[360] Halo 3: ODST
- Thread starter DuckThor Evil
- Start date
I wouldn't go that far with regards with KZ2 matching the CG trailer, although the graphics are great.
I agree that I was initially disappointed with the graphics in Halo 3 after what was presented in the E3 announcement.
OT: I'm really curious at to how Recon will be presented. Will it be the dark Gears/KZ2 style, the colorful H3 style, something similar to the Recon trailer, or maybe a total departure (cell shaded).
I bet it'll be closer to what we expect from Halo. I mean, we're not going to see Elites that aren't colorful, and I don't think the Covenant will bring by its drab, colorless weapons selection.
TheBlackLodge
Newcomer
Bungie confirmed that a couple of weeks ago.
Well, even without elites the covenant is awfully colorful. Maybe they'll use more grunts? Those are relatively drab.
The Halo 3 commercials felt more serious and 'gritty' than the game itself, though.
TheBlackLodge
Newcomer
Go watch he video and video doc again. The demo sequence is all engine but has spot lights setup to get the best lighting & contrast. In the doc you can see when you walk out of the spotlights or at a less photogenic angle it comes back more to earth. Likewise you can see the low level AF and see the texture limitations. You can get footage in Halo 3 as nice as the E3 footage (e.g. Gamersyde has a really nice 3D rotation around a human space ship thing that is absolutely fantastic -- best looking lighting I have seen in a game this gen from any single scene). The reality is that cut scenes will always have better props and convey something a dynamic experience can offer.
Same goes with movies versus free flow cinema.
RenegadeRocks
Legend
I am not a particular fan of HALO, but did enjoy HALO:CE upto half way through. HALO3 was a turn-off for me, for the little time I played it, and it ain't coming to PC anymore.
But I am really interested to see what the original HALO team evolves it into in this game. I really would like to see a different take on the HALO universe, it is too cartoony for me as of now (HALO3).
But I am really interested to see what the original HALO team evolves it into in this game. I really would like to see a different take on the HALO universe, it is too cartoony for me as of now (HALO3).
i only played with you guys one night so far and I agree, it rekindled my interest. the online is amazing.
TheBlackLodge
Newcomer
Indeed it is, it's pretty much single handedly responsible for turning me from a "Online MP = Meh" kinda guy to a "Online MP = Teh Winz !" kinda guy. Sadly I'm pretty rubbish despite putting a silly number of hours into it.......Keep on coming back for more though.
I am sure this is going to get barried in this thread, but meh. As my Forge thread showed sometimes it is best just to toss it into an existing thread. Now if Bungie had created a simple Game Browser this would be a different situation 
Halo 3 ODST: Your Most Wanted Features
Like many gamers I am excited to see what new features Bungie includes in ODST. While specifics are still foggy it appears there will be some tweaking of Forge and online features, which I think is a great point of emphasis. I thought I would have a little fun suggesting some of my "Most Wanted Features" for ODST.
I am "newer" to Halo than most (dabbled in Halo PC and Halo 2, started playing Halo 3 Summer 2008) so some of my thoughts may be counter-intuitive for the Halo community. My most wanted may not be what everyone else has in view as we all like different things (e.g. I am big on team based MP that allows players of various skill to play successfully together), so feel free to offer your own ideas. Ultimately Halo is MS's baby and Bungie has their own vision for MS's Halo franchise -- so what we say doesn't really matter. Bungie will make design decisions that they feel make the best overall product. This means some exceptional ideas won’t ever see the light of day because they don’t mesh with Bungie’s design philosophies and goals for the title.
But… That shouldn't stop us from providing objective feedback about a game we really like (Halo 3) and what we want to see the upcoming sequal (ODST).
