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[Feindflug]

Does it have cleaner image quality at least?? Reach is grainy and blurry like some B-tier COD knockoff.

Yep, IQ in Anny is much better with no ghosting at all (no TAA this time) - actually it looks quite sharper than Reach even though it runs at a lower res...in fact the game runs at the Halo 3 res (1152*640) with some sort of post-process AA (most likely FXAA) from what I've seen in B3D.

343i should stick with FXAA, it works really well with Halo's art style and level design...I really hope we'll see something from Halo 4 in this year's VGAs, really curious to see what 343i did the past 3 years with the Halo engine.

 

[TheOddOne]

343i should stick with FXAA, it works really well with Halo's art style and level design...I really hope we'll see something from Halo 4 in this year's VGAs, really curious to see what 343i did the past 3 years with the Halo engine.

Really want to see what kind of in-house engine they have created.

 

[Blue Ninja]

I'm picking this up on friday (first Halo game since Halo 3 that I didn't buy on launch day ) but the videos I've been watching tell me one thing...

I'm playing this with the old music, not the new.

Though I probably won't play it for a while. :lol

 

[giancarlo123x]

My bestfriend convinced me to pick this up even though I was already getting SR3 and UMVC3 at midnight. Im so happy I ended up getting it, the anniversary multiplayer is so much fun and brings back great memories when I was 10. I love my OP pistol so much. I think my favorite part though is the remake of headlong. We had so much laughs and fun in just one match. Halo is back to me.

 

[senador]

I am on Truth and Reconciliation now and have gathered some thoughts. Maybe I will share them all later but right now the main thing sticking out is the audio. I appreciate the remastering of weapon audio but none of the human weapons sound right to me, especially the sniper. All the plasma weapons sounds great though.

I really wish we could adjust audio levels for music, weapons, vehicles, and voice. The levels are so off for me on my home stereo. Music and guns are great but the Hog is quiet and voices are way quiet. I have to turn the stereo way up to hear them, but then everything else is too loud. Arg. Marty you are awesome but this part is dumb. I don't know if the ability to not adjust audio was carried over because of him, or it wasn't feasible to add in, but its still annoying and I hope that Halo 4 finally includes this.

Another thing about the weapons is that they are loud and bassy. This is great for movies and for 1 off things but when you are shooting the weapon over and over it can get annoying. I find the Warthog gun to be the worst. Its just overpowering and the sounds needed to be toned down a bit.

Lastly, while I think the new music sounds stellar, I do not like the strings (cello, bass, etc) taking the place of guitars. The guitars have been a part of Halo since the beginning and I sorely miss them.

 

[S1kkZ]

I'm picking this up on friday (first Halo game since Halo 3 that I didn't buy on launch day ) but the videos I've been watching tell me one thing...

I'm playing this with the old music, not the new.

WHAT? new score is awesome, only track they "messed up" is rock anthem to save the world. the guitar solo sounds great but its too different from the original. the rest is ace, the halo theme never sounded better.

 

[Devin Olsen]

Some cool eggs in Anniversary... Not sure if I should spoiler them or not :\ they aren't really spoilers.

Videos

Spoiler

Halo: Anniversary - Siege of Madrigal
Halo: Anniversary - REX Egg Remains
Halo: Anniversary - Food Nipple Grunt

 

[malfcn]

Am I high, or did Best Buy give you $10 for pre-ordering? I did but now they said they didn't know about it.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

I remember being so enthralled by the lore and story when this game came out. I loved the simplicity and lack of long-explain-everything cut scenes. a lot of it was references to stuff that was not explained... and the damn chanting. the music of halo made me imagine tons of story in the game.

I never played ODST or Reach, but people didn't seem enthusiastic over the plot. It's strange because I really expected people to get mantears from Reach. from trailers it seemed like they tried to make a bro-sacrifice sort of story about how a bunch of bad asses gets glassed.


reason why I'm asking is more of a general.. is Halo still worth getting pulled into?

 

[Blue Ninja]

WHAT? new score is awesome, only track they "messed up" is rock anthem to save the world. the guitar solo sounds great but its too different from the original. the rest is ace, the halo theme never sounded better.

Eh, to each his own. I don't like the new one all that much, for some reason. Glad to hear you can enjoy it.

I remember being so enthralled by the lore and story when this game came out. I loved the simplicity and lack of long-explain-everything cut scenes. a lot of it was references to stuff that was not explained... and the damn chanting. the music of halo made me imagine tons of story in the game.

