Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Mazerunner
Apr 22, 2010

Good Hunter, what... what is this post?
I liked how the remastered graphics added the red arrow floor directions to Cairo station, to match ones from Pillar of Autumn in CE.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

PantsBandit
Oct 26, 2007

it is both a monkey and a boombox

RBA Starblade posted:

There's almost too much lighting in H2A, I can't see poo poo in the dark in some maps lol

It's really bad. Warlock is miserable to play on.

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon

Mazerunner posted:

I liked how the remastered graphics added the red arrow floor directions to Cairo station, to match ones from Pillar of Autumn in CE.

Ahhh I didn't realize those were new.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Picked this up today. I haven't played Halo Reach before, just the first three games. Was the audio mix always this bad on the 360 release, or was something borked in the PC port? I've got music blasting while my guns sound like they were recorded in a tumble dryer three miles down the road. Super muffled.

Also seems like they've taken the approach of not letting us have advanced graphics options, and for some reason the customization tab for helmets doesn't preview the appearance unlike every other customization tab.

That being said, the gameplay is still Halo.

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon
Audio being hosed is a known issue with the original codec code missing, they're supposedly still working to fix it.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?

Less Fat Luke posted:

Audio being hosed is a known issue with the original codec code missing, they're supposedly still working to fix it.

Is that a Reach only big or is it present in CE and 2 as well?

The Kins
Oct 2, 2004

Arcsquad12 posted:

Is that a Reach only big or is it present in CE and 2 as well?
IIRC CE has one known issue with the Plasma Pistol charge sound (unless they patched that) and 2 has some comparatively minor oddities, but nothing on the level of Reach.

In other news, ODST Firefight is coming to MCC later this summer.
https://twitter.com/halo/status/1270747834082422785?s=21

In addition, a testflight is currently going on with Forge, Theater and Halo 3 (now with per-piece armor customization again!), so those'll probably drop relatively soon.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Whoever made the space section in Long Night of Solace should be fired holy poo poo it is terrible. Who needs a minimal to tell you where enemy ships are? Just wait for five seraphs to come up on your tail and kill you in five seconds flat! It's okay though, they gave you a thruster boost that does nothing to let you outrun shots.

Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jun 12, 2020

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

The Kins posted:

IIRC CE has one known issue with the Plasma Pistol charge sound (unless they patched that) and 2 has some comparatively minor oddities, but nothing on the level of Reach.

In other news, ODST Firefight is coming to MCC later this summer.
https://twitter.com/halo/status/1270747834082422785?s=21

In addition, a testflight is currently going on with Forge, Theater and Halo 3 (now with per-piece armor customization again!), so those'll probably drop relatively soon.

gently caress yeah, odst firefight was the best

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord
I'd be super impressed if they had made firefight for all the halos but i'll settle for reach and odst I GUESS

Solaris 2.0
May 14, 2008

Arcsquad12 posted:

Whoever made the space section in Long Night of Solace should be fired holy poo poo it is terrible. Who needs a minimal to tell you where enemy ships are? Just wait for five seraphs to come up on your tail and kill you in five seconds flat! It's okay though, they gave you a thruster boost that does nothing to let you outrun shots.

That level is far harder on MCC on PC than it ever was on console. Current theories are the Seraph fighters fire rate is tied to frame rate. So the higher framerate makes them far deadlier.

I died probably a dozen times before figuring out if you hide behind the station the Seraphs won’t follow you and you can let your AI buddies whittle them down while you hide like a coward.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
I had to take a break from the Reach campaign and I booted up Combat Evolved. Man, the gameplay of Reach kinda pales in comparison. Beyond the hosed up audio bug, the weapons in Reach really feel anemic compared to CE, where it's a lot easier to see how your damage is registered by enemies. Elites flinch when you land shots on them that gives you a good idea of the damage you're inflicting, while in Reach Elites can tank DMR headshots without reacting, and the shield effect is too subdued to easily tell when you're breaking through. I don't know if the lack of flinching or enemy reaction to getting shot was part of OG Reach or if it's another bug in the PC port, but man does Reach feel like a gameplay downgrade in a lot of ways, but most of all in game feel. It feels quite sloppy, actually.

