Thats why i play the original Halos instead of MCC. Because i want that ORIGINAL/REAL feeling, not that fake shit. MCC completely lacks of atmosphere and details etc. Its a joke the games got released in their current state.
Maybe 343 should of ported the Xbox version, otherwise ask Microsoft why they originally gave Gearbox an incomplete version to port which was nothing to do with 343.
For sure! I love how heavily they used programmable shaders on the original Xbox. It’s really helped it still look good even at higher screen resolutions.
Some of the cutscene related bugs are due to the new widescreen aspect ratio. Because the camera angle is wider now you're seeing things on the left and right that you were never supposed to
@Dipp_ Schitt not true for the xbox, pretty sure bungie wanted the game to run at 720p (because the hud resizes perfectly), only a few of the menus and loading screens are a bit borked
The color shifts where you're noticing them be more white on the original Xbox, you need to be careful and take into account with how the capture software may colors shift your Xbox Original's feed. Even if it's not the capture method's fault, composite output is not good at all and may be a culprit as well. It might be best to take a look at some of these things on the Xemu Emulator where you can see true native color of the renderer without any output compression.
@@solarwind3656 +1 on this, as Xemu is only an emulator, and when discussing intricate details of renders of a game, sometimes the emulator does things wrong.
@@benjaminjackson3206 Yeah but you can literally see it's not a problem in Xemu when you compare it to a Halo PC's output. We're just talking about color shading which was most definitely a side-effect of the output method. An HDMI mod would be good too, but that could still possibly be incorrect. Obviously there could be things like flickering textures in the emulator, or other subtle missing things, but the over all picture color is what we're comparing here. And yes I am aware it can be affected in an emulator, but I will reiterate myself again, you can see it matches Halo PC's output, ignoring the bugs/short-comings that Halo PC has (which is not what this comment thread is about).
I appreciate these videos reminding me of how Halo CE originally was since my brother sold our copy of Halo CE but I still have Halo 2 Limited Edition.
The one thing that stood out to me about this update was that I never realized that, well, basically EVERYTHING had a bump-map on it. Or, at least, was supposed to.
One of the Discord communities I'm part of has looked through all the new mod tools and assets that 343i has provided and one cool thing they found was a colour correction tag that I believe is currently unused in season 7. That could explain some of the colour differences you have seen. Could also hint that 343i has more fixes coming so fingers crossed!
Gotta give 343 props. They're now doing their best to get Halo CE as close as to the Xbox original as Bungie made it as they can. It's good to see they're giving this the love it deserves. Even though I didn't play the OG Halo CE, I still want to feel the nostalgia for the original when playing with the classic graphics on MCC. And them fixing these issues help me get closer to that. Although there are still some things to fix, they're doing a great job.
re: the plasma trail bug on the covenant turrets - part of the issue is that the brightness of the trail is framerate-dependent. They look correct at 30 fps, but at 60 they're only half as bright as they should be, at 120 one quarter as bright, etc. And at 15 fps they're twice as bright :)
Comparison image I made when submitting the bug report to 343: media.discordapp.net/attachments/386682841980862474/857803601979113532/PlasmaTrailFramerateComparison.jpg
Very good video snd work finding all these details. There's still a few things that should be fixed and even s couple that are new with this update but god damn is this a start. Gotta give 343 props after 18 years i never thought id see CE look like CE again this makes me very happy.
8:48 - the magically appearing marine is an FOV issue; he almost certainly did the same thing in the original scene, but it was off-frame. The problem is that 343 is matching the vertical FOV in cutscenes rather than horizontal FOV, resulting in too much being visible to the sides. Not sure how you would fix that without pillarboxing the cutscenes to 4:3 though, which I think would be fine, but a lot of people would disagree.
On the mission: Two Betrayals, when it says ‘Final Run’ with the cinematic black bars, music doesn’t play (Under Cover of Night). Not sure if anyone experiences this or my game is just messed up.
