Forget rumours of a portable Xboy. Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s newest update has enabled matchmade multiplayer, and together with the custom game browser for the Steam Deck, you can now play some of the wackiest maps in any FPS from the comfort of your bed - or anywhere in the galaxy really. MCC’s multiplayer was previously disabled on Steam Deck since the mode required Easy Anti-Cheat, which has now been turned on.
]]>Today is an exciting time for those of you who like Halo rebalanced, tweaked, or completely cursed. Developers 343 Industries just released modding tools for the Master Chief Collection along with the season 7 update. They're only for the MCC's version of Halo: Combat Evolved but will enable you edit all the values in the game, should you be brave enough to mess with the Silent Cartographer’s glorious flow.
]]>From an early age, humans know that if they want to be taken seriously, they must learn how to deliver a convincing car noise. Vrrrrummm, they might say. Or perhaps: brrrrrr-bp-brrr. These are the nascent efforts of the budding speed freak, and they must be respected. But once again the realm of videogames encroaches upon the germinal life of the human with pitiless velocity. Car games put a stop to make-believe noise, and introduce fully realised cars on a screen, ready for the racing, shiny bonnets and vrrrrummm noises included. Thus, the imagination dies, and these, the 10 best cars in PC games, are born. Beep beep.
]]>The new Gears Of War spin-off, Gears Tactics came out yesterday, and already players are turning their soldiers into characters from other games. Tactics has you recruit various soldiers as you go on, you see, and while you can't change the general look of their bodies or faces, there are still a bunch of features you can alter to adjust them to your liking.
So, here's a few examples you could follow if you fancy having characters like Duke Nukem or Doom Guy in your squad.
]]>There's a short list of things that I really must know about every game—or so I thought. Popular Twitter account "CanYouPetTheDog" cleverly identified one. Apparently we all really wanted to know if we could pet digital dogs in games that have friendly fluffs. In one of those moves that makes you go "why didn't I think of that?" the creator has now spun off a second account that lets you know if there's a secret to be found behind a waterfall. Seriously, how did I not think of this?
]]>Good old Halo: Combat Evolved. It's like that one character archetype from American bro comedies, of the guy who's sailing rapidly into his thirties, but can't leave behind his jock glory days and keeps showing up at frat parties, whooping and getting messy-drunk despite not really knowing anyone there. Actually, that might not be an archetype at all - I think it's just the plot of the 2003 movie Old School. Well, anyway. Halo is that guy. With the difference being that everyone still kinda loves Halo regardless, and indulgently pours beers through its motocross helmet whenever it shows up.
]]>Surprise! With little warning, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary launched on PC today. This is the remake of Bungie's very first game in the first-person shooter series, the one which started Master Ian Chief's adventures on Xbox way back in 2001. I never played it but my god, the things I've heard about its powerful pistol... maybe I'll finally see for myself. It is only £7, after all. You can snook a look in the launch trailer below.
]]>With Halo: Reach firmly securing John Halo's boots on Steam and the Windows Store, Developers 343 Industries are preparing to bring the rest of the Master Chief Collection to desktops over the coming year. Halo: Combat Evolved is next on the batting stand, with devs announcing that flighting (testing) for the series-starter should kick off next month, letting PC players get their mice and keyboards behind the big green lad's visor for the very first time.
Gearbox whomst?
]]>With Halo finally coming back to PC starting with Halo: Reach, it only seems fitting for the original's small modding scene to get a second wind. Covered previously, Halo SPV3 is the biggest, most ambitious mod for the game yet. A nearly-standalone re-imagining of the first Halo, bringing it in line with Reach's tech, timeline and story. The new version (3.2) released over the weekend polishes it up a lot and adds another six missions to the mix, extending the game by hours. Below, a new trailer showcasing what they've stuffed into Halo's creaky old PC version chassis.
]]>We hear a lot about level designers in games. Voice actors, concept artists, big directors. Kate Edwards is none of those things. She is a geographer. It seems like an odd job for the games industry, but the more you learn about her work, the more it feels essential. Edwards is hired by studios to cast her geo-eye over the shuffling NPCs of sci-fi space stations, to examine tiny markings in the giant buildings of first-person shooters, and inspect the maps of sprawling fantasy realms. She’s there to ask one thing: is this game being ignorant? The answer is often “yes”.
