Halo Anniversary

[kagemaru]

Shamelessly copied my impressions from Gaf:

Played until 3-ish in the morning last night and loved it. The lag was pretty bad for the first few levels, but got better later on (I blame the host =p).

It's amazing how much they changed and most of the time for the better. There are moments where I think they may have gone overboard with the designs, but overall I really enjoy the new look.

The lighting and shadows caught my eye many times. Wouldn't mind beating it tonight or tomorrow.

 

[AlNom]

Well, at least my download is done now. I went back to the earlier levels and didn't have that crazy stuttering issue anymore.

 

[Rangers]

IGN review kind of poo-pood the graphics, saying it looks modern but not as good as Reach, so I wasn't expected that much, but so far it's surprisingly pretty.

The Halo particle effects in hi res really are great. If you want a real treat play Halo CE or Halo 2 on your 360 for a while to get acclimated to it, then fire up Reach (since I just took it upon myself to finish Halo 2 recently I did this several times and it was always a treat). Or, I guess it would be a lot simpler now to just play Anniversary for a while with old graphics then flip the switch.

I feel like the story was a whole lot simpler and better too, this was before they got all full of themselves and went on all kinds of wild, complicated tangents.

 

[AlNom]

Yeah, even comparing the Firefight map to the equivalent location in CEA... I really wish they had just done a reimagination of it on the Reach engine (or whatever they have) instead of this kind of a duct tape hack job. Oh well.

4p co-op and theater... *sigh* Missed opportunity, though I suppose they'd charge full-price, but at least it'd be truly current gen. *shrug* Then again, I got the impression development started sometime in 2010. Live co-op couldn't have been simple to hack in there.

Just throw in a port of Halo classic for old-time's sake (proper widescreen support is all it needed along with MSAA) and they're done. (Then they could have separate achievements for playing in classic only. )

 

[NRP]

The performance on the "Halo" level was terrible. Driving the Warthog was agonizingly slow. And so far, the Covenant weapon effects are really crappy imo. The plasma grenades look very strange when thrown and the explosion effect is totally lame compared to Reach. Also, why don't plasma nades stick to purple elites? They stick to other enemies. Anyone else notice that? I also don't care for the new music. Luckily you can switch it to Classic. And the MP setup is lame. They should have just thrown the original MP and maps on Live. It doesn't even need matchmaking, just allow people to make custom games via Live. And they chose Timberland from Halo PC because it was "a great vehicle map"? Seriously? Halo PC had a lot of great vehicle maps. Timberland wasn't one of them.

Now for what I love. The sniper rifle sound! God, it's just awesome.

I've only started Truth and Reconciliation, so the good stuff is still to come.

 

[Rangers]

Heard some crying about new weapon sounds, I like the new AR sound.

I'm wondering if the graphics arent up to Reach (though so far they look just fine to me) because of the 64MB they sacrifice for the old engine. I think obviously so. That leaves 448MB to start with.

 

[NRP]

I think the textures and lighting are fine (so far). It's the Covenant weapon effects that I don't like. For example, the needler fire is just a fuzzy, glowing pink blob of flying crap. Shade turrets too. And Grunt Furneral skull-enabled explosions are weak by Reach standards. (By the way, turn this skull off if you're going for the silent melee achievement, LOL!)

And yes, the human weapon sounds are greatly improved. 343/Sabre/Certain Affinity/whoever did a great job here.

 

[AlNom]

Yeah, the ghost and banshee sound pretty weird... although I know the originals were heavy on the bass, and later games went to the higher frequencies.


Oh yeah, sorry about last night, kage. I was mainly just doing some (non-legendary) achievement runs and trying some other things. I found out more about the stuff you mentioned with Waypoint and the terminal codes. Total of 100K cR in Reach for all ten. :O The bonus terminal got me a bit excited because it had a lot more to do with Halo 2....

Spoiler

Explains how Sparky met up with the would-be Heretic leader

Skulls DO NOT disable achievements, and in fact I think some of them would be near impossible (read: fucking annoying) without them, such as infinite ammo, which also gives you infinite grenades.

 

[NRP]

That's good to hear, because I have no clue how one would escape the map room without firing a shot or complete a level on Legendary without picking up a new weapon.

I need to find some skulls I guess.

Also, the game's performance is getting better in the later levels. I'm on AOTCR now, and I'm reminded why I love Halo so much. This level looks fantastic so far, with all the snow falling and what not.

I did notice another potential problem though. I've noticed that grunts don't drop weapons when they die, which sucks because on Legendary you really have use different weapons for different situations. Is it because I'm playing with the Grunt Funeral skull active?

 

[AlNom]

That's good to hear, because I have no clue how one would escape the map room without firing a shot or complete a level on Legendary without picking up a new weapon.

Heroic works too. Not that I mind Legendary solo runs, but my patience extends only so far. :3

I need to find some skulls I guess.

I know where all of them are now, so hit me up on Live if you need some assistance.

Also, the game's performance is getting better in the later levels.

Yeah, I've been wondering if it's some funky caching going on. I've returned to earlier levels and have had a lot fewer issues than I did initially. But then when I went to later levels after that, I seemed to get a bit of stuttering again... then it went away. *sigh*

I'm on AOTCR now, and I'm reminded why I love Halo so much. This level looks fantastic so far, with all the snow falling and what not.

