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Halo Reach

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  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    You know, I'm in a few missions on Legendary (Going for the solo chevo) and its getting pretty damn good. Not AAA block buster good, but good. I wish certain things were explained more, such as the little popups on the bottom of the screen for doing certain tasks... Its almost like MW2's award system, only, the only place I can find it in the UI, I can't really select it to see what each of the three (yeah, it seems only three) awards are... Its obvious the one is head shots but the others... No idea. The game needs more of these IMO.

    I won't lie, the game goes from really nice looking to ugly as shit xbox one quality in a heart beat. There are things I can't forgive, like the terrain STILL having UV map errors all over it. In fact one mission displayed a cutscene at the start with Nobel 6 and 3 walking along a cliff face at night on a semi stealth mission (Very MW2), yet even though this movie went on for well over a minute, the ENTIRE side of this mountain was riddled with UV map streteching... Its just not on for what should be a AAA game, and in an important, in your face cutscene... Don't tell me nobody spotted that.

    And yet other times, the game looks fantastic, with so much going on... Sadly these are the times the frame rate takes a shit on me :(

    Still, its not the horror story I was expecting, but then after ODST, they could have shipped a broken disk and it would have been better.

    Christ unlocking all those armour options will take me an age...
  • HonkyPunch
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    HonkyPunch polycounter lvl 18
    I enjoy it.
    Wish the levels had more flow, I don't think any halo games since the first had the levels quite right, though the second was good in that respect too, three less so.
    I just personally don't feel as though campaign levels have the size and complexity they did before, and missions feel too short to me.
    Maybe I just lose track of time.
  • Joseph Silverman
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    Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
    Best game in the series, easily. The Halo2 i wanted, really cool improvement on the formula of the previous halo games.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    I'm really enjoying it so far, except for the horrid frame rate at times. that one scene in the campaign with the big smoke billowing (like level 3 or 4 i think), if its directly in the center of the screen, literally around 10 fps. or there is a arctic firefight level where if you look towards the big vista in the background it chugs balls too.

    graphically I'm digging it, some of the terrain work and vistas/skyboxes are fantastic. I really like the style of the structures for all the human stuff, a nice change from all the 45 degree angles of the forerunner stuff from the previous games. it feels more like a liveable realistic space than people just going around chamfering corners cause it makes it sci-fi. there is also stuff that doesn't look too hot but mostly it looks pretty good overall so far. Love the nice new crisp texture on the grunts.

    gameplay is standard halo, fighting elites again is a nice change from the 100% brutes of halo 3. enjoyed some campaign, firefight and team slayer variants last night and all were really fun.

    the only gripe I have is, in firefight online you play one round and then get like 300-500 credits, but if you play with your friends in your own lobby and make it to the end of all 4 rounds.......whopping total of 55 credits. what the fuck!?

    oh and also, why is it the second I join an online game everyone is instantly calling each other faggots and nigger and just screaming/screeching into their mics. like more than any other game ive ever played online, cod, counter-strike etc. is playing halo slowly going to make me retarded? all I can say is thank god for party chat and it mutes all the dregs of XB Live.

    like most games there are good and bad things about it, but overall when I play it with my friends its extremely fun, and I think that's really the key to getting the most enjoyment out of it, I don't think I would enjoy hopping online by myself nearly as much, if at all.
  • Cheez
    If you sniff around the profile options on your 360, you can set your voice chat to 'friends only' or no one at all. This single option saved online gaming for me.
  • Dean
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    Dean polycounter lvl 9
    *SNIP*

    oh and also, why is it the second I join an online game everyone is instantly calling each other faggots and nigger and just screaming/screeching into their mics. like more than any other game ive ever played online, cod, counter-strike etc. is playing halo slowly going to make me retarded? all I can say is thank god for party chat and it mutes all the dregs of XB Live.
    *SNIP*

    Agreed, loving it so far. I'm really digging the character development, they somehow feel more real to me. I am loving the interaction with other NPCs during the cutscenes.

