Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary

johnny_ultimate

I'm a serious Edge defender, but **** me they do overhype their Halo something fierce. I still don't quite understand their glowing review for Halo 3 and Forge. For one of the few magazines that genuinely criticises games with some degree of competence, it's a bizarre little obsession they have.

Healium

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/309556/343s-guide-to-halo-ce-anniversary/

So, there's going to be multiple discs.

I assumed that it was a Reach multiplayer disc, like with ODST, but they're saying that it's two campaign discs, non? The multiplayer is just one engine, the Reach engine, I think. I suppose the campaign could be quite big, with two engines running at the same time.

I'm still confused with what they're doing with multiplayer. Some people are saying that it comes with a code for DLC maps for Reach, others are saying that it will come with the complete Reach multiplayer, and MOAR are saying that it'll come with the Reach multiplayer (But JUST with the Halo Anniversary maps, not the standard Reach maps)

Retr0gamer

I really don't see how the game would need two discs if it's a campaign remake. Looking at the video it looks like a scene for scene remake of the original with no changes, which is a shame. Maybe they'll take some liberties with it but from the video it doesn't look likely.

NeoKubrick

Wicknight wrote: »

The original claim was that the game had a lot of long boring corridors. [...]

No, the original claim was that there should be a "complete level redesign" (not partial) because the game had "a lot of long boring corridors", which is implicitly linear design. He further mentioned "linear" and claimed that "a lot of the game takes place in tight enclosed corridors". Those two claims apply to the rule: the majority of the game. That isn't the case, at all, because Halo: Combat Evolved's level design was based upon circular level design.

Read: "The only level of ten levels where long linear corridors dominated the game was The Library". That doesn't claim there was none except in The Library: the only level that "long linear corridors" dominated was The Library. Biased, you ignored the previous sentence: "As a result, there are very few long linear corridors in the game relative to the amount of circular". So, where did I claim that it didn't have any except in The Library?

Your posting of that video demonstrates that you don't understand 'linear' and 'circular'. That set-piece in the underground section is mostly circular areas.

Are you going to qualify this:

Wicknight wrote: »

The open space no-linear levels in Halo are the exception, not the rule.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

From 1998 to 2001 there was System Shock 2 and the Thief series but I hadn't played them then. It's an old necro post, get over it. You can factor in the benefits of hindsight and experience as well. Anyway Halo probably was the best example of a dumb FPS since Half-Life. It's still a good game. However calling it revolutionary in terms of game design and AI is a bit far fetched considering that games like Operation Flashpoint and the Allied Assault demo showed that other games were on the same level and Monolith were doing some pretty progressive stuff with AI back then. AI design was slowly advancing, there was no revolution.

I feel I understand Operation Flashpoints AI more by the virtue that I've actually played it. As for binary choices, it's pretty rich coming from someone that claims to know so much about AI design that they don't know what a binary choice is when all computer programming and logic works on it. 1's and 0's. Elites shield is up, goto agressive AI routine. Elites shield is down, goto stand there roaring stupidly so the player can kill you. It was obvious what the AI was doing in Halo whereas a good AI will surprise you. I guess I'm right saying that you had no PC experience before

You can get over that quote when you stop hypocritically questioning someone else's PC gaming experience. Keep ridiculing yourself by claiming that I had no PC gaming experience.

Monolith was not doing progressive stuff with AI before Halo. Jeff Orkin, who was employed by Monolith for No One Lives Forever 2 (released 2002), was making progressive game AI. If you had played Operation Flashpoint, you wouldn't claim that the AI was anything but average at best and broken at worst. It's clear from the initial and subsequent failures to explain the AI design of Operation Flashpoint that you are just name-dropping games that you don't understand or haven't played.

Game AI developers use high-level programming languages, not machine languages which use binary code usually represented by hexadecimal. There is no "binary choice" in the context of game AI. There is no "binary choice" exhibited by game AI in Halo: Combat Evolved: the AI is a reactive architecture. Reactive architectures, specifically Subsumption in this case, senses input from its environment and based upon internal logic or a simple mapping associated with that input, actuates an action if not subsumed by a higher priority action.

