First Impressions: Halo PC

[WarLocke]

Performance update: I was turned onto a command-line option (-use11) that forces Halo to use older pixel shaders (1.1 instead of the default 2.0) which really improved my performance. Up until I met the Flood I was running smooth as silk.

Speaking of the Flood, here's a short story of how I met them (with a little help from my library of emotes):

I was walking through this base, see, and I found an abandoned marine combat helmet (among other things); the Master-Chief pulls out its (convenient) little vidcam and watches the marine's last moments (I'm leaving out specifics to try not to spoil anything, here). At this point, I'm thinking... ?

Then, of course, I get to met them in person. Despite having seen footage of them already, I wasn't prepared for the Flood (pretty much literally, too). I nearly wet myself - !

So I'm trapped in this smallish room, with these... things pouring in from at least 3 entrances, every one of em wanting to eat my head. It was just too much...

Finally though, I figure out how to take the things out. They're god-awful numerous, but dumb as bricks. For the rest of the area I'm just 'in the zone'.

In a nutshell, Halo is just (I guess I say that alot, huh?) - heck, don't even get me started on Guilty Spark! "Why did you bring such inneffective weapons to deal wih the Flood?" indeed; the darn thing had the nerve to hum to itself while I was reliving Night of the Living Dead!


Edit: Holy crap I just finished the game. The last bit was extreme (and that's an understatement). Although, I nearly ran out of time because I suck at driving. I think I had 38 seconds left when the cutscene started. :blink:

Man, I'm gonna have to do this again (and on something harder than Easy, tho slowdowns make for an unfun handicap). I want to drive that tank again. B)

Still, I wonder where Halo gets its light from. Unlike a 'real' ringworld, it doesn't encircle a sun (which is the whole point of a ringworld, it can absorb millions of times more radiant energy than a planet - basically a bargain-bin Dyson Shere) and if it was rotating/spinning/tumbling as fast as it seemed to be on the title screen (or in the control room, actually) why weren't the stars visibly moving during gameplay?

Heh, now I know why it was such a big deal back when it was first released. B)