Halo: Reach Discussion

[annihilation]

I didn't notice the plants near the water were moving.

I don't recal them having moving foliage in Halo 3.
The water looks pretty good. Seems like the water would be more violent though.

[Heathen]

I don't recal them having moving foliage in Halo 3.

they did.

And I too am not very impressed.

[Warsaw]

Not very impressed. Sure, it moves nicely, but it doesn't look like water. If they get away from using cubemaps and switch to some real-time reflections (or a very good simulation like Source did with HL2), then you may colour me impressed.

[English Mobster]

Yeah, compared to Source, that water's no good.

[flibitijibibo]

It looks more like Halo 3's water with weird colors and a foam texture on top of it (Halo 3's literally just being a perfectly clear bluish fluid (seriously, it didn't even reflect anything)).

[ICEE]

I am on this yucky water bandwagon.

[English Mobster]

Stages of hype about Bungie visuals:
Reveal/First trailer: HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK THAT LOOKS AWESOME
Second trailer: Huh. Not quite as good as the first, but the visuals still look pretty good.
First major screenshots revealed: Visuals look alright.
Second batch of screenshots: Bleh. Not really liking that. I hope they change it.
BETA: They got the gameplay down pat, but the visuals leave much to be desired. Oh well, it's only a beta.
Pre-release hype: HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK
RELEASE: HELL YEAH! Graphics haven't changed much since the beta, though.
1 month post-release: At least the game's pretty fun.
2 months post-release: You know, compared to the other games coming out now, these graphics SUCK.

Bungie: Masters of gameplay, not so much in the visual department.

[Kornman00]

Better to be a master at gameplay than visual. It's like picking between having sex and looking at porn. Do you really want to wank off some visual just imagining what it would be like, or would you rather get down and dirty?

Hundreds of thousands of Halo XBL games are played everyday. How many other games from 2007 can say that?

[Rob Oplawar]

I seem to recall the outdoor visuals in Halo CE being very impressive when it first came out. Subsequent games undoubtedly beat Halo, but when the xbox first came out Halo had very competitive visuals.

I agree with Korn to an extent. But to another extent, I'm shallow, and I like pretty things. But it's not like Halo has ever looked bad; Halo has always been reasonably good-looking. :P

[Kornman00]

People continue to enjoy Halo CE too. I think that says something. Other than the fact that H2V wasn't successful enough at the time to replace it heh.

E: if anything, graphics should just be used to get the game out the door (the selling factor). Gameplay should be the contingency factor as it takes longer for that to grow old or get replaced by something more of value