DF Retro: Halo - The First Person Shooter Evolved

[@TheMartyODonnell]

Fun. I still have a lot of love for the original Halo.

[@MindedMeister2]

I'm surprised to see your comment under all these top comments. Love your musical work and really printed great memories in my heart and I'm not the only one. Thank you.

[@dbzwarrior4321]

holy shit your the real marty

[@Clos93]

I don't know if you'll see this, but thank you for composing some of the greatest themes in gaming and themes I will remember forever. We are truly grateful to have had a man of your talent in the industry, thank you sir!

[@StarwindAmada1]

Okay time to sing the Halo theme. *inhales* AAAHHHH AAAAAHHHH AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH AHHHHH AHHH AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH

[@StarwindAmada1]

Don't swear at Marty. I'll let it slide this one time since you too like fine anime like DBZ. @@dbzwarrior4321

[@happybuggy1582]

Holy shit the quality of this one....the wait is worth.

[@Barney-ii1no]

Yeah, props to John!

[@Collymillad]

151 deserved likes, John you are by far the best of DF (no offence to the others :P)

[@feiticeirafatale561]

Actually, it wasnt that good and his DF Retro episodes keep getting worse and worse. 90% of the time he talks about technical aspects of games and Halo especially isnt remembered as tech hallmark but rather as incredible playable console shooter, maybe first after GoldenEye on N64. It was well awaited and known long before it landed on XBox in autumn of 2001, I remember quite vividly that period. PC got few GeForce 3 titles at that time (AquaNox, Drone-Z) so world wasnt really impressed by its graphics quality. Me on the other hand, well, I always hated art design, it looked way too cartoonish and childish with clear intention to be able to sell it to everyone, not violent enough for the shooter, annoying sounds of Covenant soldiers (squeeke-squakie sounds of those little ones). Halo is one of the most overrated games ever, it was shooter made to be likable by console peasants and it was highly influental and then I started to hate it even more. I like health bar and health packs, I dont need moron-friendly difficulty, I am capable player and I want to be challenged. Story isnt that great either.

[@88oscuro]

Mena Suvari What?!?! The hole point with Dfretro is to analyse retro games and see what they did to solve hardware and software limitations at the time.

[@feiticeirafatale561]

Yeah, I find that boring, there`s much more about retro gaming than pure tech observations.

[@variousthings6470]

For those wishing to skip to a certain version: 00:00 - Bungie history; Halo beta versions 11:30 - Halo CE 19:40 - CE co-op/multiplayer 27:40 - PC port 32:40 - Halo Custom Edition 33:40 - Halo backwards compatibility on 360 36:00 - Halo Anniversary 41:30 - Master Chief Collection 45:00 - Overall summary/version rankings

[@henrythe9th377]

What's wrong with Myth?

[@Kronean]

variousthings I

[@TURBO_FAUST]

I would LOVE to see you guys talk about the modern technical problems of implementing splitscreen and why it was easier before!!

[@Mr_Doodleydoo]

That's a great idea for a video! I remember being disappointed that my brother and I couldn't play battlefield 3 together, and not really understanding that there are sometimes technical limitations, not just lazy devs.

[@badtexture1062]

Honestly, the real complaint is probably just user expectations. Graphical downgrades and low resolutions get everyone in an uproar. Now, just a few days ago I played CoD IW over at a friend's house. I'd say it's one of the best console shooters on the Xbox to date, and why? IT HAS SPLIT SCREEN. It's a step up from the last CoD and two players can go online just fine (albeit at 30 FPS and more background pop-in). Halo 5, on the other hand, was pathetic. Overall, the choice is framerate, graphics, or gameplay; really, consoles lose in the other two categories either way, so why not draw a "good enough" line and go all in with features like the classics did? One reason: you'll get pegged for it by your community. The sad truth, I guess...

[@88oscuro]

Bad Texture All 60 FPS games should be able to have a 30fps split screen option without major issues.

[@PENDANTturnips]

there are no technical problem. it's simple laziness by shit devs like 343i. case in point the borderlands handsome collection has full 4 player coop splitscreen and it works perfectly fine.

[@RGInquisitor]

"Graphics and smooth gameplay". It really amounts to forcing people to buy more copies as well as promoting other to buy an XbOne.

[@10goni]

"Oh, nice frame rate.", "Thanks." lol

[@v12vanquish]

“I’m ok with this”

[@593bi]

That sounded like "Hey bro nice dick"

[@Cricis11700]

Well in game console/computer terms, it basically is 🤣🤣🤣

[@Sackboy612]

Hopefully that shuts everyone up asking for a retro episode, you can see why it took so long now!

