>When you first saw Halo, were you blinded by its majesty?
First time playing the Halo series (finished Reach and CE so far), didn't really expect this series to be so fricking good. One question before I continue with what I have left in Halo 2, should I even bother with the 343 games?
No, for the love of god, stop after 3/reach
I figured as much, I did do some basic googling on the matter, and it seems like 343 doesn't have a clue how to make a good Halo game, so I'm left wondering why Microsoft doesn't take the IP from them and give it to someone competent.
Very good question, probably was just the most financially justifiable move for them, just creating their own studio to have more control over production. To them Halo has always been a financial vehicle first and foremost, not to say Bungie was never motivated by making a well-selling game, but with them there was actual artistry, passion, and love for the medium (fun FPS games, sci-fi story telling). Hope they realized how much of a mistake it was to half-assedly handle such a huge franchise and try to turn it into a money printer. To this day you can see them trying their best to win back the old fans, and honestly that had a pretty good chance to do that with Infinite... I doubt now Halo will ever have a Renaissance though
This. ODST is worth playing as well, but 3 is the end of the Halo story as far as I'm concerned. 343 could never live up to peak Bungie.
Tru ODST is actually based
>should I even bother with the 343 games?
No, these games are bad and they're fanfiction.
>Tru ODST is actually based
I agree
As for the question, Silent Cartographer really made me go crazy back in the days. Oh my goodness, taking that Warthog and realizing that I could go everywhere I wanted on the island was so fricking wild. I loved everything in the snow in Halo 1 too.
>Halo 1
Weird question, but why is the remake visuals so different from the original ones? I'm not talking an upgrade in textures or whatever, but outright lighting and particles. Like, there's that one mission where you have to fly a Banshee to reach one of the three targets, and if you play with the new look, it's a somewhat cloudy day, but if you play the original ones, it's darker and it's snowing, completely different vibes.
because all the assets the game uses were borrowed from reach which has a different artstyle. original graphics is best for halo ce anyways.
Because 343i are total moronic pieces of shit.
It took them 5 years to get Halo 2 multiplayer working in the MCC compilation.
Also, they based their remake on the Windows port of Halo 1. The Windows port of Halo 1 is kinda different because they couldn't recreate some of the shaders. 343i, being the absolute morons that they are used this version to develop.
Basically, every shield, energy door, and all the textures that are supposed to have that plasma look were fricked in the windows port.
343i at some point in the game saw one of these disgusting plasma effect and they thought it was smoke, so in this room, they put smoke on the roof while it was supposed to be plasma.
They completely failed the artistic direction, lighting and anything atmospheric.
Ok so I found pictures of what I was talking about.
On the left, Halo CE for Xbox, released in 2001.
On the right, Halo CE for Windows, released in 2003.
As you can see, they couldn't recreate the shaders and give this little plasma effect on the bottom of the windows.
So on PC, it always looked like shitty smoke instead of plasma.
Well 343i used the Windows version so this same room in Halo Anniversary has indeed smoke. They straight up remastered the wrong thing.
That's just a fun bit of trivia but yeah, some places that were supposed to look dark are now fully lit, walls have tons of useless lightings on them etc...
Lots of problems with the Flood too, less bleeding, less environmental story telling, etc...
They fixed all this stuff didn't they? It was like this at launch, then after a year they finally fixed the audio, then a year later they did another pass where they restored all the effects the gearbox version stripped out
It's indeed fixed now but as I said some of the mistakes have been exported to Halo Anniversary cause they used they based the development on the PC version.
It wasn't after two years though the fix is fairly recent. Halo MCC released in 2014 and we got the right shaders for shields and plasma like last year.
I meant MMC PC, idk anything about xbox MCC other than it was apparently a shitshow
Oops you're right, Halo came out on PC way later, I'm dumb as frick.
Yeah you're right, after the PC release, it took em 1 year for the audio, and another year to have Halo 1 looking perfectly accurate.
I think there is still a problem with the tracking of the ennemies.
Basically in the original game at 30 fps, enemies would refresh their aim 30 times per second, and it became double with 60 fps, so they were twice as accurate, I don't know if that has been fixed.
better late than never even if it's half a decade and some change later
Yes, I'm glad they fixed it and I replayed Halo 1 multiple time since they made it accurate on MCC. But as I said, some of the mistakes have been ported into Anniversary like certain rooms basing their looks on Halo 1 Windows and the wrong looking shaders.
Not a very well made remake IMO, 343 guilty spark feels completely different too - they wanted to show off the improved graphics so much they sacrificed the level's character with that bright bio-luminescent swamp
Halo ended with 3
dont bother with 343 shit and stay far away from it.
complete halo 2 and 3 for sure. odst is also great. only do 4 and 5 if you can be bothered to but i don't recommend. infinite is eh
Honestly I always found myself wishing it ended with Halo 3. However, H4 has its moments. Definitely stop after that, though. You should give Halo Wars a shot too, it was pretty good
halo 4 is "fine" story and set piece wise, I actually like the cortana stuff (hot figure aside), but the gameplay is dogshit
halo 5 is completely worthless and should be actively avoided so you don't hurt yourself
infinite it really fun gameplay but 0 story and repetitive set pieces
wars 1&2 are fun
>halo 4 is "fine" story and set piece wise
you're overselling it
they couldn't have made a more generic sci-fi story if they tried
i'd actually disagree about 5 being worthless because forge is fricking amazing in it but other than that it's pretty shit
>Get to 343 Guilty spark on replay
>Enjoy the frick out of all the details and the tension building
>Remember what level comes after
>Almost lose the will to continue playing
What the frick where they thinking?!?!
One more question before I go back to playing Halo 2: how hard are the games on Legendary? I hear there's extra content available for the games if you play it that way.
Usually it's just extra cutscenes and dialogue after the credits roll. Some of the later titles like 3 and ODST unlock certain armors and characters for legendary completion iirc. Stay the frick away from Halo 2 Legendary until you unironically get good; it's infamous for being nightmare mode among shooters
Halo 2 legendary is extremely difficult mostly in boss fights that suck a giant dick. The game itself isn't that hard if you understand what are you doing. And yeah, Halo 2 legendary difficulty doesn't give you anything of value for its completion. Not even close.
lmao
How hard is Halo 2 on Legendary ? It's plain stupid, don't play this game on Legendary, you'll completely miss the whole point AKA being a supersoldier in a high tech armor and you'll spend 100% of the time hiding like a rat and getting one shot.
Halo 2 is the most difficult in Legendary, even on Ganker I regularly see people say it's straight up impossible, I think if you're not using the absolute best strategy you can't even kill the enemies cause you don't have enough bullets.
You have to kill every elite with a fully charged plasma pistol hit and then switch to your glock and headshot em. If you don't do that, there are not enough bullets to finish the mission generally lol.
> should I even bother with the 343 games?
Gameplay-wise, you may try them yourself, they aren't flawless but it's possible to enjoy them. Story-wise, holy frick no, stay away from that shit.