Halo:Combat Evolved

Does the FOV hack work fine in multiplayer?

Grade: D+

CCE: 98%

Hack solution is a damaging flaw.

Wait...what? D+? Really? Seeing as plain-old Vert- is C(+), it would actually score higher if no one had bothered to create the FOV tool? Or is there something else wrong that I'm missing?

I'm with marine even though you get a better experience the score still drops, at the very least a hack should continue to produce a C/C+ assuming it works flawlessly in multiplayer, If it does not then it deserves a D.

If you want to use a custom resolution all you have to do is go to your shortcut properties and add "-vidmode width, height, refreshrate" (eg. "-vidmode 1680, 1050, 60") to the target. This should work for any resolution although I have only tested it up to 2560 x 1600. Last I checked the 1.08 patch breaks Bitterbanana's FOV hack so you might want to look for an up to date version or something else to post since 1.08 is going to become a mandatory update soon (if it hasn't become one already).

Hack solutions result in a D grade. That's how the grading system has worked since it existed. If you want to propose a change to the grading system itself, this isn't the right place for it. The Insider's "Site Updates & Requests" board is more appropriate if you want to make a thread there.

The fact that a 3rd party unraveled their code and wrote a patch to fix their issue (that they could have avoided, and/or could have fixed in their own patch) points to the fact that either they don't support our vision, or are lazy.

I guess in this sense, it may be more a reflection of the dev than the game. But the fact that they made the community work so hard counts against them.

The game uses a FOV of 70 by default, that is correct, but that is not the right FOV for the game. It looks normal with a FOV of 90 on a 4:3 Display, just like it should look. They had to change it to 70 for the xbox. On the PC, of course, you can use a FOV of 90. And if you have an 16:10 screen, you should use a FOV of 100!

Someone is updating the hack for 1.08 users anyway, I'll post a link in this post when he finishes and releases it.

BTW, just as an FYI - Bitterbanana's FOV hack and most other Halo hacks work by hacking the game client's memory and plugging in values (in this case, changing the view frustum). This stuff is not really a patch, more of a hack or client side addon. Because of this if a hack works in singleplayer it should work in multiplayer and vice-versa no matter what - there is no code that checks what apps are running in the background to block out the app anyway.

If Bitterbanana or someone ever patches YeloBattery for 1.08 then the UI stretching issue should be fixed.

Please do cut Gearbox, Bungie and MS some slack - the game was released in 2003 or 2004, way before widescreen monitors became popular. Halo CE has never been officially supported and Halo PC is probably not supported by now either. The score can stay at whatever it is because that is the way the rules are but please do cut the developers some slack considering widescreen monitors are still a rarity amongst Halo users. They aren't lazy - they just didn't anticipate that widescreen users would become a sizable minority 5 or so years after their game was released. I'd also say that the fact that the community is there to provide tools like this is a pretty good indication that people are into the game, but that's rather subjective isn't it.

EDIT: Updated FOV Hack is here.