]]>Halo: The Master Chief Collection will make its way to PC soon, bringing the whole Halo series to this lovely platform. While I can't wait, let's be honest: the best one has been on PC this whole time. Halo: Combat Evolved hasn't been bettered by follow-up installments, but the reasons for that are tricky to nail down. It popularised many things in first-person shooters, such as melee attacks, recharging shields, and the player only being able to hold two weapons at a time. These features became successful and influential shooter keystones, shared by the game's sequels and eagerly adopted by an entire genre. But, after almost two decades (oh god, I'm withering into dust as I write), why is the first Halo the shooter that I’ve replayed at least once a year, every year, since its release?
]]>In a Q&A session on Reddit today, 343 Industries's Brian "Ske7ch" Jarrard had plenty of good news on the upcoming PC version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. In addition to Steam support, the remastered Halo series (starting with Halo: Reach) will also support Windows 7 and plenty of PC mod cons too. Among the goodies mentioned were FOV sliders, uncapped frame-rates and even the possibility of mod support. Check out the full list of the good news, the bad news and the stuff we still don't know yet below.
]]>When Microsoft and 343 Industries announced last week that Halo: The Master Chief Collection was headed to PC, and even to Steam, I was quietly waiting for the other shoe to drop. It couldn't be quite as good as they were describing, right? While the entire Halo series up to Halo 4 is headed to Steam, remastered, starting with the excellent prequel Halo: Reach, an irritatingly vague statement from Microsoft (as reported by Kotaku here) suggests it won't part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program. This means that anyone who already owns it on Xbox One will have to double-dip. At least they're taking beta beta sign-ups over on the Halo Waypoint site here.
]]>We've known for a while that the upcoming Halo: Infinite is headed to PC, but today Microsoft and 343 Industries have announced that the remastered series up to Halo 4 is headed our way too. While there's still no date on it yet, Halo: The Master Chief Collection is PC-bound, including a planned Steam launch. Better yet, it will include a remastered version of Halo: Reach, my personal favourite game in the series. They'll be releasing the collection one game at a time, so hopefully we'll be caught up by the time Infinite reaches PC shores. Below, an announcement trailer.
]]>A little known title from seventeen years ago is seeing a small screen adaptation on the horizon. Halo: Combat Evolved was a first person shooter that encouraged retro gamers to traverse national parks on a large ring and visit the local library. The TV retelling of a guy who doesn't talk and the sexy lady who lives in his arm is coming to Showtime in 2019, thanks to Steven Spielberg's company Amblin and The 343 Factory. It might seem odd that the world is only now remembering this title, but I'm willing to bet there was a wave of renewed interest after the DUKE Xbox controller was re-released this year as a $70, wired device, for ironic chuckles on modern systems. It's good to look that far into the past and agree that some things don't deserve to be left there. It's good to not think that this took way too long to accomplish and to ask why we couldn't have this anytime before now. It's good to not be upset about the series of events that lead us here. It's good to be good. Good.
]]>John Halo is returning to PC with Halo Infinite, Microsoft announced today during their E3 presentation. It's a bit of a mystery for now, but expect jeeps, ringworlds, and shiny helmets. Halo 2 was the last game in the main sci-fi FPS series released on PC, though Halo 5's edit-o-sandbox Forge did come our way. Here, watch the announcement trailer.
]]>Wait, didn’t we already answer this question? Never mind, the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, is not content with our list of the top 50 first-person shooters. Well, they're mostly fine with it (lists are stupid) but they still want to hash out this ageless question the old-fashioned way. By interrogating each other over the internet.
]]>The future of ElDewrito, a Halo Online mod expanding and improving that cancelled spin-off into what Dominic Tarason called "the best PvP Halo experience you can find on PC today", looks grim after Microsoft's lawyers got involved. The problem, the Halo overlords say, is that ElDewrito violates Microsoft's rights by using Halo Online content. The ElDewrito team are uncertain about what this means, and while it seems Microsoft at minimum don't want them to distribute the mod any more, it is still playable.
]]>Blasphemous as it sounds, I really like Halo. I like the floaty jumps, the slugfest combat where landing the first hit doesn't always mean a win, the swooshy, slidey vehicles and the range of multiplayer modes. So naturally, Microsoft chose to release the free-to-play Halo Online in Russia only and cancel it before it could leave the early beta stages of development.
