This is all very amusing, but let's get serious.

Games Halo Infinite
1

Right. So now that I’m finally unbanned and the dust surrounding the demo has (somewhat) settled, I’d like to unload upon you all my thoughts and grievances regarding both the demo itself as well as the drama surrounding it. Let’s address the drama first.

I understand that most of us here are old and jaded in, most likely, plenty more ways than one. I most certainly am not discounting myself from that demographic of people who have been hurt and lied to enough times to cause one to adopt cynicism as a hobby. As much as there is valid reason for us to channel all of our seething hatred into multi-million dollar companies, I find myself being rather amused on this particular occasion.
Never have I seen more visceral outrage and genuine panic over something so simple… so innocuous it’s almost enough to make me exhale through my nose in a way that indicates amusement. I’m not sure how else I could put my feelings over this entire clusterquack other than to say it’s all one massive, greasy NOTHING BURGER.

I am a member of what some would call the glorious PC master race. As it stands, I cannot find myself being any more disconnected from the entirety of the console wars even if I tried. You could say I have what’s known as an outsiders perspective and, guess what, you all look silly to me. Please take no offense to that observation as I am sure you would all take your first given chance to mock me in the same way, if you could.

All that said, here’s my official stance: Calm the **** down.

I totally understand having your entire body and soul depend upon the release of a single game, okay? I get it. I know that you consider any fault on behalf of 343 or Xbox or Microsoft, no matter how small and insignificant to be grossly offensive to your very being. But this? Is it really worth it? Dare I say you’re all being just a bit… overly dramatic? Can you honestly tell me that I’m wrong?
Regardless, how strongly you feel about the demo isn’t the issue. I may be presumptuous and most of you are just mildly concerned is all. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that your existence isn’t dependent on silly things such as brand loyalties or a decades old franchise that has been, for the most part, irrelevant for the past ten years.

The issue is this: You’re all focusing on the wrong things. Yes, an ambiguous statement, I know. Allow me to clarify.

What Xbox showcased in their latest event, to me, seemed to be nothing short of a miracle. I am still trying to get over the fact that a thing like the GAME PASS can exist in the same continuum as me. Likewise, the gameplay showcase for Halo Infinite itself is, in some ways, a bloody miracle.
Think about it. PS5’s showcase features some eye-catching big titles yes, but have we seen any actual gameplay, or any release dates for that matter? What’s that? We HAVEN’T? Does this mean that Halo Infinite is the very first game coming to next-gen that actually has GAMEPLAY TO SHOW?! AND IT HAS A ROUGH RELEASE DATE AS WELL??? Staggering. How could this have slipped through our fingers?..

“But silly faceless internet person” you might add “Halo Infinite doesn’t even look next-gen! How could you possibly justify that?!”

Listen. What does next-gen really mean? I’ll tell you what it means. 4k 60fps. That’s what it means. That’s literally all it means. All of those processing powers, those big GPU thingies and all dem TERAFLOPS or whatever they’re called… all they’re meant to do is run games at 4k 60fps. That’s it. When it comes to graphical fidelity, with games at least, we’ve hit rock bottom… or peak (depending on how you want to look at it). Let’s face it, we’re hitting diminishing returns at this point. Games aren’t going to look much better than they already do. Infinite’s demo did what it set out to achieve, it ran at 4k 60fps (on a debug PC WIP build, I might add), and it gave us a rough idea of what the game is like. It also showed that it looks better than any of its current direct mainstream competition in the fps genre, at least in my own very humble opinion.

“Oh but silly faceless internet person” you may interject “how can you justify them showing something so rough and unpolished after such a long time and build up of anticipation!?”

Well, I wonder that as well. To be honest, though, I prefer them showing us something rough as opposed to showing us a demo they spent an entire year polishing instead of working on the actual game, to the point where the demo looks better than the final product, don’t you? Not to mention, it’s an unprecedented time for the gaming industry. In the midst of a global pandemic, during which developers are handicapped and need to work from home, they’d better not get sidetracked with silly things like demos, especially not while working on the most ambitious game ever produced by the studio.

“Ah, but silly faceless internet persona” you may intervene once more “all of this sounds like excuses and damage control to me!!!”

Does it really? Because to me it sounds like some much needed perspective in this dark, cruel, unforgiving, uninformed world.
Look, Infinite is the very first Halo game to introduce true open world elements. As such, it’s not going to look precisely the same as its linear predecessors. To add, the Slipspace engine is pretty darn malleable, from what I hear. This is no doubt purposeful in order to give the dev team an easier workflow -which translates into faster and smoother development… you see what I’m getting at? If my theories are correct, this would mean that all of those imperfections we saw in the demo should be easily fixable… theoretically.