I'm also not really enjoying the way Reach tells its nonexistent story. I get that it's supposed to be the story of defending a planet, but there's pretty much no connective tissue between missions and it's jarring to go from one level to the next with only the barest mention of what just happened. It feels scattershot. Now, the Halo games have never really been creative with their storytelling, but the flow of Combat Evolved's narrative in the first half is so, so good. You start off on the back foot, you end up on the Ring, gather survivors, launch a desperate rescue mission and then go on the offensive and it all builds naturally from one level to the next, raising the stakes with each passing moment. My favourite bit of Reach so far was the start of Long Night of Solace because it reminded me so much of the beachhead assault from Silent Cartographer. It's not as good, but it was pretty close. I know once the Flood show up the game's story will switch to fast forward and get a lot more spotty, but even then I think it would be rather better told than Reach.

That said, Combat Evolved Anniversary has some issues. First of all, oof, with visuals set on "Enhanced" I haven't seen pixelation that bad since the sharpening filter on Witcher 2. Makes the entire screen look like it was rendered on fabric. The visual upgrade is impressive, but it also makes it harder to navigate, since there's so many glowy things it obscures the glowy bits you need to interact with. I was stuck at the light bridge on Halo for ten minutes because I forgot about the ramp to the control console and it blended into the more detailed background.

Haven't been able to get any multiplayer matches going, has everyone migrated to Halo 2 multiplayer from the Reach game rooms?

Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jun 13, 2020

Solaris 2.0
May 14, 2008

Yea Reach has a "love it or hate it" reputation because its the first game to really start to diverge from the core Halo mechanics of the previous games. The elites are very hard to play against, and the DMR is largely ineffective against them because they can dodge your shots so easily and their shields seem to have a quick re-charge. Also the story is messy, at least at first, and Bungie still has a love for making you repeat the same level twice (Sword base).
When I replayed it on the MCC I actually enjoyed it a bit more than I remembered back when it first came out, however I hated the multiplayer especially the maps.

Also yea I think Halo CE multiplayer is dead, unfortunately. Last time I tried to play I tried to find a BTB match, spent 20 minutes in the queue, and gave up. At this point, I think everyone has moved on to Halo 2/A for MP.

Speaking of, I'm playing through the Halo 2 campaign and enjoying it. Halo 2 on Heroic is much MUCH harder than Halo CE was. Playing Halo CE on heroic, I died maybe twice. With Halo 2, I am easily dying a dozen or so times per level, especially against the Flood. I especially hate some of the mid-2000s level design decisions (wanna ride an elevator sequence while being assaulted by wave after wave of Flood for 10mins? And you are constantly running out of ammo? Have fun! Or hallway sections with impossible-to see one-shot snipers!) but it's broken up by some fantastic design (Delta Halo). The game is definitely smaller scale compared to CE and especially 3, it's clear Bungie bit off more than they could chew tech-wise, which means at most you get 3 marines fighting alone side with you, but the Covenant elite vs brute fights at the end are cool. The anniversary graphics are much better than CE's. They don't feel as needlessly "busy" and the lighting, for the most port, is appropriate and not overly bright.

Also I found this really cool Youtube video on the AI behavior tree of Halo 2/3 and how the AI changes/reacts to decisions the player makes. Worth a watch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU717sd8oUc

Solaris 2.0 fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jun 13, 2020

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
I feel that the elites shields regenerate way too fast in reach. Weapons that break shields don't kill as fast once shields are down, so it's usually better to switch to your secondary once the shield is down, but the window is so small that you're better off killing them with the same gun you dropped the shields with to start. It wastes ammo. In Halo CE you have enough time to switch to your secondary so you can plasma off a shield and then finish with bullets, and the dual wielding from 2 and 3 let you kill even quicker.

And the assault rifle clip having half the ammunition as before pretty much cripples it for doing anything other than killing grunts

Solaris 2.0
May 14, 2008

Update to my Halo 2 A playthrough.