Legally fuzzy, perhaps, but thanks to a highly dedicated community and a lot of open-source poking around, development of Halo Online has quietly continued for years. Today, ElDewrito 0.6 is live, and it's the best PvP Halo experience you can find on PC today.
]]>Not every game needs to reinvent the wheel. Or even involve themselves in this business of wheels. Sometimes you need only grab a few universally beloved things and jam them together. If you had an arena multiplayer shooter that combined the best levels of Halo with the constant world-bending of Portal and added a dash of the best parts of Overwatch, well, that's what Wormhole Wars looks like it wants to be. And that's what I want it to be too.
]]>Halo has always been a hard sell on PC, but with the Destiny 2 introducing a once-neglected audience to a world of floaty jumps and immensely satisfying shotguns, Bungie has fully extended the olive branch to once-spurned PC gamers. Fitting, then, the week prior to Destiny’s beta saw the release of SPV3, a massively expanded fan-made remake of the original Halo over ten years in the making.
Based on (and working miracles with) Gearbox’s wonky port of the original Halo, SPV3 re-envisions the first game as a direct followup to prequel Halo: Reach, patching in new and familiar enemies, weapons and vehicle types, along with gameplay features from later titles such as vehicle hijacking and suit-power modules, and a few entirely new gubbins. Aside from a few visual low-points it’s remarkably pleasant to look at. Not quite as pretty as 343’s official HD remastering, but no slouch for a 16-year-old game. There’s even an FOV slider.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
WHAT. How have we gone so long without mentioning Halo in ‘Have You Played’? Maybe because it’s such an obvious choice, a monster of both profit and influence. Every shooter since has something to owe Halo, for better or worse. Microsoft’s console expedition certainly has something to owe it, not that we care.
]]>We learned last year that Installation 01 [official site], a multiplayer-only fan remake of the early Halo games, was in the works, when they announced that they were aiming for a Halo 3 style of play. They've also been following Microsoft’s own legal rules for fan projects, said the team behind it, in the hope they’d avoid the SHUT IT DOWN message these projects often get from cross-looking men in suits. Well, it looks like their careful tip-toeing around those rules paid off, at least for now. They’ve been told by 343 Industries that the fan game is “not under imminent legal threat” so long as they keep abiding by those rules.
]]>Forge! Huah! What is it good for? More than you might think. Halo 5: Forge has arrived free on Windows 10 and while it's not full Halo 5 with the FPS's campaign and all its multiplayer jazz and whatnot, it's more than the level editor it initially seems. I mean, yes, it does have a level editor, but also it also supports 16-player online Halo action with the Arena multiplayer mode and player-made modes and minigames. Forge is a bit like a basic Garry's Mod, and that's no bad thing for a freebie.
]]>Halo 5 might have skipped PC but the Forge creation tools arrive this week. The free release is coming to Windows 10 and contains Forge "along with a host of awesome new features, including mouse and keyboard support, 4k resolution display capability, a brand new content browser that makes showcasing and sharing your creations easier than ever before, and the ability play your creations with friends online". PCGamesN spotted a NeoGAF post from Frank O'Connor, the Halo franchise director, in which he confirms a "custom games browser" post-launch.
]]>A group of Halo fans are creating a free multiplayer-only tribute and say they are following all of Microsoft’s legal rules for doing so. The game, called Installation 01 [official site], will combine parts from each game in the series but focuses on the classic style of multiplayer. “Halo 3 is what we’re aiming for,” said one of the developers when asked how it will ‘feel’ to play. You can see some footage of the game in action here, as well as commentary from the developers about how much love they are putting into it.
]]>I've always been a big fan of the universe that the Halo games are set in, and with Halo Wars 2 [official site] headed our way in February of next year, I'm keen on gleaning as much information about its story as possible. That's good for me, because Microsoft have released a short video documentary detailing some of the finer points of the story with an added emphasis on the villain who will be tying everything together.
