Halo 3: Yup, It's Prettier Than Halo 2
I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone, but Halo 3 is a whole hullvalot prettier than its predecessor Halo 2. How much prettier? Well, it's sort of like comparing the visuals in Halo 2 to Halo: Combat Evolved. But, don't take my word for it, just check out this video with footage from both games and you'll be suitably impressed.
[via Joystiq]
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to Video Games, Videos on 17 May 2007
· Comments (6)
Other stuff like this: bungie, comparison, graphics, halo, halo 2, halo 3, mighty pretty, xbox 360
Ok, so I may be a bit on the nostalgic road here and sure enough, I have hardly played let alone enjoyed any entry into the Halo series. Heck, I don't even own an Xbox (not until later today, probably :D Woohoo 360!).
But (!), I do have a distinct opinion on game presentation.
I, like everyone else, like my games pretty, breathtaking if possible. However, this does *not* mean I need or want constant improvements. There is a point where I can safely say : "This game looks great and the engine does everything that is needed to support my enjoyment of it."
Prime examples being for instance SMW2: Yoshies Island. Sure, from our current standpoint, the graphics seem kinda low-res and outdated. But updating them will not increase the enjoyment of the game. At all! They are perfect and pretty the way they are.
Now for 3D examples and something that more resembles the game at hand, we have Counterstrike. Sure, the update to source looks a lot better. When you are standing still and admiring the scene, which is not really the purpose of either. I didn't see a point in this upgrade, other than that it could be done. Ruined the game for a lot of people with slower PCs.
I could go on and on, why I like graphics the way they are in some cases. Super Mario 64 comes to mind, as do Gothic 1 and 2.
Just to deliver a counterpoint: Morrowind on the Oblivion engine would be an instant buy for me. Some games don't age well.
I actually think the graphic improvements are pretty marginal. Watching that video I didn't notice when it had switched to Halo 3.
Playing the Beta I have to admit to being dissapointed. I was prepared for it to not be Gears of War, and I wouldn't consider myself a total graphics-whore (I love the Wii!!) but honestly... NO antialiasing? I found myself staring at an N64-style texture seam on a big rock in one of the levels thinking "this is the best Bungie could do?"
Thank god the gameplay is stellar, and I imagine the single player will have impressive moments.
Halo hasn't impressed me graphically since Halo 1 anyway, I thought H2 was just awful looking.
I really couldn't tell the difference between Halo 1 and 2, either. I never got what was so great about the Halo games anyway. They are all solid FPS games, but they really bring nothing new to the table, and they don't really do anything that hasn't been done a whole lot better elsewhere. All it really did was bring a stale genre to an audience who didn't know that it was stale.
Bungie have said a lot of the textures are placeholders (indeed quite a bit of terrain are the halo 2 textures and there will be a lot of new suprises in the final product. New weapons, the assault riflr model (or maybe just the skin) isn't the final one apparently.
On top of this while most the engine is done it isn't optemised to it's final level and having participated in betas with unoptemised engines before we can expect very significant improvements, normally alongside huge performance improvements
that said the beta runs very smoothly which is perhaps indictive that in the final product it can do a lot of things at once before it struggles at all and this will show in the singleplayer with luck.
That said not that fond of halo MP anyway, more looking forward to the SP
I'm going to throw my hat in here too and say that I'm also fairly underwhelmed by this video. I just don't find the graphical different between the two to be that stark. I really only barely noticed when I saw the two side by side. You can tell there are some graphics upgrades, but they're really just not that impressive.
Now why would I want to do that when I spent all yesterday and this morning actually playing it? It's beautiful. They did a good job with it. I expect it's going to improve significantly before the final, but first impressions show a lot of potential. The levels are well designed and the textures are great, it really is fun to play. It's not what I would call incredible, but it's not done yet either.