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The ports and decompilations keep getting wackier, and this one is impressive in a way that puts the Nintendo 64 to the test, in a way that doesn’t feel right, like a Frankenstein port that shouldn’t exist but scratches your mind curiously in a way that you just want to see more.
A new Nintendo 64 port was launched called Halo 64, showcasing Halo: Combat Evolved being played on the Nintendo 64 with the nostalgic, sharp, triangluar N64 graphics that we all still love to this day. This port isn’t of the campaign, but of a multiplayer experience that allows you to play with up to four players locally via split-screen, either against each other in a certain multiplayer modes, or you can choose Firefight mode that spawns waves of enemies for you to defeat, and hopefully survive through.
It uses Halo’s own game code (the decompiledn, weapons, game types, the HUD, first-person weapons, Halo’s pathfinding) compiled for the N64’s VR4300, with a new renderer, menu, HUD drawing and sound on libdragon and tiny3d, and the maps converted from the Xbox game’s files, so you can choose from 13 different maps to choose from featuring:
- Battle Creek
- Sidewinder
- Damnation
- Rat Race
- Prisoner
- Hang ’em High
- Chill Out
- Derelict
- Boarding Action
- Blood Gulch
- Wizard
- Chiron TL-34
- Longest
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This project was made with the use of AI and is not entirely human-led. AI has been used to write code and may or may not have been fully checked by a human. Retro Dodo condones the use of AI to assist developers when used as a tool, but doesn’t support GenAI that steals copyrighted material from others for profit/gain.
Each map features its vehicles, weapons and teleporters and can be played in game types such as Slayer, Team Slayer, Slayer Pro, Capture The Flag, King of the Hill and more. If you want bots, you can choose bots too, coming in four different difficulty levels to test your retro gaming shoot-em-up skills. Other features of this game include:
- A pause menu (START): the game stops and a scoreboard shows every player and bot (up to 12) with score, kills and deaths, and a button back to the main menu.
- Firefight: Grunts, Jackals and Elites attack in waves on the multiplayer maps; 1 to 4 players, shared lives, four difficulties.
- Halo’s HUD (shields, health, ammunition, motion sensor, messages, scores), Halo’s weapon and vehicle sounds, the main menu’s music, and the N64’s own explosions and particles.
- A main menu at 640×480 (interlaced) over the scene behind Halo’s own title, the ring in space, with the HALO 64 logo.
- Controls for each player: four schemes (standard, bumper jumper, GoldenEye, north), toggle or hold crouch, inverted look, fire and grenade swapped, and separate look speeds for the stick and the C buttons.
- Rumble Pak: Halo’s own rumble (shots, hits, explosions, vehicles) on the Rumble Pak, each player’s on or off.
- Settings for the picture and speed (below). Settings and controls are saved on the cartridge (EEPROM).
The build runs on Linux or on Windows and will require not only your own copy of the original XBOX game so that it can convert its files legally, but some technical skills to convert and patch this game yourself via the developer’s GitHub, which it can be downloaded from for free. As with all files from GitHub, please do your own due diligence; files may contain malware, and we have not tested this port ourselves.It also requires an expansion Pak to work should you want to play this on original hardware.
This is clearly AI-assisted too, to make you all aware; it was stated that Claude was used to co-develop this game.
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