The Brutes are cheap as gently caress on Uprising holy gently caress. There are A LOT of them, and they can one shot kill you with shotguns and the brute shot AND have near-perfect accuracy. On top of that, they berserk very quickly, and if they hit you while beserk it is often a one-shot death. I am maybe 1/4 of the way through the level and have already died well over a dozen times on Heroic. You get elites as allies which should even the odds but it doesn't, because the Brutes can just pummel them to death so quickly and plasma weapons do just about zero damage to them.

In Gravemind I could counter them pretty easily with headshots from the carbine, but in that level you usually only fought them two at a time. In uprising you fight them in large packs, so you can take down one or two but then the rest go beserk and game over.

I'm so happy Bungie realized how unfun they are to play against and totally revamped them in Halo 3.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

I really like the presentation of Reach's story. It strikes a really good balance between the player achieving victories (taking out the Covenant cruiser, saving ships of civilians, getting Chief and Cortana off-planet) and showing the player that the war isn't just losing, you lost the moment it started, four games ago (the entire battle group showing up, the radio chatter about the other refugee ships getting gunned down along with the one you watch go up in flames, the glassing lasers getting closer and closer in the background). The biggest thing that drags is how it starts to undermine the themes of Halo 1-3 but weirdly in ways that mostly get dropped compared to how Halo 4 and 5 just throws everything in all of it into the trash for its anime bullshit.

The distinction between the Spartan 3s and the Spartan 2s is well done too.

Grimthwacker
Aug 7, 2014

Seriously, they never had ODST Firefight in the MCC on the Xbone? After how many years? What the hell, man.

Apparently I really suck at Halo 2 MP. I'm trying to use something like the BR and land multiple bursts on an opponent, who just turns around and blows me away with like two shots. My shield keeps going down faster than I can take theirs down, with seemingly any weapon. It's not like I'm a bad shot either. Center mass when possible and aim for the head for the kill. Oh, and I apparently suck at moving because my opponents keep jumping around and yet somehow seem to land nothing but headshots in midair. I never played Halo 2 on Xbox, but I'm not exactly bad at Halo and it's making me miffed.

jivjov
Sep 13, 2007

But how does it taste? Yummy!
Dinosaur Gum

Grimthwacker posted:

Seriously, they never had ODST Firefight in the MCC on the Xbone? After how many years? What the hell, man.

ODST was a late addition in general. It was just 1-4 at launch. ODST ended up being DLC (given free to launch adopters as an apology for the utter broken state of the launch)

Xinlum
Apr 12, 2009

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Dark Knight

Grimthwacker posted:

Seriously, they never had ODST Firefight in the MCC on the Xbone? After how many years? What the hell, man.

Apparently I really suck at Halo 2 MP. I'm trying to use something like the BR and land multiple bursts on an opponent, who just turns around and blows me away with like two shots. My shield keeps going down faster than I can take theirs down, with seemingly any weapon. It's not like I'm a bad shot either. Center mass when possible and aim for the head for the kill. Oh, and I apparently suck at moving because my opponents keep jumping around and yet somehow seem to land nothing but headshots in midair. I never played Halo 2 on Xbox, but I'm not exactly bad at Halo and it's making me miffed.

I'm a filthy controller player because nostalgia but here's my take. BR always go for headshots, it's basically the magnum from CE and takes dudes out QUICK when landing the burst into heads. Jumping against someone with a BR is a bad move, you are super floaty and easy to hit.

I'm not great with power weapons, so my usual strat in a TDM situation is beelining for BR or beam rifle spawns. When using SMG try and find any second dual wield weapon while heading to whatever weapon spawn you are interested in. You can just hold the button while walking over it. In short range fights I always close distance while hosing down my opponent and finishing with melee. Melee is super forgiving. It does a lot of damage, you lunge surprisingly far towards your opponent, and it can be done while dual wielding.

