More Halo 2 PC details

By Tom Bramwell Published 16 June, 2006

Player-numbers, Live Anywhere.

Bungie's shed some more light on the PC version of little known FPS Halo 2, including the fact that you'll be able to track your Xbox 360-style achievements using a mobile phone thanks to Microsoft's Live Anywhere technology.

Fielding a few questions on the Bungie website, project-lead Jo Clowes said that the PC version, which will run exclusively on Windows Vista, will support up to 16 players in multiplayer with dedicated server architecture to back things up.

As you'll know if you've been following the game's progress, Halo 2 Vista won't actually enable you to play against people on Xbox or Xbox 360, but that doesn't mean it won't include Live Anywhere functionality, says Clowes. "Live Anywhere extends the Xbox Live service beyond Xbox. Anytime you are logged in with your Gamertag, your friends can see you and you can see them, no matter what device you are using," he told the Bungie website.

And yes, that does include mobile phones, even if there isn't a Windows Mobile version in the offing. "Once Live Anywhere launches on cell phones," said Clowes, "you will be able to access your friends list and see their achievements in Halo 2 Vista."

As for why you won't be able to play against people, it's apparently down to the PC version's exclusive features, map-making tools and so on. For example, the PC version will have customisation options for matchmaking that the Xbox version - widely celebrated for its own multiplayer versatility - doesn't even have. "We wanted the game to be the best it could be on Windows Vista and did not want to be limited by backwards compatibility with the Xbox version," Clowes explained.

It's not just that though - it's also down to the controls and the nature of the game's development, which differs from other Live Anywhere games, Bungie said in an update at the end of May. At the time we were told "a level playing field would be impossible" due to the gulf between Xbox and PC, and because "both versions have their controls and aiming system balanced and tuned for that system's abilities and you would have a lopsided situation at best".

"Add to that the fact that we will have new maps built specifically for the Vista version and a map editor, and cross-platform matchmaking becomes even more complex and less realistic."

Halo 2 is due out whenever Windows Vista launches, although that's TBC. Vista is due out in early 2007.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (24) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • smelly #1 6 years ago

    Still will be rubbish though.

  • Macross #2 6 years ago

    lol, i preffered the original Halo on the PC to the xbox. Just felt alot more pacey and, well unrestrained, to me anyway. Its amazing how different fps feel on mouse and keyboard to joypad.

    /sheds tear for all those too stuck in console fanboy ways to give mouse and keyboard a fair chance.

    anyway, i have it on the xbox so i doubt il buy it again unless theyve done somthing truly amazing with it for the pc.

  • TwistidChimp #3 6 years ago

    Erm.. who is going to buy this exactly ? It wasn't that great when it launched let alone 3 years later. Who on earth is going to choose this over something ilke Crysis ?

  • IMO #4 6 years ago

    Ooh OOh, Is this where I get to insert my stupidly generic comment about how Halo/Halo 2 was crap and I don't know what other people see in it?

  • Xerx3s #5 6 years ago

    will run exclusively on Windows Vista

    Just as 'exclusive' as AoEIII was for WinXP? ;)

  • Xerx3s #6 6 years ago

    Erm.. who is going to buy this exactly ? It wasn't that great when it launched let alone 3 years later. Who on earth is going to choose this over something ilke Crysis ?

    If you played one of the 500 000 000 mp games, you would know that your oppinion was poorly chosen. However, the ppl who are interested already bought this game years ago and the ppl who wernt interested wont be buying the pc version either. The sales of the pc version will be no match for the sales of the xbx version.

  • Duckula #7 6 years ago

    It's people not 'ppl'.

  • BadBoyBonner #8 6 years ago

    Can never quite forget my then Ninja PC (Overclocked duron 1400Mhz with overclocked Geforce 4 128mb 4200ti golden sample with 512MB of system ram) being brought to it’s knees, with it crying like a girl who’d just seen Titanic and The Champ back to back.

    No doubt the old 64MB console will trounce most pc configurations with 16 times the amount of memory and graphics cards that would have been considered alien technology at the time!

