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Halo Anniversary |OT| It All Comes Full Circle
- Thread starter GhaleonEB
- Start date
Ridgeline and Headlong are damn good maps. I want to see more weight on 1-flag and 1 bomb for headlong though. Felt like a badass roaming around the maps.
Pistol will take some time to master, but the firing rate/semi automatic function is great.
No armor abilities = perfect
Maps are beautiful, gameplay is fair, game is fun. Thanks 343, cannot wait for the campaign tomorrow
Pistol will take some time to master, but the firing rate/semi automatic function is great.
No armor abilities = perfect
Maps are beautiful, gameplay is fair, game is fun. Thanks 343, cannot wait for the campaign tomorrow
TacticalFox88
Banned
I wish they'd give Halo 2 this treatment. Goddamn what an excellent game.
Gabotron ES
Member
Hopped on the Anniversary BTB playlist, everybody votes for Elite Slayer on Ridgeline.
I actually enjoyed it, guess shitty gametypes work really well wen playing on master piece maps.
I also declare Anniversary's maps to be the most beautiful and fap worthy Halo maps ever.
I actually enjoyed it, guess shitty gametypes work really well wen playing on master piece maps.
I also declare Anniversary's maps to be the most beautiful and fap worthy Halo maps ever.
godhandiscen
There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Aww, the framerate is awful with the enhanced graphics. The game feels off with this framerate. I am hoping its just because I am so used to playing the original on the PC with 60fps, but Anniversary feels like it's running closer to 20fps than 30fps all the time. Is the game locked at 24fps or something? I am still enjoying myself, but I hope that for Halo 4 they lock the fps at a constant 30fps.
Woo, I'm tired. Completed Legendary co-op up to Truth & Reconciliation at this point, and done for the morning before sleep. First impressions:
BAR TO MEET: Perfect Dark XBLA
GRAPHICS & ANIMATION
+ Nice work by Sabre here. There's some subjective points I disagree with but overall, it's pretty solid.
+ Downside is that the cutscenes seem to desync, where Cortana or Johnson will mouth something but not say any words. Strangely, Keyes looks mostly synced. Cortana's face looks a tad weird when it's animated in newmode, but I understand the bone limitations they're working with here.
+ Nice real time lighting effects not present in the original engine added. New mood lighting, improved flashlight dynamic lighting on the players. The marines with flashlights in T&R light up the side of your gun when they look past you, and illuminate the blades of grass they look over. Neat.
+ Thankfully, all the old Bungie employee faces are retained in this remake, which cannot be said for Perfect Dark XBLA which lost all the faces from the original except for the main characters, which really hurt face variety for multiplayer.
+ I swear when I came upon the second marine area in Halo (the not-Rockslide and not-Installation 04 one), it looked like a painting. Awesome.
- I don't like the grenade icons and hud font. It's just really small to see,.
+ Waypoint text is really clear and still futuristic enough for me to like it.
+ Menus are clean and functional. Video options provide an easy and quick calibration tool to use that Reach does not.
SOUND
% I'm 50/50 on the sound effects. I like most of them, but some are over the top, like the plasma grenade explosion or the PR bringout sound (why is it so noisy?!?!). The sniper rifle firing effect, from both first and third person sounds awesome.
+ Ingame dialogue is a lot more clear and easy to understand this time around (due to no more loldoublebass)
+ I hear a lot of Halo 2 menu sounds everywhere. Aw yeah.
CONTROLS
+ Thanks for not 4Jing it up and actually including all the control schemes players used over the years in Halo games. And for still giving poeop
TERMINALS
Very well done
BAR TO MEET: Perfect Dark XBLA
GRAPHICS & ANIMATION
+ Nice work by Sabre here. There's some subjective points I disagree with but overall, it's pretty solid.
+ Downside is that the cutscenes seem to desync, where Cortana or Johnson will mouth something but not say any words. Strangely, Keyes looks mostly synced. Cortana's face looks a tad weird when it's animated in newmode, but I understand the bone limitations they're working with here.
+ Nice real time lighting effects not present in the original engine added. New mood lighting, improved flashlight dynamic lighting on the players. The marines with flashlights in T&R light up the side of your gun when they look past you, and illuminate the blades of grass they look over. Neat.
+ Thankfully, all the old Bungie employee faces are retained in this remake, which cannot be said for Perfect Dark XBLA which lost all the faces from the original except for the main characters, which really hurt face variety for multiplayer.
+ I swear when I came upon the second marine area in Halo (the not-Rockslide and not-Installation 04 one), it looked like a painting. Awesome.
- I don't like the grenade icons and hud font. It's just really small to see,.