(*) Halo 3 Sandbox & Forge Editor. Left4Dead and Gears of War 2 introduced MP modes where players essentially play in “Sandboxes” where wave after wave of bad guy swarms in to attack you. One of the best parts of Halo 3 SP are the “arenas” that gamers enter. Halo has excellent AI and being able to do your own set pieces where you and your friends play against overwhelming odds would be amazing fun. Battling wave after wave of Brutes as they and their cohorts are dropped in would be an amazing experience, especially if the set pieces (weapons, vehicles, wave details, etc) could be customized.
(*) Bring Back Ol' Favorites. There are amazing maps Bungie made for previous Halos that I would be *very* excited to play again. Blood Gultch, for example, is my favorite Halo map. I have met a lot of Halo 3 players who would LOVE to play some Blood Gultch in Halo 3. This would be a great addition to ODST. I know Halo 3 is balanced differently in many ways and Bungie may not desire from a creative perspective to recreate existing maps, but a solid compromise could be a ODST add-on. If Bungie did a "Community Vote" poll and re-made the top 3 vote getters as a Map Pack I would be so there.
(*) Auto-Download of Forge Maps. A small convenience, but really necessary if my #1 Most Wanted Feature is added (see below). Bungie could add a cap or whatnot to address storage issues, but having seen people fumble trying to download something from to join a game isn’t really necessary these days. Files aren’t large to begin with and Halo 3 already stores your last 25 videos so this shouldn’t be overly difficult. Allow gamers to save their favorite gametypes and have a que of the 15-20 previous types.
(*) Game Browser for Custom Games, Forge. Forge is a big part of Halo 3. Further, Halo 3 may have more customization options for MP play than any other game… ever. Yet these both are extremely underutilized. Likewise 4 player Coop is a great part of Halo 3, but if your friends aren’t playing you will have to jump through hurdles to find and/or recruit people for some 4 player Coop. The answer is simple:
Add a Game Browser for Custom Games, Forge, and Multiplayer Campaign.
Bungie originally had planned this feature, called XBL Public, and spent a bit of time promoting this feature before the release of Halo 3 (e.g. here and here).
Toss in the addition of Forge and the need for XBL Public becomes very important. Luke Smith, formerly with 1UP and now working for Bungie, explained the need for a game browser when when he said:
The disappointment that XBL Public was removed from Halo 3 was pretty shocking as this was only discovered post-release. It immediately spawned a thread with 35 pages in 2 days on Bungie’s forums and received a bit of negative criticism from fans of the game. Indeed, the lack of a Custom Game Browser/Filter—standard in PC games and in many Xbox 360 games—has given me a very mixed feeling about Halo 3 MP. On the one hand it is marvelous… and at other times it is frustrating and boring at the same time. Some Frustrating Scenarios I have encountered:
* You spend 10 hours in Forge modifying a map’s layout in and tweaking the gametype options to the finest degree only to discover you have no one to play with… ever.
* You want to play Griftball but it isn’t a Griftball weekend.
* Your favorite map / gametype falls out of matchmaking.
* Your favorite map / gametype continues to be to be vetoed and you end up playing the same 2 or 3 gametypes over, and over again—even though you hate them!
* You and your friends have tapped out your friends list and have maxed out at 7 available friends playing but need 16 to populate your game properly.
* A play list has DLC you have not purchased so you cannot use that mode.
The last point really irks me because you pay for a game at retail to fully support the developer only to discover that you cannot play large chunk of *standard MP* game types in Matchmaking because you have not bought additional content. If Bungie wanted to have the map packs be required for play lists then they should have created NEW “DLC-Only” play lists. As it stands I wanted to go play some Ranked Multiteam last night and I cannot—because I haven’t bought additional DLC. A similar situation occurred when I bought my 360 in the Summer of 2008. I was very bad at the gamepad when I first played and I quickly found Griftball a quick way to get better while having fun! Unfortunately I discovered it wasn’t a standard gametype and the only way to play when Bugnie doesn’t make it on a play list is to hunt down people who want to play Halo 3 right then, play MP, and play Griftball. My friends list is limited to 100 people so the chances of this are slim—but when there are a couple hundred thousands Halo 3 players online at any time this would be very, very easy to accomplish with a tool like XBL Public. As it stands I am still waiting to play AvP and all my Forge ideas I had brain stormed before Halo 3 and posted (here for example) have sat idle because I have no way of playing these modes.