This is where my attention will begin to skew from the outrage itself into my personal impressions of the Halo Infinite gameplay demo.

2

Lol, this gave me a good laugh. The community is really upset with the game. Sometimes it’s funny to watch the world burn (Dark Knight reference).

3

> 2535419393377481;1:
> Right. So now that I’m finally unbanned and the dust surrounding the demo has (somewhat) settled, I’d like to unload upon you all my thoughts and grievances regarding both the demo itself as well as the drama surrounding it. Let’s address the drama first.
>
> I understand that most of us here are old and jaded in, most likely, plenty more ways than one. I most certainly am not discounting myself from that demographic of people who have been hurt and lied to enough times to cause one to adopt cynicism as a hobby. As much as there is valid reason for us to channel all of our seething hatred into multi-million dollar companies, I find myself being rather amused on this particular occasion.
> Never have I seen more visceral outrage and genuine panic over something so simple… so innocuous it’s almost enough to make me exhale through my nose in a way that indicates amusement. I’m not sure how else I could put my feelings over this entire clusterquack other than to say it’s all one massive, greasy NOTHING BURGER.
>
> I am a member of what some would call the glorious PC master race. As it stands, I cannot find myself being any more disconnected from the entirety of the console wars even if I tried. You could say I have what’s known as an outsiders perspective and, guess what, you all look silly to me. Please take no offense to that observation as I am sure you would all take your first given chance to mock me in the same way, if you could.
>
> All that said, here’s my official stance: __Calm the **** down.__I totally understand having your entire body and soul depend upon the release of a single game, okay? I get it. I know that you consider any fault on behalf of 343 or Xbox or Microsoft, no matter how small and insignificant to be grossly offensive to your very being. But this? Is it really worth it? Dare I say you’re all being just a bit… overly dramatic? Can you honestly tell me that I’m wrong?
> Regardless, how strongly you feel about the demo isn’t the issue. I may be presumptuous and most of you are just mildly concerned is all. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that your existence isn’t dependent on silly things such as brand loyalties or a decades old franchise that has been, for the most part, irrelevant for the past ten years.
>
> The issue is this: You’re all focusing on the wrong things. Yes, an ambiguous statement, I know. Allow me to clarify.
>
> What Xbox showcased in their latest event, to me, seemed to be nothing short of a miracle. I am still trying to get over the fact that a thing like the GAME PASS can exist in the same continuum as me. Likewise, the gameplay showcase for Halo Infinite itself is, in some ways, a bloody miracle.
> Think about it. PS5’s showcase features some eye-catching big titles yes, but have we seen any actual gameplay, or any release dates for that matter? What’s that? We HAVEN’T? Does this mean that Halo Infinite is the very first game coming to next-gen that actually has GAMEPLAY TO SHOW?! AND IT HAS A ROUGH RELEASE DATE AS WELL??? Staggering. How could this have slipped through our fingers?..
>
> “But silly faceless internet person” you might add “Halo Infinite doesn’t even look next-gen! How could you possibly justify that?!”
>
> Listen. What does next-gen really mean? I’ll tell you what it means. 4k 60fps. That’s what it means. That’s literally all it means. All of those processing powers, those big GPU thingies and all dem TERAFLOPS or whatever they’re called… all they’re meant to do is run games at 4k 60fps. That’s it. When it comes to graphical fidelity, with games at least, we’ve hit rock bottom… or peak (depending on how you want to look at it). Let’s face it, we’re hitting diminishing returns at this point. Games aren’t going to look much better than they already do. Infinite’s demo did what it set out to achieve, it ran at 4k 60fps (on a debug PC WIP build, I might add), and it gave us a rough idea of what the game is like. It also showed that it looks better than any of its current direct mainstream competition in the fps genre, at least in my own very humble opinion.
>
> “Oh but silly faceless internet person” you may interject “how can you justify them showing something so rough and unpolished after such a long time and build up of anticipation!?”
>
> Well, I wonder that as well. To be honest, though, I prefer them showing us something rough as opposed to showing us a demo they spent an entire year polishing instead of working on the actual game, to the point where the demo looks better than the final product, don’t you? Not to mention, it’s an unprecedented time for the gaming industry. In the midst of a global pandemic, during which developers are handicapped and need to work from home, they’d better not get sidetracked with silly things like demos, especially not while working on the most ambitious game ever produced by the studio.
>
> “Ah, but silly faceless internet persona” you may intervene once more “all of this sounds like excuses and damage control to me!!!”
>
> Does it really? Because to me it sounds like some much needed perspective in this dark, cruel, unforgiving, uninformed world.
> Look, Infinite is the very first Halo game to introduce true open world elements. As such, it’s not going to look precisely the same as its linear predecessors. To add, the Slipspace engine is pretty darn malleable, from what I hear. This is no doubt purposeful in order to give the dev team an easier workflow -which translates into faster and smoother development… you see what I’m getting at? If my theories are correct, this would mean that all of those imperfections we saw in the demo should be easily fixable… theoretically.
>
> This is where my attention will begin to skew from the outrage itself into my personal impressions of the Halo Infinite gameplay demo.

