Halo 3 Legendary under fire

By Robert Purchese Published 27 September, 2007

Bungie responds to complaints.

Bungie has responded to criticism of the quality of the remastered Halo and Halo 2 cinematics in the Legendary Edition box of Halo 3.

The packaging claims the extras disc features "completely remastered, hi-res versions" of the originals, but those of you who splashed out on the lavish edition have reported that that is far from the truth: apparently the clips are poorly compressed and washed out with considerable artifacting.

However, Bungie lead writer Frank O'Connor has since come out of his Halo 3-themed house and tried to clear it all up.

"The cut-scenes were remastered, the pop-in reduced and they were output as as high resolution TIFFs one frame at a time to improve the quality over the originals," he wrote, in comments reported by IGN. "They were not, contrary to popular belief, remastered in 'HD'. And this was always advertised as a DVD disc, which obviously can't play HD content anyway."

"Apologies to folks feeling ripped off, but the false advertising claims are well, false. Watch the remastered ones side by side with the originals to see how much they've been improved.

"And hopefully folks can see past our old school graphics and listen to the commentary, which is the important part of that content anyway," he promised.

The Halo 3 Legendary Edition sold for around GBP 70 originally, and went like hot cakes. You can now pick one up for around GBP 130.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (58) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • MaTTy_P #1 4 years ago

    boring.

  • bonker #2 4 years ago

    Top price (paid) on Ebay yesterday for the Legendary edition was £200! :)
    Edited by 2 at 27/09/07 @ 11:15

  • DB2k #3 4 years ago

    jihad on him

  • The-Bodybuilder #4 4 years ago

    Suckers.

  • Dizzy #5 4 years ago

    Weird that people moan about this. I would only watch the cutscenes for a quick catchup for what has gone before.

    Thanks to the internet everybody and their dog can now complain about everything!

  • Wayne #6 4 years ago

    "Thanks to the internet everybody and their dog can now complain about everything!"

    Awesome, isn't it? :0)

  • Hughes. #7 4 years ago

    The only special editions of any game I've bought have been the same price, or cheaper than the standard version, I never have enough shelf space as it is, without daft shaped boxes with DVDs I'll only ever watch once in them.

  • jack_klugman #8 4 years ago

    Meg White sex tape?

  • lennon #9 4 years ago

    I bet all those that complained had only bought that version to prove to themselves how crap the game was anyway.

  • smirny #10 4 years ago

    "The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."

  • Twincoil #11 4 years ago

    In other news: bog standard edition of Halo plays the exact same game just fine

  • Arwin #12 4 years ago

    BluRay FTW? lol

    It fits the overal graphics thing, as it seems Halo 3 uses an upgraded version of the same engine. It even uses the same kind of camera motion blur. 30fps, no AA, and upscaled from ~1138x640p (credits to Quaz51).

    Mind you, that keeps it from having to use tiling and considering it's multi-player and allows flying, it's probably worth it. But this game is definitely not ground-breaking in terms of graphics, that's all I'm saying ...

    So that fits the quality of the footage then. ;)

    Seriously, though, obviously the graphical sacrifices have been worth it, if you can score a 10/10 on both Eurogamer and in Edge. ;)

  • cyacomini #13 4 years ago

    10/10 in Edge?

    *falls over

  • Darren #14 4 years ago

    Eh, why is Halo 3 upscaled from 1138x640 and not rendered at 1280x720? The difference and performance hit would surely only be marginal?

    Why can't the Xbox 360 render ALL its games at 1280x720 anyway, games like PGR 3, Tony Hawk's Project 8 and Call of Duty 3, among others, are examples of games rendered at a lower resolution and upscaled to 720p. The PC has been doing 1280x1024 games for years so it's baffling that a current-gen console has to resort to "cheats" in order to run its games in HD properly. It also totally contradicts Microsoft's claim that all Xbox 360 HD games would run (i.e. be rendered) at 720p minimum and, in Halo 3's case, that jaggies would be a thing of the past! :?

  • JonFE #15 4 years ago

    Darren, does it actually matter why, if you are enjoying the game?

