by the same member of bungie who fixed CE) but I’d never have gotten there if I didn’t look around first. Games for Windows Live is shut down, and in order to run Halo 2 you have to download Microsoft’s free standalone copy to run games that require a login. http://www.xbox.com/en-IE/Live/PC/DownloadClient
Halo 2 did not have ANY of the original issues that gamers were complaining about during the initial release, and the soft-patch actually made the game extremely fun… However, here’s a major problem with Halo 2. Because work on things like the aforementioned patches are so rarely known about, it hasn’t received a lot of hype or support except for the few who stuck with the forums and servers since the beginning. You cannot buy a new copy of Halo 2 anywhere, (Well not unless you want to spend close to $100 on a collector’s game) yet you can buy a copy of Halo CE directly from the Microsoft Store http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Halo-Combat-Evolved-PC-Game/productID.253659000
How is this in any way fair? And Microsoft nor Bungie (From what I’ve heard) no longer supports Halo 2 and will no longer provide product keys for purchased games (I already own the disk but ran out of my limited 5 uses of the product key because I bought it used). I have heard, (So this is just conjecture on my part), that it was largely dropped because of complaints about how it was poorly ported and nothing like CE. As someone who has played the game with these patches I can tell you that is no longer the case.
I have several friends who I’ve introduced the game to, and they were interested in getting the game. But with no active key the software is useless, which is unnerving because I’m willing to buy just the product keys from bungie or Microsoft because I’m sure neither company would want to waste resources to produce whole disks for such an old game. (Which makes me nervous/wonder if I can back up my games on an external hard drive, and if it would do anything? I mean could I even find valid copies anymore??)
This is something I have seen several times over on the Halo section of the forums, and unfortunately it’s forcing people to illegally download keys of internet websites because they can’t buy one from the manufacturer. Personally, I would like to see Bungie or Microsoft sell digital copies of these games with the patches included in the download. One of the nicest features of these games (Both CE and 2) is that they do not require the disk to run them after installation.
Computer Specs
Operating System: Windows 10 (Home)
Processor: AMD A6-5200 APU with Radeon™ HD Graphics (4 CPUS)
Clockrate: 2.00 GHz
RAM: 4Gb (3.45 Gb usable)
DirectX Version: 12
System Model: HP Notebook
-I believe the only time I saw lag was when I had the game windowed with an HDMI hooked up (It has to be windowed when an HDMI is connected or it crashes), and it was an easy fix via video settings.-
-Also, I would like to say thank you to Bungie for putting the time and effort into patching these games. I just wish I could actually buy them.
-This is Bungie’s Fan-run FAQ and tech-issue link, Sawnose is actually a bungie team member though and he was moderating it for a while. Made the patches too from what I can tell. Bungie.net