It was obvious what the AI was doing in Halo, because it was specifically designed to be obvious and that's good AI design, not, as you ignorantly claim, bad. The three best games for AI combat in FPS, The Half-Life, FEAR and Halo series all attempt to communicate to the player the state that the AI-character is in and avoid surprising the player. You misunderstand what good game AI is.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

[...]

There exists no such concept of universal 'pace' (as in Film or Music) in games like Half-Life 2 and Halo: Combat Evolved, because 'pace' requires an accurate assumption of the length of time. This is impossible to quantify for every player because different players will have different experiences of the length of time with said games. Terms like "tightly paced" or "not well paced" are prattle in the context of games like Halo, Half Life etc.

Halo 1 & 2 weren't the worst in the franchise and Halo 3 and Reach weren't the best: that is "illogical rabid fandom" at its worst. The series sharply declined after Halo 2. The Halo series shifted from a focus on singleplayer to multiplayer, under the directive of Microsoft. Xbox Live was not ready to roll-out for launch and therefore, singleplayer was the developer's focus for the first game and the second game's singleplayer was unfinished because in part of rolling out online multiplayer for the game. This focus on singleplayer shows in both games. Half of the original development left after Halo 2. Halo 3 was the first game in the series that was a multiplayer game with singleplayer campaign tacked on. For Halo: Reach, Bungie created multiplayer maps first and shoehorned them in to the singleplayer campaign. There is no innovation in either Halo 3 or Halo: Reach: the Brutes were such insipid enemies in Halo 3 that Bungie retrograded to the Elites in Halo: Reach. As Retr0gamer said, the only correct thing he has said in this thread, Bungie wanted independence and for their "one-last-time-and-I-can-leave" game, rather than take the series to a new direction, they opted to build a game upon the same mechanics they used in 2001.

The only reason that Halo: Reach was any good: Bungie hired Sage Merrill, of Shadowrun fame, to be lead designer and his influence is prevalent throughout both the multiplayer and singleplayer (the space-flight section is inspired back his work on Crimson Skies:High Road to Revenge).

Furthermore, Halo: Combat Evolved changes-up by vehicle (first, in the Warthog; second, Tank, and third, Banshee) and by the introduction of the Flood. It's not the case that it does not happen.

Jazzy wrote: »

the actual combat wasnt really that good. the weapons seemed either ridiculously feeble or stupidly over-powered, there was f-all variety in enemies and the tactics for winning were too few. it was only when the game opened up into a vehicle section or a big set piece that the combat was actually good and then your shield tended to count for dick all. i dont really get why you think the shield is a big deal, its like saying the HEV suit in half life was a big deal. it just wasnt, it was a nice feature in the game but thats pretty much it

Well, I disagree. The combat had all the base characteristics for interesting encounters and, despite your claim, there was a variety of enemies which added more depth to the encounters (battling several Elites with several Jackals et cetera) and the player was equipped with fun mechanics (melee, grenades, and weapons). The regenerating shields are a big deal for all the previous reasons I stated. The HEV suit didn't enable good flow as the regenerating shield mechanic did: that's not trivial in a singleplayer game.

Is1ldur

TL: DR NeoKubrick, and I have read all of the thread up until now.

Retro pretty much has it for me on this one. Halo was, in my opinion, an average FPS which was completely ruined by samey gameplay and that completely ridiculous Library level which made me just stop playing. I've tried to go back to it a few times over the years, but just got totally bored. I played it on PC, by the way, and played very little of the multi-player.


We all have our own opinions, I suppose, but try to get over it Neo that we don't share yours.

CramCycle

NeoKubrick wrote: »

No, the original claim was that there should be a "complete level redesign" (not partial) because the game had "a lot of long boring corridors", which is implicitly linear design. He further mentioned "linear" and claimed that "a lot of the game takes place in tight enclosed corridors". Those two claims apply to the rule: the majority of the game. That isn't the case, at all, because Halo: Combat Evolved's level design was based upon circular level design.

Please stop use this term, it makes no sense in relation to most sinc=gle player FPSs. It makes sense in terms of alot of mutliplayer and racing games :pac::pac::pac:

I think you misunderstand the term linear. The following diagram shows what I think you believe linear to be (top) and what Halo was (bottom). There isn't much difference

Your posting of that video demonstrates that you don't understand 'linear' and 'circular'. That set-piece in the underground section is mostly circular areas.

