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[Explosive Zombie]

There was no argument, I said I wasn’t going to address it there, as it wasn’t appropriate.

I think I covered all the ground I needed to with you.

So, coping out again? No actual criticism? See, the thing is you keep acting like you know all you need to know, but your refusal to explain yourself further means the only person who "knows all they need to know" is me... because you're not giving me any more, no matter how much I push for it.

 

[Black_Stride]

So it wasn't from months ago like people were trying to damage control and tell me lmao.

Feeling a strong low to mid 80 Metacritic for this game

Do games still get panned for "bad graphics" these days?
I remember when magazines had like 5 categories or something that led to a final score, if game didnt have the best graphics its overall score would be docked and even in the blurb there would be a "visuals not great" minus point.

But if say Halo Infinite is a great game to play....like truly amazing gameplay moment to moment with a great story and good art direction, but has "flat lighting" does it lose points for that?

P.S Mid 80s is where my money is at as well, outside of absolute polish AAA games i rarely expect MCs in 90s.
Weird that forums would have you think a mid 80s metacritc is bad....some of my favorite game this gen were 80ers.
Ghost, Spiderman, Gears 5, Ori, DMCV, TitanFall, Dishonored 2...etc

 

[Deleted member 775630]

I'm a huge Halo fan, the gameplay looked like dogshit. Nothing had any weight to it, enemies didn't react properly, the sound design is godawful. Weapons are like peashooters. That hangar explosion was totally lame, explosions in Halo 1-3 were better.

I don't want to jump on the bandwagon where people try to discredit your opinion, but address some of your concerns.

Gameplay wise, they clearly just played on easy to get some kind of flow. Since you are a Halo player you know that easy is just ridiculous. In case of sound, I wouldn't take too much out of this compressed youtube demo. 343i has an amazing sound team, and it will eventually sound amazing at launch.

 

[the_master]

I am very pleased that they responded to criticism.

Kudos for that. It seemes very honest and on point.

I really like the art direction of going back to the original. I hope they have time to adress at least one major problem with the lighting.

More importantly, I hipe they can polish the gamplay and AI, and do awesome level design.

 

[supernova8]

So was this engine demo bullshit or what? The graphics look totally different.

I'd say it looked as bad back then as it does now.

 

[GymWolf]

Yeah the real problem was level design, the guns, the Prometheans being lame enemies, stuff like that.

Yeah, just really want to say how a gun looks, sounds... enemy animations, enemy death animations, how enemy AI reacts to the things you do all are big components in a game feeling good to play, in fact they're the easiest to judge elements when all you have is a trailer to look at. Bungie went on to do Destiny/Destiny 2, games that understand better than maybe any shooter on the market how to make all those aspects satisfying.

Isn't the ia in destiny 2 pretty stupid?? I only played the campaign and the first dlc and the ia was embarrasing tbh.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

I don't want to jump on the bandwagon where people try to discredit your opinion, but address some of your concerns.

Gameplay wise, they clearly just played on easy to get some kind of flow. Since you are a Halo player you know that easy is just ridiculous. In case of sound, I wouldn't take too much out of this compressed youtube demo. 343i has an amazing sound team, and it will eventually sound amazing at launch.

I'm not the only one noticing lots of discrepancies where it's actually looking less feature-rich than prior entries. He gets into the explosions, the enemy reactions to explosions, the muzzle flash reflections, etc. All this stuff matters for how good a game can feel, for immersion, otherwise it wouldn't have been featured in... every other Halo.

To GymWolf, good AI is not "difficult AI" but it can be. Difficulty can be accomplished via hitscan enemies with one hit kills, their AI isn't better. AI that's satisfying to fight has to do with how they respond to you, being shot, being shot AT, stuff like that. I'd daresay Destiny 2 would even be popular if the combat wasn't so fun, because by and large the Destiny community is sick of the storytelling/dialogue, sick of the endless level grind to do the high level activities and can't imagine still being hooked to it without the satisfying combat feedback.