    And yeah, the immaturity problem is an old one, Halo 3 for one suffered from the same nuisance.
  • TortillaChips
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    TortillaChips polycounter lvl 10
    I'm really enjoying it so far

    Ah well you're in luck cos I found the second half of it was better. I still wish the multiplayer maps from the beta weren't actually in the campaign though, my fault for playing the beta a lot I guess cos I just go "not THIS map again".
  • SyedS
    Got it as well. I think I 'm on the 5th or 6th mission so far. It's pretty awesome.

    oh and

    gameplay > graphics

    seriously.
  • Joseph Silverman
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    Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
    Heroic strikes me as pretty hard solo, but VERY easy (2 player) co-op so far. Me and my friend are steamrolling every fight, we have more trouble keeping up with eachother
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    I started a solo ledgendary game yesterday and made it all the way to the 3rd level without dying, which is different than halo 3 where I died 5x on the 1st encounter haha. then I encountered that rat snake with the sword....apparently sticking a plasma grenade directly in the center of his forehead doesnt kill him, then I died :P
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    Up to mission seven now, also playing Legendary by myself.

    Quite enjoying it now, the SP is a lot better than previous entries, and it really does feel like how "Halo 2 should have been". There are some totally daft things going on still, like how can an elite evade me so well, yet a god damn human marine and grunt will stand right next to each other and not shoot each other...

    But yeah niggles aside, liking it a lot more...
  • Cheez
    Cool that folks are digging on the game (more or less ;P)

    Artem (X-Convict) and I are trying to wrassle up an image dump, so hopefully we should have something up soon.
  • X-Convict
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    X-Convict polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah it's definitely interesting to hear the feedback as well as the parts that you guys are enjoying.

    If there are enough interested, it could be cool to do a night of Polycounters playing Reach, maybe get a few more of the artists here to BS and shoot each other up online. Headhunter and Invasion could be really fun.
  • CNecron518a
    I am just glad they brought back the @%$%@ health bar. xD That was what I loved about the original Halo. The levels seem longer too...is it just me?
  • cman2k
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    cman2k polycounter lvl 17
    X-Convict: Hell yes, I'd be up for this!

    CNecron518a: I don't think it's that the levels are longer necessarily, it's that the load points are much better hidden. They use their new system from ODST to stream their level chunks even better than they used to...I think.
  • Skamberin
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    Skamberin polycounter lvl 14
    I splurged and got myself an Xbox 360 again along with some cheap 1 year live Gold just for this game.
    Loved the singleplayer, doing it again on Solo Legendary. Multiplayer has been an absolute blast so far too. Gotta say I am in love with some of the weapon models too, especially the shotgun and the BR :P
    Polycount Reach night sounds like a great idea too :) I miss the TF 2 server so some messing around in Reach would be awesome :D
  • nrek
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    nrek polycounter lvl 14
    X-Convict wrote: »
    If there are enough interested, it could be cool to do a night of Polycounters playing Reach, maybe get a few more of the artists here to BS and shoot each other up online. Headhunter and Invasion could be really fun.

    Make it happen!
  • Skamberin
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    Skamberin polycounter lvl 14
    Infection is also fun, and Race!
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    Ha yeah glad for the most part you guys are enjoying it. Interesting feedback indeed though. Never had any frame rate problems yet except when you hit loading areas but thats just me, maybe i dont notice things like that.

    For all those extra popup compilation awards you saw Odium, they are much further expanded ODST version and there located in the Start Menu, under Player and then Service Record. There are quite a lot of them, different ones for Campain, Firefight Matchmaking and regular Matchmaking too.

    As for most of the UV streaking/stretching issues pretty much all were known and sadly were unable to fix. The artists tried for months to fix those problems, especially the one in the cinematic on Nightfall but no mater what was tried nothing seemed to fix the issue. The problem was due to the way the engine compressed things.