Neither do you apparently, please define circular for the masses.

Healium

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I really don't see how the game would need two discs if it's a campaign remake. Looking at the video it looks like a scene for scene remake of the original with no changes, which is a shame. Maybe they'll take some liberties with it but from the video it doesn't look likely.

Well, they definitely said in that interview that there'll be multiple discs, and each one will have a new engine running on the original one. Only thing I'm getting from that is that there's possibly a multiplayer disc, that maybe retains the original multiplayer (OP pistols, etc.), but upgrades it to the Reach engine... But, from everything else I've read, I thought they were JUST using the Reach engine and including the Anniversary maps.

It doesn't have Forge, Theatre, and the MP supposedly just uses the Reach engine. Maybe the guy herp derped? People often make mistakes in interviews Surely he was just referring to a separate multiplayer disc...

CramCycle

Just occurred to me but looking over at another thread (Duke Nukem), Maybe Duke Nukem 3D is what you are remembering?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73023209&postcount=829

johnny_ultimate

NeoKubrick wrote: »

There exists no such concept of universal 'pace' (as in Film or Music) in games like Half-Life 2 and Halo: Combat Evolved, because 'pace' requires an accurate assumption of the length of time. This is impossible to quantify for every player because different players will have different experiences of the length of time with said games. Terms like "tightly paced" or "not well paced" are prattle in the context of games like Halo, Half Life etc.

I'm sorry, and I agree with some of your points, but that one is absolute rubbish. To claim effectively that 'tight pacing' is prattle in gaming is significantly underselling gaming as an artform. Direct comparisons between film and music aren't fair, although imagine a film that repeated the same one minute scene for an hour in a middle. Obviously Halo with its much heralded 10 seconds of gameplay repeated over and over isn't comparable with a movie, but that doesn't mean pacing doesn't apply.

A predominantly 'linear' (as in a very strict level to level progression, as opposed to open world games which complicate the matter) single player game leads a player through a set of experiences, giving them the opportunity to partake, often at a combat level. One of the developer's jobs is to make sure the player doesn't get bored, and that progressing through this scripted world is engaging and provides a sense of achievement to the player. There are many games that succeed in this, by surprising and impressing the player by leading them through new, exciting variations of what came before. The best games of this ilk - our Half-Lifes, Portals, Uncharteds, Bayonettas etc... - provide the thrill of progression. Halo sometimes does - as you say, the vehicle levels are a welcome break, or by changing the density or tactics of enemies. But then it has players repeating the same basic task over and over for rather lengthy periods of time. Going by much evidence on this thread and elsewhere I'm not the only one who wanted to simply switch off the console and never return during the Library level, but reluctantly carried on. This is not good game design - it's extremely poor pacing. In contrast, Half-Life 2 - IMO the pinnacle of the level-to-level FPS - never once allowed me to get bored, or if for a minute I was there'd be a new toy for me to play with. There was no point where an entire hour was spent wondering when the hell something interesting was going to happen. It felt like you were traversing a very real place, progressing logically from one stage to the other - indeed, the game is basically one very long corridor. In Halo, progression often feels forced, jumping between locations without the sense of reward Half Life 2's consistent world offers.

Gaming is a unique artform, albeit one whose artists ultimately have to provide a very different sort of experience to the gamer. And certainly traditionally cinematic pacing has to be abandoned when the player is in control. But that doesn't mean a game can't be well paced, and more importantly that it shouldn't be well paced. There are countless examples of games that keep the player's attention throughout, and others where the player feels bored well before the credits role. And while Halo certainly provides some rewards - the final level is a doozy - ignoring that there's some dreadful level design in order to get there is ignoring the advances many other developers have made in keeping the player engaged from 'start' to 'power off'.

Everything here is subjective (although I find it hard to imagine anyone could consider the disaster that is Halo 2 - which didn't even provide the last level rewards of Halo 1 - a highlight of the series) but writing off something as crucial to good interactive storytelling as pacing is IMO profoundly unfortunate. If we're ever going to advance from merely shooting stuff in the face, it's a concern that needs to be addressed. And it's why I'd hold something like Half-Life 2 (shooting stuff in the face in constantly changing environments and situations) in much higher regard to Halo (at its worst - and again not ignoring the strengths of the series - ten seconds of shooting stuff in the face in the same dull room over and over again).