[@notlekrut]

Damn, 47 minutes? I'd say the wait was worth. To be honest, considering the quality of this series even if it was 10, 15 minutes I'd also say the wait was worth it.

[@ka7al958]

This shit needs its own channel, they are taking John's time away by making him do PS4 pro analysis

[@really.not.important]

Damn straight. Comparing patch 1.02 to 1.03 is just embarrassing.

[@VaydaladaVodalada]

He actually started this on Wednesday

[@muhammadvelam2936]

VaydaladaVodalada cjkmnvvx xxx coom

[@SimonChristensen]

47 minutes? John, you've outdone yourself this time! :)

[@alexp-de]

best 4 player split screen shooter ever

[@Kintuse]

Very much so, which is why I was so gutted when future releases such as Halo 5 stripped it out entirely to cater to the graphics hungry 60fps spec elitists. I'm still hurt I can't play Halo 5 with my brother on the same TV.

[@LakesideAmusementPro]

2m8y4u Damn right!

[@Jesse_Drake]

I would have much rather preferred it to run at 30fps if that meant I could play splitscreen.

[@jettmadrid]

I don't know man, Goldeneye was pretty awesome for its time.

[@badtexture1062]

I'd say CoD has this edge over the modern Halos by far; even IW supports splitscreen, though at 30-ish FPS and with a slight graphical reduction. It's ridiculous to see so many games cutting the feature nowadays when time shows how great splitscreen is. No matter where the series has gone, CoD has always been excellent in split-screen and still is to this day, even on PC. That's an undeniable success for the series.

[@TheOfficialStal]

This is amazing it's like a full documentary. :)

[@moses3167]

Indeed. This, and the MGS2 video which I watched yesterday for the first time, made me realize that DF Retro really is just a fantastic documentary series and goes beyond typical DF Performance Analysis.

[@Poever]

Das ist die idea

[@Mudig]

I feel that if Halo ended up as a MAC exclusive, it would never have become as big. In many ways MS helped Bungie the same way Halo helped Xbox.

[@jesusurrabieta9700]

According to this video it was never going to be a mac exclusive (Bungie planned also the PC version). Although I agree in part as I think that being an XBOX exclusive, launch title and such a better machine that PS2 was what really made it soooo big... I guess we'll never know.

[@StrazdasLT]

I got huge because it was the only one such on a console. on PCs it would have competition.

[@Tinbeef22]

Please look at halo now. Bungie left and its crap.

[@MrBurtbackerack]

One of the things I still remember about Halo is how visceral the combat was. Things such as bullet casing, sparks, particles kicked up from the warthog, objects and enemies (sometimes marines too) sent flying by the scorpions cannon or grenades.. It's something that gives alot of feedback to the player telling you that "you did something and it worked" - this was so satisfying. It's something that alot of games tend to overlook and even Halo CE still does it better (IMO) than many modern games. It's the icing on the cake for me and just one of the reasons Halo is one of my favorite games of all time and deserves it's iconic status.

[@Visuwyg]

Man the XBone Version is pretty neat!

[@MrSlashStudios]

yeah and combined with the 3 other games its an amazing package

[@dmdport745]

MrSlashStudios When it works...

[@Daigon95]

+dmdport at least it works better than it originally did at launch...even though their are still a few issues left.

[@MrSlashStudios]

It works pretty well, only got a crash once in Halo 3

[@dmdport745]

FirPtl It was unplayable for a good 4 months or so. Even now the match times are horrible for finding games sometimes.

[@MarkyDav]

Halo & Halo 2 I do think were a couple of the most important games of the 6th Generation, they laid the foundation for so much in many different ways. They didn't invent the FPS genre for console, but they set the standard. Still plays great to this day.

[@EposVox]

Man, I have been waiting for this! And 50 minutes! You spoil us :) Also PtoPOnline mention! Epic!

[@ArabianFreedom]

John do F.E.A.R or Crysis some times in the future!

[@moniumus6303]

Crysis was ahead of it's time . Everything about it from textures to physics . It still looks better than many AAA games from 2016-2017

[@TAKEYOURCREATINE]

Not only that but it was a really fun game, too.

[@LN.2233]

Koko the Arabian hell no, Crysis is awful and not retro yet

[@KaizAmari]

both of these games are not retro and not game changer

[@detmer87]

Far Cry (Crytek) and Crysis definitely is!