And don't forget the classic noob combo of plasma pistol/BR.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
I finished the Reach campaign. I liked the second half better than the first. The end scene of Long Night of Solace might as well have been the point where the game decided to actually try to tell a continuous story. Exodus was probably my favourite level.
It's interesting how loading times probably played a role in making the ending land harder. As the MCC plays out, the Autumn takes off, the opening to CE plays and then you immediately jump back to Reach to survive until Six's inevitable death, and it takes like two seconds for scene transitions. Felt a bit rushed, when a black screen hiding a loading bar was probably used on the 360 edition to evoke some buildup.

Storywise I still don't think it was that good, but like I said it did get a bit better in the latter half. Six without orders decides to take part in the evacuation efforts, which already has more setup in a thirty second cutscene than the first five missions of the game which felt super disjointed from one another. I think the biggest failing is the lack of character across Noble Team. The only one who got fleshed out at all was Jorge because he's a II instead of a III and he had some actual empathy. Six isn't a silent character, but they have no character at all. Even the Rookie had a personality in ODST, much as that games cast was just recycled Firefly character traits. Six just has nothing.

Character deaths felt undeserved and melodramatic apart from Jorge, which was weird considering how emotionally distant the story was until then. Kat gets unceremoniously headshotted and gets a freaking Pieta reference, Carter does a heroic sacrifice, and Emil (his death was pretty good I'll admit) just got stabbed.

I dunno, it felt like their heart wasn't really in the story that much and was instead an excuse to string together disparate assignments ala the Modern Warfare games, only with less skill. Hell I didn't even realize Dot was an AI assigned to Noble Team until the second Sword Base mission. It was just lacking context for so much stuff that happened in the course of the campaign.

The combat started to click some more, but outside of the jetpack I really never found a use for the other armour upgrades besides sprinting, and it got a little tiring how the later levels felt like they were just previewing multiplayer mechanics.

a peck of pickled peckers
Aug 3, 2014

I am your Redeemer! It is by my hand that you arise from the ashes of this world!

Maybe I'll be the odd man out here but I really love Reach's story. Its very simple, no question, but its not any more than it needs to be. And what it needs to be is desperate, which I kind of didn't get with the other Halo games. I understand why, but the other Halo games (CE in particular) give you the context of things being desperate, but ultimately the Master Chief is gonna crush his enemies and drive them away. Like you hear about how close humanity is to losing, but for you the player, you feel like a one man victory machine.

I like Reach because basically from the beginning, everyone makes it very clear how hosed you all are. The Covenant have come to basically Earth 2, and there seems to be very little we can do about it. And even though you're a spartan killing machine cutting through swaths of enemies, every battle you fight is either a desperate counterattack or a fighting retreat. It eventually stops trying to be about driving the Covenant away and starts being more about just saving as many lives as possible. Reach was when I felt like I finally "got" the story of the Halo universe. And I like when games basically tell you that even though you feel like the hero, you're ultimately going to lose this one.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
I dunno, I feel like Reach could have used at least a little levity. When Halo forgets to have fun with itself it becomes a really depressing setting where the UNSC uses borderline (or in ONI's case, outright) fascist martial law enforcement. I like being a superhero in Halo 1-3. They took it way too far with Chief becoming space marine Jesus in Halo 4 (besides, Sanguinius is already Space Marine Jesus) but the more cartoony edge of the trilogy balanced against the melodrama of saving the universe while still maintaining a level of gravitas appeals to me.

I do think that Halo games can tell different stories with different moods. I just don't think Reach really tells its story all that well and it's lack of engaging characters harms it. There's parts in it that work (Emile quietly saying "race you there" as you make a run for the Autumn was oddly touching) but as an overall work of storytelling it feels too disjointed, since the first half feels like vignettes of the battle for Reach while the second half settles for being the direct lead into Combat Evolved.

SpookyLizard
Feb 17, 2009
Reach gives you abouy forty seconds with each character before killing them off. Sometimes in incredibly stupid dumb ways. It also makes the UNSC look like completely inconpetent chucklefucks which just raises the question of how the UNSC hasnt been completely steamrolled. plus theres the absolute stupidity of the pillar of autumn being refitted on the planet with loving booster rockets on it. A couple of levels work really well (the city evacuation stuff, imo), but they also have one of the shittest tank levels in halo, which is astounding because scorpion segments were always the best. I could go on and on about how dumb reach is. Because it is dumb.

