Halo Combat Evolved vs Anniversary vs Campaign Evolved

[Frickinfrik]

Campaign Evolved looks like those stupid “RTX On” videos that flood youtube.

 

[ec2025ec2025]

Halo's already playable on modern consoles, so I personally have no interest in this remake. In my opinion, remakes should be for games like Croc where it's a good game but the actual gameplay is held back because of the technical limitations when it came out.

So much this.

In a perfect world remakes would be about getting a chance to polish an imperfect "diamond in the rough" or a quirky, interesting idea that just wasn't ready for primetime with its original release.

As we should all know, in practice market forces don't work like that though.

Well-made thing sold big? Became popular?

Rerelease popular well-made thing, with a different coat of paint so people hopefully think you aren't completely shafting them!

Not to insult the devs - as an SE myself I'm sure they've put alot of effort into their work - but the push from the execs will be to put the least effort in for the most , and because it's already a "safe", "proven" IP the more passionate developers would likely find their more passion driven ideas falling on deaf ears....

Note: one big example of a passionate team really improving things for the fans is the kind of remakes / rereleases / modernised ports the likes of M2 do, in particular their Shottriggers series for Shoot Em Ups.

 

[Metroid_Hybrid]

 

[MajesticSiN]

I look forward to playing it

 

[TechBlisSTer]

Just play the original.

 

[qw90700]

View attachment 122337

Xbox learned this "philosophy" from Sega lol. After Sega destroyed itself and stopped releasing console they sold their ass to anyone and Sega was like a mentor of Xbox back then, they learned from a video game company whore!!! lolol

 

[nyka]

I dont care about Halo, but UE5 is a smeary bloated engine and most of these "remasters" are just grabbing premade assets and megascans of various models to fit an extremely generic "realism" aesthetic that honestly isn't really realistic or better; most often times just bland junk.

Like you can enjoy your Oblivion remaster or your Mgs Delta and that's fair and fine, but you're basically buying the more sanitized polished corporate cashgrab version of what often were decent-to pretty great old games. It's never going to be a terrible way to play (unless we're talking the GTA remasters or that recent DEUS EX remaster) but paving over all of the personality of older games for shiny ue5 rtx bullshit turns me off of a game more often then it's ever enticed me. Thankfully for games like Halo or any of these; the og versions are still out there to play if you're willing to dedicate the time to setting that up; but paying twice for what's often an inferior product just feels like a scam to me. Fine if you're a new player; I guess.

but yaaa... Idk! I like that games are made by people and I like things like "art direction", maybe that makes me picky.

 

[qw90700]

I dont care about Halo, but UE5 is a smeary bloated engine and most of these "remasters" are just grabbing premade assets and megascans of various models to fit an extremely generic "realism" aesthetic that honestly isn't really realistic or better; most often times just bland junk.

Like you can enjoy your Oblivion remaster or your Mgs Delta and that's fair and fine, but you're basically buying the more sanitized polished corporate cashgrab version of what often were decent-to pretty great old games. It's never going to be a terrible way to play (unless we're talking the GTA remasters or that recent DEUS EX remaster) but paving over all of the personality of older games for shiny ue5 rtx bullshit turns me off of a game more often then it's ever enticed me. Thankfully for games like Halo or any of these; the og versions are still out there to play if you're willing to dedicate the time to setting that up; but paying twice for what's often an inferior product just feels like a scam to me. Fine if you're a new player; I guess.

but yaaa... Idk! I like that games are made by people and I like things like "art direction", maybe that makes me picky.

Ignorants always ignore art but goes for realistic graphics because they have no brain to be able to comprehend art, because of it their brain works too logically and wanna see real life in video games because when a video game doesn't have realistic graphics as they are used to in real life their brain cannot focus as the immersion is broken. The thing is tons of people are like that especially when they never grew up with old games. So they would disagree that for example Radiata Stories artistically has one of the legendary graphics ever I saw in the video game history, instead they would pick one of those new Unreal "body cam FPS games" SMH.