Technically a game browser should be a simple addition—many, many games have one. The only legitimate complaint I have heard why it should not be added is that it would kill Match Making. But I disagree. The first reason it won’t kill off Match Making is because it pairs you will players of a specific skill level. Second is that it is convenient to get into a general play list type alone, or with friends, and to party up in the process. Bungie shoves games at you and you just worrying about playing. It is thought free MP. The third reason is rank: you gain rank in Ranked Match Making. This is a large incentive to play Bungie’s carefully crafted and balanced play lists. The final point is that by making Halo 3 multiplayer more appealing to different gamers the departure of gamers from Match Making to Custom Games would be muted by the increased number of players playing.
As the game currently stands I feel Forge, the plethora of MP game customizations, and even 4 player Coop in Campaign, or over promoted features because Halo 3’s user interface doesn’t allow these features to be fully exposed to players.
Social gaming is a big movement and Forge plays an important part as you have one of the industries biggest IPs exposing features never seen to this scale/accessibility in the genre. I really look forward to the day I can setup a custom Flag Rally map with vehicular combat-themed modifications on Vahallah. While Bungie may be banking on the fact Halo 2 did quite well without a server browser[/quote], this is 2009 not 2004. Halo 2 also didn’t have Forge, 4 player coop, or the same market competition. http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=13210068&viewreplies=true&postRepeater1-p=8
(*) More Custom Game Options. One of the exciting Forge gametypes mentioned before Halo 3 was released was a racing style gaming. Unfortunately this was later clarified that Forge did not include proper tools to do a racing game but instead this was a gametype modified from VIP. While this was none-the-less cool it would be great if ODST increase the number of MP modes/scoring options (how about a ticket system for Territories: Flag Rally?) as well as introduce some generic ones Forgers can use as scripts. This would be really helpful in the “Halo Sandbox” but it could allow players to create mini-games like a real Halo-Karts. Forge was a good first step and Halo 3 has a ton of MP options to tweak, but exposing more options and making it more available is the natural progression.
(*) Surprise us with a major design tweak. Lets first point out that Halo isn’t a broken game. Halo has some excellent balance and design ideas. The original incorporated a lot of ideas, refined them and redefined them for the Halo universe, and shipped a robust package that resonated well among gamers. Gunplay is very good and the triad of melee / nade / gun balance works great. Knowing where, and how to use, weapons makes Halo unique compared to most shooters. Further the vehicles in the game don’t destroy infantry combat while at the same time can be used decisively to turn the tide of war. Bungie had made very few design mistakes; everything from a 2 weapon limit, rebounding shields, slowing down player movement, and so on has resulted in a very tight experience.
That said Bungie themselves have shown that the model can continue to evolve. From introducing the ability to dual wield and hi-jack vehicles, removing health, to the introduction of equipment Bungie has shown that even the proven formula found in Halo can be tweaked beyond new weapons and maps.
With the move toward non-Spartan/Elite players Bungie has the opportunity to test the creative waters, even mix traditional Halo mechanics with new design ideas (classes anyone?) While any addition would need to be balanced the opportunity to shake things up opens the door to reconsidering old ideas. Maybe a sprint button would work great in the new theme? Or how about some interaction with the squad AI—maybe not full blown BiA, but the ability to integrate real-time strategy into the combat could add a new dynamic that befits them human-themed ODST.
A variety of crazy ideas I will throw out:
* 24 player Big Battle
* More Meta-game features for 4 player coop
* Play as the bad guys: allow players to play on the Covenant side in online coop
* A full blown terrain editor
* AI bots in non-campaign modes (i.e. “Multiplayer bots”)
* Vehicular based playlist and maps
* Sprint Button.
