ODST: Halo Evolved Comments by Richard Leadbetter

ODST and halo look like a last gen game compared to Killzone2.

@Buran re: "it lacks in the wireframe department"

Speaking as a 3D artist I haven't the first clue what the hell you mean. What does "lacking in the wireframe department" entail? Why would that be bad? What the fuck,basically, are you talking about?


Utter bollocks.

miiiguel: I don't know where I said that Sony should be in defense or aerospace. I made a comparison, like done in the whole article. I said that like in other high-tech industries, Sony (together with T and I) had the guts to actually innovate with new technology, as opposed to its main competitor. Its main competitor brought the online community aspect of gaming forward - that is where its main merit lies, certainly not on hardware.

How are you going to dismiss that?

If the 360 game looks better, graphics are everything.

If the PS3 game looks better, gameplay is everything.

Typical, transparent eurogamer.

I think Bungie really need a new engine, the Halo one is ugly and looks old fashioned. The trailer for their "new" games look out dated and a bit rubbish really.

Considering the scale involved... it looks excellent, and the tech is nothing short of amazing. Recordings, screenshots etc.

Nothing in Killzone 2 reaches the scale of the battles in Halo 3. Nothing in Gears 2 reaches the scale of Halo 3.

It's massive.

Not sure if I could go back to Halo after KZ2 it would feel like a step backward ...

Halo 3 has a considerable higher metacritic average than Killzone 2 that means most reviewers like Halo 3 more than KZ2.
Does that make Halo 3 a better game? Probably. I have completed both camapigns and played both online i know wich one i prefer.

@ Brains: "aspect of gaming forward - that is where its main merit lies, certainly not on hardware."
Oh you're so right, I dig games not "hardware", I'm not a mechanic, lol. You get kicks out of spec sheets, fair enough.

@Gaz40 - "The kind of engine I like in a shooter is CoD, running at solid 60fps and still with some great effects."

This I agree with.

The last three Call of Duty games (and no doubt Modern Warfare 2 too) run at 600p-ish but they also use AA so they still look very good. The fact that this engine looks so good and runs (mostly) at 60 fps is especially impressive on the consoles. IMO, it's one of the best engines to date in that it runs well on all the consoles with virtually no issues such as excessive jaggies, texture pop in or screen tearing, something you can't say about many other engines such as Unreal Engine 3 for example.

The engine Halo 3 and ODST use is pretty average if you ask me because Bungie decided to focus on HDR lighting, which in all honestly looks no better and no worst than other Xbox 360 games out there. This HDR lighting meant that they couldn't use AA or a 720p resolution because the 10 MB frame buffer wasn't big enough. So in that respect, from my point of view their efforts were wasted. Halo 3 could look moderately impressive at times but it was never a showcase for the graphical abilities of the Xbox 360 even when it was released. That ODST shows no obvious improvement since then is very surprising really.

N@

"Halo 3 is still the best looking game on 360"

Halo 3 isnt even close compared to the other AAA 360 titles like Gears 2. Its one of the best 360 games, but far from one of the best looking ones.

What makes the halo series of games so great, is that they're great fun. The graphics on halo odst are fine. I just hope its fun.

Halo 3 is better than killzone 2 because its got a far superior single player campaign, when it comes to multiplayer though things are a lot closer. Its like apples and oranges, if I had to pick one I'd go for halo 3s multiplayer but then again I don't have to choose between either because I have both and enjoy both.

Here's how to easily make Halo look like Killzone 2.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v28/pu...

KZ2 is all about the vignette filter. Great for screenshots and vids, but as far as visual clarity when playing is concerned, it's a big negative.

Worse still, vignette filters make my eyes tired, and I've had to pass on several racing games that I'd like to play because of them.

"Not sure if I could go back to Halo after KZ2 it would feel like a step backward"

dull linear firefights with little scale were a step forwards?

each to their own i guess.

@miiiguel:" Oh you're so right, I dig games not "hardware", I'm not a mechanic, lol. You get kicks out of spec sheets, fair enough."

wrong conclusion again, hmm? ;)

I get kicks from innovation, including innovative games. There too, is what Sony seems to be better at. They started EyeToy, including motion based gaming back in 2003, which lead up to Natal. They started singstar. They co-developed the most powerful processor the world knows today. They had Ico, SotC and Okami on PS2. They brought gaming to the masses with PS1 and its incredibly well thought-out marketing. Without it, there might as well not have been Xbox. Each gen, the platform brings us something genuinly new - instead of sticking to the tried and tested formula's like its main competitor. For me, that deserves respect and certainly did not warrant the negative press Sony received at the start of this gen. MS innovated the online aspect - and charges premium for it.

How are you going to deny that? By giving another evasive answer? O_o

MeBrains they co-developed what?????