The difference in H2 and HCEs anniversary modes is astounding. CEs is full of stupid, pointlessly glowy lights and greebly, over designed textures loving up really good sinple design. Halo 2s anniversary update makes halo 2 look like low res LOD texture. Delta Halo and Regret especially. some of the other stuff is questionable, like the gravemind becoming a meat based teeth monster but apparently thats related to halo 4 and 5s frankly loving retarded plot lines and lore which makes destiny look like a fuckin master work of writing and design.

Tighclops
Jan 23, 2008

Unable to deal with it


Grimey Drawer
The Autumn launching from sea level was dumb but they hung a hat on it with the booster rockets and it's not like spaceships make any sense in Halo anyway; they apparently can hang mere hundreds of feet in the air just because it's a ground based shooter and doing that makes the set pieces a lot cooler.

jivjov
Sep 13, 2007

But how does it taste? Yummy!
Dinosaur Gum

SpookyLizard posted:

Reach gives you abouy forty seconds with each character before killing them off. Sometimes in incredibly stupid dumb ways. It also makes the UNSC look like completely inconpetent chucklefucks which just raises the question of how the UNSC hasnt been completely steamrolled. plus theres the absolute stupidity of the pillar of autumn being refitted on the planet with loving booster rockets on it. A couple of levels work really well (the city evacuation stuff, imo), but they also have one of the shittest tank levels in halo, which is astounding because scorpion segments were always the best. I could go on and on about how dumb reach is. Because it is dumb.

The difference in H2 and HCEs anniversary modes is astounding. CEs is full of stupid, pointlessly glowy lights and greebly, over designed textures loving up really good sinple design. Halo 2s anniversary update makes halo 2 look like low res LOD texture. Delta Halo and Regret especially. some of the other stuff is questionable, like the gravemind becoming a meat based teeth monster but apparently thats related to halo 4 and 5s frankly loving retarded plot lines and lore which makes destiny look like a fuckin master work of writing and design.

Do you really need to use slurs to talk about games you don't like?

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
I'm in the Halo 3 flight, it plays well and looks good on PC, only bug I've noticed so far is I can still shoot my gun during cutscenes which is pretty hilarious

SO excited for ODST firefight on PC.

Gonna throw away my Xbone and 360 pretty soon.

Arcsquad12 posted:

I dunno, I feel like Reach could have used at least a little levity. When Halo forgets to have fun with itself it becomes a really depressing setting where the UNSC uses borderline (or in ONI's case, outright) fascist martial law enforcement. I like being a superhero in Halo 1-3. They took it way too far with Chief becoming space marine Jesus in Halo 4 (besides, Sanguinius is already Space Marine Jesus) but the more cartoony edge of the trilogy balanced against the melodrama of saving the universe while still maintaining a level of gravitas appeals to me.

I do think that Halo games can tell different stories with different moods. I just don't think Reach really tells its story all that well and it's lack of engaging characters harms it. There's parts in it that work (Emile quietly saying "race you there" as you make a run for the Autumn was oddly touching) but as an overall work of storytelling it feels too disjointed, since the first half feels like vignettes of the battle for Reach while the second half settles for being the direct lead into Combat Evolved.

Its funny because I ignored it for a long time but ODST does kinda feel like the high water mark in some ways.

The mainline games have a good tone like you mention, but being JUST Chief and Cortana gets a bit limited, especially when you split them up and Chief has nobody to riff off.

Having a big diverse cast of rogues, voiced by the Firefly crew, was a pretty smart move.

ODST also has some real serious moments and slower moments (that jazz theme, and walking around in the dark night city by yourself) but also could be pretty silly and had a lot of fun.

Reach took itself just a little bit too seriously but didn't really have enough time to make you love all the characters enough for it to work as a tragic story which was the kinda tone they went for. ODST was really the ideal tone.