* New Class Based Real-time strategy “Squad AI” Mode with Objective driven gameplay
* Party Rader: People in your “Party” (or new lingo “Squad”) Show up as Green (or Blue, Black, whatever) on the Radar.
Some crazy ideas there—but no more crazy than playing Halo as someone other than the Chief!
In addition to features there a couple technical/art issues I would love to see addressed/upgraded/tweaked in ODST.
(*) Letter-boxed 1280x720 on 1280x1024 displays. This is a minor technical issue, but it is very annoying for VGA cable users. Every 360 game I own "letterboxes" the output to a 1280x1024 display so you get 1:1 pixel mapping for a 720p image with small black boarders (152px each) to the top and bottom of the image. Halo 3 upscales a 4:3 sub-720p image to fill the display. This accents aliasing and diminishes from the graphics. I am not sure why this isn’t in the TSRs but this is a basic technical issue that most developers address. Some, like Epic with Gears of War 1, hotfixed this issue post-release. Maybe this is related to the sub-720p rendering of Halo 3 and framebuffer size but I would love to see this fixed.
On a related note the fact Halo 3 fills a 1280x1024 display in single machine MP is a good thing as it gives more visual real-estate for multiple gamers—this is something I wish Turn10 would do with FM3. Alas BC with PGR4 overcame the letterboxing issue of PGR3 and does the full-screen fill for split-screen gameplay—the best of both worlds.
(*) AA and AF. Unknown by most, Halo 3 has some amazing textures. For example: Start a game of High Ground in Forge and turn into a monitor. Elevate 10-20 feet above the ground and look directly down. The ground texture has amazing detail and has obviously been given a lot of TLC by the artists. Now revert back to a Spartan and look down the path... you are probably wondering where all that amazing detail went. It is still there in the texture but the game has very limited texture filtering. This is party due to the filtering hardware in the Xenos (Xbox 360 GPU) TMUs. To employ better filtering Bungie has a number of options, some examples:
a) Freed up GPU cycles gained through engine optimization allocated toward rendering. This assumes crisper textures give the best bang-for-buck in terms of resource allocation. PGR4 did this to great effect.
b) Reduce texture resolution to reduce TMU load which can be diverted toward filtering. At first glance this would appear counter-intuitive as the goal is to have better textures and lowering the resolution would be detrimental to quality. The advantage of filtering, especially at steep angles (e.g. standing and looking forward toward the horizon), is that the pixel samples effectively increase texture fidelity to a level much, much higher than the actual texture used.
c) Be selective in texture layer resolution as well as selective in surface application of texture filtering. Having a high resolution normal map and a lower resolution specular or diffuse map can be a cheap way to reduce the texturing load. The 360 also allows selective application of filtering, so objects that or impacted most negatively poor filtering can be addressed (like the ground or very large flat walls like in Forerunner areas). Areas with faux grass won’t need as much TLC as a sandy path.
Bungie has a lot of large, open areas in Halo 3. Likewise the art style employs a lot of large, flat structures. AF would significantly improve the appearance of these objects.
Likewise MSAA would go a long ways towards accenting Halo 3’s clean & sharp design. Edge aliasing distracts for this art goal. Like texture filtering, edges will be sharper at a lower resolution and anti-aliased and then up-scaled compared to a native resolution without MSAA. That said Halo 3 is already running below 720p and Bungie’s dual exposure HDR technique (which looks great) poses a hurdle due to the 10MB eDRAM so MSAA isn’t likely as I am sure Bungie would prefer to spend the 5%-15% performance hit for additional tiles elsewhere.
(*) Halo 3 has some excellent lighting that really shines outdoors and in high contrast areas. Dark levels with bright lights look amazing. While it can be argued that certain technical areas can be improved (e.g. dynamic lights, like on warthogs, would look even better if they caused dynamic objects to cast shadows) from an overall visual impression I think the biggest win can be gained from selecting situations that really emphasize contrast and HDR.