Agreed with nearly everything apart from we have reached peak graphics. Might be wishful thinking on my part though…

4

[CONTINUATION]

Now, onto the demo.

You may be thinking “He’s now gonna proceed to gush all over the demo and tell us what a masterpiece it is…”

I’m not.
I will give nothing but fair and impartial criticism, both objective and subjective (well mostly subjective, let’s be real). If any poor soul from 343i stumbles across this by any chance then, I urge you, please take it into consideration. If there is indeed any hope left, then some of these observation may actually reach the ears of poor, depressed dev and they may actually change it before the game comes out… a man can dream, can’t he?

Firstly, after taking some time to really absorb BOTH trailers AND doing some research (that word makes me sound very professional), I have come to the conclusion that what’s making the visuals appear flat, unappealing and plasticy for the most part has to do the way the lighting and colors are handled, some shader issues and some lack in texture detail here and there. My understanding that not all aspects of the engine were fully functional for that demo, which resulted in that noticeable lack of contrast and visual flair. These should be easy fixes. There are photoshoped examples out there that perfectly illustrate what I’m talking about. I wish I knew how to post them here, but even I am a mere mortal.
You could also argue that some of the ingame models appear lackluster and/or poorly designed, but I think that’s easily fixed by addressing the previous issues. You’d be surprised how big a difference lighting can make. Also, all that texture pop-in stuff I expect to be addressed by release.

Next on the list is a personal gripe of mine. Some of the visual effects need to be either yeeted or toned down. The yellow hexagons that appear when the shields are recharging are very distracting and serve no purpose. I’m sure deleting them will cost no development time.
Next it the bullet tracing, which is heavily exaggerated on plasma weapons and outright unnecessary on human weapons. The hit markers are pointless and clutter up the screen, at least give us the option to turn them off. Some of the explosions look flat, although I’m guessing that’s because of the aforementioned lighting issues. Otherwise, I quite like how all the effects themselves look. Explosions look very satisfying.
The amount of blood that spurts out of enemies is glorious to behold but, please 343 for the love of god, make blood splatter onto surfaces. You have no idea how big of a difference it makes in the overall experience.

Moving onto gameplay elements. I don’t know why people aren’t making a bigger deal out of the fact that Halo is going open world. This is the part I am personally most excited about. My only hope is that it doesn’t suffer from the same issues that many modern open world games suffer from. You know what I mean. Things like cookie cutter missions and boring, formulaic design. I don’t want there to be any grinding in Halo, although I’m pretty sure there isn’t any. It does genuinely feel like we will be able to go literally anywhere we can reach on the map, without any annoying invisible walls to stop us, which is good. That nostalgic-feeling sense of scale is really helped by the fact that the game is now open world.

Some people have criticized the AI, based on what exactly I don’t really know. It looks very promising. Brutes being able to throw suicide grunts is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The animations look pretty good too (apart from the obvious lack of facial animations on enemies, looking at you CRAIG…). I like how enemies react to being shot and the armor falling off of brutes is a nice touch. There are plenty more details interspersed throughout that I noticed, like enemies verbally reacting to what you’re doing. There was a grunt yelling “STOP! STOP!” just before being run over, which is cool. So far, I’m digging this attention to detail. And, obviously, this demo was played on a lighter difficulty.

The driving, to me, felt very nice. Vehicles seem like they’re gonna be a lot of fun in this game. I don’t understand why some people are making a fuss out of the Warthog sound… I’m guessing they’re too ashamed to admit they just want a Halo CE expansion.

The grappling hook looks like it will add some much needed variety to the sandbox. I can see some great moments coming from that thing. I love how you can hook a fusion could and throw it at enemies. Also, if I am unable to hook into a moving vehicle, huge opportunity wasted. I noticed the hook has limited range, limited charges, a cooldown and cannot be used while a different piece of equipment is equipped. No doubt, this is to prevent it from being abused. It would be make it a lot more valuable as well if additional hook charges were scattered throughout the world as pickups.