Retr0gamer

NeoKubrick wrote: »

You can get over that quote when you stop hypocritically questioning someone else's PC gaming experience. Keep ridiculing yourself by claiming that I had no PC gaming experience.

But you didn't have any PC gaming experience from that time did you?

NeoKubrick wrote: »

Monolith was not doing progressive stuff with AI before Halo. Jeff Orkin, who was employed by Monolith for No One Lives Forever 2 (released 2002), was making progressive game AI. If you had played Operation Flashpoint, you wouldn't claim that the AI was anything but average at best and broken at worst. It's clear from the initial and subsequent failures to explain the AI design of Operation Flashpoint that you are just name-dropping games that you don't understand or haven't played.

The AI was broken in places but sure that goes with the open world sandbox territory. When it worked, and it did more often than not, it worked really well. And I have played it so stop being stupid about it.

NeoKubrick wrote: »

Game AI developers use high-level programming languages, not machine languages which use binary code usually represented by hexadecimal. There is no "binary choice" in the context of game AI. There is no "binary choice" exhibited by game AI in Halo: Combat Evolved: the AI is a reactive architecture. Reactive architectures, specifically Subsumption in this case, senses input from its environment and based upon internal logic or a simple mapping associated with that input, actuates an action if not subsumed by a higher priority action.

And the self proclaimed AI expert shows that when it comes to AI and coding he doesn't know his arse from his elbow. You think that using a 'high-level' programming language makes computers not work by binary logic? Do you even know what a high-level programming language is? All it does is simplify instructions and makes it more user friendly by combining binary instructions into new commands. As for subsumption, it's still basically the layering of binary logic choices and if you think that Halo's AI comes close to high level subsumption or think that it's unique to the game then you are totally deluded. If you have any games programming or design experience you would know that they are all built around binary logic switches, even advanced AI behaviour. Good AI disguises this. Halo doesn't and therefore the AI lacks the surprises you get from games with good AI like Half-Life or Fear. There does need to be a balance between surprising the player and letting him know what state the AI is in but in Halo it is far too easy to manipulate. I'd have expected you'd have learnt more from FFXII since the gambit system is basically a lesson in AI design.

Shiminay

But Halo is on a CIRCULAR orbital platform, therefore it *MUST* be circular design...

I'm sorry Neo, but no one else here either understands or acknowledges your circular argument (or should that be arguing?) and this is a thread full of games players and reviewers. I've re-read your posts a couple of times to try and get a grasp of what you mean by this and I still don't see it. You are not communicating this circular design thing effectively, maybe you can clarify further. I'm not trying to be a dick, but when someone keeps insisting that everyone else is wrong and cannot clarify why, I can either think you're a numpty or I can ask you to try and explain what you mean in a different way.

Clearly in your opinion, Halo was something amazing. To the majority of rest of us it was average at best. Being average doesn't mean it wasn't fun, but I think when the majority of people on the thread have a lasting memory of Halo's single player campaign being full of boring copy-pasted sections of corridor or rooms or whatever, then surely we must have some sort of point? We can't all have imagined it...

I would personally disagree that obvious AI is a good thing too btw, if it's easy to predict then it becomes a "by the numbers" exercise and that does not make for exciting game play because if you can predict with a reasonable amount of accuracy how a CPU controlled enemy will react, making this "obvious" as you've said is a poor design choice. Thinking about it, there was a pretty decent variety of enemies and mixing and matching the weapons within that group worked pretty well to expand on that, but the 4 Covenant enemy types (grunt, elite, jackal and hunter) more or less behaved in the same way and the only challenge for me was picking the correct order to kill things in rather than having to learn and adapt to how, for example, a group of elites will behave when they have a screen of grunts vs not having that screen if you get my meaning. I don't recall hunters doing anything other than ponderously stomping towards the player taking shots and charging when in range no matter what the supporting force they had was. Overall, there was nothing that stood out for me with the AI except that it functioned no better or worse than anything else like it that I'd played at the time. I personally found the behaviour of the AI in Half-Life and in particular Op Flash more challenging to play against.

