Is it just me, or do the remade assets in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary completely ruin the atmosphere of the game?

[Lant_War]

Like a lot of other people that are only getting around to playing the Halo games with the release of the MCC on PC now, I played a bit of the first game when it dropped a couple days ago. Actual game aside, there's one thing that just... shocked me: how well the original assets aged, and how weird the remade ones are.

You know that meme where you have a pixelated drawing of a pixelated cat on the left and on the right there's an "HD" version that is higher res but it just destroys the artstyle? While not to the same degree (the remade visuals are not poorly made or anything), it completely changes the atmosphere of the game. What in the original is a beautiful skybox on an open field that makes it feel much bigger than it really is becomes a... kinda claustrophobic battlefield? Even the cutscenes, which are also completely remade with new camera angles and animations look so odd, the cutscenes of the original, aged as they might be, are still better in my opinion than the uncanney-valley weirdness of the new ones.

Looking at comparisons on YouTube, it's a problem that seems to be recurring throughout the whole game, where everything is just so overdesigned that while yes, it technically looks better, I'd rather put up with the more dated assets to appreciate the much better atmosphere that the original has.

So, what do you think? Which graphics do you prefer?

 

[Mary Celeste]

I would appreciate a link to these YouTube videos

 

[Rowsdower]

A video to compare the two:



I do admit I like the original graphics better.

 

[Serule]

The new art looks good, but it is so very different from the original I wonder what they were thinking.

 

[Ganado]

The only problem with the OG gfx is the problems introduced with the OG PC port. Damn you Gearbox!

 

[Video Games Are Dumb]

Yeah I'd like to broaden this out to a deeper conversation. This really is an issue that soooooo many people exaggerate.

To me, old graphics are like a black and white movie, or a silent film. 30 minutes in, you've already stopped asking "where's all the color and sound!"

If you see the opera scene from Final Fantasy 6, on it's own, it looks a little odd watching these tiny square people preform music. But by the time you've reached that point in the game, your mind has adapted to the presentational ceiling, and it's down the the emotional core to pull you in. And in that experience, it's beautiful.

Halo looks overly clean and strange. And that's what makes it beautiful. You can not improve it. Video games are VIDEO. They are visual. They are art. Because when you do "fix" them, it's stops being the game it was.

 

[Uhyve]

I appreciate the remaster graphics, enjoy them even but they're not the same. But that's why I like that you can switch on a buttons press.

I find it difficult to call one version better. And like that I can see a different interpretation.

 

[Garrett 2U]

It's a title from the Xbox 360, plus there is an option to swap to the original graphics!

 

[Vitamin_B_Complex]

A video to compare the two:



I do admit I like the original graphics better.

Click to shrink...

One looks like a good PS2 game, the other like a mediocre PS3 game.

I kinda like both though.

 

[Jay Shadow]

Didn't seem as jarring in the video as it seemed like it was gonna be in the thumbnail.

But as a side observation, that guy really took a bite out of his pipe.

 

[Rendering...]

You're absolutely right. This was a common criticism when Anniversary came out, and it holds true today. I'm still disappointed.

At least the Halo 2 remaster does a better job of preserving the orginal version's style. But I really, really wish they hadn't screwed up my favorite game in the series, Halo 1.

 

[Undeniablybiased]

Yeah my friend and I were playing through the game recently, and I don't know if it was the same version you're talking about, but we were able to switch back and forth by hitting a button and we agreed we liked playing the game with the older graphics. Certain things were more distinct, and the contrast of colors made certain scenarios more readable. As well as just being more unique visually.

 

[Siggy-P]

The remake graphics weren't even good at the time it came out, let alone today. The original at least has a chunky charm.


Worst thing though was the loss of atmosphere. Areas that were darkly lit.in the original are as bright as an be in Anniversary.


Now Halo 2: Anniversary was fantastic.

 

[Einchy]

They were shit in 2011 and they're shit now.

I always loved how some sections of this level took place between mountains and they completely blocked the sunlight, so you were in the shadow. That plus the time of day and the fact that a sunny sky had stars made the whole thing have an amazing atmosphere. All of that is gone with the remake.

 

[Dead Man Typing]

I've played through with both and I like both.

I prefer the original graphics but, again, I like both.

 

[Darknight34]

My only two gripes are that the cutscenes are really weird with such old animations, and the control room itself, not the level, is totally different. If they changed the control room and redid the cutscenes, even cgi would be fine, I'd be perfectly happy.

 

[Video Games Are Dumb]

with the older graphics. Certain things were more distinct, and the contrast of colors made certain scenarios more readable. As well as just being more unique visually.

Click to shrink...