 

[Saaleh]

While we see and hear far more positive than negative

we do have work to do to address some of these areas and raise the level of fidelity and overall presentation for the final game. The build used to run the campaign demo was work-in-progress from several weeks ago with a variety of graphical elements and game systems still being finished and polished.

So don't expect what they themselves were hyping:


Any in-engine trailers we saw are just cgi ads.

 

[GymWolf]

I'm not the only one noticing lots of discrepancies where it's actually looking less feature-rich than prior entries. He gets into the explosions, the enemy reactions to explosions, the muzzle flash reflections, etc. All this stuff matters for how good a game can feel, for immersion, otherwise it wouldn't have been featured in... every other Halo.

To GymWolf, good AI is not "difficult AI" but it can be. Difficulty can be accomplished via hitscan enemies with one hit kills, their AI isn't better. AI that's satisfying to fight has to do with how they respond to you, being shot, being shot AT, stuff like that. I'd daresay Destiny 2 would even be popular if the combat wasn't so fun, because by and large the Destiny community is sick of the storytelling/dialogue, sick of the endless level grind to do the high level activities and can't imagine still being hooked to it without the satisfying combat feedback.

I think the IA in the first 4 halo (1 to reach) on eroic\legendary was far better than anything i saw in destiny.

In terms of hit reactions and animations yes, destiny is superior to any halo and the only reason why i played that game because graphics, story, ia etc were kinda trash.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

I think the IA in the first 4 halo (1 to reach) on eroic\legendary was far better than anything i saw in destiny.

In terms of hot reactions and animations yes, destiny is superior to any halo, and yeah the only reason why i played that game because graphics, story, ia etc were kinda trash.

Destiny doesn't go for the same type of difficulty of old Halo... mostly... the most difficult aspects of Destiny are things like the Grandmaster Nightfalls (or in D1 regular Nightfalls), Raids, stuff like that. They're not even accessible to someone who hasn't played the game a lot. It's all in the endgame. In D2 you can't even change the difficulty on story missions (which is ultra weak). In a Halo game you can pop it in, put it on Legendary and the challenge was right in your face. It's definitely not as complex AI in Destiny but they aim for things like number of enemies fighting you at once and complex mechanics for defeating things like Raids, it's like a puzzle/shooter in its strongest moments, even in Nightfalls stuff like co-ordinating with your teammates is very necessary. Even on Legendary co-ordination wasn't strictly necessary in Halo games but it could enhance the experience.

 

[GymWolf]

Destiny doesn't go for the same type of difficulty of old Halo... mostly... the most difficult aspects of Destiny are things like the Grandmaster Nightfalls (or in D1 regular Nightfalls), Raids, stuff like that. They're not even accessible to someone who hasn't played the game a lot. It's all in the endgame. In D2 you can't even change the difficulty on story missions (which is ultra weak). In a Halo game you can pop it in, put it on Legendary and the challenge was right in your face. It's definitely not as complex AI in Destiny but they aim for things like number of enemies fighting you at once and complex mechanics for defeating things like Raids, it's like a puzzle/shooter in its strongest moments, even in Nightfalls stuff like co-ordinating with your teammates is very necessary. Even on Legendary co-ordination wasn't strictly necessary in Halo games but it could enhance the experience.

Oh maybe this is the reason why i didn't liked the game so much, i prefer halo type of IA and challenge.

 

[Deleted member 775630]

I'm not the only one noticing lots of discrepancies where it's actually looking less feature-rich than prior entries. He gets into the explosions, the enemy reactions to explosions, the muzzle flash reflections, etc. All this stuff matters for how good a game can feel, for immersion, otherwise it wouldn't have been featured in... every other Halo.

Yeah but you're looking at an old build. 343i already made multiple Halo's they know what is needed in games to make them more vibrant. I'm sure this all will be there at release.

 

[deriks]

8.4
- fun as hell
- too little water

 

[Explosive Zombie]

Yeah but you're looking at an old build. 343i already made multiple Halo's they know what is needed in games to make them more vibrant. I'm sure this all will be there at release.