Are you skipping any load zones in the level or is your music setting turned down by chance? I ask since it plays for me without fail each time I play the level and I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't.
3:00 You can even tell the original teleporter has some more minor camera distortion or something to make it kind of feel like a warp. Very minor but shows the level in detail they originally cared about.
If look closely at the "Jenkings" cutscen in the original then you will see that the marine on left disappears and reappears just the same as he does in MCC, it's just more noticable because of the whidescreen, as he is barely in frame in the original. I also believe that the smaller text is a consequence of the higher resolution.
Honestly i don't really like what the anniversary did to the hud. If you look closely, even the original PC port hud looks kind of transparent, when in anniversary the color is solid. This is a speculation, but the original might have used the additive shader for the hud. To best describe how it works, if you have a blue background and a hud of the same color, the hud will not blend in, instead it will be visible as the light blue color.
I always thought the issue regarding the characters appearing onscreen in Jenkins helmet cam cutscene had to due with the cutscene being poorly adapted for widescreen, also you should do a video on the insane detail the third person/world weapon model animations have (not the first person view models, the ones for AI/ multiplayer models). Ie the slide on the magnum has a blow back animation, you can tell how many needles are in an enemies needler, the plasma rifle has an indicator on the side that fills from green to red as it heats up and the vents actually open when it needs to cool off, same with the plasma pistol, the assault rifle has the most detail with the bolt "opening/closing" to eject and chamber each round, a functional ammo counter on the display, hell the compass even works. All of the Halo games after got progressively lazier in this aspect, Halo 3 has no 3rd person weapon animations at all
You know, I ended up playing custom edition for so long, I completely forgot most of these were a thing. Cool to see them trying to reintroduce these features in updates, might have to do another CE replay soon.
Ghosts not going apeshit in the air before blowing up was something that could legitimately be used in strategies but is entirely missing from the game. The sound still plays tho.
This just made me realize how much mcc has screwed with how I remembered the original.. I totally forgot about the smoke, vine and wall details. The original is such a pretty game and finally now the update actually enhances it even more
While I can get some of these details could be a bother, some of these feel a little nit-picky. While I can say Halo CE from way back has aged, it was definitely ahead of its time in some aspect. And as you said, it's a big milestone to see some original visuals coming back, but I think we can agree that MCC will never be 100% accurate to how Halo CE originally locked back in 2001.
Absolutely not! thats the way it was designed for PC and makes it much more interesting when you can POTENTIALLY infiltrate the enemy base without getting snipped or something.
The problem with cutscenes is what happens in widescreen mode. This is the same phenomenon that occurs when the widescreen mode is forcibly applied in the OG XBOX version of Halo CE. Widescreen is the default aspect ratio applied in HALO MCC, so I think it will be solved by forcing a 4:3 ratio in the Halo 1 cutscene or lowering the FOV in the cutscene. Anyway, I really like your video. There is no other video that compares this in detail. Thank you always!
I don't know if you might be interested... I'm Korean and have a problem with the Korean version of Halo CE only, They removed the Covenant's Korean voice and replaced it with an English voice. Thanks to this, it is a strange phenomenon that only the Covenant speaks English and the rest speaks Korean.. The OG XBOX version of Halo CE speaks in Korean, but the Xbox 360's Anniversary and Halo MCC's Halo CE are spoken in English by the Covenant. This is really annoying. And the voices are out of sync, so the Marines from Chapter 343 Guilty Park speak very quickly. They still don't seem to want to fix it... Oh, for reference, is the phenomenon that the voice pitch is still output low is the same in the US version? The Korean version still has a low voice pitch.
