Halo Infinite

[KAC]

On 3090 and 5900X game is pumping frames like no one's business. They might have put too much dope in it since my OCD is going wild and killing banished is fun af. Just downright best game ever right now. So much freedom, so much mobility, so much carnage. Absolutely awesome.

[acroig]

Originally Posted by KAC

On 3090 and 5900X game is pumping frames like no one's business. They might have put too much dope in it since my OCD is going wild and killing banished is fun af. Just downright best game ever right now. So much freedom, so much mobility, so much carnage. Absolutely awesome.

I agree, game is lots of fun.

[jimjobob]

I need to find a halo 5 recap somewhere. I don’t remember the story at all and I think I would enjoy this one more if I could.

[acroig]

Originally Posted by jimjobob

I need to find a halo 5 recap somewhere. I don’t remember the story at all and I think I would enjoy this one more if I could.

Same here, post it when you find one.

[Mangler]

Whatever happened in halo 5 got resolved in a book or something, I don't like how 343 keeps doing that, they did it with halo 4, and now 5.

Stop killing off the new big bad off screen ffs.

[DeathKnight]

[Trunks0]

Running like a champ for me @ 3840x1080 on the High preset customized with Textures: Ultra and Texture Filtering:Ultra. The scaler built into this game is awesome btw, so if I find I'm having some issues later in, likely just going to use it.

Not digging that I can't manually turn off HDR mode. Not a HUGE deal, I just often don't leave Win10 in HDR mode as my backgrounds don't always look as nice

Digital Foundry had a pretty great video with a nice set of optimized settings.

[acroig]

Originally Posted by DeathKnight

Thanks DK!

[acroig]

Played more, enjoying it.

[KAC]

2 missions from finishing it. Entered house of boning.
They have added wayyyyy too much dope in this game. I can no longer walk in a shooter now.

[Trunks0]

Having a grappling hook is rarely not good.

Just Cause Series
TitanFall series (even Apex with Pathfinder. I love playing him because of that grapple)
Sekiro
Dying Light
etc etc etc

Always a good time

[KAC]

Originally Posted by Trunks0

Having a grappling hook is rarely not good.

Just Cause Series
TitanFall series (even Apex with Pathfinder. I love playing him because of that grapple)
Sekiro
Dying Light
etc etc etc

Always a good time

Should try call of duty.
Also I don’t like JC or Dying Light.

[KAC]

Finished Halo Infinite. Jizzed a lot. Slapped some banished hoes. Destroyed Harbitcher. 10/10. Best. Game. Ever. Will continue boning.

[acroig]

Originally Posted by KAC

Finished Halo Infinite. Jizzed a lot. Slapped some banished hoes. Destroyed Harbitcher. 10/10. Best. Game. Ever. Will continue boning.

GOTY '21?

[KAC]

For me yes. I have never had this much fun in a shooter for a very very long time. I played on Friday, I almost had my eyes bleed on Saturday and by Sunday evening I was done. I did a lot of sides as well like I liberated all 7 outposts, I think I have one FOB left etc. and I continued after the credits rolled. I can’t remember the last time I did that.

[acroig]

I'm enjoying it as well.

[KAC]

For some reason this game makes my 3090 fans spin up to 80%+ making them quite audible. Why? Anyone else experienced this?

[demo]

Some benchmarks - pretty much what I'm seeing, thought there was something wrong with my system after reading this thread.. game does not look good enough for these results. Personally capped it at 100, but it's the sort of game I sure could do with that extra refresh rate.

https://www.techspot.com/article/238...ite-benchmark/

[KAC]

Btw they clarified this. In fire fight intense sequences 3090 performs better but in cool situations with nothing happening on screen radeon performs better. Also rebar does wonders for radeon but nothing for Nvidia.

[Trunks0]

Yeah that's being brought up allot. Careful with limiting the framerate, unless they patched it, it causes issues if you do it in game.

And what is essentially the video version of the article demo linked.

[twonha]

Finished the first mission. Game's dope, I really love how the grappling hook opens up the traditional Halo gameplay. You're still the Chief of old, but with more options to fly around like a Spartan should.

Runs at an almost airtight 60fps, High preset, 2560x1440, vsync, and the game is probably doing some magic of its own to stick to the frame rate.

[metroidfox]

I've got the multiplayer, but waiting for them to roll out ray tracing, and fix the interaction of enemies with environmental lights before I get the single player.

Also, coop next year. Game is incomplete without that.

[KAC]

Originally Posted by Trunks0

Yeah that's being brought up allot. Careful with limiting the framerate, unless they patched it, it causes issues if you do it in game.

And what is essentially the video version of the article demo linked.

This is the updated video and what I was talking about.

[acroig]

Originally Posted by metroidfox

I've got the multiplayer, but waiting for them to roll out ray tracing, and fix the interaction of enemies with environmental lights before I get the single player.

Have devs said this is actually coming?

[Mangler]

Yes, they're going to add it post-launch.

And is the way enemies are lit really a bug, I though they intentionally did it this way for visibility reasons?

[acroig]

Originally Posted by Mangler

Yes, they're going to add it post-launch.

Cool, TY.

[metroidfox]

Ray tracing + coop are confirmed from what I've heard from Digital Foundry + Hardware Unboxed.


The environmental lighting is something I hope they fix. It definitely helps enemy visibility, but it just looks so wrong. They could instead do those enemy outlines you see in multiplayer.

[jimjobob]

Originally Posted by metroidfox

Ray tracing + coop are confirmed from what I've heard from Digital Foundry + Hardware Unboxed.


