Posted by: Dr Syx
Actually, most of these things are caused by a fix in FoV/Resolution. The game wasn't originally meant to be running in widescreen so that's why Master Chief looks like "John Goodman". All of the models are the exact same as they always were.
No, they are not. The in-game skeletons match extremely closely to the old ones, and they adjusted stuff so that the hitboxes are similar. Beyond that, though, they went to town on the models. Proportions and shapes on individual areas on the models sometimes differ enormously (many units' arms in CEA, for instance, are far wider than their original versions), and the overall styling is quite different, being largely a conglomeration of Halo 3 and Reach assets.
A change in FoV can frame a model differently, but it doesn't cause the model to stretch as long as you're always viewing at the same aspect ratio as the console is outputting. The Master Chief should look pretty much the same whether you're viewing in 4:3 or 16:9.