- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Coming from Uncle Bapa, I'd say it is a very poor port. Fun, but pretty poor.
I don't go for the "by today's FPS standards blah blah blah "... "the graphics are out-dated blah blah blah" crap. But I'll be honest, it can be very fun at times. Remember how, when Halo 2 was new, you used to play customs all the time? And it was FUN?
Well, that's what Halo 2 Vista is like. In Halo 2 for the Xbox, you're stuck in matchmaking, and if a game sucks, you'll have to quit and look a game. And even if you join a custom game, if it sucks, chances are nobody else is hosting a good custom. But in Halo 2 Vista, if a game sucks, or you're just not having fun, you can just quit, and find another game. Simple as that.
But this game does have some horrible performance problems. Notably, this "mouse lag" everyone's being talking about. It detracts so much from the game, it's sometimes unplayable. You try to aim, and it takes a split-second to actually move. It may not seem that but, but when sniping, or when you're SMG dueling against another persona and you don't know where they are, you're screwed. But, to be honest, most of the people that have this mouse lag are usually people with crappy PCs, or are just stupid and don't know how to adjust some settings for their card. And may I say that I've seen cases where people with even hgh-end PCs have this problem, but those are probably few and far between methinks. Also, people have noted that when they run it on XP, the mouse-lag problem is eliminated.
And this game has some very inconsistent framerates at times. I'm sure it's very good on top-of-the-line PCs, but on an average PC, not so much. The framerates are never solid, and this game is a HUGE RAM whore. If you have 1 gig, that's barely enough. In order for me to actually play this game without freezing, or just having a framerate of 1 or 2 frames per second, I have to nearly shut down all my applications, and disable my theme from Window Aero, to either Basic or Windows Classic. All I know is you can't run it on Aero.
Also, the browse menu thingy is laggy as hell, it takes like 3 seconds for a game filter to finish adjusting, or a few moments for the thing to change when you hover your mouse over it. For some reason, the main menu and guide runs like crap. This isn't the most hardware intensive game, but even games like Shadowrun, the guide and main menu is buttery smooth.
I also have to run this game on the the lowest resolution possible, no anti-aliasing, the lowest texture/detail setting, and even go to the Nvidia control panel and change it from quality to best performance (that made a notable difference, though), and it still runs pretty poorly. But what can I say? On the Games for Windows website, it says the minimum is all the way on the left side of the bar (red), and my PC is aaaaaaaall the way on the right side of the bar (green). Yes, this website says my system is not capable of properly running Halo 2. I only have 64 MB of dedicated VRAM, when the game requires at least 128 MB of VRAM. So clearly, something is amiss.
Then again, I have a pretty poor video card, an Nvidie GeForce 6200 TC (Turbo Cache), so uhh, I shouldn't really complain. Basically, if you don't have a smokin' hot PC, with plenty of RAM and a video card between the lines of above-above-average, and SMOKIN' FREAKIN' HAWT, you can forget about playing this game with no mouse lag, good and consistent framerates, and hi-res textures. I mean, just look at this Epic Fail of a PC trying to run Shadow run :(. But don't confused with H2V running like craptacular crap it's unplayable. By all means, it is playable, but can under perform sometimes that can make it frustrating. But it is quite playable, actually.
Also, I've heard cases of where people get blue screens when they try to install it, or bugs where it stops you in the middle of campaign and tells you to put in the disk. And other such problems. In any case, just don't use Tray and Play, that feature is garbage.That pretty much covers the bad stuff (finally).
From the looks of it, this looks really bad, but let me get to the good stuff: Like I said, this game can be very very fun at times. It's just like when Halo 2 was new and all you did was play custom games... but better. I'd almost think the new hi-res graphics, and the awesome, crisp sound would be enough to warrant a buy. Being able to go to and from matches you don't like kicks ass. AND, you can disable sound completely so you don't have to listen to a-holes. You can even choose to disable text if you don't wish to read what they say.
May I add that dedicated servers friggen' awesome. So, there's a lot less lag, and nobody has host advantage anymore. One quip I have is that after a game finishes, and the server is counting down before starting another game, ONE asshas to keep on delaying the game over and over and over. It's incredibly annoying.
All in all, I would say this game isn't really worth it. I don't mind that it's a nearly 3 year old game (most reviewers base this game on today's FPS standards, like graphics, rather than gameplay), but when you look at it... it's just Halo 2, with nothing new except just a server browser and Achievements. Considering it's $60 pricetag (here in Canada, at least), it's certainly not worth it. Perhaps if it was like $20 - $40 like Halo PC, then it would warrant a buy. If you're a hardcore Halo fan or just have money laying around, I'd say it'd be worth it. But not by much.
But I can't really complain. I got it for free. As a gift... from the Internet.