Now, sprint… while I am generally against sprint, it does seem to have been nerfed in this game, plus it makes more sense given the open world setting. It’s not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things although I’m not sure how it will impact MP. Also, I noticed the vehicles have been made faster as well, they seem to have thought this through at least.

The sound has pros and cons. The pros are that sounds are very crisp and echo nicely throughout the world. This will do wonders for immersion. The con is that most of the weapon sounds lack that metallic feel and impact. They sound a bit more like paintball guns than actual ones.

Speaking of immersion, this game overall seems like it will be incredibly immersive. The environments are very fleshed out and striking, featuring wildlife, lots of environmental storytelling all over the place and just a bit too many hexagonal pillars… seriously 343, I know the ring is broken, but you might wanna tone it down with the hexagonal pillars just a smidge. I get that the demo takes place only on that broken part of the ring but I’m assuming we will get the chance to visit plenty of different places and biomes beside the one we saw.

The story elements actually look fairly promising, I’m pleased to say. I love the contrast between brohammer and the chief. Pairing these two together was a smart move. I sort of get where they’re going with his character arc. The main bad guy, Escharum, looks interesting. I like that he is actually excited to fight the chief and even goes so far to encourage him. I hope he has a compelling arc like Tartarus from Halo 2. Maybe he will be forced to join our side by the end when the Flood breaks out? That would be neat. As far as the chief himself goes, I have no complaints. He is perfectly stoic and slightly comedic as he should be. The one area I would nitpick is some of the dialogue, especially Escharum’s speech. It feels a bit too long and exposition heavy. That could be purposeful for the sake of the demo, to give us an idea of the plot. That scene might be altered/removed from the final game.

Music is epic.

[END]

5

> 2535419393377481;4:
> [CONTINUATION]Now, onto the demo.
>
> You may be thinking “He’s now gonna proceed to gush all over the demo and tell us what a masterpiece it is…”
>
> I’m not.
> I will give nothing but fair and impartial criticism, both objective and subjective (well mostly subjective, let’s be real). If any poor soul from 343i stumbles across this by any chance then, I urge you, please take it into consideration. If there is indeed any hope left, then some of these observation may actually reach the ears of poor, depressed dev and they may actually change it before the game comes out… a man can dream, can’t he?
>
> Firstly, after taking some time to really absorb BOTH trailers AND doing some research (that word makes me sound very professional), I have come to the conclusion that what’s making the visuals appear flat, unappealing and plasticy for the most part has to do the way the lighting and colors are handled, some shader issues and some lack in texture detail here and there. My understanding that not all aspects of the engine were fully functional for that demo, which resulted in that noticeable lack of contrast and visual flair. These should be easy fixes. There are photoshoped examples out there that perfectly illustrate what I’m talking about. I wish I knew how to post them here, but even I am a mere mortal.
> You could also argue that some of the ingame models appear lackluster and/or poorly designed, but I think that’s easily fixed by addressing the previous issues. You’d be surprised how big a difference lighting can make. Also, all that texture pop-in stuff I expect to be addressed by release.
>
> Next on the list is a personal gripe of mine. Some of the visual effects need to be either yeeted or toned down. The yellow hexagons that appear when the shields are recharging are very distracting and serve no purpose. I’m sure deleting them will cost no development time.
> Next it the bullet tracing, which is heavily exaggerated on plasma weapons and outright unnecessary on human weapons. The hit markers are pointless and clutter up the screen, at least give us the option to turn them off. Some of the explosions look flat, although I’m guessing that’s because of the aforementioned lighting issues. Otherwise, I quite like how all the effects themselves look. Explosions look very satisfying.