Several weeks old build, as opposed to months old like we hoped. And we're pretty close to launch. It'd be nice if they fix everything, though.

 

[LeftThumbstick]

Good on them, I wish them luck. I doubt MS will give them enough time to get it to the right level of polish tho.

MS have given them 5 fucking years, what kind of whack comment is this?

 

[Mr. PlayStation]

As someone who's working on mobile game development, you've no idea how much polish is done in the last few months before the game is shipped. Like crazy amount of optimizations and improvements to quality of art assets. I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to 343 studios

 

[VertigoOA]

Imagine having to explain away visuals... lol

That’s the one thing you shouldn’t need to explain... I mean... all you need are your eyes to know if it looks pleasing.

My gawd.... hope it’s good at least. It’s a last gen port with minimal effort. So it goes

 

[Kamina]

While we see and hear far more positive than negative,...

I'm not so sure about that, 343.

If they only listen to the people with the “right“ feedback than it might be true.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

First, we want to acknowledge that yes, we’ve heard the feedback coming from parts of the community regarding the visuals in the Halo Infinite campaign demo. While we see and hear far more positive than negative, we do want to share a bit more context.

I wonder where they went, all I saw were fans of competing platforms making fun the the game and more importantly, xbox fans losing hope for the main franchise of the platform.

GIVE US NAMES!

With Halo Infinite, we’re returning to a more ‘classic’ art style which was a key message going back to the very first reveal that garnered enthusiastic and positive responses.

Mario still looks "classic", but it looks modern as well.

While we appreciate this may not be everyone’s personal preference, we stand by this decision and are happy to see it resonating with so many fans around the world.

Can't wait to see how it goes, the franchise used to be flagship, now it looks like a ship wreck.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

That particular character that turned into Craig should have a name tag on him as an Easter egg.

The model would be used once for a dead body you find in a dead end inside a cave, Master Chief would wonder aloud what the hell is this fugly beast and moved on to never ear from that race of aliens ever again.

 

[Vaelka]

I think that Microsoft should just move on, focus more on the new IP's.

'' But it's Halo '' and all that, but new IP's becoming these big franchises have to start somewhere and Halo is so old at this point and has become repetitive.

 

[Aladin]

Instead of halo, its the gears franchise which needs to go.

 

[eastwood333]

So it wasn't from months ago like people were trying to damage control and tell me lmao.

Feeling a strong low to mid 80 Metacritic for this game

Ghost of Tshushima has a 83 and is still considered a good game. So what.

 

[hemo memo]

Over the past few days, I've learned from GAF that the demo was from six months ago.
That the demo was from four months ago.
That the demo was from a several weeks ago (wait, like four months' worth?).
Tomorrow, the demo will be from a couple weeks ago.
The day after, the demo is from a few days ago.
The demo is from yesterday.
We literally made the demo the same day.
We were programming the demo in realtime, as you watched, because we had nothing prepared.
There was no demo. Not yet. That came after.

They used time travel so this is actually a future demo.

 

[eastwood333]

Several weeks old build, as opposed to months old like we hoped. And we're pretty close to launch. It'd be nice if they fix everything, though.

We gotta stay on them about it to be honest. So i think there is a lot of good with constructive criticism.

 

[ruvikx]

Here you go, asshole...

I'm in the same boat. I loved the hell out of Reach (did the solo campaign twice on Legendary) & Halo 3 + ODST were a couple of my other most played games in the 360 era. Then 343 happened & it's never been the same.

I know there's a whole load of console warriors really going overboard with this Halo Infinite bashing, but honestly, it's like beating a dead horse, i.e. it's not like any Halo fans should be surprised or shocked to see Halo Infinite look really suspect in its presentation & content merely a few months from release.