Looks like some of the issues noted here have been addressed in season 8. Here are all the fixes for CE in season 8: 1) Restarting the game no longer causes the customization preview in the Customization menu to show default options. 2) Framerate has been improved for the campaign mission “Halo” while running with Remastered visuals. 3) Cortana’s face animations now appear properly in Remastered visuals. 4) The lighting in the 343 Guilty Spark cinematic in Classic visuals is now consistent with the original game release. 5) The target distance and elevation measurements on the Sniper Rifle zoom are now aligned properly and consistent with the original release. 6) On PC, the 2x zoom HUD element on the Magnum and Rocket Launcher no longer appear too close to the reticle. 7) The final cinematic now has motion blur effects to be consistent with the original Halo: Combat Evolved release. 8) After modifying Graphics settings, a thin line no longer appears in the bottom and right edges of the screen. Why, you should do another video compilation with everything that still needs to be fixed in CE. You are the best and pay more attention to detail than anyone else, including Digital Foundry!
two things still needing fix is tree snow fall effect in mp and that the skulls should only be avaible/unlocked after being found. The mp graphical issues could be fixed by manually adding the details since they used the gearbox/pc version in order to include the rocket warthog,flame/fuel rodgun with the new mp maps that wasnt on the xbox version.
Don't forget besides some things related to the HUD, there is some gameplay related bugs or small level design changes that were made on some maps. But with the gameplay, one bug related to the shooting part with the Plasma Pistol is shooting extremely fast, this seems to bug out the timing of the shots on high FPS above 30 I believe and this will need to be addressed eventually in a future update.
This is an excellent video, thank you for taking the time and careful eye to spot what still could be improved! Obviously, none of these things really detract from the gameplay, but it is cool to see just how detailed the OG Xbox version was.
There was another issue but audio: Masterchief's funny explosion death screams "HOUGH" and "AAAAH" never or rarely plays. They said they're looking into it though...
There's still a few things that are different in the MCC from the OG. For example when the player is using the Needler against flood carrier form the Needles doesn't target the carrier form and the crosshair doesn’t turn red either regardless with any weapon you aim at the carrier form and the rocket launcher crosshair doesn't turn red regardless on which enemy you aim at i know these are only small things but that's what makes the difference when you notice them. Now one big thing that I noticed that is different is the A.I mostly with covenant and the unsc if you or one of them get sticked by a plasma grenade the others nearby gonna try to dive out of the way to avoid getting blasted that's one big thing that I notice from the original copy of CE.
One thing you didn't mention, and the one thing I noticed the most, is how the sky in Assault on the Control Room and Two Betrayals looks. MCC has always shown the outline of the top of the canyon whereas the original didn't. Have they fixed that yet?
Nobody seem to have mentionned this and I can't be sure since I don't have access to original xbox footage anymore, but in my memories I recall a lot of textures having much more reflections to them, even when you don't use the flashlight on them. The bump mapping is back which is awesome (but also lack contrast, OG bump mapping had more pronounced black levels), but those textures (I'm mostly thinking of the metallic forerunners ones) still look flat and unreflective. If you pay veeery close attention you can see the reflective material without the flashlight but it's veeery hard to notice while on OG it was very shiny. Maybe it's just my imagination but I'm almost certain of this.
We need the more blooming and saturation of the Xbox version along with the orignal HUD and original sniper rifle reticle! Btw what editing software do you use? Why?
thanks for making this incredibly detailed comparison video... I played CE this morning spontaneously with a friend and was pleasantly surprised as i had totally forgotten the new update came with the visual differences in CE (esp the jackal shields). i know CE has been flawed long before MCC, but generally speaking its cool to see all of these issues slowly being fixed to make the ports as true to the original. Also crazy to think that they released MCC with so many of these things overlooked... im no game dev, and i dont mean to discredit 343 whatsover, but i could imagine there would be a plethora of issues bringing MCC to better and more modern hardware... in hindsight it makes sense that this game has drastically improved with the updates since PC launch. i hope they eventually fix the last mission in h3 -- the beams that fall from the ceiling are supposed to move after hitting the ground (during the warthog run)
I've just been playing this on MCC and I think they may have added more improvements: There is a option to change to the classic HUD. The numbers on the sniper rifle when zoomed in are now the correct font/look. On the mission Halo, the fog outline around the warthog is now fixed. The underwater areas with your gun are now more visible. That's all I've noticed so far. But it looks like 343 has added more fixes since season 7.
so with 7:10, and 7:24 is because they added interpolation to animations. Those are basically scrolling textures that used to flash each change, rather than smoothly transitioning between them, so when making the wires, and flags smoother, they broke these textures.