+ Waypoint text is really clear and still futuristic enough for me to like it.
+ Menus are clean and functional. Video options provide an easy and quick calibration tool to use that Reach does not.
SOUND
% I'm 50/50 on the sound effects. I like most of them, but some are over the top, like the plasma grenade explosion or the PR bringout sound (why is it so noisy?!?!). The sniper rifle firing effect, from both first and third person sounds awesome.
+ Ingame dialogue is a lot more clear and easy to understand this time around (due to no more loldoublebass)
+ I hear a lot of Halo 2 menu sounds everywhere. Aw yeah.
CONTROLS
+ Thanks for not 4Jing it up and actually including all the control schemes players used over the years in Halo games. And for still giving poeop
TERMINALS
Very well done
The Librarian
Banned
About to start the game up again, but I played through most of PoA about five hours ago and I have to say:
Is
I've seen it on here (not for awhile now, though) but I didn't know it originated from HaloGAF.
Nice touch with Linda's cryotube.
Is
Dark Planetoid Rising something from HaloGAF?
Diablohead
Member
postman arrived, no HCE
I RAGED
I RAGED
Photolysis
Banned
Too lazy to write an eloquent and coherent review, so I'm going to break down my feedback into bullet points.
Oh and I finished The Maw's final run on my second attempt in 3:36 (1:24 left on the clock) nabbing Never Tell Me The Odds. Anyone done it faster?
So, let's go.
+ The new sound effects are generally very good
+ Remastered music is amazing, the score is very rich and adds a lot to what was originally a fantastic composition.
+ The use of colours is excellent, and it's very nice to return to a more vibrant Halo game after the desaturated crap in Reach. The skyboxes are gorgeous.
+ Generally the new textures and models fit the continuity of the Halo franchise and blend the game visually with later games in the series, particularly with Covenant and Forerunner aesthetics & architecture.
+ I wasn't that interested in the Terminals but took a look and they were actually very well done, so that's a nice bonus.
+ The revised cutscene animations fit quite well in my opinion
+ Dialogue is easier to understand due to the higher audio fidelity. I ended up hearing some lines that I'd never caught before too.
+ Visually, big highlights are the revised versions of Silent Cartographer (much more tropical with the foliage and ambient noises), Halo (much more foresty with extra trees, vines, ivy and so on) and the outside of Truth and Reconciliation. Oh and the 343 Guilty Spark swamp.
+ Switching to classic mode to see how much has changed has a much bigger draw than I thought it would. Even on areas that haven't seen massive change like Assault on the Control Room, the differences in lighting and texture/model quality are very striking.
- Some of the skulls strike me as a waste of a slot, though I appreciate there were likely limitations on what can and could not be added. Malfunction is just an inferior version of Blind though. It's not like Blind couldn't be added because Malfunction uses the exact same functionality by hiding parts of the HUD, it just means you have to kill yourself a bunch of times first.
- Not so fond of the HUD colour and the changes to the shield bar, or the text. And dear god what the hell did you do to the sniper reticle, it's almost as large as the pistol's
- DLC unlockables still suck. I took the game to a friend's but he doesn't have his console hooked up to the internet so even using my own profile obviously the game said "fuck you" and refused to load the Grunt Funeral skull.
- Some of the texture loading is very bad, especially in the engine room of The Maw. Though for the most part it's fine, unless you're charging through on a speedrun, then you'll probably encounter it more.
- The slight delay in loading up a cutscene (I guess due to having to load the new animations) is a shame.
- The needler's explosion sound effect is poor compared to the old one. That's the only sound change I can think of that I really dislike.
Overall, the game does a very good job of updating the graphics whilst keeping the magic there, and it's surprising just how modern the game can feel with a new coat of paint, and it does improve some levels.
To be sure, The Library is still a bad level and new graphics can't fix that. However by making it much easier to navigate and by breaking up the monotony with holograms and varying coloured lighting, and making it much brighter it does transform a bad level into a poor level.
As a PAL user it was interesting to play the 'proper' H1 experience at 30FPS. If you don't know, the PAL version had to change properties to function better at 25FPS, resulting in several weapons firing slower, and Chief moving slower than on the NTSC version.
As I've said before, in an ideal world there are some things I'd like to change about the gameplay, and features I'd like to have added in but which require engine support. Saved films / scoring / the online infrastructure is a big one. Rally points would also be useful, especially on the longer levels. And if I were to go back and edit the maps, I'd add in more weapon variety on those earlier levels. Shotgun in the first half of the game? Yes please! And boarding and being able to use the Energy Sword and Fuel Rod would be awesome. And I miss being able to see my legs in first person, see secondary weapons, and my proper walking animations damnit!