(*) Better human models. Halo 3 has some of the worst human models of any next gen game. With humans taking a higher priority in ODST I really hope the human assets are reworked significantly.
I am curious what others are looking forward to in Halo 3 ODST. Ironically this is one title that I could be excited about OR be totally turned off on. I will also be a little more inquisative about their features and wait and see if promoted features make it into the final build. If there is no game browser and it is a $40 land grab for some money to fund future Bungie titles I think I will stick with Halo 3.
Halo 3 ODST: Your Most Wanted Features
Like many gamers I am excited to see what new features Bungie includes in ODST. While specifics are still foggy it appears there will be some tweaking of Forge and online features, which I think is a great point of emphasis. I thought I would have a little fun suggesting some of my "Most Wanted Features" for ODST.
I am "newer" to Halo than most (dabbled in Halo PC and Halo 2, started playing Halo 3 Summer 2008) so some of my thoughts may be counter-intuitive for the Halo community. My most wanted may not be what everyone else has in view as we all like different things (e.g. I am big on team based MP that allows players of various skill to play successfully together), so feel free to offer your own ideas. Ultimately Halo is MS's baby and Bungie has their own vision for MS's Halo franchise -- so what we say doesn't really matter. Bungie will make design decisions that they feel make the best overall product. This means some exceptional ideas won’t ever see the light of day because they don’t mesh with Bungie’s design philosophies and goals for the title.
But… That shouldn't stop us from providing objective feedback about a game we really like (Halo 3) and what we want to see the upcoming sequal (ODST).
(*) Halo 3 Sandbox & Forge Editor. Left4Dead and Gears of War 2 introduced MP modes where players essentially play in “Sandboxes” where wave after wave of bad guy swarms in to attack you. One of the best parts of Halo 3 SP are the “arenas” that gamers enter. Halo has excellent AI and being able to do your own set pieces where you and your friends play against overwhelming odds would be amazing fun. Battling wave after wave of Brutes as they and their cohorts are dropped in would be an amazing experience, especially if the set pieces (weapons, vehicles, wave details, etc) could be customized.
(*) Bring Back Ol' Favorites. There are amazing maps Bungie made for previous Halos that I would be *very* excited to play again. Blood Gultch, for example, is my favorite Halo map. I have met a lot of Halo 3 players who would LOVE to play some Blood Gultch in Halo 3. This would be a great addition to ODST. I know Halo 3 is balanced differently in many ways and Bungie may not desire from a creative perspective to recreate existing maps, but a solid compromise could be a ODST add-on. If Bungie did a "Community Vote" poll and re-made the top 3 vote getters as a Map Pack I would be so there.
(*) Auto-Download of Forge Maps. A small convenience, but really necessary if my #1 Most Wanted Feature is added (see below). Bungie could add a cap or whatnot to address storage issues, but having seen people fumble trying to download something from to join a game isn’t really necessary these days. Files aren’t large to begin with and Halo 3 already stores your last 25 videos so this shouldn’t be overly difficult. Allow gamers to save their favorite gametypes and have a que of the 15-20 previous types.
(*) Game Browser for Custom Games, Forge. Forge is a big part of Halo 3. Further, Halo 3 may have more customization options for MP play than any other game… ever. Yet these both are extremely underutilized. Likewise 4 player Coop is a great part of Halo 3, but if your friends aren’t playing you will have to jump through hurdles to find and/or recruit people for some 4 player Coop. The answer is simple:
Add a Game Browser for Custom Games, Forge, and Multiplayer Campaign.
Bungie originally had planned this feature, called XBL Public, and spent a bit of time promoting this feature before the release of Halo 3 (e.g. here and here).