[@_J2C]

What an incredible episode of DF Retro. Can't wait to see Halo 2!

[@TheLastLineLive]

The original Halo really was a groundbreaking game for its time and is one of the top launch games of all time. I need to replay that sucker sometime.

[@pierreo33]

It's aged pretty good actually. Some copy-pasted levels here and there, framerate isn't very stable on original Xbox, but still a 10/10 game no doubt

[@AlternativExXxHonK]

That Soundtrack

[@JesuSoup]

AlternativExXxHonK Martys soundtrack is fucking LEGENDARY

[@romanbellic810]

I would zoom in with the sniper rifle to read the text on the ammo packs.

[@aLTis94]

Wew, there are at least 4 seconds of my custom map shown here

[@dark1x]

Sweet! Which one did you create?

[@HaloCE3]

Wew, there is at least like 30 seconds of the trailer I made for CE3 shown here (plz subscribe)

[@protocetid]

Sub for what? Wasn't the 2016 CE3 the final one?

[@dmdport745]

Which one?

[@aLTis94]

My map is called Bigass, you can see it at around 32:47 and 33:05

[@rocketpunchgo1]

Splitscreen and Co-Op gameplay... those were the days.

[@phreakinpher]

45 minute DF retro on Halo:CE? Insta-like!

[@Starlesslemon]

Am I the only person that actually loves "The Library"?

[@sinenomine8739]

Yes.

[@baphi865]

No, was fun.

[@jaykim6434]

I think almost everyone still has some love for it. It's just underwhelming when the rest of the game is so excellent. Similar to the Xen chapters of Half-Life! These levels are not "bad" per se, they're just pretty okay, but when the rest of the game is excellent, "pretty okay" ends up sticking out like a sore thumb.

[@jungleambience5355]

No. I Love it too. It was one of the better levels in the series. Every hallway was a carnival of carnage.

[@pancon5]

Shotgun did wonders down there!

[@Dizbrothek]

Sega Saturn Intro Sound will always have a Special Place in my Heart

[@lewddewrito7081]

I'm glad you covered split screen co op. Me and a friend played this recently on an original Xbox, and the framerate at most times was awful. However the games so fun it never really mattered. I really hate in H2 which we played after that they changed the way the splitscreen was, making it much harder to see anything.

[@narata1541]

I'll never forget seeing Halo for the first time. My friend got it and a bunch of us would come over and play multiplayer. I also remember the controller being so big that my hand would get tired after a short amount of time. Oh the music we would hum and sing! And how can anyone forget the Silent Cartographer level (the island one)? That blew my freaking mind and I had to get an Xbox. We all did back then.

[@pierreo33]

Oh yeah, "the duke" controller lmao... designed for 40 year old lumberjacks or something

[@HGShurtugal]

One of my favorite games of all time.

[@Pickleslip]

We want more documentary style uploads like this! Your editing and cutscene work is brilliant, You should be like on the late night show on a gaming segment or something. Amazing quality work!!!

[@magnusmaynard]

Awesome video, really interesting! Didn't even realise people are still playing the PC version. One thing you failed to mention about the anniversary edition, was the gameplay changes. Various fun glitches had been removed.

[@paulolameiras861]

Halo CE, not only is by far the best in the series, it's also one of the best games ever created. A close to flawless masterpiece!

[@GraveUypo]

meh. i loved the coop aspect of it but at the time i played unreal tournament, so it felt like a cumbersome, floaty fps with terrible uninteresting weapons. the multiplayer really didn't hook me. well, except for the split screen. that was really fun even if i didnt enjoy the gameplay itself that much. but they finally managed to get to me on reach, even though i moderately liked every single one before it. but i fucking loved reach. the character FINALLY felt like it had weight to it, there were a bunch of different mobility options, most of the weapons were viable, assassinations were cool... just a great game. best console fps multiplayer ever.

[@johnjay6370]

Halo is up there with Doom, mario 64, ...it is a classic...

[@GraveUypo]

lol, hilarious. one more joke please.

[@ps3andrhcp]

UT revolutionized a shit ton, and you must be a console fanboi to deny that. In terms of competitive, Halo does not Kill UT. But I gotta say, I have never had as much fun in a multiplayer game, than in Halo Custom Edition and Halo as a series, including campaigns, I enjoy more.

[@GraveUypo]

that's a comment i can respect. halo was the couch multiplayer king. even if i didn't like the core mechanics that much, playing 4 player split screen was absolute pure fun

[@Nick3zz]

33:25 "I would have been your daddy" comes off a lot different in 2018 than it did in 2001 ...