I also would have liked to see the animations redone to be more polished whilst keeping the feel of them that gave the game its flavour. In other words, pretty much do what you did for the cutscenes where they were made more fluid and detailed, but still true to the original actions.
Being forced to use the H1 skeletons also makes for some weird lip syncing where you have a high res model using bones from a much lower poly model which revised animations would have prevented.
The main problem with the way 343i have gone with this remake is that whilst it keeps Halo's strengths, it also keeps the weaknesses. If you can make a remake where you keep the former but remove the latter, then you have it made.
Graphics are the icing on the gameplay cake. The original chocolate cake was very tasty, and now it's covered in delicious chocolate frosting.
So in conclusion, chocolate is awesome.
Oh and I finished The Maw's final run on my second attempt in 3:36 (1:24 left on the clock) nabbing Never Tell Me The Odds. Anyone done it faster?
So, let's go.
+ The new sound effects are generally very good
+ Remastered music is amazing, the score is very rich and adds a lot to what was originally a fantastic composition.
+ The use of colours is excellent, and it's very nice to return to a more vibrant Halo game after the desaturated crap in Reach. The skyboxes are gorgeous.
+ Generally the new textures and models fit the continuity of the Halo franchise and blend the game visually with later games in the series, particularly with Covenant and Forerunner aesthetics & architecture.
+ I wasn't that interested in the Terminals but took a look and they were actually very well done, so that's a nice bonus.
+ The revised cutscene animations fit quite well in my opinion
+ Dialogue is easier to understand due to the higher audio fidelity. I ended up hearing some lines that I'd never caught before too.
+ Visually, big highlights are the revised versions of Silent Cartographer (much more tropical with the foliage and ambient noises), Halo (much more foresty with extra trees, vines, ivy and so on) and the outside of Truth and Reconciliation. Oh and the 343 Guilty Spark swamp.
+ Switching to classic mode to see how much has changed has a much bigger draw than I thought it would. Even on areas that haven't seen massive change like Assault on the Control Room, the differences in lighting and texture/model quality are very striking.
- Some of the skulls strike me as a waste of a slot, though I appreciate there were likely limitations on what can and could not be added. Malfunction is just an inferior version of Blind though. It's not like Blind couldn't be added because Malfunction uses the exact same functionality by hiding parts of the HUD, it just means you have to kill yourself a bunch of times first.
- Not so fond of the HUD colour and the changes to the shield bar, or the text. And dear god what the hell did you do to the sniper reticle, it's almost as large as the pistol's
- DLC unlockables still suck. I took the game to a friend's but he doesn't have his console hooked up to the internet so even using my own profile obviously the game said "fuck you" and refused to load the Grunt Funeral skull.
- Some of the texture loading is very bad, especially in the engine room of The Maw. Though for the most part it's fine, unless you're charging through on a speedrun, then you'll probably encounter it more.
- The slight delay in loading up a cutscene (I guess due to having to load the new animations) is a shame.
- The needler's explosion sound effect is poor compared to the old one. That's the only sound change I can think of that I really dislike.
Overall, the game does a very good job of updating the graphics whilst keeping the magic there, and it's surprising just how modern the game can feel with a new coat of paint, and it does improve some levels.
To be sure, The Library is still a bad level and new graphics can't fix that. However by making it much easier to navigate and by breaking up the monotony with holograms and varying coloured lighting, and making it much brighter it does transform a bad level into a poor level.
As a PAL user it was interesting to play the 'proper' H1 experience at 30FPS. If you don't know, the PAL version had to change properties to function better at 25FPS, resulting in several weapons firing slower, and Chief moving slower than on the NTSC version.
As I've said before, in an ideal world there are some things I'd like to change about the gameplay, and features I'd like to have added in but which require engine support. Saved films / scoring / the online infrastructure is a big one. Rally points would also be useful, especially on the longer levels. And if I were to go back and edit the maps, I'd add in more weapon variety on those earlier levels. Shotgun in the first half of the game? Yes please! And boarding and being able to use the Energy Sword and Fuel Rod would be awesome. And I miss being able to see my legs in first person, see secondary weapons, and my proper walking animations damnit!
I also would have liked to see the animations redone to be more polished whilst keeping the feel of them that gave the game its flavour. In other words, pretty much do what you did for the cutscenes where they were made more fluid and detailed, but still true to the original actions.
Being forced to use the H1 skeletons also makes for some weird lip syncing where you have a high res model using bones from a much lower poly model which revised animations would have prevented.
The main problem with the way 343i have gone with this remake is that whilst it keeps Halo's strengths, it also keeps the weaknesses. If you can make a remake where you keep the former but remove the latter, then you have it made.
