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[Krabardaf]

I'm not going to compare with other titles since this is rather useless.
But Halo 4 is massively impressive both technically and artistically. It really is pleasant to see that some games can still put me in awe. Fabulous work from 343, and gameplay is not left behind at all.
I really am impressed, and that sure feels good in an era of generic and rather tasteless games.

 

[Reiko]

played the game last month,stil looks awesome and very clean for console standars,you are trying way hard son

God of War 3 and Killzone 2 is cleaner.

 

[The Wraith]

In this Generation of console games, only God of War 3 looks better IMO. Halo 4 looks fucking amazing and is a technical marvel on such old hardware.

 

[Windom Earle]

My verdict after playing 7 hours yesterday:

The good:
- Amazing lighting and god rays
- Amazing modelling, lighting and DOF in cutscenes
- 30fps pretty much rock solid in the campagin (haven't tried mp)

The bad:
- Field of view is bad. One of the worst things about fps on consoles. Don't devs realize how much this cripples the experience?
- Scale is heavily toned down compared to Reach. Not FFXIII bad, but too corridor like. A lot of stuff you can see, you can't visit. Smoke and mirrors.
- Game is quite blurry due to FXAA.

Uncharted/GOW3 are still king when it comes to visuals IMO, especially with H4 losing scale.

 

[eso76]

Game dose look awesome, but a trained eye and deep analysis will tell you it doesn't really do more than Reach.
It does things better, using more resources on things the player is more likely to notice.
Reach used more of a brute force approach, all plasma bullets being light sources (not sure halo 4 does this, at least it's not as apparent), all those alpha layers, all those high quality models and textures you'd never appreciate outside of theatre mode.
You can tell 4 cuts a few corners here and there; faking geometry with sky domes, lowering textures res and removing motion blur, environments not as large and open (I'm only just on mission 3 though).
So while the game does look better I wouldn't say it's much better than Reach, technically, it just uses resources more wisely, and of course it has a great art direction, modelling etc.

Then again, we couldn't expect 343 or any other dev to find some hidden magic chip in the 360 at this point, just a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Above comment; agree with most points, but game is nowhere close to being anything you could think of calling blurry IMHO.

 

[Eideka]

Looks really good on TV so many wont notice

Does not change the game as it actually is. The fact that you don't see them while stepping a few feet way does not mean that are not there.

It goes without saying that judging console graphics on a monitor with shitty upscaling is not going to do them justice. But even on my Bravia I don't have any problems noticing jaggies.

 

[Pie and Beans]

Truly great looking game (if a little boring to actually play), but I feel like most of that is achieved from top of the range art design alongside tech pushing. Lighting was a highlight, skyboxes supreme, and textures on certain level geometry were nice and crisp.

I'd certainly say its in the same ballpark as the Uncharted And Killzone sequels, but I don't think it beats them (Killzone 3 weather effects alone, and Uncharted 3's dynamic shadow casting and lighting), and especially not God of War 3's character models and animation. Finally good to see MS finally have a team pushing tech that isnt the somewhat overdone "oh cars look pretty" genre, but kinda sad theyre bolted to Halo forever more whereas Naughty Dog and Santa Monica make other stuff.

 

[eso76]

Finally good to see MS finally have a team pushing tech that isnt the somewhat overdone "oh cars look pretty" genre, but kinda sad theyre bolted to Halo forever more whereas Naughty Dog and Santa Monica make other stuff.

Yes, this is rather sad actually. I like halo but the game hasn't truly evolved much since 1 and I'm finding 4 a bit too repetitive already. Not sure how pumped I'll be for 5.
Let's hope 343 can at least lend their knowledge to other teams working on x720

 

[highrider]

halo 4 looks as good or better than anything on consoles imo. i still think to this day god of war 3 is pretty tough to beat, but halo 4 was more impressive to me. but i could totally understand preferring gow or uncharted and what they are doing visually.

 

[Pie and Beans]

halo 4 looks as good or better than anything on consoles imo. i still think to this day god of war 3 is pretty tough to beat, but halo 4 was more impressive to me. but i could totally understand preferring gow or uncharted and what they are doing visually.

Its going to be preference, but where Uncharted and GoW are going to always surpass Halo is because you have third person characters on screen with animations, reactions, and more at all times. Stuff like seeing Nathan Drake half lit by the crazy bright Yemen Sun, and half in shadow from a building behind him made me say wow out loud while with Halo 4 it was just a constant case of "this is a pretty environment" punctuated by awesome particle effects.

