• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Halo 3 PUBLIC free preview: IMAX screen, Seattle Pacific Science Center, August 21

aaaaa0

Member
godhandiscen said:
That was a huge screen. Did you notice any jaggies?

Whatever projector/scaler they used, I WANT ONE. There was suprisingly few jaggies, and the image quality was outstanding.
 
Okay, it was just tsavo and some forgeries. Megatonnage averted. Hope everyone enjoyed the show. I can't wait to get some more detailed accounts.
 

armubaba

Member
Memphis Reigns said:
It is such a beautiful game, screenshots do not do this game any justice at all. While screens look good, this game looks 100x better in motion. The lighting, framerate, explosions looked amazing. At one point a Covenant Cruiser flys overhead and it "WOWd" me more than GOW ever did. The whole level is played using the Warthog. They played it on an easy setting but the AI was still very well done. Brutes threw down shields and Grunts ran for their lives if you killed a Brute leader. The sky and backdrop/drawdistance is also very awe inspiring. I wish you guys could've seen it. I am sure a vid will be available soon. Oh yah, and they showed off the brute hammer! IT was SICK!

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. I CANNOT WAIT DAMNIT. BUNGIE RELEASE TEH VIDS PLEASE!

I can't tell you how jealous I am right now. Next show better be in SF. Come on Luke, rep the Bay, yo.

:(

SHOTEH FOCK OP said:
Halo 3 on IMAX was frickin incredible! They showed off 3 things primarily. Luke and Stinkles did a co-op part of a mission (bah I forget which one), then they showed off Forge (really neat), and then a saved game film that they had at E3 of Sandtrap (?), which floored me the most. Being able to direct the camera wherever you want it was amazing, made the entire skirmish seem like a cutscene. And the audio is freezeframe too. Stinkles took the camera underwater because he said Marty would have killed him if we didn't get to hear that sound effect lol.

Were you....held?
 
Gadfly said:
They played co-op on easy? wtf?

Ya I looked away when they chose difficulty. But the menu screen is also awesome. But enemies went down pretty quickly. They couldn't get everyone in the first showing so they had to make the presentation a little quicker so they could get the next showing underway. That is probably why the set it on an easier difficulty.
 

aaaaa0

Member
Gadfly said:
They played co-op on easy? wtf?

Can't speak for the second showing (so many people showed up they had to cut the first demo down to 40 minutes, and run a second demo session), but the first demo session was run on Heroic.
 
Everyone who has seen it seems absolutely floored by the Covenant cruiser flyover. Hot damn, I cannot wait to see it myself!

armubaba said:
HOLY FUCKING SHIT. I CANNOT WAIT DAMNIT. BUNGIE RELEASE TEH VIDS PLEASE!

I can't tell you how jealous I am right now. Next show better be in SF. Come on Luke, rep the Bay, yo.

:(

YES.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Gadfly said:
did you get to count the jaggies?
Seriously, I want the number of steps per meter they had!

aaaaa0 said:
Whatever projector/scaler they used, I WANT ONE. There was suprisingly few jaggies, and the image quality was outstanding.
Bungie and their dirty tricks. Hiding their jagz with with the IMAX projector which surely adds 16xAA.
 
Spaceman Spiff said:
Everyone who has seen it seems absolutely floored by the Covenant cruiser flyover. Hot damn, I cannot wait to see it!

When it happened, my mouth literally dropped open and I couldn't say anything. You haven't seen anything like it yet trust me. It was truly a FULL next gen experience when it happened. It was so massive and the sound design is incredible
 

Gadfly

While flying into a tree he exclaimed "Egad!"
I wonder how much it costs to rent an IMAX theater for a couple of days in September.

Just saying..
 
Memphis Reigns said:
When it happened, my mouth literally dropped open and I couldn't say anything. You haven't seen anything like it yet trust me. It was truly a FULL next gen experience when it happened. It was so massive and the sound design is incredible

:D Awesome!

Did it cast a massive and ominous shadow over everything as it passed overhead? Moments like this are exactly what I want to hear about; and to think, this is just what they're willing to show. Who knows what later encounters will have in store. Geez.
 

Gadfly

While flying into a tree he exclaimed "Egad!"
godhandiscen said:
Seriously, I want the number of steps per meter they had!


Bungie and their dirty tricks. Hiding their jagz with with the IMAX projector which surely is SD
fixed it for you.
 

michaeld

Banned
I want gaming site impressions, every regular joe at this even is obviously a mega halo fanatic, I want an outside opinion.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Spaceman Spiff said:
:D Awesome!

Moments like this are exactly what I want to hear about; and to think, this is just what they're willing to show. Who knows what later encounters will have in store. Geez.
Cliffhanger ending? I kid... I kid.
 
