14 DAY TRIAL // You probably know that many games were presented at this year's CES, from Rail Simulator to Halo 2 for Vista. Everyone has been taken care of. Some visited the Microsoft booth in Central Hall and managed to play some Halo 2 on a PC running on Vista.
Don't get all excited now, it's not that great as it sounds. Kotaku's Michael McWhertor was among the ones who got a chance to play Halo 2 on Vista and he wasn't delighted. After waiting for fifteen minutes for his chance to compete in a few rounds of Halo 2 multiplayer, his turn finally came. He was thrown into a game of deathmatch on the Sanctuary map from the Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack and he had the possibility of choosing an Xbox 360 controller or a mouse and a keyboard to play with.
Choosing the mouse and keyboard, he wanted to test his Halo 2 skills without the easy to use 360 joystick. Once the game started he was not impressed: "Visually, the game looks unimpressive. The models, textures and level architecture don't smack of a 2007 PC first-person shooter release. The game's frame rate was surprisingly shaky, but controls were solid. Despite my preference for mouse and keyboard controls, it felt a little strange to play the game this way."
As regarding the gameplay, he describes it as the same as the one on the Xbox 360 version, just in higher resolution. McWhertor also played Shadowrun (another Vista only game), and comparing the two games, Halo 2 gameplay feels "very meat and potatoes". But don't take his word for it; try it out for yourself....if you can!