How Halo killed the 360

[rocketpig]

Engelos said:

rocketpig said:
I'm sick and tired of idiots comparing BioShock and Gears to Halo. It's a ridiculous argument.

BioShock takes place entirely indoors and there are few environments that take more than a few seconds to run across. Largely, the same applies to Gears. It's also only fair to mention that both of these games had vastly inferior lighting systems when compared to Halo 3 (which is very impressive).

Put a Gears or BioShock environment into the Halo setting, increase the draw distance to a ridiculous amount (for example, let's use the double Scarab level from H3), and watch those games turn into slideshows.

Sacrifices have to be made in games. You can have two of the following:

1. High framerates
2. Super-detailed textures with AA
3. Large environments

You can't have all three.

Very right, but your take also insinuates that 360 capability is not far greater then what we are already seeing which is one of the points in the article. 

Great visuals = small levels and few characters.
Big levels lots of characters = not so great visuals. 

Is that the future 360 developers delima ? 

No, not necessarily. My point is that in this point of the 360 development cycle, compromises will be made. After all, those games are Irrational's, Bungie's, and Epic's first shot at the 360. Can they all do better next time around? Absolutely. Should Halo 3 look a little better than it did? Absolutely. From Bungie's perspective, it sounds like they sacrificed a lot for the lighting model they used in H3. After playing the game, that doesn't surprise me. The lighting is absolutely gorgeous. But some of the character models definitely needed work, especially the Admiral and whats-her-face (not Cortana).

The 360 has plenty more to tap out of the CPU and GPU. Maybe not to the extent of the PS3, but there's definitely room for growth. Expect UT3 to look better than Gears because Epic is more familiar with the architecture. Expect BioShock 2 to look better, etc. etc. etc.

Basically, after Legend pointed out that the guy who wrote the article gave Lair an 8.9, we should all disregard everything that person has to say from this point forward. Not a single rational person I have ever met had Lair even pegged as a decent game, much less a good one. And that jackhole gave it a great game rating.