Halo 2 Anniversary Cutscenes Side by Side - Part 1 of 4
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2024
- As part of our Game and Art series on Twitch.tv, here are all of the cutscenes in Halo 2: Anniversary contrasted against the original Halo 2 cutscenes. The videos have been synchronized to help those studying filmmaking to determine the creative differences Blur decided on when updating the game. Credits and links below:
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
- halo.bungie.org for hosting high quality versions of the Halo 2 cutscenes for the past decade.
- RUclipsr Unyshek for quickly compiling the Halo 2 Anniversary cutscenes upon the game's release. You may watch them here: • Halo 2 Anniversary All...
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Is there any Halo fan that wouldn't enjoy an actual feature length movie of Halo, using just CGI of this quality? I know I'd love to see that.
i would aswell
That would be AWESOME
I would love it.
I'd like to see a Halo movie that's made using the engine of a Halo game itself. I know it could work, since machinima like Red vs Blue are basically this, albeit on a smaller scale.
@@BioGoji-zm5ph This level of CGI surpasses any game graphics of any kind. I'm pretty sure this will be 100x more enjoyable than a "Machinima" style movie
Jesus, the new games cutscenes look like a movie
Totally agree
Absolutely!
when i first saw them i thought they were scenes from a movie
They truly did a fantastic job. I even compared the music side by side. And personally even though I grew up with the original games, the cut scenes and music are better in most respects
Doesn’t hurt that the writing feels like a movie too. Still the best halo campaign in terms of narrative
Whoa, I can’t believe they pretty much remade the cutscenes instead of just updating the graphic, I love how much effort they put into this :)
Correct. It was a ground-up effort. None of the original assets or animation would have been salvageable for something like this.
They even changed sounds and music in areas. Some I personally liked and didn't like. But I can appreciate the effort.
If only they did the same thing with the first halo game
@@shadowphantom66 at least they did update the graphics for it. Might not be a complete make over, but it's not as it was on release.
@@shadowphantom66
At least the CE Anniversary cutscenes had improved animations in them.
5:40 This small extra bit adds so much to this scene. I'm so happy they added that in.
It watered down her toughness.
@@joebenson528 How? cause she sniffled slightly? She was grieving the loss of her father the fact that she didn't bawl her eyes out is damn tough in itself.
@@joebenson528 I wish I could give this fifty million dislikes.
Exactly. It’s such a small detail but it adds to much. She’s obviously grief stricken that she’s lost her father, a person that she was definitely close with. I love it.
It makes it worse. It means they did a terrible job training her as a soldier. It means she’s weak. Get choked up in private.
I like that they actually re-did all of the cutsecenes rather than doing just a graphics update.
and add a multiplayer *cough cough* halo ce annoversery reusing halo reach *cough cough*
@@Reshi9984 bro how'd you cough when typing?
I've waited so long for someone to do this, not only that but you took time to sync both shots every time it got out of sync
I love how years ago, when I first played Halo 2 as a kid. I thought the game was beautiful and one of the greatest things ever. Walking through the various areas of Halo. Riding on the gondolas. the High Charity city. I thought they were all beautiful. And I didn't really notice the low poly. But now, anniversary offers so much more. I'm so glad they put so much effort into one of my favourite games of all time.
ngl the way the remasterd one looks is how i saw it when i was younger
Blur Studios is fucking amazing
3:47 Thel: Bring it on starfuckers!! I'm the best Elite here!
Finally I come across the side by side cut scene comparisons!!!! You did a fantastic job!
thanks!
Agreed
@@BenRitter why is this not monetized??
@@ironicbobcat1 Because he has only 84 subscribers. He needs over 1,000 subs to get monetization.
Well done man.
Must say this is the best Cortana has looked.
Agreed.
+Not Srb2wadlord What is the mark of shame?
cameronjr8 mark of shame?
+Not Srb2wadlord Yes, I'm asking you.
cameronjr8 I dunno?
I dont know why, but every time I watch the comparisons, it brings tears to my eyes to see my childhood game growing up with me.
Thats how you remaster a game! They did an amazing job, and i LOVE the fact that we can switch between the orignal and the remastered versions at any time we want, no matter if its during gameplay or in the middle of a cut scene... and it changes instantaneously!!!