Halo 5 was IMO one of the biggest gaming disappointments of the past gen. The story is awful (Cortana's as a villain ffs), the characters are awful, the squad commands & repeated boss fights are awful & the multiplayer was merely passable. Add the talk of development problems at 343 over the past few years + the talk of the GaaS model being used in Infinite (when Anthem just crapped the bed badly in that same genre) & voilà, I had zero expectations.

All I see is a cheap attempt to cash in on nostalgia ("its visuals are so much like Combat Evolved & you'll be addicted just like in Destiny! Show us the money all you hardcore Halo fans!") without improving anything or even doing the basics right. It's a sad time for shooter fans tbh.

 

[saintjules]

Ghost of Tshushima has a 83 and is still considered a good game. So what.

It's amazing how numbers still dictate decisions to knowing whether a game is good or bad for you.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

I'm in the same boat. I loved the hell out of Reach (did the solo campaign twice on Legendary) & Halo 3 + ODST were a couple of my other most played games in the 360 era. Then 343 happened & it's never been the same.

I know there's a whole load of console warriors really going overboard with this Halo Infinite bashing, but honestly, it's like beating a dead horse, i.e. it's not like any Halo fans should be surprised or shocked to see Halo Infinite look really suspect in its presentation & content merely a few months from release.

Halo 5 was IMO one of the biggest gaming disappointments of the past gen. The story is awful (Cortana's as a villain ffs), the characters are awful, the squad commands & repeated boss fights are awful & the multiplayer was merely passable. Add the talk of development problems at 343 over the past few years + the talk of the GaaS model being used in Infinite (when Anthem just crapped the bed badly in that same genre) & voilà, I had zero expectations.

All I see is a cheap attempt to cash in on nostalgia ("its visuals are so much like Combat Evolved & you'll be addicted just like in Destiny! Show us the money all you hardcore Halo fans!") without improving anything or even doing the basics right. It's a sad time for shooter fans tbh.

Hey I appreciate that I saw some guy doing a no true Scotsman style argument and it pissed me off because I'm a long-time Halo fan I'm such a fan I followed bungie over to destiny and between the two destiny entries that exist I have at least 4,000 hours logged which might slightly touched the number of hours I spent playing Halo combat evolved. To me destiny felt like the evolution Halo needed. it's not without its problems but it's certainly a lot better than anything 343 has made. People like to assume everything is console warring but most my gaming time is spent on PC I'm honestly planning to get a PlayStation 5 but I can't even guarantee what I'll be playing on it for the first few months besides my destiny 2 cross-save.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

Problem is if you told everyone it was the Xbox One X version then most would have believed it, that’s how far off the mark it is. The initial reveal trailer looked really nice and there’s no reason why the Series X / PC couldn’t achieve that. 5 years in the making and not even close to the expectations is just not good enough, on top of all the other 343 fuck ups over the years.

 

[sublimit]

"While we see and hear far more positive than negative "

 

[the_master]

They played it on easy to get a quick flow going. Don't worry, it's not that simple on Legendary.

It was clearly on normal, as shown in the map objectives.

 

[Deleted member 775630]

It was clearly on normal, as shown in the map objectives.

Yeah after I posted it, and then thought back about how long it took to kill the brute. Couple of headshots, I thought it might've been Normal. But still, you don't play Halo on Normal.

 

[LarknThe4th]

I feel bad for them, whatever small improvement they might get done wont be enough

Probably getting worked like dogs now as well

 

[Sushen]

The saddest part is the gatekeepers for the project seemed not saw what millions of fans saw from the demo before okaying it. If they saw the flaws and okayed it, that's also a big concern as both ways represent wrong peoples are leading the team.

It was not acceptable to let people to see some of the flaws that were too obvious.

 

[ripeavocado]

DF is garbage but 343i is just trying to save the game from a marketing standpoint.

Halo Infinite looks really bad even for a 8th gen console, it's not about the "style" or going back to the "roots of the series" (Halo has never been ugly looking), it's just that for some reason the engine sucks and their art is really substandard.
Why you may ask?
Well I don't know but there are plenty of reviews on glassdoor that if true give many hints.