 

[Windom Earle]

Its going to be preference, but where Uncharted and GoW are going to always surpass Halo is because you have third person characters on screen with animations, reactions, and more at all times. Stuff like seeing Nathan Drake half lit by the crazy bright Yemen Sun, and half in shadow from a building behind him made me say wow out loud while with Halo 4 it was just a constant case of "this is a pretty environment" punctuated by awesome particle effects.

This is true, but in this case fps games need to excel more in terms of weapon models, reloading animations and motion blur. BF3 and the Killzones are also still a bit ahead here I think.

 

[Reiko]

This is true, but in this case fps games need to excel more in terms of weapon models, reloading animations and motion blur. BF3 and the Killzones are also still a bit ahead here I think.

In that case Crysis 2 on consoles is MUCH further ahead.

 

[Pie and Beans]

This is true, but in this case fps games need to excel more in terms of weapon models, reloading animations and motion blur. BF3 and the Killzones are also still a bit ahead here I think.

Yeah, I enjoyed Halo 4 having a bit more weight to it this time around rather than the camera-trolley sliding on ice effect most FPS games have, but Killzone and Battlefield definitely have that weight+animation edge over Halo, especially since I'm supposed to be some armour-ton wearing super soldier as the Master Chief. A lot of the Halo 4 animations just felt like old stuff re-used especially executions and vehicle hijackings.

 

[Windom Earle]

In that case Crysis 2 on consoles is MUCH further ahead.

The one thing that Killzone still does better than any other game (including PC) are the weapons. Shaders, models and animations are unmatched IMO.

 

[Dictator93]

The one thing that Killzone still does better than any other game (including PC) are the weapons. Shaders, models and animations are unmatched IMO.

Crysis 2 has three different styled reloading animation for each gun depending on suit mode including different reloading animations for an empty chamber. That is about like 6 different reloading animations per weapon. Believe me. Crysis 2 takes the cake. They are all ridiculously good looking too. Just reload the SAW while in strenth or normal mode. It is god like

Also on the PC version all guns with metallic parts actually reflect their environment using a combo of cube-maps and Real time reflections. I think crysis 2 is top notch gun porn game by far

 

[Eideka]

The one thing that Killzone still does better than any other game (including PC) are the weapons. Shaders, models and animations are unmatched IMO.

I disagree, Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3 on PC trump it. They destroy Killzone 2/3 in all other graphical departments as well; except for the artstyle which is highly subjective.

Also on the PC version all guns with metallic parts actually reflect their environment using a combo of cube-maps and Real time reflections. I think crysis 2 is top notch gun porn game by far

Wow...

Just wow.

 

[Windom Earle]

Crysis 2 has three different styled reloading animation for each gun depending on suit mode including different reloading animations for an empty chamber. That is about like 6 different reloading animations per weapon. Believe me. Crysis 2 takes the cake. They are all ridiculously good looking too. Just reload the SAW while in strenth or normal mode. It is god like

I finished C2 on 360 and don't think that models and shaders are up there with KZ, even though the animation variety sounds nice. Never noticed that to be honest.
PC is still using the same models, no?

 

[Eideka]

Courtesy of Corky :
http://h9.abload.de/img/crysis22012-04-1311-551bre.png
http://i.minus.com/iY2sHNneMNk9C.png
http://i.minus.com/ibgN8MkWpT11Wl.png

Killzone 2/3 are parsecs behind IMO. I've never been impressed with the gun models in KZ games.

 

[Windom Earle]

Courtesy of Corky :
http://h9.abload.de/img/crysis22012-04-1311-551bre.png
http://i.minus.com/iY2sHNneMNk9C.png
http://i.minus.com/ibgN8MkWpT11Wl.png

Killzone 2/3 are parsecs behind IMO. I've never been impressed with the gun models in KZ games.

Holy crap, is that vanilla? My bad for badmouthing the PC version.

 

[Eideka]

Holy crap, is that vanilla? My bad for badmouthing the PC version.

Vanilla, but downsampled. Of this does not influence the quality of the gun models.

 

[Dictator93]

I finished C2 on 360 and don't think that models and shaders are up there with KZ, even though the animation variety sounds nice. Never noticed that to be honest.
PC is still using the same models, no?

Actually I am pretty sure the Xbox version has similar textures on the guns.

The pc version gun texture and models are outstanding though. Ridiculous

 

[higherARC05]

halo 4 looks as good or better than anything on consoles imo. i still think to this day god of war 3 is pretty tough to beat, but halo 4 was more impressive to me. but i could totally understand preferring gow or uncharted and what they are doing visually.