[@MrLawrenceflowers]

The tone, mood and depth of this is so spot on as a day one Halo CE fan I find myself coming back to this once a month and now with the release of Infinite campaign once every few days. Extremely well done!! These retrospectives are what the Video game YT space have been missing.

[@BioTroy]

Holy! 47 mins!!! Looks like it's definitely worth the wait!

[@davidartrip85]

Great work John! Makes me want to replay through one of the seminal games of my past that my cousin and I poured countless hours into. I can tell your videos--DF Retro in particular--are labors of love.

[@SupertoastGT]

Between the audio not sounding right and the missing effects, I need to get the Original Xbox versions of Halo 1 and 2 and run them in back compat on Xbox One.

[@jamestomlinson8861]

When I first played Halo as a kid it blew me and my brother away. My dad couldn't stop watching us play. Every time we would boot up the game and hear that glorious music it always got me stoked to play. All night Slayer and CTF. Trying to get multiple CRT televisions together to LAN was the worst. Thankfully, my church had classrooms with televisions on carts that we could roll into the youth room. We were able to get almost 16 Xboxes in a LAN together.

[@towelie8707]

Sooo many memories with this masterpiece, system link countless all-nighters! ahh gaming was truly unique back in the day

[@jddeluxe2242]

You make the most comprehensive comparison videos. Simply awesome. Thanks again your all your time and effort.

[@newRockHall]

I really hope Bungie comes back to make Halo games after their contract with Hacktivi$ion ends in 2021

[@beasticy4216]

Daxter wait that's actually how long their contract is ?

[@newRockHall]

beast ICY well the contract was signed in 2011 if I am not wrong, and Activision said they have 10 year plan for destiny. Which means it started in 2011 when developement for destiny began, so 2021 should be the year of the end of the contract

[@beasticy4216]

Daxter if that's the case if I was bungie I would run my ass straight back to Microsoft when they get free

[@newRockHall]

But I really dont get WHY DID THEY EVEN TOUGHT ABOUT JOINING ONE OF THE MOST GREEDY, BULLSHIT PUBLISHER EVER LOL. I mean WTF. Now Microsoft is also to blame as why didnt they just bought them and keep them as a first party dev

[@KaneRobot]

Daxter Bungie is nothing like the studio they were when they made Halo Reach. Tons of significant people are gone, not the least of which are Joe Staten, Jason Jones, and Marty O'Donnell. 343 is more Bungie than actual Bungie at this point, there are still a couple of familiar faces there.

[@vlaja29]

John, thank you very much for this extensive episode of DF Retro. I can't even imagine how much effort you put into it. It just shows how much appreciation, knowledge and enhusiasm you have as a reporter and as a fellow gamer. And best of all, your videos always spark a nostalgia and remind me of my childhood. Keep it up :)

[@vladurban6036]

Bump maps first appeared on consoles in 2001. Bump maps appeared on PC only two years later in 2003' Tomb Raider AoD port. Consoles have always been and will be in front of the PC. BTW DF Retro series is my fav. This new intro is great

[@DethThrasher1]

back when consoles used to come out ahead of PC's..now they come out way behind rip consoles

[@vladurban6036]

No, right now this is the case as well. Consoles are more powerful than any high-end PC today. PC still has no games with Order 1886 level of graphics.

[@vladurban6036]

7th and 8th generation of consoles are way ahead of PC. All singleplayer AAA games on PC are ports from consoles since 2007. Also PC has not games like Order 1886 or Uncharted 4 or even 2013' Last of Us - PC still is not enough powerful for that level of graphics.

[@DethThrasher1]

VLAD URBAN i think you may be a little slow friend

[@badtexture1062]

Not quite. A number of PC games supported bump mapping before this time, but many mainstream engines didn't have support for it (same goes for consoles). Most notably, Republic Commando is one of the only Unreal Engine 2 games to actually support bumpmapping, since it was hacked in as a feature. And yes, as giraffeofrat mentioned, Citizen Kabuto (Dec 2000) fully supported bumpmaps. There are other examples, but I can't remember them at the moment.

[@Sabzilatv]

Thumbs up for the effort and time put in to this video

[@dafo446]

HOLLY SHIET IS THAT NEW INTRO?

[@lacasadelvideojuego3880]

Probably only for DF Retro

[@MultiMarvelGeek]

I started watching this video at roughly 1:30 AM. When I saw the video length, I thought I was going to be exhausted. XD. Instead, you guys rebooted my obsession and fervor for Halo. Thanks a lot.

