Rampancy

Two years ago, Microsoft's Xbox console debuted with its first must-have game, "Halo: Combat Evolved."

That's the opening line of Associated Press writer Matt Slagle's review of Halo for the PC, appearing now in Yahoo News and, no doubt, in newspapers around the country. Those two years might have been used garnering information pertinent and useful for writing a review of Halo (or indeed for any computer game). Sadly, Mr. Slagle seems to have been doing something else with his time.

The review ranges from the merely inaccurate...

You play as Master Sergeant, an armor-clad space marine in the crosshairs of a war with an advanced collective of aliens called The Covenant.

Master Chief, guy. Look, it's even got fewer letters! It's easier to type than Sergeant!

... to the glib...

I can't remember the last time an action game had me checking my watch so often.

... to the insulting...

After all, the Xbox is essentially a mid-range PC wrapped inside a black plastic case. Perhaps Microsoft didn't want to crimp sales of its marquee Xbox game. Whatever the reason, Halo on the PC is too little, too late.

The Xbox's processor and hard drive might qualify it as "mid-range", but its GPU is not-- and certainly was not when it was launched a full two years ago.

... and finally the contradictory...

For owners of extremely fancy, high-end computers costing thousands of dollars, Halo's graphics are sure to dazzle.

Hold on a second here. At first, the author wonders why Halo took "so long" to come to the PC, since the Xbox is basically a "midrange" PC, and then he complains that the system requirements are too high, because most users don't have the horsepower to see the dazzling graphics?

Here's a clue, Mr. Slagle. The Xbox version was for those people. The PC version is basically for people with high-end computers costing "thousands" of dollars. (Last time I checked, almost all the computers worth having cost "thousands of dollars". If your budget runs more to the "hundreds of dollars" range, and you want to play Halo, buy an Xbox.

And for you, dear readers? Well, if anyone else feels like (politely, please) letting Mr. Slagle feel that he was perhaps ill-prepared to produce this review, then perhaps sending him a nice email would do the trick.

Have a nice day!

Thanks to GlennKM in the HBO forum who pointed out this review.

UPDATE: Shishka, over at HBO, noted that he emailed Slagle, who said a corrected article has been submitted. No note of what (other than the Master Sergeant flub) would be changed. At this moment, the original article is still available.

John Petrick at AEG, a company that seems to be doing PR for Microsoft's game studios, sent us an email that mentioned SketchFactor's post at Bungie.net that the new Halo client patch v.102 needed to connect to the Dedicated Server v. 1.02 released yesterday is now available; there's also a Performance FAQ (downloadable RTF) for those inclined to read such things. The FAQ, along with another note, was put together by Michael Bastien of Gearbox.

UPDATE: An HTML version of the PC Performance FAQ is now up at Bungie.net. There's also a new PC Halo Forum, called The Maw. (Of course, there are already other sites called that.. but hey.)

HBO also notes (thanks again Louis Wu) that if you don't like the GameSpy matchmaking interface, there is an alternative that some like better, although it isn't free. It's called The All Seeing Eye, and it supports CounterStrike, Quake 3 Arena, BF1942, and now Halo. There's a 21-day trial and the price is $10 per year or $30 for a lifetime (assuming the business lasts as long as you do; the service has been around now for over 2 years).

Reppyboyo mentioned that Halo support had been added in the Gearbox forum; there's no official note on the All Seeing Eye's site; in addition, you have to set your default scanner in All Seeing Eye to the Finland 2.0 beta test scanner to see Halo servers.

Found another review of Halo PC it is mostly positive and says "...this is the game you want to own.", the review is found on a risque website that does contain nudity and adult material, so stay away minors. On another note Narcogen is sure that he's read this or something similar posted earlier. Check it out, if yer old enough here.