Toss in the addition of Forge and the need for XBL Public becomes very important. Luke Smith, formerly with 1UP and now working for Bungie, explained the need for a game browser when when he said:
The disappointment that XBL Public was removed from Halo 3 was pretty shocking as this was only discovered post-release. It immediately spawned a thread with 35 pages in 2 days on Bungie’s forums and received a bit of negative criticism from fans of the game. Indeed, the lack of a Custom Game Browser/Filter—standard in PC games and in many Xbox 360 games—has given me a very mixed feeling about Halo 3 MP. On the one hand it is marvelous… and at other times it is frustrating and boring at the same time. Some Frustrating Scenarios I have encountered:
* You spend 10 hours in Forge modifying a map’s layout in and tweaking the gametype options to the finest degree only to discover you have no one to play with… ever.
* You want to play Griftball but it isn’t a Griftball weekend.
* Your favorite map / gametype falls out of matchmaking.
* Your favorite map / gametype continues to be to be vetoed and you end up playing the same 2 or 3 gametypes over, and over again—even though you hate them!
* You and your friends have tapped out your friends list and have maxed out at 7 available friends playing but need 16 to populate your game properly.
* A play list has DLC you have not purchased so you cannot use that mode.
The last point really irks me because you pay for a game at retail to fully support the developer only to discover that you cannot play large chunk of *standard MP* game types in Matchmaking because you have not bought additional content. If Bungie wanted to have the map packs be required for play lists then they should have created NEW “DLC-Only” play lists. As it stands I wanted to go play some Ranked Multiteam last night and I cannot—because I haven’t bought additional DLC. A similar situation occurred when I bought my 360 in the Summer of 2008. I was very bad at the gamepad when I first played and I quickly found Griftball a quick way to get better while having fun! Unfortunately I discovered it wasn’t a standard gametype and the only way to play when Bugnie doesn’t make it on a play list is to hunt down people who want to play Halo 3 right then, play MP, and play Griftball. My friends list is limited to 100 people so the chances of this are slim—but when there are a couple hundred thousands Halo 3 players online at any time this would be very, very easy to accomplish with a tool like XBL Public. As it stands I am still waiting to play AvP and all my Forge ideas I had brain stormed before Halo 3 and posted (here for example) have sat idle because I have no way of playing these modes.
Technically a game browser should be a simple addition—many, many games have one. The only legitimate complaint I have heard why it should not be added is that it would kill Match Making. But I disagree. The first reason it won’t kill off Match Making is because it pairs you will players of a specific skill level. Second is that it is convenient to get into a general play list type alone, or with friends, and to party up in the process. Bungie shoves games at you and you just worrying about playing. It is thought free MP. The third reason is rank: you gain rank in Ranked Match Making. This is a large incentive to play Bungie’s carefully crafted and balanced play lists. The final point is that by making Halo 3 multiplayer more appealing to different gamers the departure of gamers from Match Making to Custom Games would be muted by the increased number of players playing.
As the game currently stands I feel Forge, the plethora of MP game customizations, and even 4 player Coop in Campaign, or over promoted features because Halo 3’s user interface doesn’t allow these features to be fully exposed to players.
Social gaming is a big movement and Forge plays an important part as you have one of the industries biggest IPs exposing features never seen to this scale/accessibility in the genre. I really look forward to the day I can setup a custom Flag Rally map with vehicular combat-themed modifications on Vahallah. While Bungie may be banking on the fact Halo 2 did quite well without a server browser[/quote], this is 2009 not 2004. Halo 2 also didn’t have Forge, 4 player coop, or the same market competition. http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=13210068&viewreplies=true&postRepeater1-p=8
(*) More Custom Game Options. One of the exciting Forge gametypes mentioned before Halo 3 was released was a racing style gaming. Unfortunately this was later clarified that Forge did not include proper tools to do a racing game but instead this was a gametype modified from VIP. While this was none-the-less cool it would be great if ODST increase the number of MP modes/scoring options (how about a ticket system for Territories: Flag Rally?) as well as introduce some generic ones Forgers can use as scripts. This would be really helpful in the “Halo Sandbox” but it could allow players to create mini-games like a real Halo-Karts. Forge was a good first step and Halo 3 has a ton of MP options to tweak, but exposing more options and making it more available is the natural progression.