[@brandonisweird7000]

One of the best DF retro's by far. Thank you so much John!

[@fullauto86]

Lololol that graphics card commercial was seriously special.

[@templariclegion2826]

"It also had a unique look and feel" *shows clips of anime*

[@JeremyRiley]

That was great! Thanks so much for providing such an in depth look at one of my all time favourites. The addition of the look at the individual remasters was inspired.

[@DaveSimonH]

Halo is a game that I played endlessly on the Xbox, I swapped between it and Knights of the Old Republic. I've played the PC port & the 360 Anniversary edition, but no XB1 yet to try the Master Chief collection. Solid gameplay, fantastic score and holds up really well. I may have to dig out my Xbox this week for some Halo & Halo 2 :)

[@spicydeath82]

all the halo games run great on xbox one. master chief collection is pretty awesome. halo 3 and 4 and odst run at 1080p 60 fps and the lighting systems for those games was improved. pretty surprising how much detail bungie actually packed into halo 3 that you never noticed on the 360 but can finally see on the one. when my wife wanted to get an xbox one i insisted we get the master chief bundle. kinda the only game i play on it now. rest of the time i'm playing pc.

[@pferreira1983]

@@spicydeath82 Does the Xbox One version of Halo end up having the fog in that area John keeps mentioning? He never said.

[@godzilla7391]

Great work as always!! A lot of people hate on the Halo series, but i loved it, and still do.

[@jackburton307]

Bullet shells!? When talking about detail and physics how could you not mention how the bullet casings looked like real metal shells, didn't disappear quickly but remained on the ground for a long time (nothing cooler to see tons of bullet shells scattered everywhere after a fire fight), and watching them realistically roll down hills? NO other game has done this since. Bullet shells in all other games look fake and disappear instantly. And that includes all the other Halo sequals. It was this attention to detail that set Halo CE apart from all other games. Other than that the review was perfect! Brought back some fond memories.

[@dark1x]

Yes! That's the thing, there is soooo much stuff in Halo I couldn't even include it all! It's insane!

[@Strontium_Dog_72]

Richard Gibbs it was the grass for me. Simple and basic as it gets, but I'd never seen grass look like that in a game before.

[@jackburton307]

John Linneman Agreed. Concerning the anniversary graphics... didn't like it for the same reasons you stated. It lacked the small details of the original graphics- bullet shells suck, up close textures are bad, no sun ray streaming through trees. And it made the environment look fake and less grandiose (reminded me a lot of Halo 2). Speaking of Halo 2... it was a HUGE letdown for me. Bungie could never recreate the whatever it was with the other Halos that made Halo 1 so amazing.

[@arbiter-]

I would happily watch a 3 hour video talking about all of the Halo games and their different versions. Thank you for this, hopefully you cover Halo 2 soon!

[@DandyDNA]

CEA isn't a remake, it's an enhanced port as it is literally just a graphics mod, sharing its codebase with the original.

[@christopherwalkinalloverya5824]

I wish they didn't have the option to switch to the old graphics, they could've made the anniversary version look so much better.

[@ztoogemcducc6360]

@@christopherwalkinalloverya5824 you can switch to the old graphics any time by hitting the. Back button, or tab on PC

[@christopherwalkinalloverya5824]

@@ztoogemcducc6360 I know. I wish they didn't have that option. They could've made the Anniversary version look so much better without having to run the old engine in the background is what I'm saying.

[@verzocktes]

@@christopherwalkinalloverya5824 tbf I'd dislike that a lot. I really loved to switch between the new and old (kinda broken tho) graphics to see how design decisions changed, and boy did they change I'd argue a lot of levels do look "better" in the OG Graphics, ofc not technically but from an art direction. A problem 343 had in Halo 4 and 5 that was imho also kind of present in CEA is that they changed to art direction to be more of a "clean sci-fi" look. I dislike that. I liked that the OG halo games felt like a "not too distant future" With heavy usage of dark colors and metal that looked way grittier than CEA did. Also they changed some color pallets inside of covanant Structures, wich I also kinda disliked.

[@christopherwalkinalloverya5824]

@@verzocktes The "old" graphics are based on the shitty PC port, not the OG Xbox version that I was used to so it's very disappointing. It would've been more beneficial if they used all of their resources on making the Anniversary versions look as good as they could, rather than focusing on running the old graphics engine in the background at all times. The option to switch back to the old graphics is kinda stupid, imo. It's just a novelty. Unfortunately I'm in the minority with this opinion.

