A GAME WITH HUGE POTENTIAL, BUT WITH A LACKLUSTER PC-PORT!

TL,DR: So why do I still recommend this game? Because even if it is filled with minor, yet somewhat annoying, flaws, most of the things I've listed above can (if they want to) be fixed with patches and updates. The game to its core is still solid, even if it is not a perfect experience on PC. But mostly, buy this game so we hopefully can get more Halo-games to PC.


Let's be honest here: I bought this game for one reason only: To try to vote with my wallet and show Microsoft that we want ALL Halo-games to PC. I even paid the "full price", whereas I usually would have waited for some kind of sale for an old game like this.


Now, as I write this "review" I have only played the tutorial of the game. I have watched the cutscenes from this game many times over but never been able to play it as I have never owned an Xbox 360. So instead of giving a deep analysis of the game, here are a few things I have noticed in my first 60 minutes or so:


- The in-game cutscenes (not the pre-rendered ones) are stuck in some weird 30 fps interpolation. The game displays 60 fps (according to the fps counter), but it lags/jitters just like the game would at 30 fps. As soon as the cut-scene is over it is butter-smooth again.

- The game does NOT like if you run your system audio in 192 khz. It creates a lot of static noise and crackeling. Taking the quality down to 96 khz fixes these issues. Not a biggie, but I would prefer a fix for this. Annoying to have to change audio settings everytime I open this game

- People say this is an "excellent" port for PC and I highly have to disagree:

1) The UI-scaling is too big and the field of view is too narrow. It feels like I'm looking at a sub-FullHD game upscaled to 1440p, rather than actually looking at something that is 1440p. I kinda expect that for the game though, as it is a X360-port. But I think it should be mentioned. I just can't help the feeling that I would like to zoom the camera out more than is currently possible.

EDIT: I now found out how to zoom in/out with the camera. But I still feel it would be nice to be able to zoom out even further.

2) Keybinding is limited... Seriously! Whichever company that was responsible for porting this game; SHAME ON YOU! Why on Earth did you decide it would be a good idea to make some actions re-mappable, and some locked down? E.g. You have specific buttons for rotating the camera left/right, but they are locked to buttons "delete" and "insert". Like WTF???? There is NO - and I really mean it - NO reason for locking down key-bindings on a PC-port.

3) Camera-movement is way too aggressive. Clicking any of the WASD-buttons moves the camera way too agressively and quickly to either direction. This is a direct result of poorly ported controls from an analogue stick input to keyboard controls. On Xbox 360 you can easily decide how fast the camera moves with the joysticks, but on a keyboard it is 100 % speed from the get-go. The same goes for rotating the camera. Not only must you hold ALT + Mouse movement Left/right to rotate the camera, but also here it activates 100 % movement; like mouse input would be either ON or OFF, and not speed dependent. FIX THIS PLEASE! Lower the speed of the camera.

- When grouping units, why the frack is there no group-indicator or number indicator so I would know which key I binded which group to? This again feels like a rushed over-sight: "Yes, we must add grouping, because all RTS-games on PC has it! But don't bother adding any indicator. They won't need that!"


So is there anything good about this game? Probably YES. Probably everything that was great about it already on Xbox - I will see when I progress in the game. I'm mostly complaining about PC-port-specific issues. But the point is: Even if it was great on Xbox 360 with the mechanics it had there, it might not be up to snuff for PC as the mechanics we are used to on this platform is vastly different; RTS was born on PC, so we expect a bit more from an RTS title in terms of how to control things. On Xbox (or any console) I think this is one of the only RTS-games that has ever been released, so the stakes are also much lower. I've also seen other reviews complaining about localized/region locked multi-player. I don't know, but if those claims are true, then STOP IT MS! STOP IT! Global matchmaking please!

So why do I still recommend this game? Because even if it is filled with minor, yet somewhat annoying, flaws, most of the things I've listed above can (if the devs want to) be fixed with patches and updates. The game to its core is still solid, even if it is not a perfect experience on PC. But mostly, buy this game so we hopefully can get more Halo-games to PC. But if you are a hardcore PC-RTS-gamer, this game might put you off just because of those odd choices when it comes to controlling the game mechanics and the camera.