]]>Total War developers The Creative Assembly have stuck their thumb into Microsoft's gamepie and pulled out a technoplum, by which I of course mean that they're making Halo Wars 2 [official site] for Windows 10. Halo Wars is a real-time strategy spin-off from the Xbox's flagship FPS, with the first one released on Xbox 360 in 2009. Well, now this sequel has a release date: February 21st, 2017. That's a bit later than autumn 2016 date mentioned before. Still, it'll cheer you up, I can show you moving pictures:
]]>Microsoft have not announced that Halo 5 is coming to PC. However, they have announced that the Xbox One shooter's sandbox mode Forge is coming as a free standalone to PC via Windows 10, under the rubbish name Forge – Halo 5: Guardians Edition. It's due "later this year". As I understand it (and I may be wrong!), Forge is a bit like a simpler Garry's Mod. Players can build levels collaboratively online, but also create and play fancier things like minigames. Good? Cool? This might also bring us closer to seeing proper Halo games on PC again.
]]>There's also plenty of chance that 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor was speaking purely theoretically when he claimed that the Xbox-exclusive shooty-bang sequel might head Windowswards, so don't get your powersuited knickers in a twist just yet. But! It's an unusual thing to say about a series which is usually locked inescapably within Xbox's walled garden.
Given that there is a certain amount of Windows 10/Xbox crossover, and we've had recently had some of Microsoft's bi-annual 'no honestly we do care about PC gaming' blather, maybe there is something to this.
]]>Once a week most weeks, team RPS gathers, eyes itself warily across the table then debates. Sometimes it's about SCANDAL, like slow-motion Batman or No Man's Sky hype, other times it's about perennials, like best levels ever or if Early Access means the end times.
This week, we're discussing the pitfalls and merits of platform exclusives, in the wake of Everybody's Gone To The Rapture being PS4-only, despite its devs making their name with the PC-only Dear Esther. In recent months similar has happened with Tomb Raider, and of course there's a long history of this sort of thing, from your Marios to your Halos. Is this right? Is it sensible? And what about the other side of the coin, with XCOM 2 being PC-only? Not so grumbly then, are we? Let's see if we can figure this one out, eh?
]]>Ask me to name a game in which I particularly like the guns, and I'll look panicky for a moment, presuming you want me to confidently say the M-something upgraded with the thingamy-ma-death something from Call of Duty something, then intone something about recoil. I presume you will kill me with an actual gun if I fail to do this, what with your clearly caring an awful lot about guns. If my ers and ums don't result in my sudden death, I'll regain my composure after a few seconds and say 'Halo, I guess. Like, everything has a purpose, and everything works particularly well in tandem with a different weapon type, and it all feels like a real strategy and a real choice, even though it's all made up.'
This is why I've played every Halo game even when their self-fellating space magic nonsense-plots made me want to scream (hello, 2 and 3). This is why is why I thought 'ooh, that'll do' when I saw twin-stick spin-off Spartan Strike was out today.
]]>"Everywhere I'm looking now / I'm surrounded by your embrace," sang Beyoncé. "Baby, I can see your Halo / You know you're my saving grace." The idea that one can fix and understood another's intent is of course absurd, but I still can't help but feel she's referring to love rather than Microsoft's mega-franchise. Halo is flipping everywhere, though. It's going to be on PC a bit more too, though not in any substantial way.
Microsoft yesterday announced Halo: Spartan Strike, a follow-up to twin-stick shooter Spartan Assault. It's got more things to shoot, and more things to shoot them with.
]]>I'm beginning to worry that John Halo, main character of Halo: The Adventures of Halo Main Character John Halo, doesn't love us anymore. Once upon a time PC gamers got Halo 1 and Halo 2 - and once upon a more recent time, the middling Halo: Spartan Assault - but we haven't seen a real Halo game in eons. "Pretty please?" we plea, imaginations running wild with green armor men prancing about, pirouetting like cybernetic teenage mutant ninja turtles. And yet, even with Halo: The Master Chief Collection on the way to theoretically get everybody all caught up before Halo 5, developer 343 replies with a noncommittal, "Eh, maybe someday." Le sad.
]]>Halo may be cock of the walk on Xbox but though the first two games were ported to PC, the series never really took off round our way. The ports were wonky and, well, the idea of an enjoyable first-person shooter was less of a novelty on PC. Still, the first Halo has spawned a small but devoted fanbase on PC who were less than thrilled that its online multiplayer was facing the chop in the GameSpy server shutdown. Third-party tool GameRanger stepped in with a stopgap, but now creators Bungie have released an official patch ditching GameSpy.