> The amount of blood that spurts out of enemies is glorious to behold but, please 343 for the love of god, make blood splatter onto surfaces. You have no idea how big of a difference it makes in the overall experience.
>
> Moving onto gameplay elements. I don’t know why people aren’t making a bigger deal out of the fact that Halo is going open world. This is the part I am personally most excited about. My only hope is that it doesn’t suffer from the same issues that many modern open world games suffer from. You know what I mean. Things like cookie cutter missions and boring, formulaic design. I don’t want there to be any grinding in Halo, although I’m pretty sure there isn’t any. It does genuinely feel like we will be able to go literally anywhere we can reach on the map, without any annoying invisible walls to stop us, which is good. That nostalgic-feeling sense of scale is really helped by the fact that the game is now open world.
>
> Some people have criticized the AI, based on what exactly I don’t really know. It looks very promising. Brutes being able to throw suicide grunts is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The animations look pretty good too (apart from the obvious lack of facial animations on enemies, looking at you CRAIG…). I like how enemies react to being shot and the armor falling off of brutes is a nice touch. There are plenty more details interspersed throughout that I noticed, like enemies verbally reacting to what you’re doing. There was a grunt yelling “STOP! STOP!” just before being run over, which is cool. So far, I’m digging this attention to detail. And, obviously, this demo was played on a lighter difficulty.
>
> The driving, to me, felt very nice. Vehicles seem like they’re gonna be a lot of fun in this game. I don’t understand why some people are making a fuss out of the Warthog sound… I’m guessing they’re too ashamed to admit they just want a Halo CE expansion.
>
> The grappling hook looks like it will add some much needed variety to the sandbox. I can see some great moments coming from that thing. I love how you can hook a fusion could and throw it at enemies. Also, if I am unable to hook into a moving vehicle, huge opportunity wasted. I noticed the hook has limited range, limited charges, a cooldown and cannot be used while a different piece of equipment is equipped. No doubt, this is to prevent it from being abused. It would be make it a lot more valuable as well if additional hook charges were scattered throughout the world as pickups.
>
> Now, sprint… while I am generally against sprint, it does seem to have been nerfed in this game, plus it makes more sense given the open world setting. It’s not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things although I’m not sure how it will impact MP. Also, I noticed the vehicles have been made faster as well, they seem to have thought this through at least.
>
> The sound has pros and cons. The pros are that sounds are very crisp and echo nicely throughout the world. This will do wonders for immersion. The con is that most of the weapon sounds lack that metallic feel and impact. They sound a bit more like paintball guns than actual ones.
>
> Speaking of immersion, this game overall seems like it will be incredibly immersive. The environments are very fleshed out and striking, featuring wildlife, lots of environmental storytelling all over the place and just a bit too many hexagonal pillars… seriously 343, I know the ring is broken, but you might wanna tone it down with the hexagonal pillars just a smidge. I get that the demo takes place only on that broken part of the ring but I’m assuming we will get the chance to visit plenty of different places and biomes beside the one we saw.
>
> The story elements actually look fairly promising, I’m pleased to say. I love the contrast between brohammer and the chief. Pairing these two together was a smart move. I sort of get where they’re going with his character arc. The main bad guy, Escharum, looks interesting. I like that he is actually excited to fight the chief and even goes so far to encourage him. I hope he has a compelling arc like Tartarus from Halo 2. Maybe he will be forced to join our side by the end when the Flood breaks out? That would be neat. As far as the chief himself goes, I have no complaints. He is perfectly stoic and slightly comedic as he should be. The one area I would nitpick is some of the dialogue, especially Escharum’s speech. It feels a bit too long and exposition heavy. That could be purposeful for the sake of the demo, to give us an idea of the plot. That scene might be altered/removed from the final game.
>
> Music is epic.
>
> [END]