The only exception is whatever "art style" the kid grew up with becomes basis of their graphic preference. So many kids these days grows up with modern cartoons and anime style so they would like to see either games having such cartoon graphic style or goes full on real life-like graphics. In this time and age even Roblox and Minecraft graphic style is basis of their porn preference just because such graphic is what they got used to lol. That's the way it is. For example I didn't grow up watching cartoons because until I was a teen we didn't have a TV and all the video games I played back then was merely a pixel and it is the basis of my "what I call a video game". A video game gotta have da "game style" as graphics, it shouldn't be Netflix "you can play" because when the graphics are realistic I don't think it's a video game, and then it feels weird to control "realistic looking people". For my brain it screams "this is not real" when I force myself to play such games and it feels like waking up from Matrix lol. I would rather go for Radiata Stories graphics instead that the game has its own "universe" with its own "rules" and therefore it has its own graphical style that is not like real life so I can actually be immersed in it. Real-life graphics are boring to me because I already see it while living my life so that's why I would ask for different graphics in video games instead. In that regard until PS4-era and so gamers were lucky to play games that their graphic style was an artwork instead of lazy cheap BS realistic rubbish.

 

[Tortuga]

Zero aesthetics, zero art style, zero soul
It honestly looks like those UE asset flips on steam or RTX on mods
Also Campaign Evolved is a stupid ass name

 

[CaptainMuskrat]

"UE5 sucks and I'm not talking out of nostalgia."

proceeds to talk out of nostalgia by regurgitating the "343i are Satan" narrative further exposing himself as a toxic, annoying and hypocritical Bungie stan

>Accuses others of being "toxic" and "annoying"
>Is "toxic" and "annoying" themselves
The fact that you have voting rights terrifies me.

 

[CaptainToad]

Zero aesthetics, zero art style, zero soul
It honestly looks like those UE asset flips on steam or RTX on mods
Also Campaign Evolved is a stupid ass name

Imagine how goofy remaster (sub)titles are going to be in 10 years when they're re-re-re-remastering games for the 4th time.

Halo Campaign Re-Evolved UHD Edition Part 2*: Assault

*game is split and sold in two parts

 

[Neb Lleb]

>Accuses others of being "toxic" and "annoying"
>Is "toxic" and "annoying" themselves
The fact that you have voting rights terrifies me.

And again, the toxic person deflects and insults.

 

[LouieBee]

As someone who is very content with the Master Chief Collection, Campaign Evolved is definitely not for me. I am sure PlayStation 5 owners have every reason to be excited about seeing this announcement, we live in strange times where both Gears of War and Halo are playable on a Sony games console, not that it is a bad thing at all though tbh.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

I like the remaster it looks somehow more realistic.

I agree, to a degree. The original will always be the original, but I like how this looks. What I worry about is the physics engine, as that’s one of the keys for the game feel in CE, and it’s easy to mess up.


On the subject of the art, I think the game looks best with its metallic textures, which have aged the worst in the original game. However, the ocean is now just a normal ocean, whereas the original was slightly more green than usual. Fine in a vacuum, but it speaks ill of how the new art handles one of the keys of the original game: Halo was too perfect, and terrifyingly abandoned. The whole thing is artificial, slightly wrong, and horribly liminal. That feeling would creep in every time you cleared a room of enemies: you’re pumped up by action only to be creeped back out when you realize that those enemies you just killed may be the only life around for miles.


It’s part of the game’s vibe. Halo 1 is a game about a war, but it’s not a game about war, if that makes sense. Reach, 3, even 2 are about war. But 1 is about this conflict reaching something that makes it all seem so… small and trivial in comparison. It always seeps in, and it’s so unique. That’s why, of all the Halo games, people still rate 1 as highly as they do all these years later. And I worry about the remake’s ability to match it, since it’s such a balancing act.