Gow3 looks great for sure. But there are things it falls on like low detailed textures, npc poly count, and interacting particles.

Whenever you can get the camera close to the environment the textures aremt as high as a traditional fps. Its normal since the camera is fixed high above they know not to spend too muchresources on the textures. Whenever i see that scene when kratos goes and kills that one guy in fps for the first time the low res textures pop out.

Also kratos slides all over the floor i dont like the animation looks like the ps2 type stuff wjhere nathan drakes is more techinically better.

All said and done all these games lack in areas but still can be marvels..

So happy that now HALO 4 is now up there in the ranks.

 

[charsace]

True, but then it is rendered in sub HD so it comes off a bit blurrier than native 720p games. But at least it has got very few jaggies.

AWAN is 720p.

 

[Reiko]

The one thing that Killzone still does better than any other game (including PC) are the weapons. Shaders, models and animations are unmatched IMO.

I disagree.

 

[NemesisPrime]

Courtesy of Corky :
http://h9.abload.de/img/crysis22012-04-1311-551bre.png
http://i.minus.com/iY2sHNneMNk9C.png
http://i.minus.com/ibgN8MkWpT11Wl.png

Killzone 2/3 are parsecs behind IMO. I've never been impressed with the gun models in KZ games.

Wow... indeed... no contest.

 

[ii Stryker]

If 343i had delivered anything less in Halo 4 it would have been deemed a failure.

and if it weren't for Bungie Halo would not even exist. THANK GOD FOR BUNGIE!

Crysis 2 has a fantastic tech behind it, but boy is the world visually boring.

I enjoyed the art direction of Crysis 2, some of the level designs were a bit meh though.

 

[szaromir]

Crysis 2 has a fantastic tech behind it, but boy is the world visually boring.

 

[Feindflug]

AWAN is 720p.

According to Beyond3D it's 1120x576 (4xAA + FXAA).

Of course that doesn't mean much since the IQ is really good in American Nightmare, in fact it has by far the best IQ that I've seen in a sub-HD title.

 

[RoboPlato]

It isn't optimized for consoles. (But it's supposedly going to be for Crysis 3 on consoles)

The FXAA in Halo 4 has a very small GPU cost.

I wonder if SMAA will be ready for next-gen consoles. I would love to see that being used instead of FXAA.

 

[ii Stryker]

I wonder if SMAA will be ready for next-gen consoles. I would love to see that being used instead of FXAA.

whats the difference?

 

[BigDaddyFatSack]

A game where it mostly took place in vast landscapes has been reduced to a corridor style fps game.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, Killzone 2 and 3 push that level of IQ in huge landscapes. I really wish Sony was the one who bought out Halo franchise sometimes.

 

[RoboPlato]

whats the difference?

Not as much blur and it has better coverage in certain situations while still requiring very little processing power. With deferred rendering becoming more and more prominent MSAA won't be as viable an option and it has higher power requirements.

 

[Stallion Free]

You'd think at, on a console where the rendering pipeline can be more tightly controlled by the developer, you'd be able to inject different AA methods at different times, and on different regions. Eg don't apply FXAA/MLAA/SMAA to areas that filter badly such as textures with writing, then apply AA to the 3D scene before overlaying HUD items

That concept has nothing to do with the platform (console/PC). It just demands that a developer implement the AA themselves rather than a custom implementation by the user.

A game where it mostly took place in vast landscapes has been reduced to a corridor style fps game.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, Killzone 2 and 3 push that level of IQ in huge landscapes. I really wish Sony was the one who bought out Halo franchise sometimes.

I'm trying to process this, but wtf?

 

[leng jai]

That is because you are wrong.

Well that reasoning is just irrefutable.

 

[AdventureRacing]

I think pretty much all the games being discussed look fantastic and i don't know how i could say which one is the most impressive. I will say that i never really like the visuals in GOW3 as much as most people seem too. No idea why but killzone and uncharted were just more appealing to me for whatever reason.

I think i like halos graphics best but that is because of the art style and the fact i'm a big halo fan.

A game where it mostly took place in vast landscapes has been reduced to a corridor style fps game.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, Killzone 2 and 3 push that level of IQ in huge landscapes. I really wish Sony was the one who bought out Halo franchise sometimes.

What the hell? In what reality is this even remotely true?