  • kangarootoo #16 4 years ago

    @JonFE

    Don't you go coming in here with your common sense and rational thought. Didn't you see the sign at the door that read "Games website - begin over-reacting now".

  • fiery_jackass #17 4 years ago

    this special edition bullshit must die a quick death. It's pathetic.

  • Darren #18 4 years ago

    @JonFE - Yes, I am enjoying the game and think the graphics are mostly excellent but it's hard to ignore the fact that they do look excessively jaggy at times, not something I'd have expected from a key Xbox 360 title. Since Halo and Halo 2 run on the 360 with AA, it's a little odd that Halo 3 doesn't have any at all. Had it used AA, the lower rendering resolution would have been less of a problem as proven by Call of Duty 3, which uses 2X AA and certainly doesn't look jaggy despite being upscaled from 600p.

  • DonnieDarko333 #19 4 years ago

    I love the helmet! :-)

  • George-Roper #20 4 years ago

    @Arwin

    "Mind you, that keeps it from having to use tiling and considering it's multi-player and allows flying, it's probably worth it. But this game is definitely not ground-breaking in terms of graphics, that's all I'm saying ..."

    Get fucked.

    The set-piece on the edge of the Afrikan lake (the Scarab fight), whilst Covenant and Marine hardware is zooming around in the air and zipping around on the ground, all the whilst being silky smooth IS fucking impressive. Model for model, it might not hold its ground, but as a whole, with the amount of models it can throw around and still maintain a smooth gameplay experience, it absolutely IS groundbreaking.

    Especially on a 46" 1080p LCD.

    Christ on his throne, why does everyone want to take a snipe at what is the most stunning sci-fi action game of recent times? Playing Halo 3 is like being in the middle of Starship Troopers and we ALL know how great that was! =)

    EDIT: WTF am I talking about, only last night I was commenting on how fucking AMAZING the vehicle models look, not only in terms of their graphic quality and animation but also how deformation changes them during the fighting.

    Argggh, you're employing Jedi mind tricks!!
    Edited by 1 at 27/09/07 @ 12:38

  • Inspirius #21 4 years ago

    I got a paper cut yesterday trying to open my Legendary edition.

  • monkie_king #22 4 years ago

    @darren: with pixel shaders used in all next-gen engines, the GPU is doing a metric assload of calculations for every single pixel rendered. Going from 1138x640 to 1280x720 is about a 25% increase in the number of pixels you have to draw, hence it'll take about 25% longer to draw the frame. Presumably that would be enough to cause Halo3 to start dropping frames.

    Since PS3 and X360 have broadly similar GPUs, I do wonder how PS3 games will keep the framerate up at 1080p, vs. 720p on the X360. Personally I'd rather trade framerate for resolution--do any PS3 owners purposely drop to lower resolutions than their TV can handle in order to keep things running smoothly?

    Bloody HD, ruining good old plug and play console gaming and turning us all into AV dweebs =(

  • Arwin #23 4 years ago

    Another reason is that with this resolution, the whole buffer fits in the 10MB EDRAM. I suspect that getting everything to work properly with tiling was too much of a hassle at this point. Maybe in the next version.

    And if this isn't bothering you, then what's your problem? I'm just posting this info for people who do notice these things, like Darren. They might find it interesting. In the end, Eurogamer's and Edge's 10/10 scores are obviously more important than whether or not you have jaggies or not. It's just a shame that such big words on the amazing Halo graphics had to be spoken by Bungie to hype the game. Who cares? Halo 3 should and probably will show that gameplay is more important than graphics.

    Heck, at this point it doesn't even matter anymore. Everyone bought the game already anyway, and I doubt that some complaints about loose discs in Legendary Edition, the Halo 1+2 movies not being HD, or the game engine not featuring AA and being upscaled rather than native 1280x720p is going to stop another 4 million from buying the game. A lot of good selling (EA) stuff not only leaves much to be desired in the technical department, but even leaves a lot to be desired in the gameplay department, and still sells loads, so in that perspective, Halo's not bad at all. :)
    Edited by 1 at 27/09/07 @ 13:01

  • mkreku #24 4 years ago

    I just realized I've become a Collector's Edition whore :( The last three games I've bought were all Collector's Editions!