Graphics are the icing on the gameplay cake. The original chocolate cake was very tasty, and now it's covered in delicious chocolate frosting.
So in conclusion, chocolate is awesome.
Barrow Roll
Member
Legendary is so perfect in this game, having a blast with it so far. The visuals are very nice except for some ugly human faces. The sound effects are amazing. The thunderous boom of the sniper rifle is just unholy. I was having so much fun that I completely forgot to look for the Terminal in the second level. T&R looks so pretty but I gotta go back and find that Terminal now. New music also sounds fantastic. Audio in the cutscenes seems a bit quiet though.
Anniversary Slayer is pretty decent but the jump doesn't feel floaty enough. Wish it was zero bloom instead of just reduced though. Or have it work behind the scenes, don't show us the expanding reticule. Dat placebo effect.
Overall, a job well done 343!
Anniversary Slayer is pretty decent but the jump doesn't feel floaty enough. Wish it was zero bloom instead of just reduced though. Or have it work behind the scenes, don't show us the expanding reticule. Dat placebo effect.
Overall, a job well done 343!
chazmonkey
Member
Can't wait to pick it up today to play coop with the room mate. It'll be nice having a diversion from Skyrim for a short while.
squidhands
Member
flawless.Ramirez said:
Great writeup Photolysis. Can't wait to get my hands on this game tonight.
BlueScrote
Member
Barrow Roll said:
I feel like that is an awful idea. How would it feel to have your crosshairs directly over someone with a precision weapon and still miss, without any indication of wth was going on.
Seems like my Newegg order isn't going to be delivered until Wednesday at the earliest.
Photolysis
Banned
chazmonkey said:
I only had a chance to play that for a day when my brother brought it over this weekend and somehow still managed to sink a scary amount of hours into it
Barrow Roll
Member
Well according to the fine folks at 343 and others, the CE Magnum already had bloom/bullet spread and Reach just animates it. I'm not saying it's true or that I agree or anything like that, and I really don't want to bring up that tired old debate, but that's what they say. Seeing the reticule expand just mentally prohibits me from using the Magnum like I would in CE. I see the reticule expand and my mind goes "slow it down" even if the bloom is supposed to reset after every shot in these new settings. But whatever, I doubt it's going to be changed.BlueScrote said:
The new Truth and Reconciliation is simply breathtaking. That skybox is drop-dead gorgeous. And the new Under Cover of Night sounds absolutely amazing.
The Librarian
Banned
I actually like it. It help makes the sniper rifle feel powerful.Havok said:
Instigator
Banned
Got a question to anyone with Euro and North American version, is the campaign multilingual? Voice acting and subtitles (I suspect it's like Halo 3 and Reach).
Diablohead
Member
I would have loved the CE multi remade but I can live with using reach too, it keeps the halo groups in one place still, worst thing for me is going back to reach's style of making everything grey washed, I only play that game with in-game contrast set to rather dark.Killer said:
BlueScrote
Member
Barrow Roll said:
I definitely understand where your coming from with the mental block on the blooming reticule. I had such a hard time adjusting to zero bloom slayer after getting used to the pistol reticule expanding across the entire screen when spamming it.
BruiserBear
Banned
Killer said:
All along that is exactly what I thought they were doing. I thought I'd just get to play Halo CE multiplayer with the exact same gameplay and the maps remade with new graphics. That's disappointing to hear that's not possible. :/
It's also very disappointing to hear about this game's graphical shortcomings. A shoddy framerate and texture pop in are just not acceptable IMO. I'm surprised they couldn't do more to get that right.
JohnOfMars
Banned
Thanks UPS. I've never had a problem with Amazon's Release Day shipping until now.
*sigh* Leaving out of town in 2 days. Pretty sure I'm not going to have time to even finish the campaign before I go.
Reluctant-Hero
Member
Fuck yeah, I can't wait to get my copy form Amazon today. But will I be able to tear myself away from Skyrim?!
sixteen-bit
Member
Release day shipping or release day delivery?Epyon MX said:
Zeouterlimits
Member
Check your pms.Letters said:
<3
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
Foehammer is still one of my favorite characters in the Halo series.
ElRenoRaven
Member
soulassssns said:
See now that's a great review. They're critical yet they get facts straight and are fair to it. I didn't even need to see the score of it. Seems that their points are spot on too.
Zeouterlimits
Member
? Does it not work?Letters said:
Edit : Resent it, check your pms. Again.
Zeouterlimits
Member
Sad face, wish that wasn't the case.Letters said:I thought you were doing the PMs joke. xD
I got the code now, but it doesn't work, it's probably region related. Thanks a lot still.