I’m so curious to know how much time you spent on these posts O_o
so much info

6

Definitely agree that people need to calm themselves down, I posted something the day of the showcase in support for the game and immediately got jumped for liking what I saw… There are definitely toxic people in the halo community. If I like something and you don’t it is not your job to berate me or convince me I’m wrong… how can my opinion be wrong? its my opinion… We are allowed individual thought and should be able to disagree on something without bashing each other.

7

I disagree with your thesis. I would be willing to debate you but you seem more interested in amusement and being appreciated.

The developer does not respect classic halo and continues to glue call of duty features such as hitmarker and sprint into an incompatible space.

Halo is simple. It doesn’t have ads/smartscope or hit markers. That is my thesis.

Call of Duty mobility and hitmarker failed for the past 3 games and it will fail for the 4th. Any game with those features is dead on arrival.

8

> 2533274850635074;5:
> > 2535419393377481;4:
> >
>
> I’m so curious to know how much time you spent on these posts O_o
> so much info

I got pretty tired by the end, I probably forgot a bunch of stuff that I’ll remember tomorrow…

9

> 2533274850635074;5:
> > 2535419393377481;4:
> > [CONTINUATION]Now, onto the demo.
> >
> > You may be thinking “He’s now gonna proceed to gush all over the demo and tell us what a masterpiece it is…”
> >
> > I’m not.
> > I will give nothing but fair and impartial criticism, both objective and subjective (well mostly subjective, let’s be real). If any poor soul from 343i stumbles across this by any chance then, I urge you, please take it into consideration. If there is indeed any hope left, then some of these observation may actually reach the ears of poor, depressed dev and they may actually change it before the game comes out… a man can dream, can’t he?
> >
> > Firstly, after taking some time to really absorb BOTH trailers AND doing some research (that word makes me sound very professional), I have come to the conclusion that what’s making the visuals appear flat, unappealing and plasticy for the most part has to do the way the lighting and colors are handled, some shader issues and some lack in texture detail here and there. My understanding that not all aspects of the engine were fully functional for that demo, which resulted in that noticeable lack of contrast and visual flair. These should be easy fixes. There are photoshoped examples out there that perfectly illustrate what I’m talking about. I wish I knew how to post them here, but even I am a mere mortal.
> > You could also argue that some of the ingame models appear lackluster and/or poorly designed, but I think that’s easily fixed by addressing the previous issues. You’d be surprised how big a difference lighting can make. Also, all that texture pop-in stuff I expect to be addressed by release.
> >
> > Next on the list is a personal gripe of mine. Some of the visual effects need to be either yeeted or toned down. The yellow hexagons that appear when the shields are recharging are very distracting and serve no purpose. I’m sure deleting them will cost no development time.
> > Next it the bullet tracing, which is heavily exaggerated on plasma weapons and outright unnecessary on human weapons. The hit markers are pointless and clutter up the screen, at least give us the option to turn them off. Some of the explosions look flat, although I’m guessing that’s because of the aforementioned lighting issues. Otherwise, I quite like how all the effects themselves look. Explosions look very satisfying.
> > The amount of blood that spurts out of enemies is glorious to behold but, please 343 for the love of god, make blood splatter onto surfaces. You have no idea how big of a difference it makes in the overall experience.
> >
> > Moving onto gameplay elements. I don’t know why people aren’t making a bigger deal out of the fact that Halo is going open world. This is the part I am personally most excited about. My only hope is that it doesn’t suffer from the same issues that many modern open world games suffer from. You know what I mean. Things like cookie cutter missions and boring, formulaic design. I don’t want there to be any grinding in Halo, although I’m pretty sure there isn’t any. It does genuinely feel like we will be able to go literally anywhere we can reach on the map, without any annoying invisible walls to stop us, which is good. That nostalgic-feeling sense of scale is really helped by the fact that the game is now open world.
> >
> > Some people have criticized the AI, based on what exactly I don’t really know. It looks very promising. Brutes being able to throw suicide grunts is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The animations look pretty good too (apart from the obvious lack of facial animations on enemies, looking at you CRAIG…). I like how enemies react to being shot and the armor falling off of brutes is a nice touch. There are plenty more details interspersed throughout that I noticed, like enemies verbally reacting to what you’re doing. There was a grunt yelling “STOP! STOP!” just before being run over, which is cool. So far, I’m digging this attention to detail. And, obviously, this demo was played on a lighter difficulty.
> >
> > The driving, to me, felt very nice. Vehicles seem like they’re gonna be a lot of fun in this game. I don’t understand why some people are making a fuss out of the Warthog sound… I’m guessing they’re too ashamed to admit they just want a Halo CE expansion.
> >
> > The grappling hook looks like it will add some much needed variety to the sandbox. I can see some great moments coming from that thing. I love how you can hook a fusion could and throw it at enemies. Also, if I am unable to hook into a moving vehicle, huge opportunity wasted. I noticed the hook has limited range, limited charges, a cooldown and cannot be used while a different piece of equipment is equipped. No doubt, this is to prevent it from being abused. It would be make it a lot more valuable as well if additional hook charges were scattered throughout the world as pickups.
> >
> > Now, sprint… while I am generally against sprint, it does seem to have been nerfed in this game, plus it makes more sense given the open world setting. It’s not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things although I’m not sure how it will impact MP. Also, I noticed the vehicles have been made faster as well, they seem to have thought this through at least.
> >
> > The sound has pros and cons. The pros are that sounds are very crisp and echo nicely throughout the world. This will do wonders for immersion. The con is that most of the weapon sounds lack that metallic feel and impact. They sound a bit more like paintball guns than actual ones.
> >
> > Speaking of immersion, this game overall seems like it will be incredibly immersive. The environments are very fleshed out and striking, featuring wildlife, lots of environmental storytelling all over the place and just a bit too many hexagonal pillars… seriously 343, I know the ring is broken, but you might wanna tone it down with the hexagonal pillars just a smidge. I get that the demo takes place only on that broken part of the ring but I’m assuming we will get the chance to visit plenty of different places and biomes beside the one we saw.
> >
> > The story elements actually look fairly promising, I’m pleased to say. I love the contrast between brohammer and the chief. Pairing these two together was a smart move. I sort of get where they’re going with his character arc. The main bad guy, Escharum, looks interesting. I like that he is actually excited to fight the chief and even goes so far to encourage him. I hope he has a compelling arc like Tartarus from Halo 2. Maybe he will be forced to join our side by the end when the Flood breaks out? That would be neat. As far as the chief himself goes, I have no complaints. He is perfectly stoic and slightly comedic as he should be. The one area I would nitpick is some of the dialogue, especially Escharum’s speech. It feels a bit too long and exposition heavy. That could be purposeful for the sake of the demo, to give us an idea of the plot. That scene might be altered/removed from the final game.
> >
> > Music is epic.
> >
> > [END]
>
> I’m so curious to know how much time you spent on these posts O_o
> so much info