hooradiation

Retr0gamer wrote: »

And the self proclaimed AI expert shows that when it comes to AI and coding he doesn't know his arse from his elbow.
You think that using a 'high-level' programming language makes computers not work by binary logic? Do you even know what a high-level programming language is? All it does is simplify instructions and makes it more user friendly by combining binary instructions into new commands. As for subsumption, it's still basically the layering of binary logic choices and if you think that Halo's AI comes close to high level subsumption or think that it's unique to the game then you are totally deluded. If you have any games programming or design experience you would know that they are all built around binary logic switches, even advanced AI behaviour. Good AI disguises this. Halo doesn't and therefore the AI lacks the surprises you get from games with good AI like Half-Life or Fear. There does need to be a balance between surprising the player and letting him know what state the AI is in but in Halo it is far too easy to manipulate. I'd have expected you'd have learnt more from FFXII since the gambit system is basically a lesson in AI design.

You gross over simplification of how programs work simply in order to support your contention that the AI in halo is bad is more painful than anything neokubrick has written.

please stop.

Retr0gamer

I'm relating it to game design which is all about setting up binary scenarios and switching them when the parameters arise.

hooradiation

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'm relating it to game design which is all about setting up binary scenarios and switching them when the parameters arise.

That...makes even less sense.

Retr0gamer

As an example take in Halo the grunts AI behaviour for when an Elite in the group is alive or dead. The AI will check to see if it's true that the elite is alive and continue with it's AI behaviour. When the grunt is dead the check will come back false which will change the behaviour to the run away behaviour. It's the same with everything all the way down to Pong. Game design is basically just organising layers of binary logic functions.

Hank Scorpio

I remember preordering this and dossing off school for the day when I collected it. Was awesome at the time

"OMG look how real the grass looks"

I spent ages saving for my xbox and this was the first game I got

CramCycle

hooradiation wrote: »

That...makes even less sense.

It's been awhile since I have done any programming but what Retr0gamer has described makes perfect sense, what don't you understand?

A reasonable introduction on it can be found here (ableit for Halo 2): http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2250/gdc_2005_proceeding_handling_.php

Healium

Once again, trying to steer this back onto the rails....

Got a reply from David Ellis on Twitter about the multi-disc thing. He said that it's a "typo", and that there's only one disc (think he meant Campaign, though). I'm gonna see if I can drain any MP info out of him

Healium

Ok, so it's going to be one disc. The classic maps are built for Reach, and they'll be putting out a patch/title update for Reach that'll let 343 give it a more classic feel

I'll see if I can get him to tell me if it'll come with a Reach disc, like ODST

Also, that's 2 whole posts without any stupid arguments. This thread is now about Halo: Anniversary again.

CramCycle

Healium wrote: »

Ok, so it's going to be one disc. The classic maps are built for Reach, and they'll be putting out a patch/title update for Reach that'll let 343 give it a more classic feel

I'll see if I can get him to tell me if it'll come with a Reach disc, like ODST

Also, that's 2 whole posts without any stupid arguments. This thread is now about Halo: Anniversary again.

When you say classic feel what exactly do you mean?

I want to see what the multiplayer is like as I enjoyed it on the original Xbox but never got into the multiplayer in the sequels as it just never worked for me, love to see if it was the engine or the design or the weapons,

johnny_ultimate

Healium wrote: »

This thread is now about Halo: Anniversary again.

It always has been. It's not often we can argue about the level design before the game even comes out :P

hooradiation

CramCycle wrote: »

It's been awhile since I have done any programming but what Retr0gamer has described makes perfect sense, what don't you understand?

A reasonable introduction on it can be found here (ableit for Halo 2): http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2250/gdc_2005_proceeding_handling_.php

I said it was a gross over simplification.
Which it is, going "it's all binary decisions" is like say that all films are "all colours and sound" technically true, but such a gross oversimplification that it is a worthless statement.

Though that article is well worth reading for anyone who thinks the AI in halo is sub-standard in any way or that the "unpredictability" that other games has was in any way good thing.