 

[VincentMatts]

PR bullshitter spouts bullshit, not shocked.

Don’t believe one word that comes out of Aaron Greenberg’s mouth. He’ll say absolutely anything. That’s what marketers do

And Ahlana pierce simply reported what he said. So not exactly her fault.

 

[Humdinger]

I heard that Halo Infinite has one of the largest budgets of any game, something like 500 million? Is that true?

 

[eastwood333]

I heard that Halo Infinite has one of the largest budgets of any game, something like 500 million? Is that true?

There is zero evidence of this that i'm aware of. I think somebody like Timdog or Rand suggested something like that. But its an unsubstantiated rumor.

 

[VincentMatts]

I heard that Halo Infinite has one of the largest budgets of any game, something like 500 million? Is that true?

We can’t confirm that because it’s never been official, but if they spent 5 years building the game, most of that time building the engine, then it could very well be true.

 

[Humdinger]

There is zero evidence of this that i'm aware of. I think somebody like Timdog or Rand suggested something like that. But its an unsubstantiated rumor.

Ok, thanks. Can't remember where I heard it -- some Youtuber.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

The saddest part is the gatekeepers for the project seemed not saw what millions of fans saw from the demo before okaying it. If they saw the flaws and okayed it, that's also a big concern as both ways represent wrong peoples are leading the team.

It was not acceptable to let people to see some of the flaws that were too obvious.

Agreed. Visuals aside, my disappointment is how it moves, the animations in particular, look at melee for example, it’s barely improved if it all.

 

[Kalamari]

"While we see and hear far more positive than negative "

Proof that 343i lives in a bubble.

 

[Jigsaah]

I guess it fine to go back to the original trilogy's aesthetics. That's fine but the gameplay should have evolved. The grappling hook feels gimmicky and doesn't really fit who master chief is to be honest.

If someone asked me, what non-canonical abilities do you think MC should have. I wouldn't say "grappling hook".

Maybe a super jump, a light shield...x-ray/thermal vision, enhanced agility, like an overdrive mode or something. Not a grappling hook.

On top of that, it looks to be poorly implemented. Just not a fan of that change. Hopefully it doesn't seep into multiplayer.

 

[V4skunk]

343i will easily be able to fix the lighting by release.
You guys don't understand how easy it is to adjust graphical effects.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Remember the days when people were saying this about HALO at E 2001?


Microsoft: Xbox
This was technically in the other hall but best to keep them together. Microsoft was showing off Halo, an Oddworld game and a foot racing game. Halo was revolutionary looking 2 years ago. It looked great last year and this year it looks okay, but it looks like a PC game and there are plenty of PC games that look just as good. The buzz around the game (from people playing it) was that it was pretty neat but difficult to control and not particularly fun. (Not that it was a bad game, it’s a good game, but it has been so built up that it’s hard to meet those expectations.) As I mentioned previously, it also didn’t have anti-aliasing - major disadvantage after having seen those Game Cube games

 

[alabtrosMyster]

A few instances of clipping is not an issue. Every single game in existence with 3D models has clipping. Design? What design issues?

Stagnant gameplay, wtf? What does that even mean? What issues were there with animation? You not liking something doesn’t make it an issue.

This is Halo (with downgraded AI and graphics) + a grappling hook so you can move faster.

NX gamer is a joke compares to the real deal DF.

Is he? I mean, MS's PR is more in line with total meltdown than one of victory and 'hey Sony, try to over do this with 10Tf now!" which is what they sounded like until they showed their console.

Now the defense force:

Oh you must have missed the memo - GAF has decided that it’s a next gen XSX game first and foremost and that it’s not going to run at 60fps on the XB1 lol. It’s based on nothing but FUD, but never let that stop a good dog piling.

On second thought, probably not. More likely it would have been Wind Waker all over again. Still, I can't help but feel that their middle of the road approach here satisfies no one.