[@Randy-Bear]

Watched entire video without hesitating. AWESOME VIDEO! always great to see people express their love for the original games. I only wish to play 16 player LAN in the original halo again someday

[@unixpert321]

Holy shit johnA 47 minute videoHot damn ima fail my finals

[@LowLevelLemmy]

4 player split screen is so satisfying to me.

[@CharlesLawsonSermons]

PLEASE DO HALO 2! PLEASE! I AM BEGGING YOU GUYS! We have.... - Halo 2 Original Xbox - Halo 2 BC on Xbox 360 - Halo 2 PC (Vista) - Halo 2 MCC Xbox One That is four different ways to play Halo 2. It deserves a video just like this. And Halo 2's tech is the mysterious one. It is the only halo game with very little information on its game engine. Please make a sequel to this video, and let us all relive the nostalgia for Halo 2 at the same time.... Thank you! ^_^

[@rekunta]

DF, as a gamer you're one of my favorite subs. This was excellent. Please keep this up, there are so many games I'd love for you to give this treatment to. It's fascinating to learn all the history and tech behind things.

[@winj3r]

What card did you use to test the PC version? I ask this because I remember the game ran in several render paths: Fixed Function, SM1.1, SM1.4 and SM2.0 Only the version running on SM2.0 had all the graphical features. This was a feature only available to DX9 graphics cards. So the Geforce 3, 4 and even the FX were rather limited. The best card of that time to play the game was an ATI Radeon 9700/9800.

[@davidfernandez9]

Nice video. I really appreciate the work that you're doing here. I think that watching this videos give us a great context of this lovely and complex industry. Keep up the good work! Saludos desde España!

[@superbikeaborad]

Makes Sundays that little bit sweeter

[@pinokotsbeer6453]

Fantastic episode again, these DF retro episodes are well made!

[@J4m35ful]

This game will never stop being my all-time favorite. Ever.

[@rare6499]

Rooms above rooms. You just blew my mind. Great episode!! I remember playing Halo on my launch Xbox, great times.

[@deathdoor]

ALMOST FIFTY MINUTES!! Please DF, don't say that Halo invented or popularized "FPS on consoles", please. We were playing FPS on Playstation and N64 for years when Halo was announced for Xbox and finally launched. Almost fifty minutes... wow...

[@EpiCz_Izzy]

Panino Manino they didn't say they invented it. It "evolved" the genre on consoles. You can't deny that.

[@TheBeanfinite]

halo made it better that's all. '

[@MarkyDav]

Halo made FPS truly mainstream on consoles. Sure it was on the older systems, of course Goldeneye was a total classic and even DOOM was around before that on consoles. But Halo with its duel-analog just feels great today, while Goldeneye just feels a bit jank now-days, it hasn't aged well.

[@BenjerminGaye]

Panino Manino don't joke. 007 can't compare to the effect halo had on the FPS genre.

[@deathdoor]

Yes, they really did evolved a plenty of areas, I don't dispute that. I had to write that because of years of bad experiences hearing fans(boys) that think Halo invented the wheel, you know? Sorry about that. Just finished watching and it was a fantastic job. It's incredible how John manages to simply and play EVERYTHING and compile what he finds in these videos. Can't wait to see more. And btw... There are a lot of games that I would like to see here, but at the same time I don't believe that they deserve a full episode. A solution could be an episode about big small achievements from the 32/64 bit era. The little pieces of technology that someone had to conquer that eventually would become standards.

[@mcrazza]

47 minutes and 13 seconds of high quality. Great work, John. :) I first played Halo CE on the Mac back in 2008, which (based on your footage) appears to be a direct port of the PC version. Graphically, I thought it was pretty decent for a 2001 game... until you showed the comparison with the original XB and the special effects absent from the PC/Mac port. Now I feel like I've been playing a lie for nearly 10 years! But yeah, it's a great game and a great series, one that I came to late and on the "wrong" hardware, but it stands the test of time IMHO as it's highly playable and MP feels just so right all these years later. Speaking of online multiplayer, it's well and truly alive on PC/Mac. I absolutely love CTF on Blood Gulch, Sidewinder, Timblerland, Gephyrophobia and Ice Fields; team deathmatch on Longest and Battlecreek; deathmatch on Hang 'Em High; warthog race on Infinity; and the Infection custom mode on pretty much any map. The best fun times.