    I even got a nice, heavy Big Daddy with my Bioshock..

  • Calgon #25 4 years ago

    Lets be fair now, Bungie werent going soley for image quality or resolution, it seems to me they spent less time on the engine and more time on the content. It hardly looks last gen(plenty of nice touches and effects around) and the scale, drawdistance, framerates are all there which was obviously placed above all else. Rare or even Bizzarre and Level10 are might be better able to make engines that take full advantage of the hardware.(someone has to or devs will just take the easier route and use UE3 every time, native 360 engines would make much better use of the hardware but will take longer and cost more initially)

    Since PS3 and X360 have broadly similar GPUs

    Well that isnt true really, Xenos is quite a bit more advanced, efficient and more powerfull overall... and thats without mentioning the daughter die(with 10 EDRAM) and the memory architectures. You can already see in Multi-platform titles 360 tends to hold up better in framerates and image quality(although there probably wont ever be a big difference here for multi-platform releases).
    Edited by 2 at 27/09/07 @ 13:09

  • penhalion #26 4 years ago

    @Mkreku

    Yea I did the same and even have a collectors edition of stranglehold. I guess I miss the old Infocom and sierra days, when it was normal to get lots of cool stuff with a game.

    Then the spectrum did plain ol' cassettes and suddenly you got no freebies and the games suffered as a result. No Novelas, not cloth maps (ultima used to do them then suddenly switched to paper...PAPER I TELL YOU!

    ahh I'm ranting so I'll hang my head and go.

  • mkreku #27 4 years ago

    Oohh, I remember getting both a metal Anhk and a cloth map in my Ultima's.. I still have the Ultima IV:Ascension CE box (complete with cloth maps and all!) in my shelf because it's so pretty!

    Gothic 3 CE had a cloth map too, but it was printed with so low resolution that it was practically un-usable. Too bad, but it was an honest attempt at least.

    But you're right. Nowadays I pay premium for the Collector's Edition to get what was once considered normal for a game.

    I'm a fossil.

  • Machiavellian #28 4 years ago

    From my playing experience, the only level that showed the least amount of wow was the UNSC base. It really looked bland and there was a lot of Jaggies. After Chapter 4, I have been impressed with the overall artistry of the levels. There is a lot of detail within the game and even though it is running at a constant 30FPS I have not seen a drop in frames no matter how intense the battle gets and this is with 4 player co-op.

    I notice a lot of people have complained about backtracking which tells me that they did not get further then the UNSC base because after that I haven't experienced any backtracking. I can easily say that certain levels end way to quickly and you want to experience them more but then Bungie whisk you away to another setting which never give you that feeling of a level being drawn out *library*

  • Leolian #29 4 years ago

    Shouldn't have cancelled my preorder :(

  • urban #30 4 years ago

    hot cakes? blockbuster in my town still has their original 2 units.

    my friend bought one elsewhere, sold it on for £100, he got it for £65, but yes it definitely takes the piss, enjoy your 70 million pounds for a shit product.

  • Darren #31 4 years ago

    @Machiavellian - There is some backtracking on the fourth level and at the start of the fifth, which retreads some of the fourth, but it's nowhere near as obvious as that disappointing second level which I found dull. Every level after that has just got better with each one so far as I've got (level six).

    And I agree with you about the graphics. Halo 3 only really looks noticeably jaggy when it's rendering artificial environments like buildings and interiors where boxes and railings suffer from bad aliasing but once you're in the outdoor locations, away from straight edges, it looks very nice, e.g. the jungle level at the start of the game.

  • homerramone #32 4 years ago

    Especially on a 46" 1080p LCD.

    Does it have more stuff on a larger TV with a higher resolution then ? That IS groundbreaking.

    Christ on his throne, why does everyone want to take a snipe at what is the most stunning sci-fi action game of recent times?
    Because
    A. That remark is subjective - To each their own.
    B. With that much hype and press coverage, people are going to say negative things. (There are going to be some no matter how much you like the game!)