(*) Surprise us with a major design tweak. Lets first point out that Halo isn’t a broken game. Halo has some excellent balance and design ideas. The original incorporated a lot of ideas, refined them and redefined them for the Halo universe, and shipped a robust package that resonated well among gamers. Gunplay is very good and the triad of melee / nade / gun balance works great. Knowing where, and how to use, weapons makes Halo unique compared to most shooters. Further the vehicles in the game don’t destroy infantry combat while at the same time can be used decisively to turn the tide of war. Bungie had made very few design mistakes; everything from a 2 weapon limit, rebounding shields, slowing down player movement, and so on has resulted in a very tight experience.
That said Bungie themselves have shown that the model can continue to evolve. From introducing the ability to dual wield and hi-jack vehicles, removing health, to the introduction of equipment Bungie has shown that even the proven formula found in Halo can be tweaked beyond new weapons and maps.
With the move toward non-Spartan/Elite players Bungie has the opportunity to test the creative waters, even mix traditional Halo mechanics with new design ideas (classes anyone?) While any addition would need to be balanced the opportunity to shake things up opens the door to reconsidering old ideas. Maybe a sprint button would work great in the new theme? Or how about some interaction with the squad AI—maybe not full blown BiA, but the ability to integrate real-time strategy into the combat could add a new dynamic that befits them human-themed ODST.
A variety of crazy ideas I will throw out:
* 24 player Big Battle
* More Meta-game features for 4 player coop
* Play as the bad guys: allow players to play on the Covenant side in online coop
* A full blown terrain editor
* AI bots in non-campaign modes (i.e. “Multiplayer bots”)
* Vehicular based playlist and maps
* Sprint Button.
* New Class Based Real-time strategy “Squad AI” Mode with Objective driven gameplay
* Party Rader: People in your “Party” (or new lingo “Squad”) Show up as Green (or Blue, Black, whatever) on the Radar.
Some crazy ideas there—but no more crazy than playing Halo as someone other than the Chief!
In addition to features there a couple technical/art issues I would love to see addressed/upgraded/tweaked in ODST.
(*) Letter-boxed 1280x720 on 1280x1024 displays. This is a minor technical issue, but it is very annoying for VGA cable users. Every 360 game I own "letterboxes" the output to a 1280x1024 display so you get 1:1 pixel mapping for a 720p image with small black boarders (152px each) to the top and bottom of the image. Halo 3 upscales a 4:3 sub-720p image to fill the display. This accents aliasing and diminishes from the graphics. I am not sure why this isn’t in the TSRs but this is a basic technical issue that most developers address. Some, like Epic with Gears of War 1, hotfixed this issue post-release. Maybe this is related to the sub-720p rendering of Halo 3 and framebuffer size but I would love to see this fixed.
On a related note the fact Halo 3 fills a 1280x1024 display in single machine MP is a good thing as it gives more visual real-estate for multiple gamers—this is something I wish Turn10 would do with FM3. Alas BC with PGR4 overcame the letterboxing issue of PGR3 and does the full-screen fill for split-screen gameplay—the best of both worlds.
(*) AA and AF. Unknown by most, Halo 3 has some amazing textures. For example: Start a game of High Ground in Forge and turn into a monitor. Elevate 10-20 feet above the ground and look directly down. The ground texture has amazing detail and has obviously been given a lot of TLC by the artists. Now revert back to a Spartan and look down the path... you are probably wondering where all that amazing detail went. It is still there in the texture but the game has very limited texture filtering. This is party due to the filtering hardware in the Xenos (Xbox 360 GPU) TMUs. To employ better filtering Bungie has a number of options, some examples:
a) Freed up GPU cycles gained through engine optimization allocated toward rendering. This assumes crisper textures give the best bang-for-buck in terms of resource allocation. PGR4 did this to great effect.