[@hunterjensen9465]

Oh god the nostalgia was real! I still fondly remember growing up with this game when I was a kid and me and my dad had a blast playing it together. That feels honestly and I'm honestly glad that DF has the time to cover this excellent Xbox title. Not to mention how much of a victory for me and dad when we finally beaten the whole game on legendary. Simply unforgettable in my opinion.

[@RedLampLightsGreen]

You know its a good day when your favorit youtube channel and your favorit game merge into one epic series that is df retro. i might say its my favorit series on yt as well :3 fucking love it when people know their stuff there talking about. keep it up digitalfoundry :D doesnt matter if it takes 4+ weeks..

[@thatssomegoodpie]

I'd like to see a DF retro on the original Killzone on ps2. I feel like that game really pushed the ps2 to its maximum power even though it still has some rather harsh limitations.

[@cyphaborg6598]

Most people had Halo as their first console *online* shooter but in my case it was Killzone.

[@thatssomegoodpie]

I didn't play Killzone when it first came out, in fact my first playthrough was just a few months ago. I looked at it with an open mind en really enjoyed it even though it has some jarring limitations when it comes to the graphics and framerate and such. A really interesting game to analyse on this channel if you ask me.

[@cyphaborg6598]

It wasn't the most fluid shooter that's for sure.Still a great effort considering the HW.

[@iconofsin4578]

Thatssomegoodpie Animations yes i agree. i had killzone 1 back in the day. while the game kinda sucked, tech behind it was interesting

[@LN.2233]

eww

[@InstantJim]

I almost died. The quality and the length of this video makes it one of my favorite youtube videos of all time.

[@canadianbaka]

no matter how long its been when I hear that glorious theme song i can't help but erupt in goosebumps.

[@ArtofZenDigital]

One of the things that makes this video so interesting, is the historical perspective of what was around well before, and at time of Halo’s release, as well as the subsequent ports it had. While this can be said about many of the Digital Foundry Retro videos, the length of this video allows for even more of the historical aspects of Bungie to be included.

[@killermoon635]

The geforce 3 on original xbox was modified and has 2 vertex shaders instead of 1 used by the PC version. In other words, the custom geforce 3 on xbox was is closer to gerfoce 4Ti which came out in 2002 after xbox

[@feiticeirafatale561]

Dont forget low-level API that Microsoft is now selling us as DX12, 15 years later. Dont forget crappy Windows 10 as essential requirements.

[@mike6098]

John, thank you, great work, absolutely terrific to have content like this available on youtube.

[@mattuiop]

You guys should do a revisit of this with the new mcc update coming next week, where they've fixed everything visual related.

[@PericlesBeber]

man!!, what a episode!!! Congratulations, the best Halo CE review/history I ever seen.

[@TheDarkenedRose]

This was an amazing episode of DF Retro, John. The amount of research and your passion for this game shows tremendously, and it really wants me to find a copy of Combat Evolved for the PC (despite it being inferior to the Xbox original) and play through it again. Keep on making these videos, mate. Can't wait for the next episode. For now, I'll stay Retro. :)

[@punka92]

This was great, you really covered everything. Even XBC that no one seems to remember nowadays :P The nostalgia is strong with this one

[@Rhyzomect]

Did not mention the completely broken aspect of Halo PC online multiplayer. Gearbox broke it and caused there to be desync between players. This caused players to have to predict the enemy players movement and shoot in the direction they were going instead of shooting at them. This forced players to "learn the ping" and adjust their shots based on their ping to the server. Also, I thought it would have been worth mentioning that the pistol was greatly overpowered and lead the majority of online players to only use that weapon.

[@dark1x]

Ha, yes, I thought about that but didn't have a good way to show it in action. You're right, though, it was not good back in the day. I'm split on the pistol - yes, it's horribly balanced but, man, it is so much fun to use. XD

[@NERDSAUCE]

server-side mods have since been released that attempt to adjust a player's visual position based on ping. it works pretty well. doesn't fix all of the desync issues, physics still breaks pretty hard, but it makes the shooting far more bearable.

[@mightylink65]

I used to walk around inside the covenant ships doing this 13:42 exact same thing back in the day, its was the first game I've ever seen with bump mapping and I kept trying to figure out if it was really 3d or not.

[@RoxanneGoat]

I still play Halo Custom Edition and it's still a shitload of fun! I'd recommend anyone to pick up a legit copy of Halo PC, download Custom Edition, updating it with the 1.10 patch, and getting the Halo Anticheat 2 addon for the in-game map downloader.

