Telegrams for Die Shrink: Halo 1 & 2, Early LCD Screens

Was halo the greatest exclusive that Microsoft ever made? Halo got me into Xbox and kept me their along with Gears of War. Shows how powerful exclusives can be since those two games kept me committed through all the red ring of death bs that happened to me and my brothers like 4-5 times between all of us.

Jeremy Lamb

What are your thoughts on Microsoft poaching Bungie and Halo from Apple when they were in development? Do you think the gaming market of today would be substantially different if such a landmark title had come out on the Mac and PC after being shown off by Steve at Macworld? (in case you didn't know Steve did showcase an early version of Halo at Macworld 1999 which was set to release on Mac and PC soon after, and Bungie had been a primarily Mac based game dev up until that point)

Nils

Did you transition to LCD early, or did you wait? What was your experience like? (I didn't have or use a desktop for several years during LCD's infancy and the first LCD I picked up was used from a pawn shop circa 2007 or 2008. Only 60 hz, but a resolution of 2272x1278 iirc, which looked great on the 19 inch panel.)

Aric Jackson

Not strictly Halo 1&2, but I need the debate answered once and for all. Which Halo game is the best in the franchise? (We all know it's 2)

Aric Jackson

CRT/LCD: When have you realized that CRT delivered better gaming experience then for example a TN panel? Halo: What is your number one weapon to beat each other? (You and Dan dueling in the multiplayer mod). I have loved the sniper rifle. I Remember having the really good time beating the crap out of my friends in halo 2 and voting for 1 bottle of bear on who will win in a 1v1 fight.

arcon

I lived through the transition but my recollection is hazy. I'm a programmer and was using Linux a lot at the time looking at text consoles (with raster fonts) and mainly I remember being pleased that pixels were pixels and that made text look a lot sharper on LCD. Was this an immediate boon of LCD or could it just be that I was using bad CRTs and skipped over some of the worst early LCDs? Other random CRT memories: * clunking and clicking relays when switching resolutions * alarming flickering and strange noises if you chose an incompatible refresh rate * headache inducing flicker if the refresh rate was too low (possibly as a result of trying a too-high resolution) * having to degauss! * everything looking fuzzy if your VGA cable wasn't the best quality or was a bit loose * spending ages fiddling about with pincushion controls (although I think that was eventually solved with some automatic feature towards the end of the era) * dry solder joints that meant a good hard whack often improved the image Ahhh, the good old days!

Rob Fisher

Did you play Halo 1 on console or PC? Back in the day, I'd run Halo 1 on PC with a mod that rebalanced the Pistol and AR, as well as let you drive the Wraith tanks. It felt more natural to have the 2x scope on the rifle, and IIRC Bungie even realized that and created the BR for Halo 2 because of that.

Cleansweep

Halo 2 had something no game today can replicate, enemy proximity voice chat. Everyone on xbox live had a mic and if you wanted to talk to your teammates your nearby enemies could hear you too. Teamspeak, skype, discord and private console party chat has killed that on PC and modern consoles. Forcing in game chat is one of the few unique things you can do on a closed system, will we ever see proximity chat or a unique feature like that on next gen consoles?

did you ever expierence the legendary halo CE Lan party? P.S deleted my other reader mail because it wasn't a question and it was too long, not trying to spam promise

Josh Law (adn)

Did you ever get grounded because you where playing Halo to much. Or were you Little older and in college missing assignments ?

Aiden

for CRT / LCD what was your first and what was the biggest draw back ?

Kiwi Phil

for the halo question : Do you get into the extended universe ?

Kiwi Phil

Halo 2 won when you had to destroy a scarab. How was the first fight against that beast for you guys? Did yall come in with BR and Snipers or loaded up on rockets?

Mang0 Bandit0