They became wildly successful under Microsoft. As far as I remember, it was Bungie who were the driver behind leaving Microsoft because they wanted to move on to other IP, as opposed to being “The Halo company”.
I can’t blame them for that, but it’s not Microsoft’s fault that what they did afterwards was a shadow of their former glory.
I reckon that’s less about Microsoft and more about Bungie though. Bungie are primarily responsible for their own downfall with some terrible management decisions.
Microsoft were very good to Bungie from the beginning in terms of finance and support, and Halo on Mac would never have had the same impact as Halo on Xbox.
It’s been nearly 20 years since Bungie left Microsoft. In this case, I think it’s unfair to blame Microsoft for what they’ve since become.
Yeah, I still hum that Bomb the Bass track at random times.
The Bitmaps just made hit after hit, and Xenon 2 was the first I got to play.
Xenon 2 Megablast for the Atari ST, with my saved-up pre-teen pocket money. Was it worth it? Fuck yes.
Banger of a game
I’ve been playing this the last few days too. I got the game on the Switch for the kids during lockdown and it became an instant favourite with them, but it was disappointing that you could only have one profile that had their own island.
Several years later, we’ve all got MacBooks, and I have been messing about with emulation. There’s a particular emulator that Nintendo killed but forks are still maintained that run incredibly well on Macs. This past weekend saw the three of us reminiscing, each finally with our own island.
I reckon it’s also because there are simply so many games available now, and countless devices to play them on. My generation had one console or computer max, and a handful of games. Now young gamers have half a dozen devices at home, and thousands of free or easily accessible titles on whatever platform is currently in reach. They don’t need to commit to a couple of titles, when an advert for the next one is a tap away.
I mentioned this before on another post, but I had 5 games on my PS1 as a kid. There are currently over 400 owned games available on the living room Xbox, there’s a Switch in the house, the kids have iPhones, iPads and laptops, there’s a Quest 2 gathering dust etc etc. That attachment we had to one or two of the few games we owned as kids has to be in part down to accessibility.
Probably less, but it may well have been roughly similar. I think when they were younger they ended up getting more “stuff” but it was cheaper items. Mostly board games and toys that I thought they might like, rather than specific stuff they ask for these days. Well, I ask them, because I’d rather get them stuff they want/need.
I feel like the pile of presents was bigger in those days at least.
Parent of late teens here - around £200 each (usually clothes or various bits they’ve asked for), unless there’s a big present involved that I’m interested in too (like a new games console), which would be a more expensive year.
Not my bag, but I reckon hent.ai would be a popular niche.
Goddammit, I loved that game too!
X-Wing
Tie Fighter
X-Wing Alliance
Star Wars: KOTOR
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Hogwarts Legacy
The Thing
Aladdin
Blade Runner
And these are just a few off the top of my head that I’ve played.
Although to be fair, I guess we could just as easily reel off a list of garbage equivalents, but I think the throwaway that licensed games suck is a misconception.
I can highly recommend this if you’re any kind of Indy fan. It masterfully replicates the globetrotting adventure vibe and swashbuckling fighting of the movies, and Indy’s voice actor absolutely nails it.
Never folds the wrong way or moves unpredictably during strong winds.
If this releases with full support for existing Xbox libraries as suggested, this would be the absolute perfect device for my household, where we’ve accrued literally hundreds of Xbox games since 2001, and would love to open up to PC games from a device in the living room. For me, it’s the best of both. That said, it’s still dependent on avoiding exorbitant pricing.
In the case of fake news, extremely.
I’m exactly the same. Xbox gamer since the OG, and big fan of GamePass until recently. There’s no way I’m paying that much. Mine expires this month, and that’ll be that.
I enjoyed this. A shooter with a different feel and a vibrant palette, and genuinely funny in parts.
I also got banned from the Xbox subreddit a couple of years ago because of this game. Apparently a photo of the in-game sounding rods was inappropriate. Mate, it’s literally an unedited screenshot from an Xbox game.
I mean, I literally said it was Bungie making terrible management decisions.
But there’s no way Halo would have had the same impact on Mac as it did on Xbox. The Microsoft purchase was win-win. Leaving Microsoft let them pursue other IP and give greater creative control, but they also never reached those heights they did under Microsoft either before or after their stewardship.
Edit: don’t get me wrong, clearly recent Microsoft game studio acquisitions have been a bad thing for the industry, but I just don’t think the Bungie example is a good one. I think it’s rewriting history a bit to say that Bungie may have suffered under Microsoft.
This is a company that became industry rockstars with an incredibly successful franchise and were given an inordinate amount of money and support at the time. Them believing they’d be better off on their own was partly a fallacy, and only really resulted in going full circle and letting Sony purchase them.