Yes, yes, yes. I like to call this legibility. The same thing came up with the Crash Trilogy. Like yeah, that looks good. But the game was designed with low poly graphics, not hyper bloom and participial effects. And so it makes reading the stage far more difficult than it was supposed to be.

 

[WillyFive]

Yeah, the Halo remake is a good example of what happens when you don't take care in how you remake your art. Compare that to FF7R, which is authentic to the original art style.

 

[Deleted member 21709]

The original looks much better.

 

[icyflamez96]

I enjoy both but it is funny. I've been playing with my 7 y/o nephew and even he likes the old graphics better in a lot of places lol

 

[NightShift]

Maybe it's not what you mean but seeing any modern Halo game looks wrong to me. I always thought the original game had cartoony visuals so seeing the series get more and more photorealistic fucks with my head.

 

[TheXbox]

The art is okay but it doesn't capture the chilly, isolated tone of the original. It also obscures sightlines, betrays true geometry, and makes shield damage almost impossible to discern. It's an interesting but failed experiment.

 

[HTupolev]

I definitely prefer the original visuals overall, and I was an aggressive critic of CEA when it launched. But ironically, I actually kind of like CEA's visuals in their own right. Although it uses some Reach and Halo 3 dynamic assets, it's not really CE with a Reach/H3 coat of paint, but mostly its own thing that takes place in what's almost a sort of spooky fairytail world. Like, the new interpretation of the 343 Guilty Spark swamp is very different from the original, but it's still creepy in its own way, an eerily over-vivid twist on a Darkroot Garden sort of environment.

It's definitely less readable for gameplay. It's much busier in general, and there are many types of visual elements that provide clean and useful feedback in the original game, which are garbled or used differently in the Anniversary visuals.

Most of the time I play Halo on original Xbox, Classic Mode in CEA and MCC has a lot of porting inaccuracies.

 

[Pargon]

It was a complete waste of resources that should have been spent on creating an accurate port of the original game instead.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

I played this game for the first time last year and switched between the two graphics styles constantly as I was playing. The new visuals are too bright, busy and detailed. A certain amount is seriously lost especially when it comes to atmosphere. Generally I prefer the old visual style. The new visuals have their moments but atmosphere is straight up killed in some levels.

But I will say this. Thank christ for the new visuals in certain stages where I basically just switched to the new visuals so there would be better visual indication of where I was supposed to go. Sometimes the original could be quite confusing and the new visuals did a better job at directing me where to go.

 

[Lork]

Most of the individual assets are good, but there are a few really bad ones that really stick out in a distracting way, like Keyes' weird anime face, as well as bizarre, unnecessary changes to the lighting making many areas that used to be dark brightly lit for some reason.

I don't think they're a disaster or anything, but the original graphics are better overall.

 

[BizzyBum]

The original look is far superior.

 

[Deleted member 8861]

I'm playing Halo 1 for the first time recently. I think I'll drop down to the original and see if I can adjust to it.

 

[Z-Beat]

A video to compare the two:



I do admit I like the original graphics better.

Click to shrink...

I don't think it's the assets. I think it's the lighting.

 

[Transistor]

Halo CE is so damn good looking for an old school game, and I agree that the anniversary edition just takes away from it.

 

[jukeboxhero2396]

Press tab on pc to instantly change

 

[Maple]

They were shit in 2011 and they're shit now.

I always loved how some sections of this level took place between mountains and they completely blocked the sunlight, so you were in the shadow. That plus the time of day and the fact that a sunny sky had stars made the whole thing have an amazing atmosphere. All of that is gone with the remake.

Click to shrink...

Agree. Just give me the original that's upscaled in 4K.

I have no desire to ever play the anniversary edition. It's like it's trying too hard to impress, and in doing so it ruins a lot of the mystique and atmosphere of the original.

 

[Last_colossi]

I never liked the art style in Halo Anniversary, it straight up doesn't feel like Halo 1.

 

[EvilBoris]

I really appreciate the effort that they went to with the graphic switching, but even when this was released a decade ago, I felt something was off.

On too many occasions throughout the game the atmosphere, color palette or even the time of day is changed in a way that doesn't add anything,
I also feel that the art itself is totally at odds with the visual language of the Halo games. The forerunner and spaceship interiors don't look like halo, they look like a different franchise entirely.
Often I felt like I was playing a mod for another game or some attempt at a fan remake.

 

[Akronis]

original are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better

Lucid

I really appreciate the effort that they went to with the graphic switching, but even when this was released a decade ago, I felt something was off.

On too many occasions throughout the game the atmosphere, color palette or even the time of day is changed in a way that doesn't add anything,
I also feel that the art itself is totally at odds with the visual language of the Halo games. The forerunner and spaceship interiors don't look like halo, they look like a different franchise entirely.

Click to shrink...

this exactly

 

[Jerm]

I felt the same in Reach. Something about cranking up the frame rate with crisp textures makes it feel like a tech demo.