They also showed a close up of the Elephant on Sandtrap during the saved film showing. It is massive, as you know. But they didn't show anyone driving it. The had this saved film from a while back I guess, and showed how the free camera worked, the slow motion, zoom, everything. They showed awesome encounters in the saved film and would zoom up and do it in slow motion and it was very VERY well done. Explosions, particle effects, you name it, you could see when paused. You can even hear the audio when the film is paused if you get close enough to anything that makes noise.
 
michaeld said:
I want gaming site impressions, every regular joe at this even is obviously a mega halo fanatic, I want an outside opinion.

Ya know what. I like Halo, but I am not a crazy ludacris fan that is just saying this because I am high on the experience. If it weren't amazing or things looked bad, I would tell and be honest about it. But not one thing looked to be out of place or weird. Everything was perfect from the graphics to the gameplay to the sound. Hell even the MP looked better. I mean, ya sure there are probably a few things to nitpick at here and there, but the presentation was so good that you were just enjoying it too much to find any flaws. But someone always does so I dont know what to tell you
 
michaeld said:
I want gaming site impressions, every regular joe at this even is obviously a mega halo fanatic, I want an outside opinion.

These are all impressions that are readily available at multiple places online. The press has already seen forge, and the highway level.
 

michaeld

Banned
Ok that's cool. It's not that I am expecting bad, but I don't want impression from people wearing rose colored glasses ya know.
 

Gadfly

While flying into a tree he exclaimed "Egad!"
Foolishfellow said:
These are all impressions that are readily available at multiple places online. The press has already seen forge, and the highway level.
Yes, but:

"IN GAF WE TRUST"
 

Gadfly

While flying into a tree he exclaimed "Egad!"
MirageDwarf said:
For MS it is nothing but change. You should know better. :)

----

All hate all lucky fans.
MS? :lol :lol
I was thinking about myself.

Edit: beaten by somebody else explaining me!
 
Flesh Into Gear said:
I require moar info

Yeah sorry I am trying to type and remember as much as I can, as fast as I can. If you ask specific questions it'll be easier for me.

The gravity hammer was used on Highround during the Forge part. Frank smacked Luke on his mongoose and it exploded and went flying into pieces. He then hit him directly and it knocked him back a few yards. The effect seemed to be very satisfying and had a "oomph' to the hit.

At times Luke pointed the camera to the sky and showed Banshees flying overhead while the ground battles were still in play and the framerate didn't dip at all. It was very epic and you felt like you were in the battle for the Human race.
 

element

Member
I just got back from it. I was pretty impressed.

1. Halo fans are crazy
2. Having friends at Bungie that let you cut with them is awesome :D
3. Halo fans are crazy

Some of the Bungie guys were saying that people started lining up at 10 am this morning. If anyone knows the Seattle Science Center, the line went all the way to the Fun Forest, and there were already 400 people inside at that time. It was pretty amazing to see how many fans would show up with about 36 hours notice.

The campaign mission they showed was pretty cool. I'm going to get flamed but it looks like Halo. They are doing some nice effects and stuff, but has a samey feel to it. Some parts were pretty cool though driving out of the tunnel and HDR and bloom crazy and then all the sudden you see a Covenant ship fly right above you. It is a pretty awesome site. Also you when you go over a bump you see the huge circle cloud with a huge volcano behind you. The spaces are really huge.

The replay they did was pretty awesome. I was more in awe of the backend server side stuff and just how far they have taken the Xbox Live Server Protocol API. Playing a game, then saving it, then send it to a friend, then take a screenshot, and then access it via Bungie.net at twice the resolution. It was pretty freaking awesome.

Forge was pretty neat. I kept think that this is what Bungie did after seeing littlebigplanet. It is a great tinker idea, being able to spawn stuff in, move stuff around, save it off, share your creation. The idea of buying things was kinda interesting. I am wondering if the dollar amount changes or is fixed. It would be an interesting way to control frame rate and what not by making things that hurt perf more. But who knows. Still major thumbs up to Bungie.
 

Gadfly

While flying into a tree he exclaimed "Egad!"
Is it true at the end of show Frank and Luke put on some dark sunglasses and flashed something?

Not that you would have remembered.
 
professor_t said:
I require . . . Ghaleon.

ya ok i get it. I know I am not the best "impression" poster but i am doing my best. I saw that people were getting anxious to hear about it so i thought I'd give some quick impressions before I go to bed. It was a long night. I know someone will probably give some more detailed impressions when they have time. I am only trying to help:D
 

Doodlebug

Member
SHOTEH FOCK OP said:
Oh, during the co-op mission they exited a mountain or a tunnel or something, and this GIANT ship comes out of nowhere and buzzes the mountain, and the crowd went nuts... it was totally impressive and amazing looking.