It's interesting that in the old cutscenes they deliberately left Truth out of all the shots in the opening cutscene before he came forward to talk to the Arbiter
, but the remastered cutscenes don't bother doing that
On review, I'm not sure it's deliberate. I think it's a minor failure of framing, as establishing shots are meant to, well, establish settings and characters. Leaving him out without a narrative reason to do so leads to confusion, not surprise at his reveal.
@@BenRitter I dunno, in every scene before he comes forward Truth is hidden: when the camera comes down to show Arbiter talking to the prophets from the camera's perspective he's standing right in the middle and blocks Truth, in the next shot there's a bit of architecture that blocks Truth but shows Mercy, and in the next two shots before Truth talks it also only shows that side view of holo-Regret and Mercy but doesn't show Truth. If it wasn't deliberate, you'd think someone working on the cutscenes would stop and wonder whether the camera angles aren't that great since none of them up to that point show all of the prophets.
I'd take the far superior body and facial animations over slightly better cinematography every day
@@Kaleidescoop Yeah... the remakes missed a few cues for ambiance. Especially the placement of the 343 logs in CE which is noticeably wrong and too meta with the narrative. That or the hyper detailed and well-lit Halo (to the point of rendering the flashlight obsolete) much more in tone with the religious connotations the Covenants gave it than the original urgently made by the forerunners. (No details cement everywhere, poorly lit all over. It had all the tell tale signs of something built in an emergency. Which for a structure of its size it was.)
But overall, the graphics shows a great respect to the original and are an amazing improvement! I just have difficulties believing we ever fell so in love with the original bland graphics that asked us to interpret most of what we saw. I barely recognize anything. Ok, it's been 16 years since I last played, but to the untrained eye, the new stuff is just well enough built that I wondered for a moment how it could have aged that well. (It didn't.)
But yeah... I did hesitate to switch back for the old graphics on occasions, certain scenes just feels better that way.
And nice catch on your analysis of the Prophets being used as symbols and not just as characters. A bit reminiscent of the first appearance of the Quintessons in Transformers The Movie. (Their five masks being associated with an emotion / philosophy and implied to be the multi-facets of a being so hell-bent on destruction it is literally at war with itself for its self-dominance.)
I want to see more cgi enhanced movies like this
The remastered cutscenes are amazing
2:20 i love how much more pride he has in classic oppose to how limp he is in anniversary
I hate how permanently hunched they are by the neck. Even when standing straight their necks are just permanent gamer neck posture. In the original their lively and tall
I think that it makes more sense because he has nothing to be proud of because he has lost the most holiest of artifacts for his religion, through he also has a sense of that he did the right thing with the way he speaks and the music.
one small detail i love in the remastered cutscenes is the way some of the more game-ish shots are redone to look more cinematic while keeping the iconic moments from 2 as close to how we remember them as possible
The new quality is amazing but there’s something about the original that feels like home.
Like meeting an old friend again after so long.
Bungie made magic with Halo 2's gameplay, story, sound and dialog.
343 made it all look so damn beautiful.
SAVU and really brought the audio home. It’s much clearer and more powerful.
I love playing the beginning cutscene for Outskirts over in Old Graphics then over again in New Graphics. It's insane how difference there is in Outskirts This cutscene of halo 2 has the biggest difference between the two. Between the fact you can actually hear the Pelicans flying. How much better mombassa looks in Remastered & the scarab actually damages that second pelican with it's Needler anti air gun. Not the one that chief was on or the one the main scarab gun got.
Still impressive how they not only kept the ORIGINAL voices from the cutscenes, but even made them better in sound quality.
The original still looks pretty good must of been revolutionary for the time
It was. Bungie was pushing the Xbox to do bump and normal mapping before most other devs, with complex cinematic rigs and an early attempt at asset streaming in order to make these scenes happen on a machine with only 64 MB of shared graphics memory.
Ye
It always impresses me how different the graphics were compared to the Halo 1, even though it's on the same system.
It really was.