You give Sony FAR too much credit, Sony flash the cash and let others work everthing out for them these days, eyetoy was just a standard webcamera pretty much... I think there were probably already people working on PC Webcam applications just like it and Sony snapped them up.

PS1? What was innovative about it? I wonder apart from the CD drive just how much Sony ripped directly from what they saw when they were working as a partner with Nintendo till they pulled out. The only thing Sony did was show the everyone else in the industry how to market your hardware right... it was all marketing not innovation, all of the credit for the library is owed to 3rd party devs who could just as easily have been making the same games elsewhere(granted the increased market was there so they could spend more/bigger loan/investment/grants).

PS2? Overrated on its hardware, there was no reason to complicate it they could have gone down conventional methods to save themselves and everyone else alot of money... but atleast it handle piracy for a while longer right? Maybe Bleem ticked them off more than they let on.

@Law07

"Halo 3 is not the best looking 360 game there is, I say Gears 2 is. Then again I don't own a 360 though. "

I do own a 360, do own the GeOW2 Collector's Edition, and I agree. Halo 3 doesn't display the same graphical prowess as Gears 2. However, I do think that Halo 3's draw distances are much, much better than Gears.

@trebell

"Traded in after two weeks sadly"

I am curious as to how KZ2 ran on your 360? Your profile seems to state you have only 360 games.

Going out on a limb here, but I believe trebell has flower!

@Widge

"Going out on a limb here, but I believe trebell has flower!"

Not according to his game collection and profile :)

@Calgon: we seem to be agreeing quite well on what we are saying about two out of three sony consoles there's been. Only, I give props to them, while you seem to be more negative about Sony's accomplishments.

Cell? never mind that most of the CPU know-how was with IBM, factory construction with Toshiba and the cash with Sony. Fact is that Sony was a crucial part of the STI alliance leading up to cell. I do not know which line of business you are in, but the one with the cash steers and decides. Without it, no product. So, props (also) to Sony for bringing the world CELL - although admittedly, I am not seeing that much distinct applications. Maybe that is because I am not following super-computing too much...

PS1? My mentioning their contribution with PS1 was exactly and only the marketing part - or did I say something else about the console? We seem to agree there then. I give props to them. Without PS1, gaming would never have become the size it is now.

PS2? I did not praise its hardware, although arguably PS2's HW also tried innovation instead of going for the tried and tested. What I did praise was its software library. Most notably SotC, Ico, Okami and the like.

Flash the cash?! Again, without cash, no products. Also, MS has consistenly and continuously been doing this throughout its history. I do not even blame them. Business as usual I guess. This gen, they even flashed the cash (1) to buy out part of the technology being financed by Sony and (2) to make sure that their processor was done first. I'll just mention "some games" as well. Flash the cash might indeed have bought them Eyetoy. Frankly I don't really know who developed the product. I do know that Sony throughout its history has always tried to invent and innovate and that Eyetoy might as well have been a Sony-internal product.

Me Brains - Ah but the biggest problem was with...

They co-developed the most powerful processor the world knows today.

Where on earth did you hear that? Unlearn it where ever you got it from, there's enthusiam about the CELL which I have no problem with(personally I dont see CELL being the way forward for anyone but Sony who will probably put the next generation of it in PS4 beyond that though is anyones guess) but thats got to take the buscuit for over the top hyperbole... was it just a sarcastic jibe to wind him up?

If not just... no... sorry its nowhere near, even if I am going to give you credit for meaning consumer level chips on the market.

As for flashing the cash I agree... it just happens to be a common weapon for anti-Xbox folk, in some peoples eyes MS just bought their way to where they are now and Sony are the shining example of innovation and a working class hero to boot. :/

@Calgon: in much ways it is the most powerfull processor. It easily can be given that name. In a lot of benchmark tests - pure computational power - cell comes out on top. Read here for example: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~samw/researc...

Cell's also used in the fastest HPC on earth: http://www.top500.org/lists/2008/11, which also seems to be the most energy efficient. So no sarcastic jibe. No hyperbole. It is looking at some facts. I might be wrong, so correct me with factual information if that is the case.

Does it mean it is the most powerfull processor for all imaginable applications? I personally do not think so as well...

as for me regarding Sony. I have always liked their products and have always thought they are innovating. C1's picturebook for example, released in 2001 was the first netbook. Problem with the company from time to time is that they release technology too soon, when consumers are just not ready yet. Just look at this list: the first popular transistor radio, Trinitron, Betamax / Betacam, 3,5'' floppies, co-dev'd the CD, discman, video8 / Hi8, DAT... Arguably from that point onward, Sony had more of an uphill struggle to create leading technology, but kept innovating (or tried to depends on who you ask) with SACD, MD, PS1, MemoryStick, SDDS, S/PDIF, ATRAC, BluRay...

but anyhows. /me likes the company, some don't. (btw, don't get me wrong, I like MS as well. I got "opposed" to the 360 community when it was undeservedly negative towards sony because of what it was doing with PS3. Sony did not deserve such negativism - that imho was hyperbole!)

