The First Halo 3 Single Player Screens + Video! Rules=#369

To expand on that: The thread has been renamed to The Neverending Upscale discussion because it's now a general purpose thread. According to Quaz51 it's not native 720p though.

Mind you, this is a bit off topic here (this thread is now mostly about gameplay) and should the need arise to discuss this, please use the upscale thread linked in this post.

 

Maybe that has something to do with it.

The game is nowhere near perfect yes but name another console FPS that is this feature rich and pushes the genre this much.

 

That's very strange, most screenshots released with the reviews are 1280*720p with 1:1 pixel mapping, with obviously no AF and AA. So these are supposed to be a new kind of bullshot?

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/734/734817/img_4911249.html

 

I thought Halo 1 did that...not Halo3

 

You're right Halo 1 did do that and now Halo 3 is doing that again.

 

Pushing the genre? In what way? I thought the gaming industry had already learnt from Halo...and in many ways pushed past it.

 

read more about the game as a package, then get back to us.

 

From a campaign perspective, I see his point. There are a few new things, but overall, I'd say Gears pushed the genre more than H3. Halo1 pushed the genre in so many ways - hence, "combat evolved". I'm not going to bash it because it doesn't innovate much, but I'm not going to claim it does either.

Multiplayer is another matter though and in that regard, they are leading the pack - still.

 

Switched from solo on Heroic 2 player co-op Legendary. Legendary even with 2 people in NO joke. The AI is too smart for us most of the time Damn bubble shield and they all take cover under it.

Turning on scoring is fun! you can throw out some good "god damn noob!" calls in between levels. We've had no lag or glitches so far. Everything smooth.

I think for sure, if you want the best immersion in this game, it should atleast Heroic for Solo and legendary for any co-op.

 

Halo 3 Campaign
4 player online co-op
Meta game scoring
Skulls/Modifiers
Online Statistics

 

uhh ... good point.

 

To be perfectly honest, I didn't dig Halo all that much, and have no interest in playing Halo3 in single player ... but I'm drooling at playing 4 player co-op.

 

I did dig Halo 1, but only for its SP and the coop. Halo 2 bored me to tears and I just gave up half way thru. Various reasons. Been there done that, mainly tho. Not a fan of where the storyline went. The enemies lost almost all of their mystery and suspense IMO.

Halo 3 will get picked up when it has come down in price in the far future. Hehe. If it was some sort of graphical benchmark, I'd probably get it. But it's not and it also sounds like its combat hasn't evolved much at all.

 

Not much, but I would say the game is head and shoulders above h2 for campaign.

 

This isn't really surprising coming from you

Do you even know all the features the game has? Reviews of this game agree that this game pushes the next gen barriers in terms of feature set and replayability.

 

Yeah, it's hard enough in some areas on Heroic for me. Wind up trying to redo little areas over and over until I finally manage to hit the next checkpoint.

Had a hell of a time at one choke-point in an early level where there's like 10+ Brutes blocking the way. Eventually picked them off one by one with the shotgun, melee attacks, grenades, and running to cover between each kill to get the health meter back up.

Lots of fun though!

 

Yeah, Sony started to talk about this Game 3.0 stuff at GDC, and it turned out that Bungie has already implemented features like this: Forge and Theater. You know, tools for user created content, infrastructure to share it, and so on. Basically all the stuff from Little Big Planet, available now, in a game that'll sell a lot more copies and thus have a much bigger impact.

 

Ok, played it for about 5 hours in co-op last night, and an hour this morning before work, I'll weigh in on the game so far.

Graphics
Certainly a mixed bag here. The lighting, foliage and texture detail are all very nice, and the backgrounds in some areas are truly gorgeous. Later in the game, around level 5, it really does feel like it rivals Gears in quality, the landscapes are breathtaking.

But then, things like the aliasing, the H2 quality animations, the hard to see weapons and the mountain/ground textures severely detract from the overall image quality.

So, it has moments where it looks truly unimpressive, and others where it's one of the most beautiful games on the platform.

Some good aliasing, and overhauled animation engine sure would've made a world of different though.

Gameplay
Difficulty/AI
Ok, is it just me or is this game significantly easier than Halo 2?? The AI is not improved as far as I can tell, and the brutes are nowhere near as aggressive as the Elite's where in H2, so overall it's a much less challenging experience. On the flip side, the Snipers are extremely accurate, almost too much so.

Co-op on legendary (2players) was quite tough, but mainly because the enemies had a TON of hit points. Playing by myself on Heroic (only the 1st level so far), it's been quite easy. It's still rewarding, but is lacking a little bit of that adrenaline pumping feel that Halo 2 had. In other words, it lets you take your time alot more.

Level Design
THis is where the game excels, the levels are truly the cream of the crop in FPS titles, and the outdoor levels offer great opportunity to experiment with tactics, if you make use of the open environments.

Initially I was spending alot of times sitting in one spot, sniping enemies from afar with the battle rifle, but when I decided to bring the combat in closer, and began to ustilize the many vantage points and alternate routes, the combat really came into it's own.

Audio
So far a big dissapointment personally. Certainly does not capture the epic feel of Halo 1, and the levels seems very odd. Gunfire, and music are quite soft&quiet, while enemy voices are very loud.

I would've really enjoyed an option to turn up the background music and gunfire, as it stands the music is simply lost alot of the time, and doesn't stand out enough during the battles.

VS Gears of War
In a gameplay comparison to gears, I feel Halo wins easily. The 'stop and pop' gameplay in Gears is nowhere near as difficult, heart pumping or as fast paced as it is in Halo. Even on Insane gears consisted of little more than popping out and shooting guys in the face, and you rarely found yourself in danger.

With Halo you can play the levels in a variety of ways, up close, or from a distance, and you will have many instances where you are on the brink of death but manage to survive.

The AI in the two games are evenly matched, I don't say this because gears had great AI, but because Halo 3's has not improved much, if at all, over Halo 2. The enemies in Gears are certainly more aggressive, and flank you much more often, so they win in that regard. But they also lack the intelligence to regroup, to flee, and to hide which we've always seen in Halo. I give this one a slight edge to Halo, although it should've beena blowout, had they expanded on Halo 2 as I expected.

All in all, a very fun game, I would give it in the range of a 9/10. There's not much to pull it down, questionable GFX at some points, uninspiring audio and unimpressive AI are the main gripes I have.

 

You can mod Halo 3 and create new maps, player and weapon skins etc..?

 

Great H3 user created Screen thread here