It seems someone at Bungie was itching for an excuse to patch Halo, as that's not all it changes.
]]>Everyone, buckle up. It's time to feel old. Here's some history for you: Halo: Combat Evolved for PC has been up and running for nearly 11 years. Also, I had totally forgotten that it was handled by none other than Borderlands creator Gearbox back when they almost exclusively developed ports of games like Half-Life and, er, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. THESE ARE ALL TRUTHS, incontrovertible building blocks of the life you snooze your way through, blissfully unaware. Halo, however, was all set to get a halo of its own, courtesy of GameSpy's impending closure. Fortunately, an Australia-based service called GameRanger has stepped in to save its online multiplayer at the last second.
]]>It's kind of a fantastic time to be a PC gamer, if you haven't noticed. Pretty much everything of note is coming to our platform of choice, and also we get productivity software! Does it get any better? That does, however, make rare exceptions like Halo creator Bungie's new (don't-call-it-an) MMOFPS Destiny all the stranger. So why can't the multi-million-dollar-banking mega-dev - dual-wielding newfound pseudo-freedom and a series not synonymous with Microsoft's bawkes of eckses - pump out a PC version? "It's complicated," apparently. But there is hope, dim though it might be, for the future.
]]>GameSpy, a relic from times long before the modern Internet - or indeed, games and spies - existed is closing down. This on its own is not surprising as the multiplayer service is, by modern standards, buggy and kind of a joke, but it leaves a startling number of games with their e-wings clipped and their online-heaving hams strung in its wake. How many, you ask? Well, Reddit's /r/Games board compiled a massive list, and the results aren't pretty.
]]>"Halo" is a word we just don't use on RPS. The last time it was tagged in a post was in 2009, and that was TF2. To find a time it was related to the game series you have to go back five years to 2008, and then it was to say that a cancelled, unannounced project was to have been a Halo MMO. In fact, we've never posted about a released Halo game, even if Kieron did post about a comic once. Which is to say, since 2004's Halo 2, Microsoft has made sure the series has had nothing to do with the PC. That's something a group of fans are now putting right, with Project Contingency.
]]>TF2 has recently suffered a plague of some of cheating. Rather than cheating to win matches, players have been cheating to gain in-game items, using "external idling applications". The drops came at random, so people hung around on specifically designed servers until they'd collected what they were after. (I think.) Valve have announced this Will Not Do, and anyone who has accrued items this way will find they have vanished from their inventory. And this is the their gentle, generous response.
]]>Shacknews have posted up an extract from an interview with Ensemble's Dave Pottinger in which he talks about the cancelled Halo MMO. It turns out the model was very much "World Of Halocraft", as people had suggested.
]]>[Click for full image] UPDATE: Full Flickr set here.
Gamasutra have unearthed evidence that the Ensemble Studios project that was cancelled during 2007 was in fact a Halo MMO. The evidence includes several pieces of prototype art, with one mocked up screen (above).
The title seems to have been in development in 2006 and some of 2007 -- though it's by no means clear that it was the only MMO-related title in development at the studio at that time.
]]>How's about this for after-sales support. Gearbox have just patched Halo: Combat Evolved. Yes, the first one. The 1.08 patch for the five year old game removes the need for a CD to be in the drive when you play (a tacit nod to freedom?) and fixes some bugs for online play.
]]>The existence of a Halo MMO is an ongoing rumour, but how likely is it?
It's a safe bet that if anyone was going to be able to pull off a successful MMOFPS, it would be Bungie and Microsoft with a version of Halo. Of course it might just be on 360, but why wouldn't MS try to tap into the Blizzard millions with a cross-platform version? This is more than wishful thinking: the clues are out there. No, they really are.
]]>I've been traveling for the last week, and between playing Puzzle Quest, reviewing games which I'm NDA-ed up to the journo gills about, drinking heavily, and and getting crushing existential dread with Alec when walking across a bridge in Vancouver, I picked up some comics. And one of them is relevant to the blog, so I'll write something about it. Yes.
It features this bloke. And since there's two incarnations of it out, it's a bloody PC Game.
It's Halo: Uprising, it's by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev and it has a review hidden around here, somewhere. See if you can find it.
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