- Tupolev
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- Honorable Member
So, every time I see anyone post about rereleasing or whatever Halo 1, they always say it would be nice to have some "updated graphics".
I've been playing a lot of Halo 1 again recently, and what's been striking me the most is how incredibly beautiful this game still is. It's true that Halo 1 operates on an old, weak graphical system, but I believe that Bungie accepted the limitations of it and worked within them, exercising fantastic artistic design, to create a great visual experience that still holds up today. The visuals are clean and don't suffer from the bad clutter that I think many modern games do, carelessly using their ability to render more objects to put more objects in without much thought. The end result of the careful artistic design is atmosphere that works better IMO than that in any game Bungie has made with any of their newer graphical engines. Much in the same way that I've found that modern digital manipulation isn't required to make a beautiful film, Halo 1 demonstrates very effectively that a powerful engine isn't necessarily required to build a fantastic looking game; it certainly expands the possibilities, but it's not always needed unless an artist simply can't do something with the current system, a problem which Bungie does not seem to have run into all that badly in H1. While so far I've been extremely impressed by Reach's graphics, I can't imagine Halo 1, a game so artistically cohesive, benefitted from having a major aspect of it rammed into a system which the other aspects weren't built alongside.
Basically, if Halo 1 were to ever be rereleased (unlikely) to provide greater accessibility or functionality ie decent console internet service or something like that, am I the only one who actually wouldn't want the graphics to be touched? Or am I just crazy?