unforum

[DanteThePoet]

Huzzah, Check out Gamespots forums. Guess who got to play Halo 3 for Christmas?

[krystyn]

Got a link, pal? There's no way I am spending more than 30 seconds trawling Gamespot's forums looking for a thread, heh.

[twiztedmatt1007]

Took 31 seconds , Link to forum

Might I add, this is awesome.

[krystyn]

Nifty. Too bad all the bandwidth got sucked out of those photos. I bet they looked cool.

[vortech]

There are youtube videos that still exist, but they really don't show anything.

[thebruce]

oh, nice.. good christmas present for the troops
I'm reserving praise for Halo 3... mainly because I honestly don't feel that graphically Bungie can outdo Gears of War. For me, Halo 3 is now about plot and gameplay, since the Halo universe spans more than just 3 games, but also books and more. Halo 3 will be special. But Bungie's got a lot of work to go before it will look as good or better than GoW. IMO. I hope I'm wrong though

A couple of the stills do look nice though... the release date can't come soon enough

[krystyn]

Halo 2 still looks good to me.

For me, it's all about the man cannon jokes.

[twiztedmatt1007]

I do believe that Bungie can meet or exceed the graphics in Gears simply because of the shear manpower at Bungie. Remember Epic only had about 80 people working on Gears for a few years; Bungie has a few hundred working on Halo 3 so it is still feasible.

[thebruce]

it's feasible... but manpower is just one aspect; and from an artistic standpoint, I think Epic started off with a 'how real can we make this seem' perspective, while inherently Halo's world is much more 'sci-fi'ish. They may be able to pull off the technical quality that Epic's engine boasts (though I find it unlikely myself), but the environment, colours, characters, gameplay, for me at this point at least, are still in GoW's favour... and I hate to say it, because I absolutely love Halo. I really hope that Bungie is able to pull off an amazing game in every way, to rival even Gears.
I've always felt that video games really are too 'colourful'. The more realistic visual games IMO are ones where the colours are less saturated, and there definitely needs to be HDR (which Bungie's added to Halo 3, thankfully). Even in Xbox's day, I was mightily impressed with Wreckless, because its graphics really showed that a game can visual look realistic (even if it had endless clipping problems ). And some of the recent war FPS's have been grittier and visually bland, really helping with the realism. Too much colour can really draw away the realism. Plus, well GoW's environment are littered with 'stuff', so there's much less flat surfaces and ramps all over the places.

Anyway, it's not so much technical quality of the engine being used as it is artistic style, IMO. Epic and Bungie just have two styles, and in the case of GoW and Halo, at this point GoW's style better fits a gritty realism than Halo. But we'll see Hopefully soon they'll start releasing gameplay videos; well, the multiplayer beta opens soon, so that'll suffice =)

[ubersaurus]

Only problem with that-not every war zone is bland and dreary people have fought on bright, sunny, summer days. Lots of color there!

[thebruce]

touche
you catch my drift though

[krystyn]

I like to go shopping at the mall!

edited to add: Actually, beyond maybe Midship, most of the Halo 2 multiplayer maps are pretty muted and gritty. There's cracks and fissures and deteriorated machinery and all sorts of detritus - crates and rocks, armories, skids, etc.

I suppose the sandstone orangey tone of maps like Coagulation or Foundation or Headlong might seem more colorful, but after all, it is a clear and sunny day/early evening out when you're there.

(oh, the image, if it's not loading, is just a thumbnail of Ivory Tower.)

[thebruce]

oh how we love tripod image hosting...

[Cherry Cotton]

[djsampson]

Has anyone else heard about Halo 2 releasing new maps just for xbox 360. I was talking to some players on GoW and that was brought up I didn't know if it was true or BS. I can't seem to find any info on it so I am assuming it is the later of the two.