Halo: Reach

[Rangers]

I agree with most people here that it looks a bit lifeless, but i like the new color palette and atmosphere. I found Halo always way too colorful in everything, so its nice to see that changed and the game is still far from finished.

Its just more serious and grown up.

I love the color in Halo. It's distinctly what makes Halo Halo, and unlike any other FPS, which are all going "gritty" and "dark" these days.

That said, I dont mind too much the grittier direction in Reach for two reasons, one it seems they're pulling it off in style, and two, it's not "Halo 4", more like almost a spinoff, so for me them playing with the colors in something almost like a side mission is more ok.

BTW somebody on GAF who has it confirmed that the pictures in the Edge article are the same as in GI. Except some new ones that are "very small".

 

[Rangers]

Heres a summary of the EDGE article from a gaffer:

-Reach is 70 percent complete.

-They gutted the old engine and left "no component untouched" when improving it.

-Now players will look the same throughout multiplayer, coop and singleplayer (and the way they look will be customizable)

-Hints there will be power drain and grav lift armour abilities..

-There is a 3d radar and the HUD can now highlight various environmental features and overlay information about them.

-Night vision returns to Reach (as seen in ODST).

-On the pause screen it mentions "grades and credits" but Bungie wont discuss them yet. Probably to do with the character customization system.

-The AR leaves smoke and sparks when it fires. Explosions have been completely redone for Reach. They are apparently, huge, dirty and lingering.

-Green marine monocle returns. WIN.

-Bungie were disappointed with the reaction of people to the halo 3 marine, so theyve brought back the flavour of the halo 1 marine.

-Mongoose return confirmed.

-Assassinations (by holding down melee) will feature in multiplayer and the instant assassination of past halos may not be featured at all. Bungie is using the Beta to decide how it will feature.

-Huge landscapes - but you can visit each area. In coop you may see your buddy fighting a long way off in the distance.
Teleportation is far less strict.

-Bungie is bending the Xbox as far as it will bend and really pushing the hardware.

-Tung says there will be some big surprises in campaign.

-The game features rain which will leave covered areas dry and vice versa.

-Elite AI has been improved a lot. They might be doing something like fixing a door and then something may attack them, but once they have dealt with the threat they'll go back to what they were doing before.

-"Bungie's not fixed on leaving the trusty BR out". The DMR has 3X zoom.

-Shield recharge not as fast as Halo 3's.

-Halo Reach's current build has a lot of computer generated audio used a place holders, meaning that the leaked beta menu footage may well be genuine.

-A few new screenshots in the article, the best being a double page spread epic view of the spartans in a cockpit. There is an artwork of Emile with a grenade launcher.

-Lehto admits that there was no generational leap on the animation side between combat evolved and ODST, but in Reach they will make them like all look like the trailer (including facial animations).

The engine stuff is kind of interesting. Leads me to believe it's almost a radically overhauled Halo 3 engine rather than a ground up new one (though the distinction may be nebulous). That and the screens.

 

[nintenho]

Being able to get far away from your co-op partners makes sense since it sounds like the game will largely be long-range, huge battles. Hopefully that's why at least.

 

[NRP]

There is absolutely no need to rewrite the entire "engine" from scratch. The framework is likely fine as is. I never really understood why laymen think a dev has to start "from the ground" up every time just to add new features or improve things.

One thing that concerns me is the "night vision". I hope the game isn't too dark. I hate games where it's hard to see because it's too dark.

Halo 2 was too dark in some places. ODST was basically too dark everywhere except the actual "dream sequence" missions.

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

I'm sure it's there for the Halo:CE-esque night missions/the occasional dark corridor. Which I'm perfectly fine with.

 

[DrJay24]

I love the color in Halo. It's distinctly what makes Halo Halo

I like vibrant colorful outdoor area, but some of the color is what I dislike about the Halo universe. The purple needles, armor, green blobs, energy shields, etc. I want something more visceral, more real. I want my weapons to feel deadly, not pretty. I want to see blood, I want feedback to my actions - it's a shooter game set in a war, it needs to grow up.

The same applies to the enemies. I always disliked the little guys who wobbled around speaking English, give me something to draw on some emotions like fear or hate.

 

[dragonelite]

I like vibrant colorful outdoor area, but some of the color is what I dislike about the Halo universe. The purple needles, armor, green blobs, energy shields, etc. I want something more visceral, more real. I want my weapons to feel deadly, not pretty. I want to see blood, I want feedback to my actions - it's a shooter game set in a war, it needs to grow up.

The same applies to the enemies. I always disliked the little guys who wobbled around speaking English, give me something to draw on some emotions like fear or hate.

haha go play halo 3 on legendary and catch skull on then you will fear the grunts.

 

[DrJay24]

haha go play halo 3 on legendary and catch skull on then you will fear the grunts.

I don't mean fear in the cheap "they do more damage, and have more hps" kind of way.

 

[GTAce]

I like vibrant colorful outdoor area, but some of the color is what I dislike about the Halo universe. The purple needles, armor, green blobs, energy shields, etc. I want something more visceral, more real. I want my weapons to feel deadly, not pretty. I want to see blood, I want feedback to my actions - it's a shooter game set in a war, it needs to grow up.

The same applies to the enemies. I always disliked the little guys who wobbled around speaking English, give me something to draw on some emotions like fear or hate.

Yeah, thats what i always thought too.
Thats why 343 Guilty Spark was my favorite level in Halo 1, i thought it had the best, brutal atmosphere (the

Spoiler

jungle portion

was way too short unfortunately).