They even updated the Siege of Madrigal music.

Is it because I'm playing with the Grunt Funeral skull active?

Yeah, grunt funeral will blow those up too.

 

[NRP]

I started playing on Legendary, and I'm finally remembering how to play it again (I charge too much). Although, it does seem like on Legendary you just have to play most of the level with almost no health.

Anyway, I'd like to do a co-op run to find some skulls (and the co-op achievements).

 

[kagemaru]

I think the textures and lighting are fine (so far). It's the Covenant weapon effects that I don't like. For example, the needler fire is just a fuzzy, glowing pink blob of flying crap. Shade turrets too. And Grunt Furneral skull-enabled explosions are weak by Reach standards. (By the way, turn this skull off if you're going for the silent melee achievement, LOL!)

And yes, the human weapon sounds are greatly improved. 343/Sabre/Certain Affinity/whoever did a great job here.

Yeah I agree, not a fan with how some plasma fire looks. I also don't agree how it looks when you pop a shield, it looks like a blue or gold puff of smoke, nothing like the actual pop of an energy shield you typically saw in past Halos.

Yeah, the ghost and banshee sound pretty weird... although I know the originals were heavy on the bass, and later games went to the higher frequencies.


Oh yeah, sorry about last night, kage. I was mainly just doing some (non-legendary) achievement runs and trying some other things. I found out more about the stuff you mentioned with Waypoint and the terminal codes. Total of 100K cR in Reach for all ten. :O The bonus terminal got me a bit excited because it had a lot more to do with Halo 2....

Spoiler

Explains how Sparky met up with the would-be Heretic leader

Skulls DO NOT disable achievements, and in fact I think some of them would be near impossible (read: fucking annoying) without them, such as infinite ammo, which also gives you infinite grenades.

No worries, I'm down to co-op anytime.:smile: Really awesome what you found out. Now I really need to find those terminals.

 

[NRP]

OMG, I just finished the Library on solo Legendary. What a PITA! Now I remember why everyone hated this level. Enemies constantly drop in in front of you and behind you, making death nearly certain.

I need that damn Bandana skull. Figures it's the one with the impossible grenade jump.

 

[AlNom]

Did you do it in 30minutes? I should give it a go now that I have infinite grenades. Heroic run was about 25 minutes, but I made sure to kill everything. :s

 

[NRP]

Not exactly. I'm not even sure it's possible with infinite ammo. Infinite grenades would help a lot though.

 

[AlNom]

lol yes, it is possible with infinite ammo.

Just spam frags and you'll be fine. Died about 10 times or so due to some unlucky um... explosions. XD Lucked out and the checkpoint wasn't too far off each time though.

 

[NRP]

I'm also not sure about that 343 Guilty Spark achievement. That Forerunner facility is one big confusing maze. Every damn room looks like every other damn room.

 

[AlNom]

Escape under 21 minutes? It can be done on any difficulty. On Legendary... Definitely doable, but only if you've memorized the path and just run for it, especially after getting the invisible powerup along the way.

The only hints they give you are the doors with one of the green lights blinking, but even then you'll need to find a shotgun quickly otherwise you're screwed, man!

----

Just completed The Maw run with 1:20 left on the timer. It doesn't leave much room for error along the way because you slow down so much if you get flipped or turned around or other. I think the part I hate the most is the beginning of the run when all the Fuel Rod Grunts are exploding or the elites have already launched grenades (so bloody conveniently exploding by the time you get your warthog there).

I guess the nice part for this achievement is that you only get a checkpoint if you stop at that bridge 3/4 of the way through for that certain event to happen, so you can always retry. You'll need about 7-10 seconds at the end when you have to get out of the warthog.

 

[NRP]

I hate the damn Sentinels. They take away most of my health so that I'm easily killed by the Covenant/Flood bastards that are fighting at the end.

I got to the barricade with about 1:12 left but go killed as I tried to run past the enemies. After a few more tries, I got there with about 1:10 left, but I lost time killing the enemies in my path. Seems like I need about 1:20 to take care of business. I wish it was possible to make that big jump in the middle (where the FRG grunts are). That would save a but load of time.

How exactly do you trigger a checkpoint? Every time I died I had to restart that entire sequence.

I think I'm going to need your help with some if these.

 

[AlNom]

hm... about the most reliable method I've seen in my experience for checkpoints is to kill everything in the immediately preceding "area" (if you've run ahead), which includes the infection forms. You basically want the radar to have no red. The encounters themselves are sort of an indicator as they are very much somewhat contained in the sense that they spawn in a couple spots, so you sort of know that once you go past that "area" and you kill everything preceding that point, you should be able to get a checkpoint.

In other instances, it helps if you know where a hypothetical player 2 is forced to warp ahead, and also where there are loading points. Sometimes you don't get a checkpoint because there are still things on the radar.

Other times the game just has a really warped sense of torture, just like the really odd spawning in co-op. Sometimes the other player can spawn while there are enemies nearby... other times not at all because some wraith fired his cannon at you or something ridiculous.


Do you have infinite ammo?