I never played ODST or Reach, but people didn't seem enthusiastic over the plot. It's strange because I really expected people to get mantears from Reach. from trailers it seemed like they tried to make a bro-sacrifice sort of story about how a bunch of bad asses gets glassed.


reason why I'm asking is more of a general.. is Halo still worth getting pulled into?

ODST's plot was fantastic. I loved how they took new characters and filled in a piece of the timeline we didn't know about yet. The characters were also likeable for the large part, and the story just felt engaging imo.

Reach has a good story... In a way. Stand-alone, it's plenty good enough, but when you're taking the rest of the canon into consideration... Eh. It divided the community into two camps: those who believe they never should've messed with the original canon and those who don't care or think the retcons are for the better.

343's doing an admirable job of reconciling the two sides, but Reach's story left a bitter taste in my mouth that's never really going to go away.

If you're just in it for the games, they're definitely worth it for the gameplay alone (though once again, Reach made a significant rift in the community here). I'd say go for it.

 

[Thermite]

Just finished Pillar of Autumn and started up Halo....

Thanks, 343. Thank you for remaking this. That is all. <3

Also,

Spoiler

the first terminal was really well done. I was expecting some sort of reading material that would just kinda tease Halo 4, but not only does it shed some light on the reclaimers/343 Guilty Spark/Forerunner relationship (in a pretty cool cutscene) for those who haven't read the books, it adds to the CE story

. I was was pleasantly surprised.

 

[Zoolader]

Anybody get their copy from Newegg yet? I was hoping to get it a day early since I heard they sometimes ship games early. That didn't happen so I was expecting it to be at my house when I got home from work today, wasn't there. Now I just looked online and saw it isn't due to arrive until the 17th. What the fuck! I guess i'll buy it now at some store and return the one from newegg when it arrives....

 

[MarshMellow96]

So what's the best course of action for downloading the maps? Am I right in thinking that you need to download the Anniversary pack in order to actually play multi or what?

I did have Reach but I don't really feel like buying it again to make the most out of the multi..

 

[Drakken]

Installing now, and starting a co-op campaign in about an hour! Can't wait to experience this game again; it's been a long time.

 

[Syracuse022]

So what's the best course of action for downloading the maps? Am I right in thinking that you need to download the Anniversary pack in order to actually play multi or what?

I did have Reach but I don't really feel like buying it again to make the most out of the multi..

If you just want to play the Anniversary maps, you can launch them from the Anniversary disc, no launch needed. The map pack is for people who want the Anniversary maps more integrated with the rest of Reach multiplayer.

For my part, I kind of like the demarcation between maps that suck and maps that don't suck, so I may give my map code out the way others here have done.

 

[Feel the Swift]

So yeah, this game has the best Halo 360 multiplayer hands down with Anniversary Classic.

 

[MarshMellow96]

If you just want to play the Anniversary maps, you can launch them from the Anniversary disc, no launch needed. The map pack is for people who want the Anniversary maps more integrated with the rest of Reach multiplayer.

For my part, I kind of like the demarcation between maps that suck and maps that don't suck, so I may give my map code out the way others here have done.

Are the maps transferable? I mean, if I redeem the pack for Anniversary, can I then go do the same for Reach?

Also, you're giving out the code because you think the maps suck?

 

[RavenHawk]

Gonna play this with my kids for the first time. I'm seriously considering sticking to the old-school graphics initially. Gotta raise 'em right.

Good man.

 

[Hypertrooper]

Are the maps transferable? I mean, if I redeem the pack for Anniversary, can I then go do the same for Reach?

Also, you're giving out the code because you think the maps suck?

You can only add the Anniversary maps to Reach, but there is no way around. So If you want to play Reach's maps + Anniversary maps, you must use the code and start the game via Reach.

 

[Hitmonchan107]

I'm tempted to read the Terminal spoilers, since I won't be picking this up until Christmas. Does anyone have a link to the spoilers posted awhile back?

 

[Blueblur1]

Anybody get their copy from Newegg yet? I was hoping to get it a day early since I heard they sometimes ship games early. That didn't happen so I was expecting it to be at my house when I got home from work today, wasn't there. Now I just looked online and saw it isn't due to arrive until the 17th. What the fuck! I guess i'll buy it now at some store and return the one from newegg when it arrives....

I have the same arrival date, the 17th. I can't really complain since its free UPS Ground 3-day shipping.

 

[Blinding]

Anybody get their copy from Newegg yet?

I got mine today, they shipped it last night at like 9 PM EST.

 

[S1kkZ]

just played the firefight map: wow, did they make some improvements to the reach engine? runs much smoother than i remember (and so much better than anniversary).

do you guys think its possible we might get a patch that improves the performance (of anniversay sp)? the 2 engine thing was a mistake. yeah, switching between classic and new is pretty cool but the price (framerate, texture pop-ins) is just too high.