But like i said, Reach gives me a different feeling so far, without losing its "Halo style".

 

[Rangers]

I like vibrant colorful outdoor area, but some of the color is what I dislike about the Halo universe. The purple needles, armor, green blobs, energy shields, etc. I want something more visceral, more real. I want my weapons to feel deadly, not pretty. I want to see blood, I want feedback to my actions - it's a shooter game set in a war, it needs to grow up.

The same applies to the enemies. I always disliked the little guys who wobbled around speaking English, give me something to draw on some emotions like fear or hate.

Wow I cant disagree more on this../the grunts just blew my mind in Halo 1

The grunts and their inane chatter is part of what makes Halo Halo imo, just like the vibrant primary color scheme. I do think the quality of grunt chatter had declined a lot by 3 though.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

-Huge landscapes - but you can visit each area. In coop you may see your buddy fighting a long way off in the distance.

The opportunities for solid teamwork is profound with something like this. Now only if they properly take advantage of it.

A spotter can actually BE a spotter. A scout can actually BE a scout.

Imagine the sniper on the ridge relaying enemy position and movements to his teammates below. Either directing them to the enemy (engage) or directing them around the enemy (stealth). Warning teammates engaged in a firefight if the enemy is attempting a flanking maneuver on their position, all the while sniping enemy leaders...

But I'm probably dreaming that levels will be designed with proper coordinated teamwork in mind. Still, one can always dream, eh?

Regards,
SB

 

[Malibu]

EDGE article says the Grunts "squealing jokes and making pratfalls" are gone, as well as the pink needler fire.

 

[dragonelite]

EDGE article says the Grunts "squealing jokes and making pratfalls" are gone, as well as the pink needler fire.

I really hope there is a campaign skull like IWBYD that makes grunt even more funnier.

 

[(((interference)))]

I'm not too impressed by those pics either, the lighting/shadowing/post processing that made the trailer look so great and cinematic are all missing and it looks like Halo 3.5

I do love the lighting around the dropships hatches in this pic though:

Also like the fact that they're bringing back the Halo 1 marines with their Dragon Ball Z esque visors :smile:

 

[(((interference)))]

I really hope there is a campaign skull like IWBYD that makes grunt even more funnier.

Yes!, you should read some of the dialogue the skull turns on in Halo 3:
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/IWHBYD_Skull_(Halo_3)/Quotes

Gems like these:

If a nearby Grunt is killed:

"You killed Flipyap! Or Yapflip, was he... It was Yapflip... No, Flipyap was his brother. Don't tell me I don't know Flipyap! Flipyap and I went to Nipple Academy together, and, now, now he's dead..."

Later they might also say:

"Cover me, I'm going in."
"I'm not going to cover you, it's your fault Flipyap got killed."

Or if you're taking cover:

"It's all clear you can come out now. This is sergeant errr Smitherson..ton"

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

I'm not too impressed by those pics either, the lighting/shadowing/post processing that made the trailer look so great and cinematic are all missing and it looks like Halo 3.5

I do love the lighting around the dropships hatches in this pic though:

Also like the fact that they're bringing back the Halo 1 marines with their Dragon Ball Z esque visors :smile:

In any case when a similar discussion arose in a forum at Bungie, about how different it's looking to the trailer a moderator said-

I like how people can jump to these conclusions having only seen screenshots and a single trailer (both of which seem to be set in the same general area, a rocky valley area). Having not seen any gameplay videos or ViDocs (which tend to show off the environment a bit more) I think these people need to shut the hell up.

http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=40672813&postRepeater1-p=1

while an actual Bungie employee speaking at Neogaf clarified that the shots are from before thanksgiving.

from what I'm gathering is that Bungie will be continuing to display that build until the beta is ready, the beta will feature better detail. anyways, most of the shots from the EDGE mag are from the ones in the Gameinformer book, with a couple of added ones that are from that same build.

a lot of information about the specifics of the build's graphics detail is on a tight leash, right now what they're saying is that game is being updated and overlooked, with the status of their current build making a couple testers weeping already. so more about how the game will look is to be revealed much later down the road i'm guessing.

anyway, aside from that, the one peace of info that caught my eye in this EDGE mag is that reach will be using a hand held camera device for it's cut scenes, like the one used for RE5 i believe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNLlwdKHK28&feature=related

that's all for now.

 

[ShadowWolf64]

Some of the Halo haters make me laugh since the game looks pretty darn good even though its still early in development.The final game will look much better anways...

 

[Dr. Nick]

Not everyone who wasn't impressed with the screenshots is a hater. I own every Halo and I wasn't impressed by the screenshots that were recently released. There was until someone said something posted that there has been improvements a reason to be doubtful that there would be much change in the final product because the very first screens of Halo 3 gameplay didn't seem that far off from the final product either. I do understand that these aren't official shots but the timing of them is eerily close to the timing of the Halo 3 alpha/beta shots. First shots of Halo 3 gameplay came in January of the year it came out.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Iv'e been reading up more on this Edge magazine.

you know, it does sound like they are using tessellation or something on parallel to it.

Bungie

Supporting this is an engine tweak which supports a more powerful level of detail scaling, which also enabled higher-qualities character models.

the new tech can depict battles far away with automated 'flocks' which convert into higher-resolution models as you near.

the models for AI enemies, and allies, boast remarkable levels of new detail in the form of higher-resolution textures and more polygons.

 

[Billy Idol]

Here is a link to an interview:

http://www.edge-online.com/features/halo-reach-gutting-the-engine