I played Halo 2 back in 2004, and it was one of the best looking games i played during that time
in HD, it holds up surprisingly well. Incredible depth of field effects, amazing particles, and my god the skyboxes. I have a whole collection of screenshots of iconic moments throughout the game and honestly it still blows me away. OG Halo 2 in MCC, on a 1440p ultrawide display, looks /incredible/
it's aged really well, despite the low poly count compared to today's games. Halo CE aged even better imo, both games still look amazing
i dont know how Bungie pulled it off, considering how limited the OG Xbox was, but all their immense work paid off imo
"There will be ord-THERE WILL BE ORDER IN THIS COUNCIL"
Even to this day, the remastered cutscenes still hold up visually. Truly amazing.
7:46 you'd thik that bomb's spikes would get stuck in those holes in the elevator floor lol
Æ Muzyk Yeah. I guarantee that's a situation where two different artists had ideas of what would be cool-looking without meeting up with each other. Additionally, over-sized texture details like those are really just a holdover from the standard definition days.
Whenever someone says that a remaster is just "updated textures", I point to this. Completely ruins their argument.
For the gameplay they aren’t wrong lol, the cutscenes is a different story..
@@Mugetsu2021 Gameplay also has updated sounds, effects....lot more than just textures.
Johnson in H2A looks more like Johnson than Johnson ever did in Halo 1 or 2 (Halo 3/ODST/CEA Johnson looks like a completely different person)
Omg this is amazing. It's like a whole new game I love it. It's so beautiful. I was a huge H2 fan when it came out in the early 2000. To watch the remastered version is like living my childhood again. Thanks Ben
Wait. These cutscenes are over 8 years old? They look really great. I wouldn't be scared to say, that most of the scenes(mainly in the begging) were from a game released just a year or two ago.
Welp. What can I say except, that they did really good job remaking the cutscenes.
Considering the halo community in general i'm a pleasantly suprised people aren't complaining about how the anniversary cinematics are crap compared to the old.
Bless you for uploading this, I was really curios about all the changes they made. And I couldn't switch every time from original to remastered to see it from myself 😂
H2A missed the chance to make the blue thingy on the prophet's head at 2:38 the moon. They did it in the old h2
There is a good reason for that. Yes it was visually interesting, but that's not where the eye is focused during that transition. H2A properly frames the close-up on the prophet's face so you can read the acting. The moon in the transition is re-framed to match the new focal point.
@@BenRitter What, the moon isnt the focal point in the new one at all its off to the right away from Truths face. Its a natural cross fade in the original.
Lmao, turn on your subtitle at 6:25
Hahahah!
I just finally got around to start playing Halo 2: Anniversary. Halo 2 was my first Halo game some 10 years ago, and seeing it in its full glory in HD just brings tears to my eyes. Thanks for making this video! So impressed by the new cinematic!
U know its the best halo game when remastered from ground up. Added new and remastered audio, scoring was also remastered, cutscenes remade from scratch, and graphics are like 10x better without exaggerating. This was made with ALOT of love and effort. This will always be the best halo game in my heart. No way 343 can top halo 2 even in its original form.
Jesus, for 2014 this remaster still looks amazing. It must have cost a fortune.
The human eye cant tell the difference
You have to be completely blind if you can't tell the difference
Lots of differences I see. Some examples are the lighting, the detail on Chief's armor, how they were animated and of course, the changes in some of the camera shots.
I bet they were joking
Haven't seen any comments on it but the most interesting thing that stands out to me is all the shots where the action is either facing left or moving right to left in the OG flipped to be moving or facing right in the remake.
Agreed. The original Bungie scenes were not always following common rules of cinematography, and that has been largely fixed in Blur's work.
@@BenRitter is that what that's about? I kinda figured.
Man i hope they make halo 3 anniversary next year
ay
Devon Harris
It doesn't really need it. But oh man how I want that! ;)
I did hear that they aren't making because it doesn't need it, which, if that's the case, I'm not really bummed out.
It's inevitable, but probably not this generation.
I mean the graphics are still good today.
I like how the bomb deactivation/reactivation sound in the original sounds like locking a car.
Probably the best game remaster of all time.
