@@mitchellp7739 I have issues with 343i, they do mess 1 thing up for every 1 thing they do right, but that's just hyperbolic nonsense. Off the top of my head, here's a list of postive things they've done: Halo 4: >The live action commercial >The sense of atmosphere and environmental design in general >The skyboxes >The lighting and shaders, generally looks good on a technical level even if the UNSC art design is trashed >the soundtrack, even if it's not marty level >The Storm rifle >The redesign for the Carbine, Plasma Pistol, and Beam rifle >The introduction of the Prometheans/didact in the campaign > the moment when you get out of the cave in mission 2 >Regicide >The scoreboard changes Halo 5: >The weapon balance (Pre-TU) >The ARG >Getting rid of 4's loadouts, perks, killstreaks, etc >Return to even starts with weapons and powerups on map >Brings back the golden triangle of guns, melee, and nades with no equipment or armor abilities >new movement options add a ton of skilljumps >The Trials music >The ambient dialog in the campaign >Blue team/Argent moon >Free DLC >Everything relating to forge >Everything relating to customs >like seriously holy fuck forge and custom potential is insane >Seat swapping >Health visibility >Shield recharge indicator EU stuff: >Halo evolutions >Bits of Legends >Cryptum >Primordium >Silentium >Half of Glasslands and Thursday War >Broken Circle >Last Light >Fractures >Mythos >Warfleet >A bunch of other books/comics that are apparently good but I haven't read yet Infinite >Going back to more classic visual design Other >CEA's sound design >H2A in general >Working with/allowing some fangames/fanmods, such as sins of the prophets >The community feedback program and their degree of community interaction >MCC update initiative is super throughugh, but this is negated by MCC being broke to begin with >Bringing MCC to PC, but this is somewhat negated by rushing the ports even after a year of saying "they are taking their time with it to do it right"
Not a remaster but a remake. Although I agree. Every artistic choice feels consistent and respectful to the original game unlike CEA where they took many liberties (I still love it tho)
treywar25 if you have the graphics set to “enhanced” with the new graphics and look at shadows up close, they will almost always be a pattern of small dots. It’s noticeable on NPC / enemy models skin, and weapons, but it’s really all over the place. Also that way in anniversary graphics of halo 1.
You can shoot the floor on any map with any gun and kill enemies. It's the glitchiest piece of shit launch in Halo history and you're worried about "ambient occlusion dithering"
@@GraveUypo so you probably have a rootkit on your pc...unless you somehow managed to keep the exact copy of winamp you originally downloaded back in the early 2000's and even then without patches it's a huge security flaw.
@@stahl1624 Nobody mentioned PC master race. 343 Industries, Saber Interactive and Bungie have collectively decided *not* to add in support for the release of all the games featured in the MCC. Blame the developers for being short-sighted and not supporting such a trivial feature from the Halo franchise upon porting it. Because of such actions, PC gamers have no other option but to either run the games on an emulator or - in the case of Halo: CE (the only Halo port that has multiplayer functioning normally) you have to set up a janky virtual machine and then split 2-4 instances of the game onto 1 display. Feel free to forward this to the developers.
Umm, late night...AI the dual weilding bug has been fixed for the first time since MCC 2014 released. It’s even mentioned in their blog post. Elites duel wield in game in Halo 2: Anniversary on PC
Hey LNG; do you know if H2 on PC suffers from the same poor audio encoding issues as Reach (and I assume also CE)? Supposedly an issue that a third-party company is remedying or in the process thereof, but I don't know if H2 has the same issue or not.
Just finished playing this and it was glorious. Why can't they make single player FPS games like this any more. Also the remastered soundtrack is incredible. I'd forgotten how great the music in halo 2 is.
@@josemartha5977 part of it also is the emphasis on gameplay, story, and a sandbox. Rather than shoving RPG mechanics into every game that exists and calling it a day
I doubt it. They got so much praise for releasing on steam and it's not like epic is going to cooperate with them releasing an epic made game anywhere other than the epic store.