Then after Bungie we get 343i who has no loving clue what they're doing and the tone in 4 and 5 is a goddamned mess.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Jun 14, 2020

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

SpookyLizard posted:

It also makes the UNSC look like completely inconpetent chucklefucks which just raises the question of how the UNSC hasnt been completely steamrolled.

I mean

Solaris 2.0
May 14, 2008

To be fair to the poster in Fall of Reach the UNSC are presented as militarily competent (if incredibly fascist) and they fight admirably - to the point where the Elites question “why such a competent foe isn’t simply adopted into the Covenant like the others?”

The UNSC get steam rolled because their forces are technologically and numerically far inferior to The Covenant.

However in Reach (the game) the UNSC don’t even notice a Covenant invasion force massing on their most important and heavily guarded military planet so yea....


Anyway I just finished Halo 2 A campaign. I had to cheese my way through the Brutes (hang back and snipe them with the Beam rifle. Move very slowly forward for the next pack to spawn, repeat) but whatever. The next two levels were a breeze, and in “Great Journey” there is a sequence where you fight alongside Hunters (gently caress yea :black101:) and is one of the best single player moments in Halo. The ending is still the biggest “gently caress you” cliffhanger in gaming but less annoying now than in 2004. Overall I liked it, but it makes me want to replay Halo 3 even more now.

Solaris 2.0 fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jun 14, 2020

SpookyLizard
Feb 17, 2009

The UNSC has generally been getting its poo poo kicked in space, but they have won in space before, though theyre generally phyrric victories. The war has been going on for 27 years, the UNSC isnt losing because theyre incompetent fools, theyre losing because theyre severely outclassed technologically. On the ground UNSC forces generally hold their own, while ODSTs and other elites stack bodies like cordwood (ignoring Nearby Protagonist Death Syndrome). If the rest of the Navy was as bad as they are in REACH the war wouldve been over before ths Chief ever got to Halo.

Solaris 2.0 posted:

To be fair to the poster in Fall of Reach the UNSC are presented as militarily competent (if incredibly fascist) and they fight admirably - to the point where the Elites question “why such a competent foe isn’t simply adopted into the Covenant like the others?”

The UNSC get steam rolled because their forces are technologically and numerically far inferior to The Covenant.

However in Reach (the game) the UNSC don’t even notice a Covenant invasion force massing on their most important and heavily guarded military planet so yea....
thank you for getting it.

yknow whats weird? we see more of the covenants internal structure and organisation than we see of the UNSC, which we almost exclusively see from a military standpoint.

quote:

Anyway I just finished Halo 2 A campaign. I had to cheese my way through the Brutes (hang back and snipe them with the Beam rifle. Move very slowly forward for the next pack to spawn, repeat) but whatever. The next two levels were a breeze, and in “Great Journey” there is a sequence where you fight alongside Hunters (gently caress yea :black101:) and is one of the best single player moments in Halo. The ending is still the biggest “gently caress you” cliffhanger in gaming but less annoying now than in 2004. Overall I liked it, but it makes me want to replay Halo 3 even more now.
ARBITER! The Hunters have come to our aid!
fills me with joy every time.
its really fair you want to play halo 3 though since the first half of that game was halo 2s original ending, more or less.

SpookyLizard fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Jun 14, 2020

Ablative
Nov 9, 2012

Someone is getting this as an avatar. I don't know who, but it's gonna happen.

SpookyLizard posted:



yknow whats weird? we see more of the covenants internal structure and organisation than we see of the UNSC, which we almost exclusively see from a military standpoint.

That's because the UNSC is the military. The greater governing body is the UEG.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Okay hold the phone, there are collectible audio logs in combat evolved anniversary? I didn't even realize until I accidentally activated one on Truth and Reconciliation and suddenly Guilty Spark is talking to the ship's AI. Do they just blend in with the anniversary graphics or something? I don't know what glowy things are for show and which are interactive.

Also does MCC come with the option to use the original soundtracks for CE and 2 or just the anniversary renditions?

jivjov
Sep 13, 2007

But how does it taste? Yummy!
Dinosaur Gum

Arcsquad12 posted:

Okay hold the phone, there are collectible audio logs in combat evolved anniversary? I didn't even realize until I accidentally activated one on Truth and Reconciliation and suddenly Guilty Spark is talking to the ship's AI. Do they just blend in with the anniversary graphics or something? I don't know what glowy things are for show and which are interactive.