Aaaah, that new Mombasa scene. "..whoa..." XD So much better even tho they did cut his line.
i think the line was still in it, you can hear the beginning of it just as the scarab crashes through the building, the added sound just overlaps and makes it inaudible
great side by side but you know those impossible flukes and timing with the old and new versions, still awesome bro
I appreciate how the remastered audio plays on the left headphone and the original audio plays on the right headphone.
The cinematography in the original is so much better. I dont know why the felt the need to change it so much.
RZIBARA there wasn’t much change, just a tweak to the pacing, much better lighting and details, and camera shake added.
Johnson and Chief saying thanks at the same time then looking at each other will never not put a smile on my face
Blur did such an incredible job, God what I'd so to see them remaster halo ce and halo 3... and halo 4... and 5.... and everything ever...
2:22
Remastered: Gets shoved with slightly lame reaction like a reaction to a kid getting bullied on the playground.
Original: Acts like "you better not touch me!". Makes the Elites more similar to Brutes for their own pride and strength, but with different ideals.
Actually his reaction in the remastered was more of a “how dare this disgusting brute touch me?”
@Flare I get Halo 5, but 4?
I really feel that other cutscenes also seem to misinterpret how Thel 'Vadam is. In the remaster he seems either mopey about his failure or just getting pushed around as opposed to defiant and angry like in the original, and it really bothers me. In some ways most of the remastered scenes *somehow* don't show as much emotion as in the original. And they didn't even have as much facial expression in the original!
@@Ascyndaeon that's your memory tricking you. go play the og again. this isn't 343 btw, this is blur studios and they did a great job with h2a
stop hating omfg
Anyone else see at 2:23 were they decided to make the arbiter look like a bitch and get pushed around while in the original he was like don't fucking touch me.
I like how each version played in only one ear
And yet, there are some video game developers out there like Rockstar and Ubisoft who think that a "remaster" means to simply increase the lighting as opposed to completely overhauling the graphics. I am beyond thankful that Halo 2 Anniversary exists, absolutely beautiful game.
things like, lighting, Camera angles, even intricate designs that texture ships and armors and general patterns and such
thanks for taking the time to do this video man the difference is amazing. great job.
Note: This is the Normal difficulty of the game. The dialogue at 12:08 depends on the difficulty.
i grew up playing on a pc rather than xbox, so i only recently got to experience halo for myself when MCC was released to steam(common story, i know). i really wish there was a way to switch between original and anniversary graphics in the middle a cutscene like you can regularly during missions. i understand the absolute nightmare it would be to actually get that working and implemented. and it would most likely come with performance issues(at least on pc, like i said, not much experience with consoles), but it would still have been an amazing feature. i absolutely loved seeing how the old and the new compared, i guess i can settle with watching this
The difficulty with that in Halo 2 is that the frame timing changed with the new shot and acting direction. I'm really glad they changed what they did there, as it all flows more naturally and better follows the established best practices of cinematography. In my comparison, I chose to keep the shots aligned. This means this video is horrible for watching the cutscenes for entertainment, but it does highlight the differences in direction.
Unless they changed it for PC, I'm pretty sure you can do it on xbox.
You can.
You can do just that now
I surprised Microsoft hasn’t given Blur Studio the ability to make an animated show or movie using some of the Halo books.
They seem more interested in letting Paramount make a sitcom where Pablo Schreiber does his best "hi, I'm Daisy!" impression.
Kinda wish the cut scenes on the Xbox one were not Pre-rendered so we could get a more accurate idea of how far the hardware has come.
+Nick Orr That might have precluded keeping the original cutscenes available at the same time. It's not so much about how far the hardware has come, it's how far we've come with the hardware. Besides, you don't hire Blur and then not let them play to their strengths as a company. Making these cutscenes in-engine would have surely led to a lesser product.
Honestly they’re both amazing
These are great! Thanks for putting them together!
Thanks for watching! This project took me all day, and it's definitely on the nerdy, artsy side of analysis. Not the usual thing one slings to the big TV. :) We also just had a successful Game and Art stream discussing the differences we could find between them. Link's in the description if you're interested.