[b]A GAME WITH HUGE POTENTIAL, BUT WITH A LACKLUSTER PC-PORT![/b] [i][b]TL,DR:[/b] So why do I still recommend this game? Because even if it is filled with minor, yet somewhat annoying, flaws, most of the things I've listed above can (if they want to) be fixed with patches and updates. The game to its core is still solid, even if it is not a perfect experience on PC. But mostly, buy this game so we hopefully can get more Halo-games to PC.[/i] Let's be honest here: I bought this game for one reason only: To try to vote with my wallet and show Microsoft that we want ALL Halo-games to PC. I even paid the "full price", whereas I usually would have waited for some kind of sale for an old game like this. Now, as I write this "review" I have only played the tutorial of the game. I have watched the cutscenes from this game many times over but never been able to play it as I have never owned an Xbox 360. So instead of giving a deep analysis of the game, here are a few things I have noticed in my first 60 minutes or so: - The in-game cutscenes (not the pre-rendered ones) are stuck in some weird 30 fps interpolation. The game displays 60 fps (according to the fps counter), but it lags/jitters just like the game would at 30 fps. As soon as the cut-scene is over it is butter-smooth again. - The game does NOT like if you run your system audio in 192 khz. It creates a lot of static noise and crackeling. Taking the quality down to 96 khz fixes these issues. Not a biggie, but I would prefer a fix for this. Annoying to have to change audio settings everytime I open this game - People say this is an "excellent" port for PC and I highly have to disagree: 1) The UI-scaling is too big and the field of view is too narrow. It feels like I'm looking at a sub-FullHD game upscaled to 1440p, rather than actually looking at something that is 1440p. I kinda expect that for the game though, as it is a X360-port. But I think it should be mentioned. I just can't help the feeling that I would like to zoom the camera out more than is currently possible. EDIT: I now found out how to zoom in/out with the camera. But I still feel it would be nice to be able to zoom out even further. 2) Keybinding is limited... Seriously! Whichever company that was responsible for porting this game; SHAME ON YOU! Why on Earth did you decide it would be a good idea to make some actions re-mappable, and some locked down? E.g. You have specific buttons for rotating the camera left/right, but they are locked to buttons "delete" and "insert". Like WTF???? There is NO - and I really mean it - NO reason for locking down key-bindings on a PC-port. 3) Camera-movement is way too aggressive. Clicking any of the WASD-buttons moves the camera way too agressively and quickly to either direction. This is a direct result of poorly ported controls from an analogue stick input to keyboard controls. On Xbox 360 you can easily decide how fast the camera moves with the joysticks, but on a keyboard it is 100 % speed from the get-go. The same goes for rotating the camera. Not only must you hold ALT + Mouse movement Left/right to rotate the camera, but also here it activates 100 % movement; like mouse input would be either ON or OFF, and not speed dependent. FIX THIS PLEASE! Lower the speed of the camera. - When grouping units, why the frack is there no group-indicator or number indicator so I would know which key I binded which group to? This again feels like a rushed over-sight: "Yes, we must add grouping, because all RTS-games on PC has it! But don't bother adding any indicator. They won't need that!" So is there anything good about this game? Probably YES. Probably everything that was great about it already on Xbox - I will see when I progress in the game. I'm mostly complaining about PC-port-specific issues. But the point is: Even if it was great on Xbox 360 with the mechanics it had there, it might not be up to snuff for PC as the mechanics we are used to on this platform is vastly different; RTS was born on PC, so we expect a bit more from an RTS title in terms of how to control things. On Xbox (or any console) I think this is one of the only RTS-games that has ever been released, so the stakes are also much lower. I've also seen other reviews complaining about localized/region locked multi-player. I don't know, but if those claims are true, then STOP IT MS! STOP IT! Global matchmaking please! So why do I still recommend this game? Because even if it is filled with minor, yet somewhat annoying, flaws, most of the things I've listed above can (if the devs want to) be fixed with patches and updates. The game to its core is still solid, even if it is not a perfect experience on PC. But mostly, buy this game so we hopefully can get more Halo-games to PC. But if you are a hardcore PC-RTS-gamer, this game might put you off just because of those odd choices when it comes to controlling the game mechanics and the camera.