 

[Doodis]

Anybody get their copy from Newegg yet? I was hoping to get it a day early since I heard they sometimes ship games early. That didn't happen so I was expecting it to be at my house when I got home from work today, wasn't there. Now I just looked online and saw it isn't due to arrive until the 17th. What the fuck! I guess i'll buy it now at some store and return the one from newegg when it arrives....

Mine is due to arrive tomorrow.

 

[Syracuse022]

Are the maps transferable? I mean, if I redeem the pack for Anniversary, can I then go do the same for Reach?

Also, you're giving out the code because you think the maps suck?

On the contrary, these maps (and the M6D's upstart little brother, the M6Q) are so much better than anything Reach currently has that I don't see myself spending a whole lot of time with regular Reach any time soon. The maps are already on the Anniversary disc and I figure I'll just use that for the foreseeable future.

 

[Doodis]

You can only add the Anniversary maps to Reach, but there is no way around. So If you want to play Reach's maps + Anniversary maps, you must use the code and start the game via Reach.

So you can't play full Reach multiplayer via Anniversary? I'm headed to a Reach LAN on Friday and was hoping I could lend my Reach copy to a friend and use Anniversary for multi. But no dice?

 

[feel]

Yep, IQ in Anny is much better with no ghosting at all (no TAA this time) - actually it looks quite sharper than Reach even though it runs at a lower res...in fact the game runs at the Halo 3 res (1152*640) with some sort of post-process AA (most likely FXAA) from what I've seen in B3D.

343i should stick with FXAA, it works really well with Halo's art style and level design...I really hope we'll see something from Halo 4 in this year's VGAs, really curious to see what 343i did the past 3 years with the Halo engine.

Good stuff.

 

[Majanew]

Figured it's fair to show some awesome rock texture work. (some contrast problems taking pic of HDTV, deal with it)

Original:

New:

 

[Woorloog]

Reach has a good story... In a way. Stand-alone, it's plenty good enough, but when you're taking the rest of the canon into consideration... Eh. It divided the community into two camps: those who believe they never should've messed with the original canon and those who don't care or think the retcons are for the better.

There's a third camp as well. Those who don't care if there are retcons (as long as they're sensible, changing lenght of a battle for example is not a big deal really) but still think Reach has a shitty story.


Been playing HCEA the whole day. Looks very nice, though texture pop-up and occasional stuttering are annoying. However, there hasn't been any game killing frame rate drops (like Reach had) so far. One crash (forced me to restart T&R ><). I like the new graphics better than Reach's even though they're the most cartoonish Halo graphics so far, beating even Halo Wars. Color is nice but a little less cartoonish style for Halo 4 ok? More like Halo 3 and ODST.
The new soundtrack is great but it suffers lack of volume. Firefight noice drowns the music. Needs more volume, a lot. New sound effects are excellent, love the new Ghost sound though that too is too quiet. As is Plasma Grenade priming sound, i think.

Why do skulls vanish permanently once you, uh, "pick up" one? Very annoying, in case i'd want to show how they're hidden to my friends. Yeah, sure, i could always start the game on another profile but... Too bad they're not physical things :/ Would've loved using them as weapons like in Halo 2 (which, BTW, totally deserves also a remake, that campaign was so damn great in co-op, so many things to "break")

Found every single terminal so far (currently finishing 343GS, found its terminal). A couple of have been ridiculously annoying to find. But the content... damn, very nice. Probably the best addition to whole game.

 

[urk]

Figured it's fair to show some awesome rock texture work. (some contrast problems taking pic of HDTV, deal with it)

Original:

New:

It may be a technical achievement to your developers, but it does not look like natural cliff.

I realize you are rushing to a deadline and not creating a work of art, so it is excusable. I was just pointing out to the OP, who may not have seen the outdoors also, that is not amazing.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

So finished 2nd level. Again texture pop in is just awful. Starting 3rd and I just have to say nightvision is now fucking useless. It was easier to snipe without it then with it.

 

[Unity2012]

I am not sure if anyone mentioned it before; but for those interested, the 3D in this game looks really good. It makes for a whole different level of immersion.

There is a slider to control the depth: 3D Mode Strength and an option to enable/disable classic mode; which I keep disabled for now. Do not quote me on this one but when I enabled classic mode the game did not run as smooth; but again, please do not quote it as a fact, try it yourself.

 

[Woorloog]

So finished 2nd level. Again texture pop in is just awful. Starting 3rd and I just have to say nightvision is now fucking useless. It was easier to snipe without it then with it.

