Halo 2 Vista shows really well now, thanks to some visual enhancements. The game runs at 60fps in most cases, and the world is lit dynamically as you can see for yourself in the screenies. The art for the Master Chief, the Arbiter, and the multiplayer "skybox" scenery have gone through a touch-up to make them shine at our preferred resolution of 1920x1200. Honestly, the game looks so hot these days that I want to call it Halo 2.5.

We've made several changes in the game's control scheme this month in response to player feedback received on the show floor at Leipzig. The 360 controller received tweaks to the deadzone of its two analog sticks, but we overhauled the mouse and keyboard controls. We'd been told by fans that the mouse felt sluggish when compared with the controls of other popular PC games, so we did some side-by-side comparisons and realized we weren't properly accounting for mouse acceleration. That's been fixed, and the default sensitivity settings now match the out-of-box settings for Halo 1 PC. Our keyboard layout pre-sets are being evaluated too, although many players will still customize their keys.

Our test lead uses the mouse and keyboard exclusively in our afternoon games. I still use the 360 controller, and I admit there've been a couple times when his ability to pivot and precision-target my noggin cost me a match. He's getting better, too. I feel like a T. Rex who used to laugh at the rodent creatures, but now gets creeped out by their beady little eyes. It's looking more and more as though those posts in The Maw were right when they said that an experienced mouse-and-keyboard gamer will give a controller gamer a run for his money.