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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Bungie: "We are definitely bending the Xbox as far as it'll bend,"

nightsurge on 22 January 2010
Domicinator said:
When I first got my 360, I only had money for one title (Mass Effect), so I borrowed Halo 3 from a buddy. I hadn't played the other two before, so this was my first crack at the series.

I was utterly disappointed.

I couldn't believe how crappy the graphics were. There were these big open environments, and you couldn't always tell where the enemies were because if they were too far off, everything got all pixelated and weird looking. There was very little evidence of any anti-aliasing as well. In general, I was just very disenchanted with the game, and didn't really have much fun playing it because I was always straining to see what was going on. I haven't touched the game since. I would consider Halo Reach if it looks a little more polished and actually has fun gameplay.

HDTV.  Problem solved



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Feylic on 22 January 2010

Excellent. Sound like a great direction change for halo. Should be good.



iLLmaticV3 on 22 January 2010

Ahh, a good looking Halo game is always welcome.



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Lord Flashheart on 22 January 2010

I was under the impression that the new engine was brand new. Built from the ground up but this makes it sound like it's the Halo 3 engine completely re-worked. Maybe that's why they're having to "bend" the xbox.
If only it was a completely new engine



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Reasonable on 22 January 2010
Twistedpixel said:
damndl0ser said:
Twistedpixel said:

You need a bigger TV and/or glasses!

 

Lol, I was thinking the same thing.  I never had a problem with the game ever pixelating. 

 

No Halo 3 doesn't have the best graphics known to man "even for its time".  But the graphics are better than what most people give it credit for. 

Actually I suspect their design didn't take advantage of their technology. They had a great lighting engine but too few places where it really shone. They had a lot of flat surfaces and great textures but no anisotropic filtering to speak of. I suspect that this new engine is less technically excellent than the previous in certain areas like lighting and better in others but the game design will make better use of the technology they have available.

Halo is the reason why I own an Xbox 360 as well. Four player split screen + system link is still an amazing experience and its something that Sony has not really deigned to give me which makes me suspicious of their online efforts. Online seem to take precedence over offline play, which doesn't make sense as you'd suspect it would be the other way around given Microsofts incentives to emphasise Live.

That's down to the devs.  If you push any engine really far you're going to struggle to do split screen.  Halo 3 looked good for what it was (in resolution) and made sacrifices to have split screen.  Reach looks like they're going to take it as far as they can, but I guarantee that they'll still have to balance stuff to have 4 way split screen.

Some engines just go the other way.  Killzone 2 engine, for example, simply isn't designed that way.  That's not Sony's fault, that's GG's decision - they made the engine and levels, etc. such that it apparently couldn't support split screen in any form.  On the other hand CoD4 and other titles on PS3 support split screen fine because they're designed for it.

The PS3 and 360, despite all the internet rumblings, are fairly similar with regard to capability to standard engines, and each can can easily support split screen / online provided the developers design the game appropriately.

In the end if you're going to pursue really high end graphics (as many titles on PS3 have) then something's got to give.  I'd like more split screen too, but it's down to the developer to deliver it, not Sony.



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

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nightsurge on 22 January 2010
Lord Flashheart said:
I was under the impression that the new engine was brand new. Built from the ground up but this makes it sound like it's the Halo 3 engine completely re-worked. Maybe that's why they're having to "bend" the xbox.
If only it was a completely new engine

I guess it depends on how technical you want to be.  There is no such thing as a "completely" new engine these days.  Those types of things would take literally 4+ years to develop one.  From what I understand, they completely gutted all but the most necessary/best parts of the Halo 3 engine and rebuilt it from then on up.  Basically a brand new engine but saved them some time, money, and resources.



Lord Flashheart on 22 January 2010

I don't want to be technical but pedantic.
THEY SAID NEW ENGINE!!!
How do they get exclusives out around a launch? Personally I would have pegged it at 2-4 years. Multiplat engines must be slightly gimped



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markers on 22 January 2010

Why would you wanna bend a console, it could break D:

Wondering how many enemies/allies will be on screen...



Lord Flashheart on 22 January 2010
markers said:

Why would you wanna bend a console, it could break D:

Wondering how many enemies/allies will be on screen...

To make it domed?



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nightsurge on 22 January 2010

^Yeah I edited my post when I shouldn't have. I originally had it saying 4+ years to develop A PERFECT one Usually launch engines have a 2-3 year development, then they are modified throughout the generation (especially the case with multiplats). I'm guessing bigger engines used on exclusive games that come out a year or two after launch probably have that longer development time. I'm just guessing on this whole thing, it just seems like from the description it would have been wasteful to throw out EVERYTHING from the Halo 3 engine since I'm sure some aspects will tie over and receive further advancement.