Halo: Reach

[Maverick09]

Quote: Originally Posted by Miles_Yuhas

Bungie stated that the Halo 3 E3 announcement was not the in-game engine, but what they hoped to achieve with the in-game engine. That original E3 trailer was also a year and a half before Halo 3 was released I believe. Bungie has stressed that this Reach trailer is in-game engine and is in fact part of the opening cinematic to the game.

Really? I thought for sure they mentioned it was all in-game back at E3 (2006)... and they made sure to put a lot of emphasis on that as well.

I got this quote from a IGN article back when the trailer came out, and they claimed it was "in-game" footage as well: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/707/707241p1.html

"The 2 minute 17 second clip was based on in-game, real-time footage, which displayed Master Chief for the first time in the next generation on Xbox 360. "

"The trailer was built to have minimum impact on the development process, and while it required long hours and hard work from many, many Bungie staffers, it utilizes real-game assets, fiction and locations from parts of the 'real' game," reads Bungie.net.

Based on that Bungie quote, it looks as if only parts of it were in-game. I guess the fancy armor got the axe.

If Bungie says it's from an opening cut scene, than I suppose the Reach one is legit.

[Miles_Yuhas]

Quote: Originally Posted by Maverick09

Really? I thought for sure they mentioned it was all in-game back at E3 (2006)... and they made sure to put a lot of emphasis on that as well. I got this quote from a IGN article back when the trailer came out, and they claimed it was "in-game" footage as well: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/707/707241p1.html "The 2 minute 17 second clip was based on in-game, real-time footage, which displayed Master Chief for the first time in the next generation on Xbox 360. " "The trailer was built to have minimum impact on the development process, and while it required long hours and hard work from many, many Bungie staffers, it utilizes real-game assets, fiction and locations from parts of the 'real' game," reads Bungie.net. Based on that Bungie quote, it looks as if only parts of it were in-game. I guess the fancy armor got the axe. If Bungie says it's from an opening cut scene, than I suppose the Reach one is legit.

Yeah, parts of it, looks like some of the environment textures were from the game engine.

There was a vidoc released shortly after that E3 that was a making of the trailer with interviews from Bungie staff. In that video it was stated that the trailer was basically the goal for the game, although at the time they seemed to feel very confident that they would meet those lofty expectations.

The fact that this is the second full game engine built from the ground up on the 360 by Bungie leads me to belief that this engine is going to be pretty amazing stuff, and judging on the trailer is pretty impressive. Just watched the trailer in HD again, looks gorgeous.

[mgoblue]

Quote: Originally Posted by Miles_Yuhas

Yeah, parts of it, looks like some of the environment textures were from the game engine. There was a vidoc released shortly after that E3 that was a making of the trailer with interviews from Bungie staff. In that video it was stated that the trailer was basically the goal for the game, although at the time they seemed to feel very confident that they would meet those lofty expectations. The fact that this is the second full game engine built from the ground up on the 360 by Bungie leads me to belief that this engine is going to be pretty amazing stuff, and judging on the trailer is pretty impressive. Just watched the trailer in HD again, looks gorgeous.

Yeah, it looks good, but I'll reserve judgment until we see a bit more...I just hope that Bungie is setting out to make a great game, and not just another Halo iteration.

[Flawless]

Again, big difference between this reveal and the previous ones. 1) It's in a much further development state. 2) It's not even a trailer that shows something that may or may not be in the final game - it's part of the opening cinematic.

But while not to far off (mostly minus the ridiculous IQ), the cinematics aren't quite representative of the visual fidelity that you will see during gameplay. Not having to run a lot of gameplay tasks affords you the opportunity to push the details. Here we see the Reach engine at it's peak. The screenshot Bungie released is more representative of what you will see during gameplay, minus the high IQ again. Also, the Halo 3 cinematics were pretty close to that '06 premeire, except for they went with a waxy looking finish to the Chief's armor instead of the concrete look. The real omission was the reflective visor and the thing that hurt the visuals the most was lack of AA, and the sub-HD resolution just compounded that. It's definitely going to be big difference over the H3 engine, and you can clearly see this in the weapon detail in the crappy leaked cellphone pics.