    It wasnt until the end of bug fixxing when I was working with 2 of our tech artists to try and figure out why it was also happening on Boardwalk as it was a multiplayer space and would have a lot of player use did we find out that it was actually deleting edges and verts when importing. Never found a fix or why and it was too late by then to re-export the level even if a solution was found. Had to cover up a huge issue area with a big old decal but you can still see wavy panel lines near the problem area and other areas around Boardwalk which made me very sad : /


    And yeah Polycount Reach battle royal sound awesome! Invasion slayer is my personal new fav mode so I vote for that :)
  • Rens
    I'm a happy man.
    Thank you guys for all the effort you put in to create this piece of joy.
  • IronHawk
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    IronHawk polycounter lvl 10
    I'd be down for this. Just finished the campaign last night and will be rocking on some multiplayer this weekend. =)
  • Skamberin
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    Skamberin polycounter lvl 14
    Maybe we should have a thread for a Polycount Reach night :P

    Been playing more Legendary, game is even more fun second time through.

    Also nice read on the reason behind stretched textures in areas, always wondered a bit how the engine works.
    The weapon textures especially have me perplexed, in the middle of a seemingly blurry area of the weapon there is high resolution text, how do you achieve this? projection of some kind?
  • commador
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    commador polycounter lvl 14
    Skamberin wrote: »
    The weapon textures especially have me perplexed, in the middle of a seemingly blurry area of the weapon there is high resolution text, how do you achieve this? projection of some kind?

    Decals methinks.


    Played through campaign on legendary with three friends on launch night. Its become tradition; did it for ODST and 3. Listening to Marty's work with the OST now. Those epic halo tunes always deliver. :)

    I'm game for a matchmaking throwdown.
  • Dean
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    Dean polycounter lvl 9
    Just finished it, loved the ending. Somehow felt a bit emotional, awesome!
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    I thought the ending was terrible... The entire build up was fantastic, but then... Oh the ship takes off... And thats it.

    Thankfully I beat it on Legendary so I got the EXTRA little "part" after the credits, but if I never had that, I would feel totally cheated...

    Oh well, onto MP.
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    Yes decals were used for the weapons/vehicles.

    And Odium everyone gets that ending part, that is the end of the game, beating it on Legendary or Easy doesn't change that.
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    WTG, really? So, theres no extra "Legendary" ending...? Thats a bit naff, thats part of the appeal of Legendary, IMO. :(
  • JFletcher
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    JFletcher polycounter lvl 13
    Completed it last night,

    Great game, loved pretty much all of it, the backdrops and the vistas looked really cool in particular. I enjoyed the story progression a lot, and how every level that passed the
    losing battle just got more and more horrific as the Spartans died off
    .

    I wasn't following the beta or much of the development so I was basically seeing it for the first time, beyond a couple screenshots. I was a little surprised that most of the game wasn't really team based (then again I played solo, not co-op) which is what I gathered from what I saw initially, and from that cut scene where the guy says "Forget that lone wolf stuff, we're a team."

    I read odium's post about the Nightfall level, and was keeping an eye out to see what he meant....Wow, didn't really need to, that's very unfortunate about those UV problems, it kind of makes you cringe, when its up so close, especially when the camera was moving along, it actually panned slightly to focus on one of the errors. :x

    I liked the ending, but I didn't catch the
    Masterchief Easter egg
    until I saw a video about it, and I gotta say, that was a really cool way to include it, you just see it and go
    yup, there he is, sleeping...It all built up to saving this ship and there he is, ready to start Halo CE.
    It wasn't done in a lame cheesy way either, same with
    Cortana

    Overall, very cool, last time i played Halo was Halo 3, and only played online for a while at launch, so I didn't see all the extra stuff get added. Starting up reach with all those upgrades and stuff, damn, that's awesome, can't wait to get stuck in MP, hopefully I'm not terrible. :)

    edit:

    Oh yeah, did anyone see that large rock on the last level with the huuuuuuge seam on it?

    It's in that canyon place where the flying bugs come, at one point, you walk left around a corner, and BAM, right in your face, there is a rock, and down the middle, an absolutely massive seam. :) hehe.

    edit 2:

    Also agree that the Human characters look a lot better than the previous games, the faces are really nice. I saw in the credits that Face Gen was used. :)
  • odium
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    odium polycounter lvl 18
    I think the biggest fail of the game is me getting the 1,000,000 point achievment in Firefight after over an hour of play, and then get... 50 credits...

