文章基本信息

标题：Revisionist History
作者：Thomas L. Mcdonald
期刊名称：Games for Windows
印刷版ISSN：1933-6160
出版年度：2004
卷号：January 2004
出版社：Ziff Davis Media Inc.

Revisionist History

Thomas L. Mcdonald

Halo has finally made it to PC (albeit three years late) with relatively few problems beyond its system-busting graphics. Patch v1.02 is notable mainly for offering multiple instances to the dedicated-server support, which allows many more servers to run at once. Some card-specific graphical glitches and problems with the auto-updater have been cleared up, as have some rare crashes during multiplayer chat.

The only other significant change is to Timedemo, which is a strangely elaborate way of testing framerates. If you run Timedemo after installing the patch, it may show a boost in performance since the last time you ran the program, even though the patch has no performance enhancements. The boost comes from a change in the way Timedemo makes its calculations, so if you think the game runs better, relax: It��s all in your head.

Madden 2004��s double-patch blitz (bringing the version number up to 1.3) gives a fine spit polish while also making some significant changes. Owners of ATI Radeon 8500, 9700, 9800, and higher cards and Nvidia GeForce FX series cards can now thrill to uniforms that get dirty over the course of a game, gasp at stadium shadows that fall on players, and marvel at metallic-colored helmets that glint in the sun. All of this looks terrific when the options are cranked up to 11.

Also, the long and noble tradition of football roster updates continues, reflecting real-world rosters up to September 15. Some significant crash bugs are ironed out, among them problems with saved games in franchise mode, setting Sign Player to CPU in franchise mode, and right-clicking on an in-game Pause menu. A host of other enhancements and minor fixes are included, addressing everything from problems with long MP3 file names to issues with jersey numbers when creating or editing a player. Aside from the crash bugs (which I never experienced), these are mite-sized changes, but they��re certainly worth a download.