  • George-Roper #33 4 years ago

    @homerramone

    "Especially on a 46" 1080p LCD.

    Does it have more stuff on a larger TV with a higher resolution then ? That IS groundbreaking.

    Christ on his throne, why does everyone want to take a snipe at what is the most stunning sci-fi action game of recent times?
    Because
    A. That remark is subjective - To each their own.
    B. With that much hype and press coverage, people are going to say negative things. (There are going to be some no matter how much you like the game!)"

    A) It's a blockbuster game. In the same way that you wouldn't want to experience a blockbuster movie on a 14" TV rather than a 46" HD TV, it's made *that much* better because of the larger viewing space. But I guess you're one of the exceptions who really would rather watch a blockbuster movie on your PSP, aren't you.

    B) Subjective, yes, but apparently the world at large agrees with me, including the much mentioned Edge review (whilst I do continue to maintain they're a bunch of pretentious tossers).

    Just because something is hyped doesn't automatically equate to negativity, especially in light of the amount of praise Halo 3 is getting. Shite like Heavenly Sword, which was anticipated as THE blockbuster PS3 release, deserves the negative attention it got precisely because it didn't deliver. Halo 3 did and the problem is that fanbois simply can't deal with it.

    Edited by 1 at 27/09/07 @ 14:13

  • UncleLou #34 4 years ago

    And this was always advertised as a DVD disc, which obviously can't play HD content anyway."

    Excuse my noobishness in all things high definition, but what would be the difference between a video in very high resolution on a DVD and the same video on a HD-DVD?

    Certainly I can just download a HD video and burn it onto a DVD, space issues aside?

  • kangarootoo #35 4 years ago

    @UncleLou

    Its not so much burning a movie onto a DVD at whatever res you like. The DVD video format definition includes resolution as one of its requirements.

    http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#DVD-Video (see the section on DVD-Video)

    So its not that they can't bung any old HD movie on a DVD, its that they need it to work in DVD movie players.

  • UncleLou #36 4 years ago

    Ok, thanks - but wouldn't this work on a PC DVD player? If I, for example, download one of these HD sample clips and burn them, my PC DVD player could play it, no?

    Sorry for dragging this slightly off-topic, I really have no idea how this works. :)

  • Miths #37 4 years ago

    "Ok, thanks - but wouldn't this work on a PC DVD player? If I, for example, download one of these HD sample clips and burn them, my PC DVD player could play it, no?"

    Technically that would be no different from playing any other lower res video in DivX, WMV, QuickTime or similar format, so yes - but they aren't in the same format used on regular DVDs (that's MPEG2 or something), so it would be more correct to say that your "media player" rather than "PC DVD player" can play them.

  • SwedBear #38 4 years ago

    Uncle Lou: Nope. If you burn something like a DVD then it has to use the DVD resolution (and MPEG2) and will be scaled down. You can of course put the content on the DVD as a file but that's a different thing.

    Some DVD-players (and a DVD player on the PC of course) can read data-DVD discs and play DivX movies etc. from it (as well as WMV-HD) but that's a bit different from a "real" DVD disc that has to be able to be played in every type of DVD.


    Edited by 1 at 27/09/07 @ 15:13

  • UncleLou #39 4 years ago

    I am beginning to understand. Thanks!

  • SwedBear #40 4 years ago

    As for the Legendary Edition. I'm also an old fart from the C64 era and I also remember fondly all those games that came with cool stuff. Infocom always had fun stuff with their games. I remember Cannon Fodder on the Amiga where you got á bullet to hang on your keychain.

    I guess that's why I like proper Special Editions/CE/LE. I have the Big Daddy and I got the LE edition of Halo 3. It's quite tacky but still fun. In 10-15 years time it will be fun to take out and remember the games.

    I though hate special editions that really bring nothing special to teh table. The SE of Viva Pinata was a joke. A rounded case made of thin plastic. It didn't cost more though but still.

    Gears of War also had a nice CE. That booklet is cool and it is extra fun for me as I got the larger version of the book that you got when you had a behind closed doors presentation of the game at E3 2005. Luckily I never threw it away after E3.