MJpopcorn.gif
 

Striker

Member
michaeld said:
I want gaming site impressions, every regular joe at this even is obviously a mega halo fanatic, I want an outside opinion.
Why? You'll bash it anyway, like you have in every other Halo thread post.
 
Memphis Reigns said:
ya ok i get it. I know I am not the best "impression" poster but i am doing my best. I saw that people were getting anxious to hear about it so i thought I'd give some quick impressions before I go to bed. It was a long night. I know someone will probably give some more detailed impressions when they have time. I am only trying to help:D

Sorry, dude, I wasn't trying to belittle your efforts. I really appreciate it.

It's just that Ghaleon has more knowledge than just about anyone when it comes to Halo, so it's nice to hear what he has to say.
 

Tieno

Member
Memphis Reigns said:
ya ok i get it. I know I am not the best "impression" poster but i am doing my best. I saw that people were getting anxious to hear about it so i thought I'd give some quick impressions before I go to bed. It was a long night. I know someone will probably give some more detailed impressions when they have time. I am only trying to help:D
Greatly appreciated! You're a welcomed new member!
 
Memphis Reigns said:
ya ok i get it. I know I am not the best "impression" poster but i am doing my best. I saw that people were getting anxious to hear about it so i thought I'd give some quick impressions before I go to bed. It was a long night. I know someone will probably give some more detailed impressions when they have time. I am only trying to help:D

No problem :lol thanks for everything
 

element

Member
michaeld said:
I want gaming site impressions, every regular joe at this even is obviously a mega halo fanatic, I want an outside opinion.
I am about as far away from a Halo fan as you can get. I just enjoy going to gaming events to see crazy fans, and meet up with some friends from Bungie.
 
professor_t said:
Sorry, dude, I wasn't trying to belittle your efforts. I really appreciate it.

It's just that Ghaleon has more knowledge than just about anyone when it comes to Halo, so it's nice to hear what he has to say.

Its all good. My stuff is kind of the appetizer before Ghal's stuff ( I was saving the big, more detailed stuff for him). He is from Portland right? Frankie kind of gave him a shout out i think, saying "we have people from as far as Portland here tonight"
 

voltron

Member
Memphis Reigns said:
ya ok i get it. I know I am not the best "impression" poster but i am doing my best. I saw that people were getting anxious to hear about it so i thought I'd give some quick impressions before I go to bed. It was a long night. I know someone will probably give some more detailed impressions when they have time. I am only trying to help:D

You did a fine job. I dont see what else can be brought to the table at this point as youve pretty much covered it all. What some folks here want to see is gushing, orgasmic, hype filled reports of single player overwhelmation.

Tks for posting the info.
 

D3VI0US

Member
Yeah so no useful information not already made public knowledge could be gleaned from this demo. The line was huge, they ended up doing two shows and played the Epsilon.

Got to see Campaign and it does look sexier but not that sexy, Lukemz and Franklez played system link co-op. With Frankie always talking up his driving skills looks like they need to tune up the split screen lag on level three. :) They played Tsavo Highway on heroic but not much of it so it was hard to gauge a lot about it from that small piece, they did die a lot more than expected but they were also screwing around a bit. Still it seemed like Halo 2 with just more stuff goin on but I certainly didn't see the AI jump and it looked pretty easy from where I was sitting. Modifiers will be great and the Chopper is badass.

Next they showed off Forge and how it worked. This was probably the most disappointing demo of all because they didn't really do anything too cool with it. Everything works like they said, you can tweak a good amount of settings but they didn't really impress. You have a global budget and everytime you spawn items you use the budget. Weapons and fusion cores are cheap, vehicles are more expensive. Once you budget is used up no more tweaks can be made. Spawn points, cap points, and any other points of interest are visible on the map as blue icons. I assume these can be dropped and dragged much like the items and weapons. Press up on the dpad to instantly turn into a monitor and place or rotate items but you can still be hurt or die in this form. They demoed on High Ground but they didn't build up to anything spectacular. Luke built a bunch of fusion cores, I was hoping Frankie would build a ramp above them. They could have detonated them right as a Mongoose was above the cores and sent that fucker flying, maybe even over the front gate. Instead they spawned a gravity hammer and blew up the cores, then spawned Scorpion. Couldn't tell if you could snipe the dude in the tank but didn't look like it.

Finally they closed with a save film of Sandtrap with the almost final feature set. Took some screenshots, rotated the camera to see spectacular vehicle combat action which looked like a blast. It's everything they said and you expected and it works great but I knew all of that already.

I was just hoping to see something new or something cooler, don't get me wrong the game will still be fucking amazing with all the shit packed in but it was all public and previously revealed info. I thought maybe we'd see the new live action Blogkammpf short or something new and juicy but why bother with a bunch of locals.

