I haven't played any computer games since quake II sucked up too much of my time. Now I see this:

http://www.xbox.com/games/action/halo.htm

The Game: Halo

From the page:

Huge weapon variety: Vanquish your enemies with a vast array of Human or Covenant weaponry ranging from the stealthy (semi-automatic pistols, alien plasma swords) to the fierce (rocket launchers and flame throwers).

Vehicle & foot-based action: Tackle missions anyway you choose--be it storming an enemy base or taking the wheel or gunnery position of a variety of powerful vehicles. Vehicles range from stolen Covenant flyers & hovercraft to Human buggies, tanks and more.

Intense multiplayer shoot-outs: Form a team, choose a role, and fight cooperatively with your friends, battle it out Deathmatch style via intense split screen combat or fight co-op with a friend through the single player missions.

Download the high bandwidth video. Check out the magazine swaps during combat. Driving a buggy equipped with a machine gun to take out enemies (multiplayer - will one person drive and one person shoot the gun??? That would be too cool for words.)

And all of this on a big screen TV. Drool.....

Looks a little to "gamey" for my taste.  I like to have a little more human enemy.

Tomb raider would let you operate vehicles.
Nothing to new here - except for the great graphics.

I'll stick with my PC for now - wait for the price to come down and the game selection to come up.

Max Payne is coming out soon. 3rd-person style shoot 'em up. Kick-ass John Woo style stuff. There's a 12mb movie of it floating around. Check the gamesites.

I'm pretty excited about this one too... Check out halo.bungie.org for some awesome screenshots. I pulled my member pic from a Halo screenshot... but I've had it ever since I got my membership upgraded.  

As for which platform to use... I'll wait and see.  A dedicated gaming machine like the X-Box may be able to outperform a general purpose computer.  NVIDIA really did their homework on the graphics hardware for the X-box.  They will be releasing the technology behind it in computer for as the NFORCE chipset, and it looks sweet.

As for a P-4 and a GeForce2... I'd rather have an Athlon and a GeForce3. [;)]  The P4 is really not the step up Intel has tried to make it out to be, and there is a series of P3's that Intel developed that can match or beat the P4 line.  And Athlons have always been able to smack down pentiums, usually across the board.  That being said I'm running a P3 system with a GeForce2, so I'm speaking only based on benchmarks and what I've heard in the tech scene.  But that was all pretty much digression, and I see where you're coming from (in that in the past PC's have stomped platform versions).  The platform version of Rogue Spear looks AWFUL!

As for the hype to coolness ratio... there's always going to be games like that.  The easiest example is Daikatana, which was released years late, way overbudget, and was one of the most widely ridiculed games of all time (despite the hype).

That's why I'll probably not rush out and get the X-Box until I can see how the game runs on it.  But it's something to keep an eye on...
[(:)]

I saw a working version of Halo at E3. It's visually awesome but the X-box  multiplayer/split screen game looked a bit choppy. The single screen linked version looked very smooth. I would imagine that the PC port will be more fun to play. The X-box version has some multiplayer limitations, choppy with more than 8. The PC port should be able to support over 64 players in one game just like Tribes.

I'm probably going to get an X-box anyway. I don't have a DVD player yet and there are a slew of other games coming out for it that will make the purchase well worth it.

YOU MEAN YOU NEVER PLAYED HALF-LIFE?

UnReal Tournoment is a great game also.

The bots (AI) is some of the best that I have seen.  plenty of add-ons.

I will probably buy an X Box as well. It has the capacity to blow PC games away - I just hope the programmers do a good job with all of the games.

Tyler

Screw the X-box and long live the PC game system!


Halflife, how long has that game survived and how long has it been popular thanks to the availability of mods?

Online gaming experiences are geared more towards the PC gamers if you ask me.   Online console gaming is not much more than just talk right now, say good by to the SEGA Dreamcast and any hopes they had of doing an online gaming community.