Replayed ODST again on legendary during Christmas holidays with Dolby Atmos and reaffirmed my love and assertion that it is the most atmospheric Halo game. Imagine it on PC
I am not trilled with H3.. Considering 343 already confirmed there wont be an Anniversary edition... This means you have played the best looking and sounding halo of the original trilogy of the MCC which is truly a shame since H3 looks like dog shit compared to H2AMCC.
I’m kind of shocked how good this looks. I’ve become a huge fan of Saber Interactive. All this stuff about Raytracing... and I’m more impressed with their porting of a 2016 game to Switch and their tech/artistic choices updating a Halo game from 2004 😂. But really, they are doing amazing work and I wish Reach had gotten this same treatment.
Yeah I agree, reach looks awful. H2A actually looks something like Bungie intended it to look! HCEA on the other hand wasn't that good. I think the design was changed too much.
@@Baxtexx I Agree. Saber butchered Halo CE anniversary art direction and lighting with a frankenstein monster made of out-of-place REACH assets and new poorly made assets that looks nothing like Halo. And the framerate on xbox 360 was worse than the OG Halo. The worst kind of remaster you can think of. Fortunately they came to their senses with Halo 2 Anniversary with a way more respectful remade assets and lighting. I wish both 343i and Saber would acknowledge that HaloCEA was reworked with bad taste and would ditch it and work on a way more faithfull remake.
@@BlindTrustProject I think Halo 3 should get the anniversary treatment first, 2022 is coming around the corner for the 15th anniversary, and those facial animations could do with a touch up
when i played through the campaign, i switched a lot between classic and anniversary. In short: sometimes its better on classic, sometimes its better on anniversary. Overall i think the anniversary remaster for halo 2 is a lot better than the anniversary for halo:CE. If the audio or music sounds really weird, try switching to classic. Best example i can think of is when you enter that room and the classic plays a breaking benjamin song (that is really good) but the anniversary plays some other song that is not as good. I think it depends on what type of experience you are after. I like the nostalgic feel of the classic graphics, so i am prone to play on classic. Martys music is sometimes better than the new score, so whenever you hear music, i reccommend switching to see the differences. Overall i switched around a lot just to compare the versions, and if i liked on version better, i played that part of the level on that version. I got the "play every mission on both classic and anniversary graphics" achievement on steam the moment i finished the campaign. I think the MCC on PC is WELL worth the price now, even if you are only interested in the single player campaign.
I switched a lot so I could actually see stuff. The contrast in anniversary is way out there and muzzle flash on the BR and SMG almost covers up the crosshair. Was disappointed to see that there are still walls that got visually smaller in enhanced graphics but the hitbox of the wall is the size that it is on the OG graphics
@@alumlovescake imo the demon souls remake sucked because it took alot out of the art direction of the original and crisis core has new VAs that suck havent played nier
Can't wait for Halo 3 to launch bugged and/or broken just like every other PC launch game. And also no forge for a year and a half because it's so hard for 343 to do their job
I am playing it now and it is MINDBOGGLING how amazing the presentation is. Visuals, Audio, Cutscenes - everything is 10/10. Saber and Blur did AMAZING JOB.
It's funny that no one seems to remember how trash the connections were in all of bungie halo games and how completely broken host was and how bad hit detection could be. Halo 2 and 3 were the first games were as a kid I'd scream at the tv and run into theater because I know for a fact I hit that guy lol. Good times.
@@MajoraZ I always liked the high pitch Bark that it made after each shot, it sounded so cool. Combo the Bass from the new one with the Bark from the old and I would be very happy
@Digital Foundry The reason for those stutters is because on remaster graphics the game keeps the distant level geometry rendered (no occlusion culling) at some kind of unusually high level of detail. This is especially noticeable on High Charity because you can see fully rendered distant platforms on the left in full detail after you go down the very first gravity lift outside the weird Prophet conference. On classic graphics the models and textures aren't loaded in until you get close, which means A: Occlusion culling is broken or B: Anniversary graphics mode loads THE ENTIRE LEVEL in memory and holds it there instead of loading it in sections like classic. Glad you noticed the stuttering.
This may be a late reply, but could that also be why my 1070 is using 6.3gb of 8gb of vram because the remastered graphics are loading the entire level, hence why I get the big hitching?