 

[scitek]

It honestly looks like those fanmade texture packs that add a ton of detail to old games without an ounce of consideration of what it would do to the atmosphere and mood. And they went fucking crazy with the lights. And panels. Lights and panels fucking everywhere.

The only thing I wish was improved on the original is the skybox. It's super low-res and looks awful. A nice high-quality sky would work wonders.

 

[Transistor]

Pretty much the only "upgrade" I enjoyed from the MCC was the Halo 2 cutscenes. Those were pretty damn good. I'd switch to the new graphics for the cutscenes then switch back for the gameplay

 

[Juan]

Yes it does, the remake exaggerated a lot of things and kind killed the mood and the art direction from the original. I remember when I bought HCEA on Xbox 360, I replayed the game almost only on the OG graphic, and switched from time to time to see how were the new graphics, and I almost always was disappointed.

In that regard, Halo 2 Anniversary had the perfect balance between being faithful to the original art direction while still looking fairly modern in term of graphic.

Players will be more pleased with H2A once it comes to PC I think, I wish HCEA had the same treatment.

 

[ghostcrew]

Totally. And people said this at release too, it's not a new thing. The new graphics just look off... like a fan mod pack or an entirely different game.

Original graphics still look good. Those every time.

They did a miles better job with Halo 2 Anniversary Edition.

 

[RedHeat]

I've only ever played the Anniversary Edition of Halo 1 so I prefer it, but the original does look good but in a different way

 

[Elliott]

CEA's aesthetics are quite garish, which is exacerbated in areas where the atmosphere is thickest, like 343 Guilty Spark. Thankfully, Saber did a much better job of updating the assets while still retaining the spirit of the original look in Halo 2 Anniversary.

 

[EvilBoris]

In that regard, Halo 2 Anniversary had the perfect balance between being faithful to the original art direction while still looking fairly modern in term of graphic.

Players will be more pleased with H2A once it comes to PC I think, I wish HCEA had the same treatment.

Click to shrink...

Yes definitely, H2A looks great through your and doesn't suffer from the erosion of aesthetic identity that HCEA had.

 

[The Shape]

Never played Halo. Looking at the video I think it's fine either way. Neither look particularly good, but since I have no memory or nostalgia for any version, I would go for the remake graphics.

 

[Deleted member 5457]

I agree 100%, it looks terrible, You don't play with legendary design like that.

 

[Tuorom]

Maybe I have to play it to see but....the Anniversary looks better?

 

[Cheesy]

There's a complete disregard for the original art style. Some warmer scenes are cooler in the new game, and vice versa (you can see this in some of the below examples). Some darker areas are lighter, and vice versa. Every change in geometry isn't real. This means around each level, there are just holes in level geometry, or places that you should be able to shoot through, but can't because they didn't bother to match up the new and old geometry, so you'll get stuff like this:

Some of the textures are objectively worse too.

Then you get some weird stuff like oversized textures.

Then some aspects of it were kinda lazy. Instead of making new models for the marines (or most of them anyways) they just recycled the soldiers from Halo Reach, who weren't even marines, but were army. The grunt and many elite models were recycled from reach too, which all looked pretty different from the original game. They also recycled the Reach scorpion, which, if you remember has a machine gun turret on it for a second player, Halo 1's scorpion obviously doesn't have that, so they just removed that machine gun turret, leaving a big ugly hole in the tank. There's also loss of lots of little details, like you can no longer see the bolts cycling on the various human weapons like you can.

I also noticed some stranger stuff like this, in the second mission. I assume the intent of this flashing light was to draw you in towards the structure to find the marines, but in the Anniversary edition they added a slope over top, which you can clip through, and see what appears to be the light, which they decided to give up on and cover up.

While it looks technically better, I just can't really stand it. It just makes me think of those tacky fan made remakes of old games, where they try to take advantage of new tech by overdesigning everything and adding way more detail than is necessary.

 

[Zed]

They were shit in 2011 and they're shit now.

I always loved how some sections of this level took place between mountains and they completely blocked the sunlight, so you were in the shadow. That plus the time of day and the fact that a sunny sky had stars made the whole thing have an amazing atmosphere. All of that is gone with the remake.

Click to shrink...

Remakes and remasters always seem to screw up the lighting. Reminds of of how OoT was made much lighter which really took the emotional aspects out of some parts of the game such as the bridge scene with Link leaving the forest or how the remake makes the final battle too bright.

 

[The Living Tribunal]

Yup, i hate the updated graphics in this.

Halo 2 Anniversary did much better in this regard.

 

[VeryHighlander]

Never liked it. The original has a look and feel to it that can't and hasn't been matched. The forerunner structures in particular are tasteless and overdesigned.