PC systems might cost more but for the serious gamer it's the best option.   5.1 surround sound, exceptionally tight graphics, the ability to mod and tweak virtually any part of the game you play, and the list goes on.



Consoles?    They are cheap, that's about the only benefit to them I see.


I do want to see Halo come out on the PC systems though.   I also want to see what Planetside looks like, WWII Online turned out to be a glorious pile of dogdookie though.    The Ghost Recon game looks like it will be awesome though.   I also want to see what the next Westwood game will be like, the one where you're one of the Command&Conquer RedAlert troops on the battle field and it's a first person shooter where you get to explore all the buildings and vehicles.



I'm currently happy with my P3/Radeon based PC, it will be awhile longer before I need to get a new system to stay current or ahead of the minimum system requirements.   Look at how many games out there currently require the use of DirextX 8 as part of their minimum specs, not many but it will slowly become a standard.  Same goes for graphics cards, it will be another 6-8 months before I consider getting a Geforce3 or even a Geforce 2 64meg DDR.    I'm thinking it's gonna be another 2 years if not more before I need to buy or build a new base system.

I'm sitting behind a viewsonic PF815 22" display. It's nice and big. I have a nice Yamaha YST speaker system.

In  my living room, there's a 36" tv with a boston acoustic speker system, more power from the surround sound receiver than I can possibly use.

There's no comparison between the two. I'm not going to watch farscape on my computer (even though I have a tv card) because it's a massive immersive experience. The same is true for the new generation of games and consoles coming out.

It's no longer just fight games, or jumping around trying to find the princess as you power up with magic mushrooms. Now you're completely immersed in almost movie-type graphics and cinematography. When I play that type of game, I want the room completely dark except for the light of my big TV. I want sound coming out of  a real surround sound system, not just a 'really good pc speaker system'. And even though my computer chair is comfortable, my couch and ottoman are even more so.

The pc platform can be pretty cool. But their main advantage is that speed can be increased as technology advances. With a console, though,
they write towards the specs of that box.

The problems reported with the xbox are pretty much irrelevant as long as the box is still under development. If they're still around after release date, then it matters.

So will the excess speed beyond what is required to properly run the game produce a better gaming experience than a console on a
home theater system? If the game runs just fine on the console, then the home theater system gets my vote every time.

I just upgraded my PC to a GeForce2 Ultra.  64MB DDR and a fast GPU is a Good Thing.

[img]16698&adtag=network%3Dign26site%3Dxbox%26adchannel%3Dxbox%26pagetype%3Darticle$ign_section=27&media_name=Oh+no%21[/img]

Ghost Recon

[img]Tag=network%3Dign%26site%3Dxbox%26adchannel%3Dxbox%26pagetype%3Darticle&ign_section=27&media_name=Sunlight+and+gunfire[/img]

Battlefront 1942

if these pictures do not work try visiting [url]www.ign.com[/url] and check out the XBOX section

Rich ass bastards.

poor imbrog|io on his 386

I just got a PS2 with Gran Turismo 3. GT3 f-ing rocks!

I justr cant get into a PC game using a keyboard joystick whatever just dont do it for me i would rather have a console anyday so they oly last a year or so untill a better system comes out oh well i like the idea of playing on the TV nice big screen and what not and with a consolee i dont have to worry bout comp gliches and stuff my coimp is always fuked up my console never screws up now i need a PS2

But this isn't really an argument for pc games. How many games out now run on DOS? How many people are playing the latest pc games on a 486?

You can call it the 'pc platform' but it keeps evolving, just like consoles do. PS2 is an advancement for less than the cost of a new mobo / cpu / video card. Plus you can still play ps1 games on it. The xbox is going to have a built in hard drive, so I'm sure someone will find a way to make mods work with it.

So you can say the pc platform has been around for a long time, but during that time it's gone from an edsel to a ferrari - sure, it's still a car, but they a lot different inside.