b) Reduce texture resolution to reduce TMU load which can be diverted toward filtering. At first glance this would appear counter-intuitive as the goal is to have better textures and lowering the resolution would be detrimental to quality. The advantage of filtering, especially at steep angles (e.g. standing and looking forward toward the horizon), is that the pixel samples effectively increase texture fidelity to a level much, much higher than the actual texture used.
c) Be selective in texture layer resolution as well as selective in surface application of texture filtering. Having a high resolution normal map and a lower resolution specular or diffuse map can be a cheap way to reduce the texturing load. The 360 also allows selective application of filtering, so objects that or impacted most negatively poor filtering can be addressed (like the ground or very large flat walls like in Forerunner areas). Areas with faux grass won’t need as much TLC as a sandy path.
Bungie has a lot of large, open areas in Halo 3. Likewise the art style employs a lot of large, flat structures. AF would significantly improve the appearance of these objects.
Likewise MSAA would go a long ways towards accenting Halo 3’s clean & sharp design. Edge aliasing distracts for this art goal. Like texture filtering, edges will be sharper at a lower resolution and anti-aliased and then up-scaled compared to a native resolution without MSAA. That said Halo 3 is already running below 720p and Bungie’s dual exposure HDR technique (which looks great) poses a hurdle due to the 10MB eDRAM so MSAA isn’t likely as I am sure Bungie would prefer to spend the 5%-15% performance hit for additional tiles elsewhere.
(*) Halo 3 has some excellent lighting that really shines outdoors and in high contrast areas. Dark levels with bright lights look amazing. While it can be argued that certain technical areas can be improved (e.g. dynamic lights, like on warthogs, would look even better if they caused dynamic objects to cast shadows) from an overall visual impression I think the biggest win can be gained from selecting situations that really emphasize contrast and HDR.
(*) Better human models. Halo 3 has some of the worst human models of any next gen game. With humans taking a higher priority in ODST I really hope the human assets are reworked significantly.
I am curious what others are looking forward to in Halo 3 ODST. Ironically this is one title that I could be excited about OR be totally turned off on. I will also be a little more inquisative about their features and wait and see if promoted features make it into the final build. If there is no game browser and it is a $40 land grab for some money to fund future Bungie titles I think I will stick with Halo 3.
I am most looking forward to the expansion of the story.
I am a big fan of the novels and Halo universe in general so I will likely pick up Halo Wars (enjoyed the demo) and ODST.
Those are some very interesting concepts regarding MP. I've played most of my online MP with you guys. Prior to that, most of my MP experience was via lan with the original Halo.
Bots would be huge to refine my MP skills. I wonder if Bungie would be able to replicate, maybe through something like a ghost mechanism, that learns how players play on-line and implement into Bot play. Maybe something that is updated dynamically through Live something like how EA implements its update for sports titles.
It would make a great training ground for noobs/fodder to improve their skills prior to jumping in agains the real thing.
I'm probably most against a Sprint button, but that's mostly for selfish reasons. I can barely keep a bead on players without, a sprint button would totally ruin any chance for me to hit a target.
I am a big fan of the novels and Halo universe in general so I will likely pick up Halo Wars (enjoyed the demo) and ODST.
Those are some very interesting concepts regarding MP. I've played most of my online MP with you guys. Prior to that, most of my MP experience was via lan with the original Halo.
Bots would be huge to refine my MP skills. I wonder if Bungie would be able to replicate, maybe through something like a ghost mechanism, that learns how players play on-line and implement into Bot play. Maybe something that is updated dynamically through Live something like how EA implements its update for sports titles.
It would make a great training ground for noobs/fodder to improve their skills prior to jumping in agains the real thing.
I'm probably most against a Sprint button, but that's mostly for selfish reasons. I can barely keep a bead on players without, a sprint button would totally ruin any chance for me to hit a target.