Way to much lol

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> 2535419393377481;8:
> > 2533274850635074;5:
> > > 2535419393377481;4:
> > >
> >
> > I’m so curious to know how much time you spent on these posts O_o
> > so much info
>
> I got pretty tired by the end, I probably forgot a bunch of stuff that I’ll remember tomorrow…

lol, well we’ll be here to read it when you finish

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> 2535419393377481;1:
> Right. So now that I’m finally unbanned and the dust surrounding the demo has (somewhat) settled, I’d like to unload upon you all my thoughts and grievances regarding both the demo itself as well as the drama surrounding it. Let’s address the drama first.
>
> I understand that most of us here are old and jaded in, most likely, plenty more ways than one. I most certainly am not discounting myself from that demographic of people who have been hurt and lied to enough times to cause one to adopt cynicism as a hobby. As much as there is valid reason for us to channel all of our seething hatred into multi-million dollar companies, I find myself being rather amused on this particular occasion.
> Never have I seen more visceral outrage and genuine panic over something so simple… so innocuous it’s almost enough to make me exhale through my nose in a way that indicates amusement. I’m not sure how else I could put my feelings over this entire clusterquack other than to say it’s all one massive, greasy NOTHING BURGER.
>
> I am a member of what some would call the glorious PC master race. As it stands, I cannot find myself being any more disconnected from the entirety of the console wars even if I tried. You could say I have what’s known as an outsiders perspective and, guess what, you all look silly to me. Please take no offense to that observation as I am sure you would all take your first given chance to mock me in the same way, if you could.
>
> All that said, here’s my official stance: __Calm the **** down.__I totally understand having your entire body and soul depend upon the release of a single game, okay? I get it. I know that you consider any fault on behalf of 343 or Xbox or Microsoft, no matter how small and insignificant to be grossly offensive to your very being. But this? Is it really worth it? Dare I say you’re all being just a bit… overly dramatic? Can you honestly tell me that I’m wrong?
> Regardless, how strongly you feel about the demo isn’t the issue. I may be presumptuous and most of you are just mildly concerned is all. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that your existence isn’t dependent on silly things such as brand loyalties or a decades old franchise that has been, for the most part, irrelevant for the past ten years.
>
> The issue is this: You’re all focusing on the wrong things. Yes, an ambiguous statement, I know. Allow me to clarify.
>
> What Xbox showcased in their latest event, to me, seemed to be nothing short of a miracle. I am still trying to get over the fact that a thing like the GAME PASS can exist in the same continuum as me. Likewise, the gameplay showcase for Halo Infinite itself is, in some ways, a bloody miracle.
> Think about it. PS5’s showcase features some eye-catching big titles yes, but have we seen any actual gameplay, or any release dates for that matter? What’s that? We HAVEN’T? Does this mean that Halo Infinite is the very first game coming to next-gen that actually has GAMEPLAY TO SHOW?! AND IT HAS A ROUGH RELEASE DATE AS WELL??? Staggering. How could this have slipped through our fingers?..
>
> “But silly faceless internet person” you might add “Halo Infinite doesn’t even look next-gen! How could you possibly justify that?!”
>
> Listen. What does next-gen really mean? I’ll tell you what it means. 4k 60fps. That’s what it means. That’s literally all it means. All of those processing powers, those big GPU thingies and all dem TERAFLOPS or whatever they’re called… all they’re meant to do is run games at 4k 60fps. That’s it. When it comes to graphical fidelity, with games at least, we’ve hit rock bottom… or peak (depending on how you want to look at it). Let’s face it, we’re hitting diminishing returns at this point. Games aren’t going to look much better than they already do. Infinite’s demo did what it set out to achieve, it ran at 4k 60fps (on a debug PC WIP build, I might add), and it gave us a rough idea of what the game is like. It also showed that it looks better than any of its current direct mainstream competition in the fps genre, at least in my own very humble opinion.
>
> “Oh but silly faceless internet person” you may interject “how can you justify them showing something so rough and unpolished after such a long time and build up of anticipation!?”
>
> Well, I wonder that as well. To be honest, though, I prefer them showing us something rough as opposed to showing us a demo they spent an entire year polishing instead of working on the actual game, to the point where the demo looks better than the final product, don’t you? Not to mention, it’s an unprecedented time for the gaming industry. In the midst of a global pandemic, during which developers are handicapped and need to work from home, they’d better not get sidetracked with silly things like demos, especially not while working on the most ambitious game ever produced by the studio.
>
> “Ah, but silly faceless internet persona” you may intervene once more “all of this sounds like excuses and damage control to me!!!”
>
> Does it really? Because to me it sounds like some much needed perspective in this dark, cruel, unforgiving, uninformed world.
> Look, Infinite is the very first Halo game to introduce true open world elements. As such, it’s not going to look precisely the same as its linear predecessors. To add, the Slipspace engine is pretty darn malleable, from what I hear. This is no doubt purposeful in order to give the dev team an easier workflow -which translates into faster and smoother development… you see what I’m getting at? If my theories are correct, this would mean that all of those imperfections we saw in the demo should be easily fixable… theoretically.
>
> This is where my attention will begin to skew from the outrage itself into my personal impressions of the Halo Infinite gameplay demo.