[@Jonathan_Douglas]

Atomic what about spv3

[@RoxanneGoat]

I already beat part 1 a million times. I'm just waiting for part 2. :P

[@friendlyhippopotamus5227]

Some of the best quality on youtube, as per usual. Superb stuff.

[@andrew11ds41]

what an episode

[@TheJayson8899]

Halo MCC is the best thing to ever happen to Halo. Playing all the games at 60fps in 1080p and with the 60fps animation fix for the original makes it by FAR the best port available for all games. It has a lot of issues in itself, especially at launch, but overall in time it became almost perfect.

[@theprfesssor]

BTW the flood secret entrence amazing also they BETTER BRING split screen for consoles back in the mainstream ( in general) ESPECIALLY for halo leave a like if you agree 😆

[@dark1x]

Yeah, removing split-screen from Halo 5 was a disappointment. On one hand, I appreciate the aim for 60fps but I feel like finding a way to implement split-screen should have been a priority.

[@badtexture1062]

+John Linneman I honestly don't really agree there. Multiplayer functionality is awesome in any capacity. Just look at Goldeneye; they threw it in last-minute and the game's pretty much defined by the feature, even if it DID run in the single digits the entire time. Even when I had Xbox Live Gold, I didn't even bother playing Halo over LIVE... not even once, except with a friend in Reach's Forge World. They could have simply gone the CoD route, and thrown it in there with the tradeoff of 30-ish FPS and/or graphical downgrading. Not quite as smooth, but the kind of people who care about split-screen rarely care about every last detail.

[@melindamontgomery9337]

This was a great video! The amount of work you put into it is much appreciated.

[@Elifesound]

Great video as always!! Please do a DF Retro of the original Gears of War.

[@Rountree1985]

Not a retro game.

[@anthonyandthemachine]

Wow dude! You must have put so much work into this video! I really loved it! This episode reminded me of the times me and my friend would play Halo, and Crimson Skies on Xbox. Good times

[@Antomerino1]

DF Retro is back!

[@ShadowsBehindU]

With patch 1.0.10 on pc (which fixes the active camo shader for nvidia gpus among other things) and Halo Anticheat 2 (for fov adjustments), that version is still fun to play. Love the ability to downsample :)

[@bobman11100]

The original trilogy is going to be revered as a "masterpiece" for decades.

[@stevenbrace8579]

This game was monumental for me when I was about 16 years old. My brother and I each got an xbox and put a hole through the wall in the corner of our rooms and regularity had 8 people playing death match games, even team DM before there was any such thing as online play. It was incredible to have an experience like that at that time.

[@edwardrocks4338]

Another excellent analysis. Love this stuff.

[@Druhin-yt]

oh this brings me back man! I spend so many hours in this game and is still one of the best games ever made to me. Awsome video! DF Retro all the way.

[@beasticy4216]

It can't be SonyFoundry is actually playing and talking about a different platform for once

[@beasticy4216]

Ioannis Stf Calls me Corporate Slave yet has his master Logo as him Profile pic

[@riahisama]

lol

[@elogamer]

beast ICY shocking, right?

[@uhkingdom]

always love the idea of kids on the internet thinking that adults give a flying fuck at all about "platform loyalty" digitalfoundry is a tech channel and sony has the most powerful consoles out right now, if they had this shit in 2002 every video would be about the xbox and gamecube with 5 minutes spent showing how the ps2 version of the same game was a joke.

[@cikame]

... I seem to remember the PS1 and PS2 being extremely popular consoles, that would make them the dominating console platforms between 1994 and 2005. Some seriously incredible and groundbreaking games came out in that period, so they'd do well to cover it.

[@RedHaloManiac95]

That Halo music still gives me the chills. Halo is something another game will ever be able to accomplish again. It just gives you THAT feeling looking back at it and listening to the music years later.

[@alessandromigliorini3435]

Lol

[@RedHaloManiac95]

@@alessandromigliorini3435 You know a game that has a bigger impact?

[@alessandromigliorini3435]

@@RedHaloManiac95 Of course not

[@Seirra117ofTheUNSC]

this was worth the wait

[@MrLathor]

Fantastic video. Love this retro series. Really allows you to see which games stand the test of time. Halo is an awesome game even today, no nostalgia required.

[@TheNamelessBeing]

The Tech comparison with Metroid Prime is a quite insteresting one, and even Halo having so many new techniques and shaders, I think metroid prime aged better, because of the closed scenarios and the incredible geometry achieved with that game.

[@HCTarik]

Great great choice for an episode! I'm gonna enjoy this one for sure! Thanks!