  • UncleLou #41 4 years ago

    As for the Legendary Edition. I'm also an old fart from the C64 era and I also remember fondly all those games that came with cool stuff. Infocom always had fun stuff with their games

    So am I - I am not a fan of most special editions these days though because the stuff you get is (for me, I might add) "useless tat", so to speak. Nice to have, but I have moved house too often to still buy things like that. :)

    In the past, esepcially as you mention Infocom, the stuff you found in the package was more related to the content of the game rather than just the topic, if that makes any sense. So instead of a t-shirt with the logo of the game on or a big daddy figure, you'd get something like an item you'd then find in the game, or something similar, very closely tied into the game itself. Of course you also find Big Daddys in Bioshock, but I hope it's clear what I mean. :)
    Edited by 1 at 27/09/07 @ 15:25

  • 3william56 #42 4 years ago

    UncleLou: if you take a HD video PC file, like an MPEG, or AVI, and burn it onto a DVD (or CD, or flash drive, or any other storage) still as a PC file, then yes, you can have a HD file playing off of a DVD.

    But if you burn the video as a DVD so it can play in a normal under-the-telly DVD player, the best quality it can do is PAL progressive scan - 576p.

    So Bungie man is (sorta) telling porkies. They could have put HD video files on the Halo disc, and the 360 could have played them in HD (as per any other cut screen). But they couldn't make a standalone DVD player compatible disc in HD.

  • RuudVanPistolrooy #43 4 years ago

    Re: 200 quid on eBay

    My cat was very disappointed when I told him he wasn't going to get his Master Chief helmet. I mean I do love him, despite the Whiskers breath. But two hundred smackers is greater than any feline. Guess it will have to be one of those Catamari [sic] bobble hats instead ..

  • SwedBear #44 4 years ago

    Uncle Lou: T-shirts I can be without but a thing like the Big Daddy figurine or the Halo 3 Helmet, that I like :). It's tacky and it's really not usable but it beats boring "how we made the game" DVD's and soundtracks :).

    But I see what you mean also. First and foremost I prefer stuff that is actually usefull for the game. A nice map (like the original Pirates, the CE version of Pirates! had a pretty crappy peper map), a special item/unit in the game, a more advanced manual/story book etc. Or it should be something completely freaked out like like the Big Daddy, the Halo 3 helmet or a piece of the Berlin Wall (WiC).

    If it's just a sound track or a metal tin or a "making of DVD" then I won't bother anymore.

    /B

  • Darren #45 4 years ago

    @3william56 - Good point. The Extras disc you get with the Collector's Edition has hi-def video footage on it so they could have done as you said and remastered the game in HD if they'd wanted to. Looks like the only proper way to experience these cutscenes in their "remastered" form is to play the actual games at 720p on the 360.

  • JonFE #46 4 years ago

    @kangarootoo,
    I, now, see the err of my ways; thanks for the solid advice :)

    @Darren,
    My experience with Halo 3 so far is rather limited (I barely scratched its surface last night for a couple of hours and the opening jungle looks lovely on my humble SDTV), so I don't really know how distracting or annoying the jaggies you refer to are (but I'll take your word for it). And I totally agree about H3 being a high profile game, which should care for and prevent such criticism.

    However, I think that any game developer should try and find the sweet balance between graphical quality, smooth framerates, fluid gameplay and render resolution and if they do find it at a bit less than the targeted 720p then good for them (and us).

    Nevertheless, I feel that the more anyone worries about these technicalities (or shortcomings, insufficiencies, you name them) the less he enjoys the merits of the game, which in the case of Halo 3 seem rather a lot.
    Edited by 1 at 27/09/07 @ 16:34

  • wired009 #47 4 years ago

    People who paid so much extra money for Legendary should at least get a decent set of cut scenes that don't have artifacts. I learned my lesson to never buy special addition games again after Halo2.