@@WrathDrago IDK about the vram but I know that the hitching is caused by massive amounts of level geometry being rendered when it shouldn't. I've been trying to get word of this bug out but whatever, classic mode is better anyway, especially if you adjust brightness
I really wish I could play the remastered graphics with classic sounds. I love how the new game looks with the remade visuals, but the soundtrack in Halo 2 is by far my favorite and I much prefer Marty's music to the remastered stuff.
It honestly sounds like they captured real weapon audio for several weapons in the remaster. I was even able to recognize a few weapon sounds from my time in the infantry lol much better than the halo 2 original sounds
@Who Dat Ninja *iconic and easily recognisable due to how bad they are. Hell, the H3 sniper sound is way better than the H2 sniper even though it used the exact same base sound. Halo 2's sound engineering was just abysmal, nothing had weight to it. The only people who like them are the ones that grew up with those sounds, and even I, who grew up with these games, cringe everytime I hear something like the H2 SMG
Great to see this is a solid conversion. I've got to say, the older versions of the game are tough to go back to. I picked up the Vista port and man, while it can look *okay*, it controls poorly. Just judging by the footage here, it seems they really improved it in that regard. And man, does this new version look really good. Looking forward to trying it out!
Og halo 2 on xbox still plays smoother than most shooters nowadays. Playing a pc port of a console game might be the issue. Halo 2 has a lot of issues, but poor controls are NOT one of those issues
This "solid conversion" is full of piss poor decisions and rushed design philosophy. Not too mention the numerous bugs which have presented themselves that dont even exist on the other ports EVEN THE VISTA. Also the fact forge still isnt in these ports is telling. Im just giving you a fair warning, Id wait for a sale on this one muh dude.
While I enjoy the work and upgrade they have done in the remade graphics, I also really like the fact you can switch to old look (and sound) with a press of a key. I saw this in Monkey Island Special Edition as well and wish more developer would do this. I really really love like this.
They need to fix some of the animations in Halo CE like the Gatling gun blast fire doesn’t stay aligned with the gun while driving and blasting in classic graphics and also the in game cutscenes at the beginning of the stage seems to have off frame rate on your gun and the onscreen characters like the intro to The Silent Cartographer. Very annoying!
@@CC42_ bruh, fixed as in they've found the reason for it and have made a fix to it in a test build, not as in they've released the update already. Calm down man lmao
I got this as my only game alongside my pc around 2011/2012. The multiplayer was already dead when I started playing because windows vista was a damn PAIN to manage. But I still fondly remember the campaign. As my only game for a couple of months I did a lot of campaign. The dual wielding and vehicles were so much fun!
Thanks for analyzing Halo 2 Anniversary on Xbox One X! I knew there was something wrong, the same issues are also present on the CE Anniversary graphics. I didn't notice these issues until December with the Reach patch.
Yep that was around the time I noticed as well when I went back to play the new crossgame playlists on Xbox One X with Reach added. I think the reason is because 343 mentioned alot last year adding Reach into the collection caused memory allocation issues (or maxing out on memory usage) so the engines are more strained now than before.
Series X can’t come quick enough! (It’s disgusting we’ll probably need new hardware for this game to run ok, but I’m getting SX anyway and have MCC so I’m looking forward to seeing what Back Compat does for it!)
Though the Blur cinematic’s and the remade graphics are beautiful, I still prefer the original graphics somehow. I like Cortana’s model better, and there’s a lot of nostalgia for me in the original graphics. Really love what they did with the remade visuals though, and very glad Halo 2 has made it’s return to PC. I loved playing the OG PC Halo 2.
Halo 2 Anni in-game Cortana model really is atrocious, no idea what they did there 🤷🏽♂️. It’s like they took Halo 3’s model then slapped a horrible texture over it which didn’t quite fit
I'm getting big lurches where the game just chugs and hitches. It'll be running fine at 144FPS then plummet to 40FPS whilst it freezes for a second or two. I'm using a RTX 3080 and 10700K @ 4.9GHz. The Delta Halo map has been the worst so far too.
Das "und auf Wiedersehen" hat mich voll aus dem Konzept gebracht :D. Schönes Video :)! Die Ruckeleinlagen scheinen wirklich bei jedem zu sein. Hatte es auch, mein Koop-Partner auch, wir beide nutzen auch einen 3900X. Aber hey, das Spiel macht verdammt viel Laune :)!