  • Spug
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    Spug polycounter lvl 12
    X-Convict wrote: »
    Yeah it's definitely interesting to hear the feedback as well as the parts that you guys are enjoying.

    If there are enough interested, it could be cool to do a night of Polycounters playing Reach, maybe get a few more of the artists here to BS and shoot each other up online. Headhunter and Invasion could be really fun.

    In for sure. I just finished the campaign solo on legendary. It was rough, but man oh man was it fun. I would say if you had issues with uv stretching on rocks and such, have your peeps at Bungie buy Modo gents.(That is if you don't have it already ;P) This is a great game, fucking great game. Grats Bungie peeps!!!

    Edit: Xbox Live Tag: MrSpug

    Also, I just read the UV issues had to deal with texture compression and not UV info. Meh, its all good in my book.
  • Spug
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    Spug polycounter lvl 12
    perna wrote: »
    Spug, the reason for that particular problem was described above and is not related (how could it be?) to the 3d package used, though I must say the new rock stretch removal button in modo has changed the way I approach 3d art.

    Hehe, yeah I just read that it had nothing to do with the UV's, but rather the texture compression. Also, Modo has an amazing relaxing algorithm, and makes a considerable difference when you are unwrapping. I have taken countless assets that are organic, and unwrapped them in XSI with a ton a lot of stretching, and figured out where I wanted my seams, and literally hit the "relax" button and BAM!!! perfect UV's. I just figured it would be worth sharing...I apologize if I offended you guys and your awesome art. As far as the relax rock button Perna, you need to show me where to get that. :P
  • Dean
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    Dean polycounter lvl 9
    odium wrote: »
    I think the biggest fail of the game is me getting the 1,000,000 point achievment in Firefight after over an hour of play, and then get... 50 credits...


    Yeah, stuff like that is kinda weird lol. Also: Holograms.are.so.much.fun. People must rage so much when they realize they just shot a whole clip on my hologram, only to receive a swift hug of death from my AR bud in the back:D
  • XenoKratios
  • 00Zero
    been playing for a couple of hours. i must admit, when i saw the first screenshots I thought the game didnt look too hot. and ive never really been a halo fan (only one i liked was CE, i love that one). but i have to admit Reach looks pretty damn good. I havent seen too much of the texture stretching. but ive been noticing that the texture streaming isnt working very fast, hence a lot of low res textures making some things look like theyre solid colors almost.

    i really like the way the weapons feel. they have weight to them and you can really feel the shots. thats what turned me off from halo. you had this circle reticle and you just shot without aiming down the sights and the spray was horrific so you were hoping youd hit something. this one is a lot better.

    vehicles feel just like CE which is great.

    story hasnt been all that engaging so far, im only a few missions in though. seems like its just going from point to point and killing everything in between.

    i was hesitant about buying, but im glad i did. gonna try MP soon.

    great job and congrats to everyone at bungie.



    EDIT: Sorry i take all that back. I dont think ill be playing this game anymore, which is a shame because i really liked it. the reason? the fucking game kept telling me that it was saving, saving, saving, after each checkpoint. so i turn off my console to grab some grub. after loading it up again, im at like...the 2nd level. FML. i honestly dont have the willpower to play through half the game again so unfortunately i probably wont. im so fucking angry right now.

    tried MP, wasnt my cup of tea i guess. reminded me too much of quake run and gun.
  • Entity
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    Entity polycounter lvl 18
    $200 million in sales so far, if that doesn't convince Hollywood to restart the movie I don't know what will :)
  • Jason Young
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    Jason Young polycounter lvl 14
    00Zero wrote: »

    EDIT: Sorry i take all that back. I dont think ill be playing this game anymore, which is a shame because i really liked it. the reason? the fucking game kept telling me that it was saving, saving, saving, after each checkpoint. so i turn off my console to grab some grub. after loading it up again, im at like...the 2nd level. FML. i honestly dont have the willpower to play through half the game again so unfortunately i probably wont. im so fucking angry right now.

    tried MP, wasnt my cup of tea i guess. reminded me too much of quake run and gun.