Oh god, I LOVE Blur's renditions. Grew up with og 2, but holy crap, Blur did a masterful job!! I honestly think they improved everything!! With only 1 gripe: Miranda Keyes looks a bit too old now. Her youth but still having the rank of captain made her more impressive in my eyes.
I find that the cinematography is better in classic for the first cutscene. Specifically how truth is hidden until he speaks, meanwhile in anniversary he’s easily seen clear as day so the focus on his mysterious hands before he comes in is meaningless.
Another example is the shot where the entire council is yelling at the Commander at 2:08. The camera goes low and rotates around him, portraying how disorienting it would be to have the entire council yelling at him from all directions. The new cutscene doesn't do that and it takes away from the impact of the shot.
I swear they gotta make a movie of the whole MCC this shit was badass
Halo 2 had such a great concept fighting on earth. Then for whatever reason Bungie thought it would be a good idea to leave earth and fight on a different planet. Halo was good but missed so many key elements that could've made it great. Good thing halo 3 made up for it.
I dont like the anniversary scene in 5:58 Because in the original he actually screams in pain by his facial expression but anniversary its like he's just taking the hit to the heart. They need that facial expression back.
I think anniversary did it better cuz you can see he is trying to hold in the pain because he doesnt want to give the covenant any satisfaction.
Yea like he said, “if they came to hear me beg, they’ll be disappointed”
I did not remember the prophet of truth looked like cantinflas
And it was at that moment that you realized just how ugly everything actually looked when it came to the aliens. I mean, look at Truth's buggy eyes and denture mouth, dear lord lol
If they were to ever make a halo movie they should probably do what starwars did with Vader
Just hire someone whose height matches chiefs and just get the original voice actor to talk for him
didnt they do that for the Halo: Forward Unto Dawn movie?
@@cartledgej they did
Like with most Halo games, it’s really hard for me to tell which I like more.
Curtis Jensen definitely the remaster. It kept the art style but just spruced up the lighting and detail
@@zachb1706 I agree, those are great, but there's more motion and mystery with the old graphics. I don't get to use my imagination quite as much with the new one and the acting is sometimes a bit static as well. These are little things though :)
Also, gravemind looks way too gross in the new one, in my opinion.
Curtis Jensen he looks more floodlike, and atleast his mouth moves in sync
Curtis Jensen what do you mean by the gravemind looks too gross?
Nothing has bothered me more than the line "Yes Sir, Sargent."
The Unwanted Scrub if I remember correctly, that character was actually voiced by Michelle Rodriguez.
You're right. Whenever I hear her voice all I can think of is Trudy from Avatar. She's hot af
More like "Aye Aye Sergeant Major" or some shit
Dude Comparison video , Awesome asf
So aside from visuals the sounds and timing has changed too. Stuff like background SFX and a bit of soundtrack. Except for the voice lines. I'm actually surprised that they kept the original recordings for the remastered instead of re-voicing them. Nice.
Blurr Studios need redo the halo CE cutscenes and Halo 3 ones also.
Imagine the scene in Halo 3 whith the Shipmaster with this level of CGI
I wanna go back to 1980 and show someone these cutscenes
Right? I think that's a common unspoken thing people do generally too
Definitely an upgrade
There’s something about the new cutscenes and graphics that just look. Off. I like them. But something just makes me like the og just a bit better
The thing that I've noticed and you can see it in the comparison, it's that the 343 ones really just want to push fast forward everything. As well as having somewhat similar shots everyone they cut to a character.
Meanwhile the Bungie ones take their time a little more to establish a scene and constantly flip the camera around to show dynamic. It's not perfect but it does show there was more a cinematic mind behind the process than just making it look pretty but with none of the timing.
Fantastic job Ben!
Thank you
Pressing Tab during was fucking hilarious
The Anniversary looks like a live-action movie compared to the original
Hey did they mess up on the color of the seal on chiefs helmet? In Halo 2 its grey and rubberized (I would guess) and here its the same material and color as the rest of the helmet.
4:51
+Nick Orr Aesthetic differences abound. The artists wanted to keep true to the original, but weren't afraid to improve on it as they felt. I can't speak for them, but I can guess they changes the color of that helmet piece to help Chief stand out against the background more. Silhouette is very important.