With regards to the hitching, I found that the game tended to hitch when vram was near maxing out. I'm running on a GTX 970, and at 1080p a couple game levels maxed out vram on the "enhanced" graphic setting.
Yeah I've noticed this game uses a large amount of VRAM for some reason. On my GTX 1080 at 1440p it stays around 6.5 - 7+ GB of VRAM usage (or at least requested).
@@Dashadvent system ram is fine afterburner states about 6gb is used. But the vram on the gpu is high over 6gb on a 8gb 1070 is used playing at 1080p. Thats when I notice frame hitching happening. Oh forgot to mention I have 16gb of system ram.
@@WrathDrago have you tried reducing texture quality? I think on max quality the game loads 4k textures- which would explain why it gobbles up all vram at max regardless of render resolution
The stuttering or hitching on delta halo is a sharder cache related problem. If the shader cache size is changed. The results of the stuttering changes
Just started playing it. Graphics looks really neat, cinematics are compeltely re-made and the audio is more punchy. The ability to switch from old to remaster with the flip of a switch (tab) is also very nostalgic. Thinking of buying it? GO!
You really need to try the multiplayer.. its locked at 60fps even in unlocked fps and its completely broken. Shame because the campaign doesn't have this problem
@@sameerkhatri588 the mouse movement is unlocked but the motion of the world players and reload animations is all locked to 60fps without interpolation. It feels terrible. The campaign does not exhibit this issue. It's not a performance problem it's an engine problem. Been on 144hz for 8 years and recently switched to 240hz. I can instantly that it is not behaving as it should and it feels terrible. It's not just the fact that the counter shows 180fps. The way they have implemented it is trash.
In regards to the audio design changes, I think I saw somewhere that for later games Marty O Donnell had them make the guns less loud so the music would stand out better. It was in an interview or vidoc or something like that. Makes sense considering music has had to share its place in game audio with more and more things as time has passed.
It's always awesome seeing Halo getting covered on DF! The port does seem pretty decent from what I've played and the Anniversary graphics look stellar. When playing on my personal rig with an RTX 2070 paired with an i7-6700 I was getting major stuttering when trying to play at 144fps, when locking it to 60 in game it all seemed to work fine. Think it was on Delta Halo too so that definitely seems to be a problematic level which is a shame. Great analysis as always Alex!
I love everything about the new visuals in the remaster, but I actually like the older weapon sounds more. Sure they aren't as punchy, but I like how different and unique each weapon sounds from one another. All the human weapons sound like generic real weapons that you could hear in a Battlefield game or something, which while it fits there, doesn't so much in a sci-fi world where you can make a weapon sound like whatever you want. The Covenant weapons all sound like they use some sort of same base sound effect and just changed slightly per weapon making them all feel same-y. While Classic Halo 2 weapon sounds aren't the best in quality or "punchyness" they all sound completely unique and you can tell what gun is going off and from where just from the first time you hear it shoot. Also the Tank shell firing seems to be the opposite, the Classic tank sounds way more impactful than the remaster that sounds like your shooting something with no recoil or force behind it. I also prefer some of the classic music tracks as well. The Choir in the remakes seems WAY too loud over the rest of the instruments, and while their replacements are still pretty great, I will always prefer "Blow Me Away" and "Follow" over their replacements. If they had an option to play with the remastered graphics with classic audio like Halo CE:A does, I'd be a happy camper.
H2A performing well at 120 FPS may be due to the fact that the Halo 2 Vista port (which H2A is based on) was actually made capable of running at 60 FPS by Hired Gun actually doubling the tick rate itself. This is why you have 60 FPS animations for certain things when playing at 120, just like how Reach and CE will play animations at 30 FPS during 60 FPS gameplay because their tick rate is still set at 30 FPS.
The constant frame drops not just on Delta Halo for me make this game kinda of unplayable in all honesty. I recently had to switch back to Clasic graphics because it was so bad.
A note about the campaign co-op lag. A friend and I have been paying through it and the lag spikes always seem to happen in parts of the map where I would expect it to be loading assets for the next part of the level. This may be coincidental though.