 

[Reiko]

I think pretty much all the games being discussed look fantastic and i don't know how i could say which one is the most impressive. I will say that i never really like the visuals in GOW3 as much as most people seem too. No idea why but killzone and uncharted were just more appealing to me for whatever reason.

I think i like halos graphics best that is because of the art style and the fact i'm a big halo fan.



What the hell? In what reality is this even remotely true?

It's a warrior battle cry.

 

[Eideka]

A game where it mostly took place in vast landscapes has been reduced to a corridor style fps game.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, Killzone 2 and 3 push that level of IQ in huge landscapes. I really wish Sony was the one who bought out Halo franchise sometimes.

 

[eso76]

I wonder if SMAA will be ready for next-gen consoles. I would love to see that being used instead of FXAA.

Would be happy with forza horizon solution. In 1080p it shall look glorious.

 

[danwarb]

Dropped weapons are disappearing. That's not very Halo.

For 5 on the nextbox, bring back the beautiful huge skyboxes of Halo 3 and Reach, and make the game less like Halo 2. Otherwise good job.

A few later levels are brilliant.

 

[sTeLioSco]

Must be the devils work, how could they have possibly achieved this(something equal to UC3 or GOW) without the power of cell?

In an era where the likes of Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica have defined the graphical state-of-the-art on current-gen console, the Xbox 360 finally has its own shot at the title.


and its not the better looking console game.....

 

[higherARC05]

In an era where the likes of Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica have defined the graphical state-of-the-art on current-gen console, the Xbox 360 finally has its own shot at the title.


and its not the better looking console game.....

Subjective

 

[StuBurns]

In an era where the likes of Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica have defined the graphical state-of-the-art on current-gen console, the Xbox 360 finally has its own shot at the title.


and its not the better looking console game.....

He basically said the same thing about Reach though.

While the gameplay delivered, core gamers spoiled by the cutting-edge graphical techniques seen in titles like Killzone 2 really wanted to see what a next-generation Bungie game could deliver.

Halo: Reach is that game, an enormous technical leap over its predecessors and competitors on 360 and an exciting example of a first-party exclusive that genuinely pushes the console into new technological territory - something we don't see so often on the Microsoft platform.

 

[sTeLioSco]

Subjective

same for both sides.
but the power of the cell produces alot of games the can be considered best looking console games.

and the ps3 still has games coming that can claim that.

so its one exception....

 

[adamsapple]

Its kinda not the same thing, with the H4 ending he's basically saying this is a legitimate contender for the "best looking console game this generation" title,

with Reach he's just saying that this is a technological leap (for Halo) and a 360 game that can match up to big hitting PS3 exclusives like KZ2 (at that time).

 

[higherARC05]

same for both sides.
but the power of the cell produces alot of games the can be considered best looking console games.

and the ps3 still has games coming that can claim that.

so its one exception....

If you are waiting till next year, good luck. Next gen games will be shown and nothing will matter.

Going to be great.

 

[abadguy]

same for both sides.
but the power of the cell produces alot of games the can be considered best looking console games.

and the ps3 still has games coming that can claim that.

so its one exception....

If you don't count BK: N&B, Forza horizon or PGR4, even Gears 3.

 

[StuBurns]

Its kinda not the same thing, with the H4 ending he's basically saying this is a legitimate contender for the "best looking console game this generation" title,

with Reach he's just saying that this is a technological leap (for Halo) and a 360 game that can match up to big hitting PS3 exclusives like KZ2 (at that time).

I don't see how that's different at all. If, for example, you consider UC3 to be the best looking PS3 game (I do not), and Halo 4 looks around that good, it's matching the best looking current PS3 game.

We have another God of War, and Naughty Dog game yet to come on PS3. MS is done with the 360, so it might be reasonable to say Halo 4 will remain the best looking 360 game, but there is a very good chance people see a better looking PS3 game.

 

[LiK]

beautiful game. definitely one of the best looking 360 games.

 

[dilatedmuscle]

Ive played through the H4 campaign and ive been a halo fan for a long time but ive been out of the loop somewhat. Is Halo 4 still 4 player co-op? If so the comparisons to UC should stop.

 

[RoboPlato]

Would be happy with forza horizon solution. In 1080p it shall look glorious.

That was 4xMSAA and FXAA and indeed, it looks incredible. Pretty huge performance cost though. I was just talking about SMAA as a low power cost replacement for FXAA only. Obviously something like Forza Horizon's solution would be better if not using deferred rendering and the processing power is available. I just don't want FXAA smearing up all the 1080p goodness of next gen.