Yeah, it is way too bright. The original NV was perfect.
And the texture pop-up is awful.

 

[Stinkles]

It may be a technical achievement to your developers, but it does not look like natural cliff.

I realize you are rushing to a deadline and not creating a work of art, so it is excusable. I was just pointing out to the OP, who may not have seen the outdoors also, that is not amazing.

This is not a natural formation.

 

[S1kkZ]

This is not a natural formation.

texture pop-in (the maw is just annoying as fuck), stuttering: speak.

 

[Blue Ninja]

This is not a natural formation.

There's a third camp as well. Those who don't care if there are retcons (as long as they're sensible, changing lenght of a battle for example is not a big deal really) but still think Reach has a shitty story.

I think it has a decent story if you turn off your brain, but the characters they were so proud of are cardboard cutouts at best and there's way too many plot holes.

 

[GhaleonEB]

It may be a technical achievement to your developers, but it does not look like natural cliff.

I realize you are rushing to a deadline and not creating a work of art, so it is excusable. I was just pointing out to the OP, who may not have seen the outdoors also, that is not amazing.

Good thing there are no escarpments in Halo 1. They'd probably blow those too.

 

[purg3]

It's been a while since I played through this campaign, but god damn if it still doesn't hold up today. Shows how far ahead of the curve bungie was with console fps when this came out. Still fun, AI and combat encounters are still good. Having a blast playing through this again and switching back and forth between the old/new graphics. Great stuff.

 

[Majanew]

It may be a technical achievement to your developers, but it does not look like natural cliff.

I realize you are rushing to a deadline and not creating a work of art, so it is excusable. I was just pointing out to the OP, who may not have seen the outdoors also, that is not amazing.

I haven't seen the outdoors, but I've seen 343/Saber struggle with framerates, jaggies, sub 720p just like Bungie always have.

 

[Feel the Swift]

Anyone have a problem during the first mission in campaign where you start back at a checkpoint after dying and the whole screen stays black?

 

[OverHeat]

Men I hate the little pause going from game to cinematic ( game is install on hdd if you are wondering).

 

[Majanew]

Men I hate the little pause going from game to cinematic ( game is install on hdd if you are wondering).

And the lovely black bars so you know it's a cinematic!

 

[DKo5]

Well, its definitely Halo - but IMO the entire outing just screams B-Team to me. So many head scratching decisions on this, and the new graphics while objectively "better" (higher resolution textures, better models, etc.) definitely are not better in my subjective opinion.

Oh well! At least I can play proper Halo co-op on the 360 now

 

[ElRenoRaven]

So yea the more I play the more I'm noticing the framerate. Without a doubt it's not a buttah experience

 

[Zeal]

Those rock textures look amazing.

I really don't get what some people were expecting. The new graphics look completely incredible to me. Are people actually using the select button to switch between the original and HD graphics or what? I must be blind or something, because nothing about this screams "B-Team". The framerate issues are also very minimal.

 

[Devin Olsen]

So finished 2nd level. Again texture pop in is just awful. Starting 3rd and I just have to say nightvision is now fucking useless. It was easier to snipe without it then with it.

It is so hard to read this thread, it is full of people whining about texture popping and low FPS on a TEN YEAR OLD GAME running TWO complete texture packages (wrong wording, I know) simultaneously.

I really enjoy CEA. It's Halo 1 and it has co-op XBL, honestly that alone is enough for me. There are skulls, terminals, hopefully new eggs, etc. For $40.00 I honestly couldn't ask for more.

 

[heckfu]

It is so hard to read this thread, it is full of people whining about texture popping and low FPS on a TEN YEAR OLD GAME running TWO complete texture packages (wrong wording, I know) simultaneously.

I really enjoy CEA. It's Halo 1 and it has co-op XBL, honestly that alone is enough for me. There are skulls, terminals, hopefully new eggs, etc. For $40.00 I honestly couldn't ask for more.

devin for president.

 

[heckfu]

I haven't seen the outdoors, but I've seen 343/Saber struggle with framerates, jaggies, sub 720p just like Bungie always have.

i dont care for the cut of your jib, sir.

 

[Zoolader]

I got mine today, they shipped it last night at like 9 PM EST.

Nice atleast somebody got it quickly. What I don't understand is last night it arrived and was scanned in Orlando, and today it hasn't moved at all as it's still there in Orlando. I live in Tampa which isn't even a 2 hour drive from there, so it's really strange I have to wait two more days for it to get here.

 

[urk]

Good thing there are no escarpments in Halo 1. They'd probably blow those too.

:highfive