    Mind you looking at the vista spec looks like the old system above would barely manage 10 fps in MS-word never mind a game! lol

  • nickthegun #9 6 years ago

    I got the PC version before I bought an Xbox and, coming from a UT/Q3 background, I absolutely ruled at it. I then got an Xbox and Halo on that and I was lucky to finish middle of the field.

    The joypad was a lot harder to use than M/KB and, quite frankly, most of the players on the PC version sucked, whereas there were some proper fucking Ninjas playing the Xbox version.

    Given the choice, I would rather play it with a mouse and keyboard to be honest. But I wont be upgrading my PCs OS just to play a 3 year old game that I have played to death, anyway.

  • Kikimaru #10 6 years ago

    Given that Halo 3 is coming out... who cares about Halo 2 on a platform which is basically 50% FPS??

  • TwistidChimp #11 6 years ago

    @Xerx3s

    Yeah the multi player is very good, have played quite a bit with friends, but on the pc, there are so many other multiplayer titles to choose from I dont see that Halo2 is really going to stand out. Especially not in another 5 months when it finally launches. I mean It was good in its time, but its going to have to compete with the likes of counter strike, Quake Wars, Crysis etc etc. Just seems a little late.

  • jack_klugman #12 6 years ago

    Given that Halo 3 is coming out... who cares about Halo 2 on a platform which is basically 50% FPS??

    You mean the Xbox right?

  • flippet #13 6 years ago

    It's 'it's people; not ppl'; not 'it's people not ppl'

  • Markusdragon #14 6 years ago

    Ah, Vista.

    No. God no.

  • smoison #15 6 years ago

    considering Halo 1 looked dated on the PC, this is going to look like a joke.

    And its DX 10/ Vista for NO reason. I guess there will be a few people interested
    (ie a dozen or so...)

  • Steroyd #16 6 years ago

    OMG Halo is so amazing i'll get my 3.2Ghz processor with 2Gb of RAM and the new Nvidia 7950 GPU...
    ...Just to run Vista F**k me!!!

    Where's the processing power going to go for the actual game?

    MS i know this is a trick to further monopolise people into getting Windows Vista, but you could do better than a 3 year old Xbox game.

  • the creeper #17 6 years ago

    Wasn't the general opinion that Halo was better on console than it was on PC?

    And only 16 players? That seems pretty low in this day and age. What's the largest PC FPS? Battlefield 2 supports 64 but I imagine it's higher than that. Hell Battlefield on console supported 24.

    I would have thought most people would rather buy an FPS developed specifically for the PC, rather than a port of a console game. Especially if you have to buy a whole new OS in order to play it. (That does seem pretty cynical from MS.)

  • projectmayhem #18 6 years ago

    anyone for UT?

  • animal_mother #19 6 years ago

    Yes please - on the PC that is.

  • Ryuken #20 6 years ago

    "What's the largest PC FPS?"

    Joint Ops has 150-player servers but there is also PlanetSide which has several hundred on one map (dunno how much WWII Online can host though). You might think that more players ain't better but it sure is something you need to have played imo.

  • vegard #21 6 years ago

    let's hope the game isn't the system-hog that halo was. i had a hard time running it at 1024x768, on a 2.4ghz with a radeon 9800xt 256mb, which was pretty much a high-end card at the time (i think).

  • urban #22 6 years ago

    halo 2 is excellent but i wouldnt ever play it on the pc..purely because its for vista only :)

  • immateriaux #23 6 years ago

    Daft choice making it Vista only. Feel sorry for Bungie being whored by Microsoft that way. If anything they should have been aiming for a Budget PC release to try stir up a bit of interest, not locking it into a new OS the average PC user doesn't give a toss for.

  • Luigi #24 6 years ago

    Never understood this hype about Halo. It's solid game/story from my point of view but not that extraordinary astonishing. Using a 2 or 3 year old game to promote a "new" OS (should be called MicrOS X rip off edition) is typically Microsoft. The OS itself was meant to be released in 2004/2005 and it has none (instead of the Aero Interface) of the much taunted new features. But I understand. It's a huge war of giant corporations & interests involving OS, Hardware, Live connectivity/media, Software, Media Formats and on and on... Just say no to that and buy the new Apple Intel powered pc's and play games in the Wii :)