Post automatically merged: Today at 2:13 PM

One extra thing: we haven’t seen night gameplay. The level I remember the most is the one where you have to take on a platoon of Covenant under darkness, and it’s such a unique feeling to know how horribly outmatched you are. It’s uniquely scary to play and intensely satisfying to finish by beating the odds that have been stacked against you.

 

[Heinzu]

I agree, to a degree. The original will always be the original, but I like how this looks. What I worry about is the physics engine, as that’s one of the keys for the game feel in CE, and it’s easy to mess up.


On the subject of the art, I think the game looks best with its metallic textures, which have aged the worst in the original game. However, the ocean is now just a normal ocean, whereas the original was slightly more green than usual. Fine in a vacuum, but it speaks ill of how the new art handles one of the keys of the original game: Halo was too perfect, and terrifyingly abandoned. The whole thing is artificial, slightly wrong, and horribly liminal. That feeling would creep in every time you cleared a room of enemies: you’re pumped up by action only to be creeped back out when you realize that those enemies you just killed may be the only life around for miles.


It’s part of the game’s vibe. Halo 1 is a game about a war, but it’s not a game about war, if that makes sense. Reach, 3, even 2 are about war. But 1 is about this conflict reaching something that makes it all seem so… small and trivial in comparison. It always seeps in, and it’s so unique. That’s why, of all the Halo games, people still rate 1 as highly as they do all these years later. And I worry about the remake’s ability to match it, since it’s such a balancing act.

Post automatically merged: Today at 2:13 PM

One extra thing: we haven’t seen night gameplay. The level I remember the most is the one where you have to take on a platoon of Covenant under darkness, and it’s such a unique feeling to know how horribly outmatched you are. It’s uniquely scary to play and intensely satisfying to finish by beating the odds that have been stacked against you.

Yes that's true original is and stay original. Ok, unfortunately there is always the danger that a remake or remaster could change something I always find it stupid why the makers never pay attention to what they change.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Yes that's true original is and stay original. Ok, unfortunately there is always the danger that a remake or remaster could change something I always find it stupid why the makers never pay attention to what they change.

It’s remarkably easy to mess up. To go back to the water, it’s so easy to say “we need water, our engine has easy tools to make water, so all we need to do is match the geometry of the original water. Cool!”
It’s easy to think that way when you have an entire rest of the game to make, doubly so when you have Microsoft managing the project (and by managing, I mean screwing around letting their developers have no direction for five years until randomly laying off half their staff).


And to the people who are defensive about this remake and think this forum is being too harsh: I agree. But it doesn’t come from nowhere. 343 has messed up simple things time and again, they have an in-house engine that was put together by people they fired and nobody knew how to work (that they spent half a decade working on, by the way), and they’ve had huge staff cuts in recent years because they’re under Microsoft (a giant conglomerate who can’t manage any studio they have for the life of them).

I agree that many are being super harsh super fast, but it’s not for no reason. The EXPECTATION is to be critical of 343 at this point because they’ve done nothing to gain anybody’s trust in AT LEAST the last five years, let alone decade and a half. And this isn’t to put down Wars 2 or some of the other cool things they’ve done, but it’s a reflection of what they’ve created. They forged this fandom of doomers, now they have to live with it.

 

[MrYesterday]

What is it with companies making everything yellow now? It started with that god awful chatgpt trend, now im seeing it in games too.

I hated it in Oblivion Remastered, and I don't care enough about Halo to hate it here too, but I still find it odd.

 

[Heinzu]

It’s remarkably easy to mess up. To go back to the water, it’s so easy to say “we need water, our engine has easy tools to make water, so all we need to do is match the geometry of the original water. Cool!”
It’s easy to think that way when you have an entire rest of the game to make, doubly so when you have Microsoft managing the project (and by managing, I mean screwing around letting their developers have no direction for five years until randomly laying off half their staff).