No Luke ass grab but I did meet up with Ghaleon by pure coincidence and we shot the shit. Poor guy is on his way home right now and he was to be at work at 8. Luke called him up after and slipped him a dvd disc in a sleeve. Full version? Believe!
 
Kuroyume said:
This game is going to save gaming.

I was unaware that gaming needed to be saved. Seems pretty bountiful these days.

Unless you mean like bringing sexy back. I was unaware that sexy had left, but apparently I was wrong.
 
Tieno said:
Greatly appreciated! You're a welcomed new member!

:D

I am glad to be. I only found out about GAF not too long ago and just recently joined so...that is greatly appreciated!

btw, someone over at ign that also went asked me if i was the guy wearing a backwards Arizona hat, and I was. It was pretty random.
 

Gadfly

While flying into a tree he exclaimed "Egad!"
michaeld said:
Ok that's cool. It's not that I am expecting bad, but I don't want impression from people wearing rose colored glasses ya know.
OK, I bite.

Graphics were meh. I would describe it as Halo 2.5.

I tried to count steps per yard but the damn thing kept moving. I thought they were trying to hide something.

They obviously copied the forge from little big planet.

It is the same Halo fanboys have come to love. Nothing more, Nothing more.
 

iSimon

Member
Summary from the Bungie forums.

- So, it was Frankie (Franklez) and Luke (lukemz) playing the entire time.
- They showed us what the Campaign Scoring screen looked like.
- They played through part of Tsavo Highway:
- You start in a garage-type place, and are given verbal instructions on what to do (basically, get the hell out of the caves).
- You get in one of the Warthogs, and leave the garage, going through the caves
- When you exit the caves, you're in areas bordered by hills. There are Grunts and Brutes every now and then (keep in mind this was on Heroic).
- They showed the Fuel Rod, Plasma Cannon (removable), a Flare was thrown at them, Brute Chopper, Drones, new type of land-based turrets (he sniped a Grunt out of one).
- Also, the Phantom's turrets fire much faster. The Phantom also has a plasma cannon on each side (the Phantom is open-sided), with a Grunt controlling each one, I believe.
- Later, on the highway, you could see the Ark and storm in the background, with Banshees flying towards it.
- Luke threw a tripmine at Frankie, and Frankie walked onto it, before quitting Tsavo Highway.

- They showed us the Forge Lobby, and played it. You can be a Spartan/Elite, and up on the D-Pad changes to a Monitor or back.
- You can pick up most objects (Rocket Launchers, boxes, turrets, vehicles, etc).
- On High Ground, the cost limit was $136. Yes, $136. Weapons were all $2 each, I think. Vehicles were $5, $10, $15, and $20... I think.
- People can stand on things as you lift them (lift up a crate with a teammate on it, for example).
- You can move/rotate/flip/etc things when you are holding them.
- When you drop things, they don't always land flat (Frankie put the High Ground gate's turret on the ground on the beach side of it, but it fell over - a nicely-placed turret? Maybe).

- Then, they went back to the E3 build of the game, and showed us a saved film, on Sandtrap. It was awesome. There was an Elephant sitting there, and a Brute Chopper and a Warthog also for each team, I think.
- The Saved Films detached camera controls are similar to the regular game's controls. Pressing up on the D-Pad (I think it was up...) changes the camera lock from player to player/vehicle.
- Pressing B will remove all traces of the HUD, and again brings it back.
- Pressing Y detaches the camera.
- Pressing A pauses/resumes it.
- Partially holding the right trigger is slow-motion.
- The Brute Chopper's attack, as seen in the E3 trailer, is a one-hit Warthog kill.
- The Brute Chopper's cannons are good (note - my opinion there, of course).
- Remember, as said at the Imax presentation: driving a Warthog on top of a tall building when Lars Bakken is coming up the other side of the (slanted) building with a Rocket Launcher and Brute Shot isn't a good idea - unless Lars misses his first Rocket shot (which he did)).

- The Gravity Hammer is as shown in the leaked screenshot. It completely desomated (sp?) a full-health Mongoose (which Frankie moved and placed using Forge).
- It's a one-hit Assasination kill (took 8 charge from it).
- The hit he took at Luke sent Luke flying from in front of the High Ground gate to inside the bunker with the trapdoor on top.

- Bungie gave away a Legendary Helmet (WITHOUT the game) signed by the Bungie staff to the person sitting in seat G7. G7.

- I did not see the Hornet anywhere in the presentation.
- You can move/place spawn points and capture points (bomb points, flag points, oddbal points, etc) in Forge.
- Yes, you can set capture points on Elephants.
- Yes, there were cameras there. No, we were not checked. Some guy took a picture of two Bungie guys standing in front of the playing console. I think the Bungie guys smiled, and they certainly didn't do anything to get rid of the camera.

- lukemz's sign was L05
- Franklez's sign was M52
 
Top Bottom