“When it comes to graphical fidelity, with games at least, we’ve hit rock bottom… or peak” - You have no clue about all the new tech in the gaming industry, do you? Games are gonna look much better in the coming years. Also, just compare another game like Red Dead Redemption 2 to Halo Infinite… graphics are way better on RDR2, this has nothing to do with “hitting rock bottom” of graphical fidelity.

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> 2535441318347302;7:
> I disagree with your thesis. I would be willing to debate you but you seem more interested in amusement and being appreciated.
>
> The developer does not respect classic halo and continues to glue call of duty features such as hitmarker and sprint into an incompatible space.
>
> Halo is simple. It doesn’t have ads/smartscope or hit markers. That is my thesis.
>
> Call of Duty mobility and hitmarker failed for the past 3 games and it will fail for the 4th. Any game with those features is dead on arrival.

I respect your opinion, but disagree with it.

I think it might be time to move on. For you that is. Clearly, 343 isn’t out to cater to your or anyone’s specific needs. If you don’t like what they’re doing, I don’t see much point in trying to convince others that do. I agree with things like hitmarkers and sprinting being unnecessary, but I can’t find it in myself to care enough about those things to consider such a cynical viewpoint.

I’ll be judging this game properly when it comes out. If it sucks, it sucks. As for you, I hope you can move on from this and realize that the Halo you knew happened only once and isn’t going to happen again.

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> 2533274847926251;11:
> > 2535419393377481;1:
> >
>
> “When it comes to graphical fidelity, with games at least, we’ve hit rock bottom… or peak” - You have no clue about all the new tech in the gaming industry, do you? Games are gonna look much better in the coming years. Also, just compare another game like Red Dead Redemption 2 to Halo Infinite… graphics are way better on RDR2, this has nothing to do with “hitting rock bottom” of graphical fidelity.

Better how? How much more realistic looking can they get before we realize there’s no point?

14

I can certainly get on board with the first few paragraphs of your initial post in that I agree that most reactions to the Xbox Showcase and especially the Infinite demo are overblown- I do think it’s a bit ironic that this thesis preceded such a vast post (and another) about these very same things.

Suffice it to say, there are a lot of cynics among us here on the forums. Many of us are bitter and there’s an unfortunate tendency among longtime Halo fans to attribute malinent to 343i whenever we’re dissatisfied with something they put out. True enough. But 343i also has their defenders, as you’ve so plainly demonstrated in your verbose defense of the showcase and demo. Some folks are being unnecessarily hard on it, but some criticism is certainly fair and shouldn’t come as a terrible shock under the best or circumstances, let alone when there are some very fair sticking points.

Bottom line, the game isn’t out yet, so any criticism or defense of it is necessarily incomplete. We’re all speculating based on what we’ve seen, putting our own positive or negative spins on our personal takes. The forums are for discussing these points of view, though. I might suggest you write an essay and put it on YouTube or link to it in the Community Creations tab if you’re really more interested in capturing and conveying a whole, well formed perspective and argument than you are in fielding discussion.

I’ve got a bit of a reputation for being too long-winded here on the forums, so please don’t take this as anything but constructive advice from someone with a similar problem, but people have a hard time engaging with posts this long. Best of luck to you in the future and I hope your positive feelings about Infinite are exhonorated when we all get to play the game later this year.