    Underdeliver seems to be the trend with Halo3. Anyone else feel like Halo3 = Halo1 campaign + Halo2 multiplayer with updated graphics? The reason I say that is how your objectives usu seem to be to run from pointA to pointB without any interesting twists in the the gameplay. I pretty much runned and gunned my way through heroic. Then there were the jungle levels that felt like the snow levels, compound hopping, a short beach drive, a short aerial battle, flood infested location, obligatory tank segment thrown in there somewhere, and of course the last level. Really felt like Halo greatest hits to me. I think I still like Halo1 campaign slightly better.

    Also, after watching all the adverts for Halo3 you kind of expect to fight some dramatic large scale battle against losing odds. You hardly ever run out of ammo if you plan a little bit, you usually don't fight with more than a handful of UNSC troops, you hardly ever play on the defensive, most of the time the aliens are the ones getting worked. I think they could have made better level sequences. There could have been a stealth mission, an escort mission, a battle situation that you can't win, alternate routes(a choice between path A or path B ea. with different challenges and consequences), etc.
    Edited by 2 at 27/09/07 @ 17:27

  • George-Roper #48 4 years ago

    @wired009

    "People who paid so much extra money for Legendary should at least get a decent set of cut scenes that don't have artifacts. I learned my lesson to never buy special addition games again after Halo2.

    Underdeliver seems to be the trend with Halo3. Anyone else feel like Halo3 = Halo1 campaign + Halo2 multiplayer with updated graphics?"

    No

  • Slamhound #49 4 years ago

    Yeah, I miss the feely era as well.

    I'm also somewhat of an art book whore as well. Forget the in-game miniatures and other guff for Guild Wars Factions and Nightfall, they were worth the cover price for the included art books, which are pretty fascinating. I even bought the WoW art book, regardless of the fact that most of the contents can be easily found on t'internet.

    Then again, I'm weird. I'd prefer my boxed edition of Uplink over any downloadable Steam edition, purely because it contains a black-card copy protection system, just like the old days. Talk about a nostalgia hit.

  • kangarootoo #50 4 years ago

    @RuudVanPistolrooy

    You are the second person to say they will put this helmet on their cat. I see a new website in the making.

  • Slamhound #51 4 years ago

    CatsWhoLookLik eMasterChief.com?

  • DocTep #52 4 years ago

    Unless the cat's head is the shape of an obelisk then there may be a bit of a problem with the 'cat head + Halo 3 LE helmet' idea...

  • NegativeZero #53 4 years ago

    Goddamn, it retailed for only 70 quid? It was $200 in Australia. :(

  • Aria #54 4 years ago

    Interesting how 'George Roper' doesn't get any replies anymore... Actually could it be that I'm the only person who hasn't kicked him to the ignore list yet?! Or has the fact that he’s a cock just become the norm?

  • smelly #55 4 years ago

    People pay that kind of money just to get some improved videos which shouldve been in the main game in the fucking first place?

    sheesh!

  • anonim1979 #56 4 years ago

    Halo 3 works in 1138x640 no AA
    Why?
    Halo uses their method for HDR (price for gorgeous light effects)
    Bungie method: (34Mb PDF)
    [link url=http ://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=995b221 d-6bbd-4731-ac82-d9524237d486&displaylang=en
    ]http://ww w.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...[/link]

    On X360 scaled games
    Two 640p Perfect Dark and Halo3 (1138x640)
    Three 600p PGR3, Call Of Duty 3 and Tomb Raider (1024x600)

    RR6 is ~ 1440x810
    1080p VT3 and NBA street (1920x1080)
    thats all - all other games use 1280x720


    On PS3
    540p - The Darkness (960x540)
    600p - Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, Call Of Duty 3

    Ninja gaiden Sigma 1280x720 (not 1080p game - software 2x scaller to 1080 from 960x720 - 1080p is more blurred than 720p!)

    GTHD use 1440x1080
    Rub'a'dub use 1600x1080
    Stardust HD use 1280x1080

    and more - mostly software scaling to 1080i (R6:Vegas - bad and blurry)

    more info
    http://fo rum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php...
    Edited by 1 at 28/09/07 @ 04:54

  • RedPanda #57 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • IAmBatman #58 4 years ago

    > I think they could have made better level sequences.

    Bungie are currently advertising for a senior level designer, you should apply, since your skills are obviously wasted tucked away in a comments thread here.