I'm hoping that Reach in-game is 720p with 2xAA, because poor IQ is what really hurt the Halo 3 engine. I'm glad Bungie is finally using mo-cap, and can't wait to see the in-game animation.

[mgoblue]

Quote: Originally Posted by Flawless

Again, big difference between this reveal and the previous ones. 1) It's in a much further development state. 2) It's not even a trailer that shows something that may or may not be in the final game - it's part of the opening cinematic. But while not to far off (mostly minus the ridiculous IQ), the cinematics aren't quite representative of the visual fidelity that you will see during gameplay. Not having to run a lot of gameplay tasks affords you the opportunity to push the details. Here we see the Reach engine at it's peak. The screenshot Bungie released is more representative of what you will see during gameplay, minus the high IQ again. Also, the Halo 3 cinematics were pretty close to that '06 premeire, except for they went with a waxy looking finish to the Chief's armor instead of the concrete look. The real omission was the reflective visor and the thing that hurt the visuals the most was lack of AA, and the sub-HD resolution just compounded that. It's definitely going to be big difference over the H3 engine, and you can clearly see this in the weapon detail in the crappy leaked cellphone pics. I'm hoping that Reach in-game is 720p with 2xAA, because poor IQ is what really hurt the Halo 3 engine. I'm glad Bungie is finally using mo-cap, and can't wait to see the in-game animation.

Yeah, I really hope they try and wow us a bit with graphics (like MW/MW2, Uncharted/UC2, and other games have done). If this is just a upgraded Halo 3 engine with different multiplayer modes I think I'll pass, but I hope Bungie brings it. The latest Halo games were eh for me since I didn't get sucked into the online aspect.

[Miles_Yuhas]

Quote: Originally Posted by mgoblue

Yeah, it looks good, but I'll reserve judgment until we see a bit more...I just hope that Bungie is setting out to make a great game, and not just another Halo iteration.

Quote: Originally Posted by mgoblue

Yeah, I really hope they try and wow us a bit with graphics (like MW/MW2, Uncharted/UC2, and other games have done). If this is just a upgraded Halo 3 engine with different multiplayer modes I think I'll pass, but I hope Bungie brings it. The latest Halo games were eh for me since I didn't get sucked into the online aspect.

Supposedly this is Bungie's last Halo game so lets hope they go out with a bang and deliver an awesome game.

[Flawless]

We will see when the multiplayer beta arrives, but I don't expect to be wowed, especially not on the level of Uncharted. It's all about trade offs, and you can't possibly push those kind of visuals with the scale of encoutners in Halo, and if anything, I see Reach pushing scale even further. I guess they could always start heavely scripting things like Call of Duty, but would people really rather have that over Halo's large spaces and dynamism encounters?

Bungie has said, "Reach offers a lot of creative opportunities and a fresh approach to a universe we are all still very fond of.", and hinted at in both weekly updates and podcasts that while somethings may be familiar other things are going to be different, so maybe the Reach campaign will be more of a tight, scripted, cinematic experience.

[Maverick09]

Quote: Originally Posted by Flawless

We will see when the multiplayer beta arrives, but I don't expect to be wowed, especially not on the level of Uncharted. It's all about trade offs, and you can't possibly push those kind of visuals with the scale of encoutners in Halo, and if anything, I see Reach pushing scale even further. I guess they could always start heavely scripting things like Call of Duty, but would people really rather have that over Halo's large spaces and dynamism encounters? Bungie has said, "Reach offers a lot of creative opportunities and a fresh approach to a universe we are all still very fond of.", and hinted at in both weekly updates and podcasts that while somethings may be familiar other things are going to be different, so maybe the Reach campaign will be more of a tight, scripted, cinematic experience.

I'm don't work in the video game industry nor do I know much on the technology behind them, but I'd be willing to bet money on the fact that developers are having a hard time fitting everything they want in the games they make today. Obviously it shouldn't be an issue on a blu-ray disk, but I think certain 360 exclusive devs are really nearing their limits on the content they can fit on one disk... meaning some things may need to be sacrificed in order to make it fit. Mass Effect 2 is the only console game I know of that will be shipped on 2 separate disks. We'll see if this game takes a similar path, maybe putting multiplayer on a separate disk or something along those lines if the game is that large.