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loudpedal · Aug 24, 2001, 11:37 PM

Has anyone stopped by the Bungie.com website to check out Halo lately? Maybe this is old news for some, but I just went there for the first time in months (since I'm not planning to buy an Xbox). The look of the game has completely changed. Gone is the dark green and black camo. Hello bright green fancy suits. Tall, muscular Marines? Now mostly short fat little doughboys. Some of the aliens are now laughable little twits. The shadowing in some screen shots are nonexistant. They have that look like they are floating an inch above the sand. Really sad.

I've been a dungeon crawler since Wolfenstein and I'm not going to take on the role of a pretty boy now. I don't want my character to look like he's spent the past day sitting in a bunker polishing his armor, I want him to look like he's been crawling through the dirt in combat. The look of the original debut at Macworld had a much more pleasing effect. The aliens looked mean and the soldiers looked tough.

I'm afraid that the good folks at Bungie have been thrown into a situation where they have to develop a cutting-edge game on a platform that they don't understand that well. I just hope they didn't throw the original code away when the started the Xbox development.

LOUDpedal

rambo47 · Aug 25, 2001, 12:48 AM

Things went seriously downhill for Halo when Microsoft bought Bungie. The plan was to release Halo only on xbox at first, then possibly release other versions for Mac and PC. I'd guess the PC version will appear 6 months after xbox and the Mac version several monthes after that. Rumors point to tremendous compromises being made in Halo. The original promise of a "next generation" game is fading and it now looks like it will be another Quake or Unreal Tournament type shoot-em-up. Don't get me wrong, I love those games. It's just that we have been expecting something spectacular, mind-blowing, never before seen, and it sounds like were getting only "spiffy". Of course the only true test will be when Halo is finally released.

osiris · Aug 25, 2001, 01:37 AM

It brings a tear to my eyes thinking about that demo I saw years ago. Too bad Bungie got swallowed by the beast.

Scrod · Aug 25, 2001, 05:54 AM

THEY HAVE KILLED BUNGIE! MICROSOFT MUST DIE!

DIE, MICROSOFT, DIE!!!!

loudpedal · Aug 25, 2001, 07:58 PM

Well I'm glad it's not me...come to think of it, maybe I wish it was just me. I always loved Bungie as a game company. One of the few consistent supporters of the Mac. MS's well-documented desire to win at any cost has made it a loser yet again. I can only hope that either the Mac version of Halo will be much better than the Xbox version (although I don't know if MS would allow that) or the movies shown so far has given some other game company an idea to do a Halo-like game and release it for Mac.

Daishi · Aug 28, 2001, 10:32 PM

I've given up sweating Halo. I'm pumped about EVN (which is coming real soon!), WCIII (which should be out as the EVN addiction fades) and whenever Halo comes out, I'll give it a shot. There's still some life in Bungie, and I'll be waiting to see if it surfaces.

Plus, I don't think it's ever fair to judge a game by the preview. Only the game itself is really a viable option for judging it. (I'm pumped about the other two games for historical reasons.)