Ok Mebrains Im short on time but will come back to it later maybe but for a start your first link proves very little you cannot measure everything by GFlops... if you did someone could release a hybrid GPU as a CPU and utterly pown the CELL... thats one of the reasons.

Contrary to your beleifs theres been very little interest in CELL... the link you provideed for most powerfull super computer seems broken, Im skeptical so fix it please... be interested to see just HOW MANY of these processors were needed to make a supercomputer out of them... Im geussing alot... it could be that they were offered cheap by a certain company to increase CELLS cred. ;)

re 'Halo has never really been about the visuals anyway.'

Hmm.... I don't agree. The first Halo was surely one of the best looking games of its day, and this was one of it's big draws surely? - it was certainly held up as a flagship Xbox title by MS, and as a demonstration of what the console was capable of. (of course it also had fantastic gameplay, controls, ai etc....)

link is fixed. the comma got taken into the URL...

as for amount of processors, the top 3 have (processors, not cores! # of cores being inherently part of the CPU design):
1) RoadRunner: 12.960 Cells and 6.480 Opterons - totals 19.440/
2) Cray Jaguar: 45.000 Opterons
3) Pleyades: 12.800 Xeons (but it runs at 40% of roadrunner's speed)

Power-consumption wise: RoadRunner comes out on top.

But hey, I just looked this up myself. It does seem to prove the point I am making. I am no expert though, so do point out if I am misinterpreting the data I am looking at.

edit: Pleyades uses Xeons not cells like was written before.

Right ok first to your ray tracing benchmark test, it was a test probably paid for by Sony back in 2006(common practise though, all CPU and GPU companies do it to take to their press conferences so you have to be carefull with how much credit you give them) as Ive said elsewhere one of the most common reasons people get confused about how powerfull CELL is, is the GFLOPs figures... ie people saying its a super computer on a chip and the like(which is amusing).

I said you could compare these figures directly to that of a modern GPU(the SPU cores are where the bulk of this fugures come from and as you probably know the SPU cores themselves are pretty simple/not robust compared to the modern CPU core... so they wont be as flexible with double precision operations) from memory you could compare CELLS 218 GFLOPs to a modern GPUs 900 GFLOPs+(probably higher now add to that an SLI configuration and you can double it although thats extra expense so probably not wise if it was a price performance ratio) and its not looking too hot.

So on to your other link which is working now, the chip they are using is the PowerXCell™ 8i multi-core processor which is a newer generation based on CELL for the server market as I understand it, so its not the one in the PS3 by any means I expect its much improved in the areas it was lacking(specifically improvements to the SPUs in the double precision and more complex stuff required for CPUs at that level). Interesting though that they still needed some Opterons in there so they still(even after the improvements they must have added to this generation for the server market) have to be lacking somewhere or it wouldnt have been necessary(ie they'd have gone with a full set of PowerXCell 8i).

Pretty good going by IBM all the same though(maybe there is a market for CELL technology in the server market, I say expect something new to take the spotlight again soon as is usually the case there), still that Supercomputer was the first to reach 1 petraflop apparenly(which is Im guessing is how they order the list)and in the same month the latest upgrade to the Cray XT Jaguar supercomputer put it at 1.64 petraflops so they must have just missed it.

I'm sure there must be other lists out there which are more thorough with their criteria but regardless, that list is about to be updated again this month so it could all change again.

Also as Ive said elsewhere IBM are showing no signs of leaving their Power PC line behind either quite the opposite, Power6 taking the fastest processor on the market title when it was released IIRC.

@Stoatboy re: "Speaking as a 3D artist I haven't the first clue what the hell you mean. What does "lacking in the wireframe department" entail? Why would that be bad? What the fuck,basically, are you talking about? Utter bollocks."


The amout of polygons used in exterior landscapes in the single player campaign and the modelling of the characters -enemies and allies- are terrible low. Most of the building extructures are very simple, based on cubes and with a evidence of lacking in geometric detail.

Things are even worse when the Halo 3 engine try to render organic assets as trees, grass, rocks. Sometimes the parallax in the textures are capable to hide these problems, but most of times in outdoor enviroments -maily in "big, open, landscapes"- the absence of power to render complex geometyry is evident. Look at those maps in Halo 3 and then look to Bad Company, Far Cry 2 or COD. All of them can render much richer -in complexity and cdetail- outdoor mpas in both sp campaign and multiplayer.

Christ, what a lot of long winded moaning that does nothing to diminish Halo's position as a fucking awesome FPS.

Alone in the Dark is prettier than either of them.

@sparrows: the article is about technical merrit. not about playability, hmm?!