Tbh Halo 2 having grey made it better but I still love h2a. There's a reason I'm stillw atching both to this day.
dang guys, we used to run Halo 2 on a potato basically
Ah ha ha yeah! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_technical_specifications
The new one sure loves its face close-ups
But it uses them well.
The Anniversary cutscenes have superior graphics and mostly superior sound effects, but... I think the original cutscenes have better pacing and music flow in some areas, especially the ending cutscene of Metropolis, where the music definitely seems to be rushing to keep up with the action on display, instead of flowing alongside it like it did in the original cutscene.
Eh, I have a huge critique of the Anniversary edition sound effects - most of the unique Halo effects sounds were ditched for more generic 'spacey' sounds and don't really sound like a Halo game. It's super cheesy sounding, and the continuity and simplicity of sounds was a huge process the original audio team at Bungie went through, and a lot of it is broken both in cutscenes and in the game.
I was wondering why the new cutscenes hit different
(no offense to anyone that likes the updated scenes) it just doesn't feel like the original halo 2. I played this game as a kid and I remember all of its flaws like it was yesterday. It had its own halo flair/charm. But this anniversary update, albeit really nice looking, just feels so.... Not original. I watch these cutscenes and I can't help but think, "This looks exactly like something bungie would put in Destiny." And although I don't mind Destiny, I just wish the original charm was still there, just in a higher resolution.
Worst opinion ever tbh
Jesus Christ it literally looks better than an actual live action movie.
I know halo 2 is old but I find old cutscene graphics in general with the cg kinda scary looking
It's worth remembering that Halo 2's original cutscenes were done in-engine. Comparing it to other games of its era, there are few that were significantly more adept in any of the areas of visual fidelity, animation quality, and the technical tricks they used to make all those large cuts possible. It doesn't hold up today, but few do.
In context, at the time, this wowed gamers with a truly rare treat. I kinda wonder if I should make a video about that, and couple it with a critique of what it could have done better.
some of the model data (cinematography? motion data? camera angles??) feels off in the new one compared to the new.
But a lot of the new feels like SUCH an improvement.
Sure looks good, but sometimes the mouths have way too much movement. It’s like the mo cap actor was told “no move your jaw MORE”.
Lol I forgot that this was only like 3 years after goldeneye.
im just amazed at the time and effort you took to sync up the timing when it went off due to the changes of the remaster. i just keep thinking how long it took you to do that
Thankfully, it only took a couple of hours, and some of that was for re-watching it for quality assurance. Most of these video editing programs have very useful tools that, once you know them, allow you to make quick timing edits such as these quickly. What we should be amazed at is the incredible display of craftsmanship by the animation studio. I guarantee /that/ took forever. :)
Is it just me or in the old scenes when they move they do kinda like a slide
The Halo 2 cutscenes are all done in engine, meaning they had to work with rigs that could be computed within the cpu limitations of the original Xbox.
Think of them like skeletons on a stand, and to move the skeleton you have to move the stand it's on. So yes, they are floating at a technical level.
It takes both time and a trained animator to make the skeleton move in a way that hides the fact it's hanging from its stand. And with the rigs they had available, they may or may not have had fancy features like the ability to "plant" a foot when it is on the ground. You may also see there is very little hip movement in the original cutscenes, indicating perhaps a lack of (good) inverse kinematics for bending and pointing knees and feet.
If only the game had this good graphics
I love all of the work that went into these remade cutscenes, but there are certain changes and redesigns that I don't understand. Also, the lighting is so bright, maybe they should've dialled it down a bit
I wish they had kept the part at the end where johnson bonked the pilot on the head
It’s practically a different game!
My, how times have changed
Halo 2 really led the way for remasters...shame that we still can't play it with more than 2 players.
Just waiting for Rockstar to remaster San Andreas with the same level of passion.
think about it, they kind of sort of changed how Halo 2 happened, if you to this story, in 04 it'd be *far* different in terms of specific detail then the way a H2A hardcore fan would tell it
Scrab in the original really dosnt like that pelican, it's still firing on it after it's gone down.
However updated scrab is more efficient, it hits all 3 pelicans