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HALO: Combat Evolved
On July 21, 1999, during the Macworld
Conference & Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Halo would be released
for Mac OS and Windows simultaneously. Before this public
announcement, game industry journalists under a non-disclosure
agreement had previewed the game in a private showing during E3
1999, and were reportedly amazed. Bungie Studios later stated an
even earlier development build of the game centered on real-time
strategy and was "basically Myth in a sci-fi universe."
At E3 2000, the first trailer of Halo
was well-received. The version shown there differed greatly from the
one exhibited previously, marking the first major overhaul in the
game's development. At this point, Halo was a third-person action
game, in which a transport starship crashlands on a mysterious ring
world that orbits a star. Early versions of Covenant aliens appear
in great numbers and loot what they can, and war erupts between them
and the humans. Unable to match the technologically advanced alien
race, the humans on the ring world resort to guerrilla warfare. This
version of the game featured Halo-specific fauna, which were later
dropped because of design difficulties and the creatures'
"detract[ion] from the surprise, drama and impact of the Flood."
In accordance with rumors, Microsoft announced on June 19, 2000 that
it had acquired Bungie Studios. Halo became an exclusive game for
Microsoft's Xbox video game console, and Bungie Studios rewrote the
game's engine, heavily altering its presentation and turning it into
a first-person shooter. Originally a key element, the game's online
multiplayer component was dropped because Xbox Live was unfinished
at the time of Halo's release. While a playable demonstration of the
game at Gamestock 2001 was well-received, critics had mixed
reactions to its exhibition at E3 2001. The game was released in
North America simultaneously with the Xbox, on November 15, 2001.
A Halo port for Windows was announced to be under development by
Gearbox Software on July 12, 2002. Its showing at E3 2003 was
positively received by some critics, with skepticism from others. It
released on September 30, 2003, including support for online
multiplayer play and featuring sharper graphics, but possessing
compatibility issues that caused poor performance. Halo was later
released for Mac OS X on December 11, 2003.
[info from
Wikipedia] |