Game looks fantastic now with the effects restored, the remaining issues are pretty small in comparison to the glaring ones that were fixed. Played today the second level and it brought me back to when i first played the game. Memories.
Can you update this with another video comparing what was fixed in season 8 and what still needs to be fixed? Your comparisons are the most detailed and thorough by a mile!
I wonder if 343 is watching these videos. They seem to be doing a really good job at bringing the old stuff back. I don't know know what their method is in porting the original, (emulation or recreating) but if they are recreating everything, this sounds like a huge pain to get everything right. Some of the lighting stuff like the shadow and light maps on and the flash light lighting that you pointed out can be a headache to replicate the OR look across the entire game. Anyways, it's nice to see 343 caring about preserving the OG look. Hope they continue!!
I work as QA for a game developer. You have the quality to do the same work, and most likely be a level 2 QA.. But this is probably more lucrative for you to stay on RU-vid. Great work.
In pillar of autumn when you meet the elite and grunt when it's dark. I think it's after the first overshield. if you turn your flashlight on there's yellow lines on the wall
I wonder how things, especially color related issues, would compare when looking at the original game on a CRT screen, seeing as plenty of old games took into consideration the properties of those screens when making the graphics
One thing is for sure, the lighting and saturation hasn't been quite fixed on MCC. On a CRT it looks pretty damn good original xbox. There is more blooming and saturation on the Xbox version which makes it look way better. It seems they have fixed certain parts but not the entire game.
Amazing breakdown! Fingers crossed 343 sees this video and will fix all the remaining issues you discussed. Just goes to show how beautiful and detailed of a game Combat Evolved truly was at the time... Also, is there any word if they'll work on restoring Halo 2 to be in parity with its original Xbox version as well?
Characters popping in and out of cutscenes isn't a bug. It's how the scenes were developed originally, which is talked about in the commentary for the game. Wide-screen simply shows them. The change to wide-screen is cause for multiple of the ui differences. I think the UI should be addressed but I wouldn't be able to say for sure if they should do anything about the cutscenes, even if 343 can. I personally get a chuckle out of it each time knowing the background of why they're like that and i feel if 343 does make their models stay and add animations, it would be changing the original game rather than simply updating it
6:20 I'm not sure that's a bug. I'm pretty sure the refraction shader works in screenspace, so it refracts everything in the screen, including things in front of it that technically shouldn't be refracted. That seems to be a common thing for refraction shaders in video games. You can also see in modern games with screen space reflections, many things will be reflected that should not be reflected.
Halo CE is still a very good looking game and I will always stand by this statement. The visuals may look OUTDATED, sure. But there's something very charming about them which is difficult to explain. Perhaps the art style, perhaps the colours, perhaps the environments themselves in the context of the story. Or maybe it's just nostalgia. Regardless, I'm happy to see 343 fix some of the issues with the MCC version of CE. Especially the fog and energy shield effects.
Halo 1's original version is a very refined visual experience. It dazzles constantly in its amount of small details, and these details are what was affected the most by the PC port. :-(
Also I've noticed that the blood used to have this shiny effect on the original xbox, don't know if it's fixed or not but it only happens for me whenever I flash my flashlight on mcc, kinda want the blood to return to how it was on the Og CE for human's and covenant
Yeah, the game's surfaces in MCC look duller than they should unless flashlight is shone on them. Aside from generally blue-shifted colour, this is my #1 visual issue with Halo 1 MCC.
![Halo MCC Combat Evolved [Season 7] - Fixed Graphics Comparison](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