And to the people who are defensive about this remake and think this forum is being too harsh: I agree. But it doesn’t come from nowhere. 343 has messed up simple things time and again, they have an in-house engine that was put together by people they fired and nobody knew how to work (that they spent half a decade working on, by the way), and they’ve had huge staff cuts in recent years because they’re under Microsoft (a giant conglomerate who can’t manage any studio they have for the life of them).

I agree that many are being super harsh super fast, but it’s not for no reason. The EXPECTATION is to be critical of 343 at this point because they’ve done nothing to gain anybody’s trust in AT LEAST the last five years, let alone decade and a half. And this isn’t to put down Wars 2 or some of the other cool things they’ve done, but it’s a reflection of what they’ve created. They forged this fandom of doomers, now they have to live with it.

Yes, we as players and of course those who buy all this have to live with all the stupid things the makers do.

 

[Neb Lleb]

It’s remarkably easy to mess up. To go back to the water, it’s so easy to say “we need water, our engine has easy tools to make water, so all we need to do is match the geometry of the original water. Cool!”
It’s easy to think that way when you have an entire rest of the game to make, doubly so when you have Microsoft managing the project (and by managing, I mean screwing around letting their developers have no direction for five years until randomly laying off half their staff).


And to the people who are defensive about this remake and think this forum is being too harsh: I agree. But it doesn’t come from nowhere. 343 has messed up simple things time and again, they have an in-house engine that was put together by people they fired and nobody knew how to work (that they spent half a decade working on, by the way), and they’ve had huge staff cuts in recent years because they’re under Microsoft (a giant conglomerate who can’t manage any studio they have for the life of them).

I agree that many are being super harsh super fast, but it’s not for no reason. The EXPECTATION is to be critical of 343 at this point because they’ve done nothing to gain anybody’s trust in AT LEAST the last five years, let alone decade and a half. And this isn’t to put down Wars 2 or some of the other cool things they’ve done, but it’s a reflection of what they’ve created. They forged this fandom of doomers, now they have to live with it.

Hm. This is honestly one of the best, most honest takes on the 343i hate following I've read. The sad reality is that although they're victims of a conglomerate that has REALLY lost the plot, 343i, now Halo Studios, have made many a mistake and this string of mistakes (I.E. Halo 5 Guardians, which undid the perfect ending of their own Halo 4 to insultingly make Cortana the main antagonist as a publicity stunt, and then ignoring 5's poorly done plot and cliffhanger and resolving it off-screen in Infinite) has wound up creating a devoted hate following that are loud, obnoxious, and honestly just as bad as the mistakes Halo Studios have made in the past.

I think people who can hold both Halo Studios AND their Bungie-worshipping haters accountable for being dumb can find common ground with eachother, I feel.

 

[iamthemilkman]

OG still looks the best. I hated the art changes in Anniversary and Campaign Evolved has that UE5 look with grain and artifacts thanks to its low internal resolution and upscaling.

It's not Halo: CE to me without the flat grass texture. That one thing is so important to Halo: CE's look.

 

[Neb Lleb]

OG still looks the best. I hated the art changes in Anniversary and Campaign Evolved has that UE5 look with grain and artifacts thanks to its low internal resolution and upscaling.

It's not Halo: CE to me without the flat grass texture. That one thing is so important to Halo: CE's look.

ICYW how I feel... Campaign Evolved is very much a tech demo of sorts. In promotional materials, Halo the company made it very clear that they're developing games on UE5 from now on given its ease of use, and a campaign-only remake/producer's cut of Halo: Combat Evolved is honestly a good way to start. The original Combat Evolved looks better from an artistic standpoint, but Campaign looks like another good way to kill a few hours of time.

The only real thing wrong with it is the title. Couldn't they have called it "Halo: Alpha", instead? (Alpha referring to the name of the Halo the game takes place on)
EDIT: Or why not "Halo Returns" instead?