The environmental lighting is something I hope they fix. It definitely helps enemy visibility, but it just looks so wrong. They could instead do those enemy outlines you see in multiplayer.

Any idea when? Think I’m going to put it on hold till it’s added.

[metroidfox]

Mid next year for coop. I'm holding off until then too.

[twonha]

Finished the main quest, haven't rounded up all the side missions yet.

Overall, it's a good Halo game. Gameplaywise, I think it's brilliant, with the gunplay at 343i's finest levels. The sort-of-open world gives Halo a Far Cry feeling that really suits the game and its universe. In some ways, this is how Halo was envisioned twenty years ago: sprawling vistas, engagements that allow the player some freedom, and a Ringworld that inspires you to 'get out there'. Basically, all of the campaign feels like The Silent Cartographer was blown up into a fullsized game, rather than a single mission. And turning the Master Chief into Spider-Man sounds silly at first, but works wonders in-game.

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of shortcomings stopping the game from being really great.

First point: 343's storytelling
343's storytelling is a hot mess. The primary storyline makes little sense, wastes time with what only *looks* like exposition, introduces characters just so there's an enemy to chase after and removes characters from the playing field even though their tale would've been much cooler to tell. Rarely does the player character understand his motives on any deeper level than "...otherwise the enemy wins" or "because not-Cortana told me so". Some of the themes Infinite touches are reasonable, like the Chief suffering from the events of Halo 4 and 5, but much of it feels amateurish at best. From the start, I feel 'skipping' the complete aftermath of Halo 5 is a cop-out. I'm not sure what's covered in Halo Wars 2 or the extended universe, but I feel the game shouldn't have waltzed over the +/- seven months that precede Halo Infinite. Lastly, I feel uneasy about the apparent schism between the game's chirpiness (The Weapon, the marines you save) and the game's premise (UNSC lost, Cortana is gone, Chief got his ass kicked by Atriox, the universe is doomed).

Also in the storytelling department: the audio recordings you pick up everywhere are cute, but I think it'd have helped if you'd unlock them in order, instead of unlocking them in whatever order you find specific tapes. You acquire broken bits and pieces until you've got the whole thing. And UI wise, the little yellow indicators on new tapes appear per tape, but not per category for me. Not sure if that's a bug on my end, or an oversight in the UI.

Lastly in the storytelling department: the game world is peppered with small combat encounters that sometimes try to do some environmental story telling, but I found that it rarely goes deeper than "humans hid here, Banished found them, now everyone's dead". So much more could've been done here, but it wasn't - or I haven't found it yet.

Second point: 343's level design
Level design is a mixed bag, for the third game in a row. When it comes to grand vistas, Halo rarely disappoints. But 343i still loves repeating Forerunner architecture for no apparent reason. Some missions are really cool with interesting design, but so much of the indoor areas in particular is an endless stream of similar rooms, you'd think that 343's level designers' second-favorite Halo mission was The Library. The combat doesn't necessarily suffer, so it's still fun to play through, but the mission design does suffer from a frequent "go here, put AI into console, then go there" pathway.

Nowhere is 343's shaky level design more obvious, than in the upper left part of the ringworld itself. The upper left part of the game world is hard to reach for no apparent reason, contains one high value target to attack, but is otherwise practically empty. This section of the game world, I feel, should've been either developed fully, or cut entirely. Some other sections of the map you'll visit several times or spend significant time in, while some other sections of the map are barely visited. It's clear that the game's development spent a lot of time on getting everything to work, and some sections are beautifully done, but the developers have had to cut corners along the way.

Third point: pacing and mission structure
Around the halfway point of the game, there's a gaping hole in the game's pacing and mission structure. The game's storyline ánd level design come together to bring the game's progress to a grinding halt, asking the player to access four beacons. I've criticized 343i before, for using simplistic mission design into Halo 4 and Halo 5: "to activate the controls for this door, you must (attack/turn on/destroy) these (3 to 5) targets". Especially having to do things multiple times, just so the player spends more time doing them, slows down the feeling of progress. Having to activate four beacons, several kilometers away from each other, with all four being essentially the same thing, feels to me like a shout out to the regrouping of the marines in CE's mission 'Halo', but without the variations of the separate encounters.

Fourth point: this Ring is not whole
Halo Infinite's "under construction" ringworld is a painful parallel for the game itself. There's no Firefight multiplayer mode, which was a fan favorite in ODST and Reach, and my go-to mode for the Master Chief Collection. There's no Forge mode, leaving the creative section of the Halo fandom waiting. The lack of co-op, let alone couch co-op, is practically heresy in the Halo franchise. And with plenty of critical feedback on the multiplayer end as well, it's clear 343i aren't anywhere near done with the development of Halo Infinite. 343i and Microsoft obviously rushed the game out the door. There is absolutely no way this was anywhere near ready for release last year, or any time before now, and even now it's not actually ready, it's just taped together and pushed out the door.

Concluding...
The combat loop is beautiful. The open world is a powerful way to reboot the franchise. But Halo Infinite's development was a troubled one, and many of the flaws in the game can be directly linked to some kind of development hell. As it stands, it's a good game. And were it not a Halo title, I might not have been so critical. But this is Microsoft's flagship title from its flagship studio, and as such this game really needed another six month delay to be *really* great. Microsoft chickened out on that, settling on 'good enough' instead.

As 343i takes a Christmas break, I'm sure they'll be all hands on deck again in January, to piece back together this overwhelming title. For whatever comes after that, I honestly hope 343i continues to strengthen its vision as a developer and caretaker of the Halo universe. So far, 343i has been swinging at Halo like a kid at a pinata: sometimes they knock it out of the park, other times it's a swing and a miss.