    You should be able to go into the campaign lobby and change the mission/checkpoint to the last one you finished? I had that happen to me last night. :)
  • 00Zero
    You should be able to go into the campaign lobby and change the mission/checkpoint to the last one you finished? I had that happen to me last night. :)

    thanks ill try that tonight. hope youre right
  • flaagan
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    flaagan polycounter lvl 18
    Well, Finally got to play / complete Reach. (Preorder, midnight pickup, then was outta town for a week.)

    Gotta say, ODST was far better in both compelling story and intense combat. Reach felt like a step back to Halo 1 and 2 (which in its own right, isn't a bad thing), but it sure as hell wasn't the "Magnum Opus of the Halo series" many played it out to be. For all the "ODST was just a re-packaged DLC" crap people slung at it, it was a really well done and well layered game, where as Reach felt really shallow and brushed over in many spots (particularily how it handled team member backstory and interaction).

    Something that really bugs me is, even though all the build-up for ODST (which was a lot compared to Reach) made you think it was all about going solo, the gameplay really built this complex team codepency that the storytelling did an excellent job of playing off of. Reach was *all about* you and your team, and even though you go in knowing it's a lost cause, none of *the team* felt overly important or attached to you. The constant somber mood of ODST just wasn't there, so every team member's issues and struggles in Reach just felt so cliche. I wanted to care when every member died, but had such a hard time doing so.

    Two other comments to say.. one, really loved the bit after the credits, nice touch; two, seriously, where was Master Chief? I still recall a lot of his involvement with the fall of Reach from the similarly titled book.

    I'm really looking forward to the MP for this (hopefully other upcoming releases wont cut it short for me), and *really* hope I get a chance to do this game in Legendary Co-Op.

    All in all, don't get me wrong, I don't regret purchasing this game at all, but instead of "finishing" or "wrapping up" the Halo series for me, this game just has me waiting to see what 343 can do with the franchise.
  • Entity
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    Entity polycounter lvl 18
    flaagen, you're not the only one..I loved ODST as well. It felt more..how to say, "human" to me. Very raw and you really felt connected to your teammates..but I guess it's a downside to having an all spartan cast, they're not known for their personalities.
  • eld
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    eld polycounter lvl 18
    I was a bit Hmmm.. until just about when the whole jorge thing escalated, that just turned up the story and feeling of the game a ton, best large scale city sequence of any of the halo games, loved nearly all parts after that.

    loved the soundtrack, but it wasn't the best in the series, I guess the old themes and such were very much connected to masterchief more.
  • Skamberin
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    Skamberin polycounter lvl 14
    Got through Legendary alone yesterday, easily the hardest FPS I've played so far, this might be because it's on console and I'm mainly a PC guy (most of my deaths were caused by my inability to aim <.<)

    It's still pretty good, and I took a peek at the MC at the end too, nice touch :) But this entire game seems to retcon everything in the Reach book though :0
  • flaagan
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    flaagan polycounter lvl 18
    Skamberin wrote: »
    But this entire game seems to retcon everything in the Reach book though :0

    Yah, was kinda thinking along those lines... There was a lotta cool stuff done with the Reach book that I was kinda disappointed they didn't include.
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    Finally beat it this past week while on the road with work. The ending seemed really meh to me compared to what it could have been I guess. I don't know. Maybe because of the book I was just expecting something simply crazy.
    Where the hell did Jun and Dr. Halsey go? It didn't show them dying so I imagine they made it.
  • Purplepaint
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    Purplepaint polycounter lvl 8
    Rented the game and am currently zooming through the single player :)

    Loving the storyline so far, i'm at the pillar of autumn area currently.


    Edit: beat it, loved the ending!
  • Sandbag
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    Sandbag polycounter lvl 18
    Jesse, did you wait through the credits?

    I had a similar reaction until the credits ended and I realized you dont need to beat it on Legendary to get the "good" ending.
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    No man the credits never rolled because we were playing split screen co-op. Now I'm pissed. I even beat it single player again and they never rolled. ARGHHHH!!!!
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    If you have scoring turned on it wont have the credits/ending for some reason, never understood why.
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    Thanks Anthony... that would have done it... Stupid bugs...
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