Also does MCC come with the option to use the original soundtracks for CE and 2 or just the anniversary renditions?

Yeah they added Terminals to Halo 1 and 2 for the anniversary remasters, some of them are more well hidden than others.

yes original soundtracks should be an option though I believe in 1 its an independent toggle where 2 locks it to the graphics. I'd have to boot up to confirm though.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

jivjov posted:

yes original soundtracks should be an option though I believe in 1 its an independent toggle where 2 locks it to the graphics. I'd have to boot up to confirm though.

This is correct and I kinda hate it

Remastered graphics & Original soundtrack is the way to go. I love that in Halo 1 you can do this, but hate that you just cannot in Halo 2.

It was the same way on Xbone as on PC so I assume its something to do with how the game engine of 2 works vs 1 that makes it harder to separate.

The remastered soundtracks are high fidelity but they change the songs too much, they're all re-arrangements that change the rhythm and emphasis of the notes and ... its just WRONG.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?
Perilous Journey and Brothers in Arms didn't sound right to me, I'll have to check the game options to see how to get the OG soundtrack to play. There are a lot of tabs for customization between each of the games, and yet no advanced graphics options suite. It's kind of baffling.

The Silent Cartographer remains one of my favourite FPS levels ever made. So much fun.

Solaris 2.0
May 14, 2008

Also the remastered Halo 2 soundtrack doesn’t have the music from Incubus or Breaking Benjamin for that true mid-2000s experience!

Luckily, the original graphics does !

The Kins
Oct 2, 2004

Zaphod42 posted:

Remastered graphics & Original soundtrack is the way to go. I love that in Halo 1 you can do this, but hate that you just cannot in Halo 2.

It was the same way on Xbone as on PC so I assume its something to do with how the game engine of 2 works vs 1 that makes it harder to separate.
Halo 1 Anniversary was developed for the Xbox 360, so they could only have remastered audio due to only having 512mb of RAM. IIRC the original audio was reimplemented relatively recently as part of the process of re-porting Anniversary to PC. Meanwhile, Halo 2 Anniversary was made for the Xbox One with it's 8gb of the wrong kind of RAM, so they could happily run two soundtracks simultaneously alongside the two simultaneous rendering engines.

Hopefully they add a toggle for the audio like with Halo 1, but I think I remember hearing there might be issues with the licensed music that prevent that?

Animal Friend
Sep 7, 2011

Solaris 2.0 posted:

Also the remastered Halo 2 soundtrack doesn’t have the music from Incubus or Breaking Benjamin for that true mid-2000s experience!

Luckily, the original graphics does !

The Incucbus track that plays during the heretic banshee section actually kinda owns so much- its different but it uses the same scales as the main soundtrack. The anniversary track is generic modern progressive metal track #9 and feels so out of place. Its djent muzak.

jivjov
Sep 13, 2007

But how does it taste? Yummy!
Dinosaur Gum
i'm fairly certain both soundtracks were available on the original 360 release of Halo Anniversary, but it was a menu toggle, not something you could hot swap in game.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

jivjov posted:

i'm fairly certain both soundtracks were available on the original 360 release of Halo Anniversary, but it was a menu toggle, not something you could hot swap in game.

I think that's what Kins said yeah

E: Oh no you're right. Due to RAM limitation you couldn't swap, but they DID have both available on the menu IIRC yeah.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

The REAL Goobusters
Apr 25, 2008
Downloaded this to play Reach and Halo 2 campaign. The reach campaign has some crazy audio bug thats apparently been known about forever and hasn't had an update since February about it. Which is a huge bummer. Halo 2 remastered graphics actually look very nice and I also really enjoyed the new cgi cutscenes (except for the first one that I guess was some halo 5 thing). Its crazy coming back to this series after so many years. Honestly I'm just waiting for ODST and for 3 to get some 4 player co-op and multiplayer going though.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply