Halo 2
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Lots of videoplayers and PC users took in consideration the passing to the new Microsoft operative system, Windows Vista. We've been often discouraged by sentences such as ?no software you got is compatible?, ?nor your devices?, and most important thing (at least for us) ?there are no games born for Windows Vista?. And here we are, ready to disprove this myth by another mythic title, Halo 2. Presented in 2004, very soon this game became the best shooter game moreover for Xbox console and highly increased Microsoft sells (as if they needed it). Today, after 3 long years, we've been honored to test the PC version, considered one of the first games compatible for Vista ever sold. Obviously we need to consider that playing Halo 2 today having already tasted new shooters' quality is not exalting, but it always remains a game with a certain fashion, moreover for the homesick. Now let's start analyzing the game. The single player mode isn't particularly long, you'll take 10-12 hours about to end it by using the default level. You'll soon wear Master Chief's shoes, a brave marine who, in the first episode, annihilated Halo's ring, a destroying galaxies-annihilating machine, hedged as a relic by the Covenant alien race. The plot of the second episode sees Covenant managing another ring called Delta Halo. This time, inside the several Covenant races, there are some real feuds you can use at your own advantage (for example you can walk unseen during the battles between different races). Besides the fact that the game is short we've noted a repetition of scenes with few differences: especially corridors and enemies. End-level bosses and the use of vehicles at our disposal may have been interesting innovations in 2004 but now we can note how they could be got better. The multiplayer mode of Halo 2 is the best part of the game and, still now, with its perfect porting to the PC, makes the game absorbing. The game supports up to 16 players. Halo 2 reveals, always in the multiplayer mode, a more tactic than ?shoot 'em up? game. For example to pass the most hostile enemies, you'll have to perfectly know your arsenal. Differently, in fact, despite your shields (their energy shortly lasts and you need time to fully recharge them) you'll be soon annihilated, moreover if you stay exposed for too long. You can select many game modes and each of these works on the 23 included maps. There are the usual deathmatch modes (here called slayer), capture the flag, team slayer, etc and each of these has some variants, such as shottysnipers, that limits the arsenal of each player to one shotgun and one sniper, or rockets, which is the slayer mode played only with rocket-launchers. As it is a Windows marked game, obviously Halo 2 has the full support for the Xbox 360 controller (including the force feedback). Anyway it can be easily played by keyboard and mouse but, using the controller increases the playable level. Halo 2 is the first game to be able to enter Xbox live by a two-level support: silver level, a totally free level, and gold level, a pay-per-play one. The game is sold together with a month of free gold account and if you already got an account for your Xbox you can log in with your old username and password. In the console version the difference between silver and gold was clear and necessary: if you're a silver user you can't play online, but you're a gold one, you can. Obviously this difference couldn't be make brought to the PC version, where multiplayer is free for all the games. So Microsoft introduced some differences: silver users can enter online servers only by the server browser, while gold one can also use the ?quick match? button to enter the game in a fast way (even if most of the times this button addresses you to an empty server) and the achievements can be got only by a gold account. If you have a previous Xbox account, these achievements will be added to the old ones. In both the versions you can use the headset for the vocal chat and this is a good feature. The game view is not one of the best ones but you need to remember that we're analyzing a game which was created in 2004. Anyway we can see how the texture quality is much better than the Xbox version, all of this is due to the support for the antialiasing and the higher resolution of 1680x1050. So, by a medium hardware, you'll be able to run this game in a very good way; better in the single player mode, as multiplayer one requests for more resources. While the Xbox version of Halo 2 held a certain fame during these 3 years, installing this game in its PC version, it's not a great experience nowadays. Anyway, the old-green- pants lovers will surely appreciate this title. To try. |
FrancescoPontillo - 27/07/2007
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Title: Universe At War: Earth Assault
Platform: PC
Release date: January 2008
Genre: Strategy
Author: zsinger
Vote: 7.6
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Universe at War: Earth appears to be, at first sight, an attempt to deliver and old style RTS game, with some innovations. Petroglyph developers have introduced three new alien races, two of which never seen before in RTS gaming.
Plot
“And the earth stands on the brink of destruction…” it’s the year 2012 and the alien forces called The Hierarchy have descended upon the planet earth destroying everything in their path. As human force prepare for strikes back, a new mysterious alien force arrives: the Novus. Novus are sentient machines whose only will is to destroy their nemesis, The Hierarchy. .... |
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