Achievement Unlocked: Derailed Again

Jazzy

NeoKubrick wrote: »

Well, I disagree. The combat had all the base characteristics for interesting encounters and, despite your claim, there was a variety of enemies which added more depth to the encounters (battling several Elites with several Jackals et cetera) and the player was equipped with fun mechanics (melee, grenades, and weapons). The regenerating shields are a big deal for all the previous reasons I stated. The HEV suit didn't enable good flow as the regenerating shield mechanic did: that's not trivial in a singleplayer game.

elites, jackals, hunters, flood larvae, flood humans, flood elites, flood bomb thingys, various vehicles & turrets. assault rifle, pistol, sniper, rocket, shotgun, plasma gun, plasma pistol, needler, 2 different grenades. thats about it for weapons and enemies. not a whole there really, nothing too crazy and due to the 2 sides of enemies (flood & covenant) you constantly fight the same mix of enemies all the time. you are still fighting the same mix of enemies at the end of they game as you are at the start with virtually no difference.. the exception being that in one room you might fight flood and in the next you fight covenant. you never really felt threatened and the shield kinda helped that "well if i get hit a bit i can just run away for a few and im grand". it was incredibly easy, right up until hard difficulty which still wasnt really that hard at all. legendary was different but thats to be expected.

the HEV suit allowed you to do mad jumps and dashes and helped you around your enviroment and in combat by being armour, so yeah its pretty much the same as the shield.. except you actually felt fear of losing armour because it doesnt regen automatically.

do you feel threatened or something by Halo not being as good as you think it is or something? there is pretty much overwhelming evidence on this thread that it isnt the champion of gaming that it is to you.
it was the next step for console FPS gaming and is essentially the daddy to modern console FPS games like CoD and stuff but its not this big massive deal you make it out to be. even with little things in the game like the shield you have turned into these amazing super brilliant game mechanics which help elevate it in your mind to this god like game that you think it is. I had a hell of a lot of fun playing it and its multiplayer but it was hardly a game changer for me in the way Deus Ex, Half-Life & Quake were. it was just a very good game.. unless you buy into the hype in the same way people are buying into the hype around Lady Gaga, at the end of the day shes just a Madonna clone.

Retr0gamer

hooradiation wrote: »

I said it was a gross over simplification.
Which it is, going "it's all binary decisions" is like say that all films are "all colours and sound" technically true, but such a gross oversimplification that it is a worthless statement.

Though that article is well worth reading for anyone who thinks the AI in halo is sub-standard in any way or that the "unpredictability" that other games has was in any way good thing.

So I was right then. It is a good article however Halo certainly wasn't the first game to construct it's AI in that way since AI has always been constructed in the same way just layering complexity on it as it advanced.

Healium

CramCycle wrote: »

When you say classic feel what exactly do you mean?

hooradiation wrote: »

Achievement Unlocked: Derailed Again

0G.

hooradiation

Retr0gamer wrote: »

So I was right then.

I never said you were wrong, i said it was a gross oversimplification and worthless as any kind of "point".

It is a good article however Halo certainly wasn't the first game to construct it's AI in that way since AI has always been constructed in the same way just layering complexity on it as it advanced.

It doesn't matter who did it first, it's the first title to do it well that matters... Wow, i really am just repeating myself here, aren't I.

CramCycle

Are there any videos showing the toggling between the original engine and the overlapping proprietary engine? I'd love to see the switch as its being played

hooradiation

CramCycle wrote: »

Are there any videos showing the toggling between the original engine and the overlapping proprietary engine? I'd love to see the switch as its being played

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlFPEnyao5Y

There are a few scenes in this that show old V new (@1:05 or so but also before and after) , but i can't find a proper side by side.

CramCycle

hooradiation wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlFPEnyao5Y

There are a few scenes in this that show old V new (@1:05 or so but also before and after) , but i can't find a proper side by side.

Cheers, i was actually just wondering had anyone seen them switching it during gameplay just to see whats it like.

Retr0gamer

It's weird that they are implementing it. Must mean the Halo engines have been building upon the Halo 1 tech just like Source is built upon Half-Lifes modified quake engine still. Looks like it's going to be a straight prettied up port, warts and all