I Can also confirm hitching on Delta Halo and other missions using a 3800X/1080. As well as particle effects playing in what looks like slow motion when using classic graphics
I personally liked halo 2 mcc, halo 3 and halo reach on pc more than most 'modern' games released recently. And halo 2 visuals overall coupled with the artstyle and all..is simply breathtaking. I absolutely loved my time with this campaign. I can only imagine how halo 3 and reach would have felt like to play if they had been 'remade' like halo 2.
I really felt the same about the audio. It took me a little to accept that the weapon balancing hadn't been changed, because just from the new sound alone some I could have sworn some guns to be more powerful..
The beauty of this remaster is the switching between classic and anniversary in realtime. I think they realized they can't please everyone all the time so they let you choose instead. Halo 2 has been in my top 5 since it released in 2004 and this anniversary edition feels very respectful to OG fans in many ways.
I don't like how the new version puts more hard edges on the guns while the old versions looks more rounded and sleek. They should've kept the rounded look form the original.
Exactly they should’ve kept the art style simple yet detailed like Halo 1 in classic mode. Halo 1 Anniversary and Halo 2 Anniversary look TOO busy in its graphics. Almost hurts my eyes!
@@scotchwhisky6094 what a stupid comment. How did it run perfectly before? There are also performance issues on the series X on the anniversary campaigns so it needs work. Blindly telling people to buy a series x is not the answer here
@@ScarthyUK Well xbox updated the operating system. It now has more features and uses more of your CPU. So sorry to say but your one x will always have these problems. Hence why you should just get a Series X.
You talk about the CO-OP input lag....etc but you should've also talked about how Halo 2 doesn't like 1 person being on a SSD/M.2 and the other co-op player being on a HDD it just won't even start the co-op campaign. This happen to me and my friend i had my game on a M.2 drive and him a HDD, the moment i put my game on a HDD it started working for us.
Hello everyone Actually iam expériencing thé same with my halo mcc on one x At first i tought it was my hardware but it is. Brand new almostI played and finished the complete mcc collection 3 month prior to halo reach being added to it . The gameplay was just fine and I never noticed any stutering or framer drop at that time ... I finished halo reach when it came out in December 2019 the game was running quiete well also and now I decide to play the complet collection once again and started noticing stutering and frame drop on halo 1 anniversaryI also noticed few days ago an update of 23 GB was made to the collection but I'm now really frustrated! This game is no longer what it was few month ago... Can anyone tell what is happening? Frame drops and string in halo 1 anniv halo 2 anniv and overal in general! So frustrating!
they fucked us over on the One X. After the Reach update they broke the framerate in Halo 1 and Halo 2 campaigns. They're now focused on the PC release instead of remedying tge situation for their original buyers of their game. It's really bad look on their part.
I'm sure they'll jump right on those hitching issues. You know like the sound issues on Reach and the plasma pistol charging sound on CEA. Honestly though I'm still so stoked to be playing these campaigns on PC.
343 studios are a joke. Classic mode of Halo CE is based on the god awful Gearbox port. A press release with a mile long list of known bugs in the Halo 2 port and rather than delay it to fix the bug they say they are going to ship it as is and fix it later.
Alex , is that you on the AMS 2 leader board as DFAlex ? I hope it is as i hope we will a great Digital Foundry break down of the Sim/game and its graphical techniques :)
Is still fucked. They’re not gonna fix it at this point. Especially since they have to go back to fixing halo infinite which looked like a 360 game on the “worlds most powerful console”
I prefer the classic visuals more, not due to nostalgia but primarily the lighting and color contrast of the enemies and backgrounds. This is particularly true on Legendary where seeing your opponent is utmost key.
Despite the new sound design being better in general, I think the sniper rifle and grenade explosion sound better in the original. Those effects have a unique character to them that is lost in the new version, which instead sound very standard. I don't think the original sniper is even lacking impact in any way either.
I'm pretty sure that the hitching issue on Delta Halo you experienced was the same one I experienced, but the problem only seemed to occur when I had the frame rate set to Unlimited. I set it to 60 and the level played buttery smooth for me from there on out. It's definitely something that should be fixed.