No it's not. It's a game releasing on a console that's now in its 7th year, that also works via backwards compatibility on the new console. It's not supposed to be a promotion of the XSX other than the fact that an XB1 game works on the XSX and can have some improvements like higher resolution.

Why do people not seem to understand this? It's an XB1 game. All XB1 games run on the XSX. The games showcase event WAS NOT AN XBOX SERIES X SHOWCASE EVENT, it was an Xbox GAMES showcase event. That includes XB1.

But if you take 2 seconds to look at the facts you know it's just PR. XSX isn't out yet. Halo Infinite was being worked on 5 years ago - almost the start of this generation. They were not making a next generation game 5 years ago lol.

There can still be some truth to it though, like building it with dynamic resolution and multiple framerate targets could be argued as "made to take advantage of the Series X" in the sense that it has been made to scale those things for better hardware. People are just making far too big of a deal about it.

Read the MS PR messaging:

Optimized for Xbox Series X is the indicator for games that take advantage of the full power of Xbox Series X. Since Xbox Series X offers developers unparalleled power and speed, this empowers them to create the experiences they want and embrace a range of features and capabilities based on what is best for their individual titles. When you hear a game has been Optimized for Xbox Series X, you’ll know that the developer has either natively designed or fully rebuilt their game to take full advantage of the unique capabilities of our most powerful console ever.

Games featuring the Optimized for Xbox Series X badge can showcase anything from virtually eliminating load times via the Xbox Velocity Architecture, heightened visuals and hardware-accelerated DirectX raytracing powered by our custom, next generation GPU, to steadier and often higher framerates up to 120fps. Titles displaying the Optimized for Xbox Series X badge can include:

• Brand new games built natively for the Xbox Series X such as Halo Infinite.

Source: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/06/25/xbox-series-x-full-power-of-console-games-optimized/

Ms boasts about their console's power, why would you bother upgrading if this is what you do it for?

 

[VertigoOA]

Microsoft has started their online marketing for Destiny 2‘s new expansion on gamespass.

LOL

It’s like Spencer is aware infinite is a disaster and doing whatever they can to promote a proper Bungie game and not this cover band trash. It’s Phil’s favorite game after all.

If Infinite’s launch year can’t retain a playerbase ... shut down 343

 

[Zannegan]

.Now the defense force:

I get that you're in your glory at the moment, but maybe slow down and read.

 

[RoadHazard]

I suppose it's good that they are listening to the criticism, but it makes it sound like they had no idea the visuals were underwhelming until they were told so by fans and media. Doesn't give you a lot of confidence in their competence and self awareness. Imagine if this happened with one of Sony's top studios (ND, SSM, Guerilla, etc). It's just kind of unthinkable.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

Hey I appreciate that I saw some guy doing a no true Scotsman style argument and it pissed me off because I'm a long-time Halo fan I'm such a fan I followed bungie over to destiny and between the two destiny entries that exist I have at least 4,000 hours logged which might slightly touched the number of hours I spent playing Halo combat evolved. To me destiny felt like the evolution Halo needed. it's not without its problems but it's certainly a lot better than anything 343 has made. People like to assume everything is console warring but most my gaming time is spent on PC I'm honestly planning to get a PlayStation 5 but I can't even guarantee what I'll be playing on it for the first few months besides my destiny 2 cross-save.

I imagine people aren't giving you the benefit of the doubt because you practically ran from thread to thread defending TLOU2, which is whatever I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But then you started downplaying the negative opinions people had of the game as "confirmation bias". So you should probably look in the mirror and reflect a bit before wanting people to jump off a cliff because they said your opinion is meaningless.


As it stands, these posts make you look like quite the hypocrite.

Angry Joe reviews The Last of Us Part II (Story spoilers obv.)

Lol

www.neogaf.com

Angry Joe reviews The Last of Us Part II (Story spoilers obv.)

Lol

www.neogaf.com

Angry Joe reviews The Last of Us Part II (Story spoilers obv.)

Lol

www.neogaf.com