EDIT: I don't even remember leaving this comment here a bit over two years ago, lol. I rewatched the video, and I've come around to agree with some of your views, mainly do to HeadFullOfEyes' video on Call of Duty 4 and how he really laid everything out, no offense, much better than you did. I still think that none of it really matters in the end because the original is still around in fine shape. Though I have to very much so agree, a graphics toggle on a graphics remake should always be a thing. I'm not gonna change my old comment, just cuz it still sort of stands, even if overly passive aggressive, and a bit rude. "Ah yes, because they changed the shape of this one shadow texture from square to circular, changes the entire atmosphere of the watermelon. The watermelon is meant to be bleak and depressing, a reflection of it's time. Now it's nice and circular, more realistic. This isn't what the original artists wanted."
I think you might be overemphasising how sacrosanct MW1 was. I get the core argument of not interfering with an artist's vision because doing so without actually being that artist has a high chance of getting the spirit of their intent wrong and agree it should be upheld as a general principle, but this particular game might not be the best case to make that argument with. If you've seen Raycevick's Modern Warfare retrospective there's a few useful snippets of interviews scattered throughout and it doesn't seem like artistic vision was high on their priorities. Even for a moment in the game which some people regard as profound, namely the AC-130 sequence, there was only one person at the studio who voiced that there was anything artistic behind it in that they described it as being a horrifying glimpse into how dehumanised warfare can become - everyone else just expressed it was cool and fun to engage in a spot of unstoppable carnage. Then you get into things like the missions weren't made with a story in mind and they instead brought someone else in to narratively string all the levels together, you're not looking at a cohesive work of art. You're looking at a team of guys who just wanted to make an FPS and get away from making games endlessly set in WW2 by contract. I sincerely doubt any of them care remotely about the addition of animations, timing for dialogue or character movements since they never cared about any of those things in the first place. The terms 'remake' and 'remaster' have also become extremely muddied and I don't know where to draw the line anymore. I'm not sure anyone else does either.
What you're saying is mostly true, but his point still stands, just because they didn't have an artistic vision as a group doesn't mean that they did not both individually have an artistic vision nor that the ultimate product was not an artistic work as a whole.
@@PenumbranWolf I'm really just saying I don't know how worthwhile it is to lament the loss of a cohesive artistic vision when the original wasn't very big on that in the first place, but sure I'm all for respecting even the individual intent of people who worked on it and those intentions should always be respected.
Fantastic video, but you kinda lost the plot a bit on the Halo remaster thing. "How they were originally" isn't accurate, when you're talking about a Gearbox port that changed a bunch about the original title, broke the AI, and removed a bunch of effects. The "original graphics" are actually a broken port, more egregious than the MW remaster you're trying to contrast it against. I get exactly what you mean with the option for new and old visuals, but I'm sure you can understand why, in a conversation about the importance of preserving art, citing an example that destroys the original in that way isn't a great look.
I wasn't giving my full endorsement of HCEA, moreso how a graphics toggle switch can at least help preserve one aspect of the game. Programmers are artists, with even lower priority in terms of preservation than modelers, texture artists, and sound engineers, because often their code gets changed post-launch in game patches. The way I see it, changing things for the sake of getting a game released to PC is better than changing things because "that design is out of date". Gearbox are of course known fuckups, so it's little surprise they broke things along the way. As to the code changes, the reason Sabre used the Gearbox port and not the original Bungie release is because of DirectX and Xbox code compatibility with the updated engine Sabre was using for the visuals. Halo's engine has a LOT of weird quirks to it because of the nature of it's development. I recently found out that Morrowind's Xbox version quits and restarts the game every time you hit a loading screen, a byproduct of running on the OG Xbox. I hope that makes sense.
Right, I appreciate that you have the technical understanding to not endorse what is an inferior, messed up port, and I know you were largely referring to the visual toggle. The only reason why I brought this up is that, in a video about preservation of art, someone ignorant to version issues might not be able to figure that out from the phrasing and context. This is actually an ongoing issue, where 343 has repeatedly referenced the wrong version of CE, and as a result, the far superior version creeps further and further into obscurity, as people buy a broken port of a broken port of a broken port. At least with CoD 4, the game being a multiplat on the 360, PS3, and later receiving the PC version, ensured that it would be remembered as close to correctly as possible by a huge number of people, regardless of what happens with the remaster. It also came out only 13 years ago, whereas CE is pushing 20. Halo CE only sold a few million on the Xbox, and most of those people who played it are close to or over 40 now, so there isn't as much pushback against a buggy port that's writing the original out of existence. I'm glad that you responded with your full thoughts, because if(really, it's more of a "when," with how your recent videos are doing) your channel gets popular, people can at least read over your expanded position.
One thing i wanna add is that the fov of the ending of the first mission. In the original its zoomed in and you dont see Price face, while in the remaster the fov perspective is a bit far and you can see Price face. With the original you don't know wether price notices that you were sliping or not and that makes you worried since also the soldiers around Price doesn't notice Soap to right until the end where he picks Soap up, in the remaster you immediately see that Price is worried and tries to help Soap. I maybe just looking into it to much but thats what i think also helps the original scene more intense.
I have to say this is the only video you have where it could be argued thay some of the points are a bit disingenuous or a bit spiteful. Either way, its still a pretty good video.
Glad to know I'm not the only one bothered by the changes to "Aftermath" While I understand points made that it could be construed to be more "dramatic" by having other dying Marines around, the sheer loneliness and fatalism of being quite possibly the last living Marine - not just on the crashsite, but in the entire city as well - is well worth having everyone else be dead It also adds to the fact to how tragic Jacksons death is. He's alone, scared, confused and surrounded by the dead bodies of his team. It's a horrible way to go out
Jackson being alone also adds weight to what Shepherd says in MW2: "I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye, and the world just fucking watched." It's a raw line in the cheesy action movie that is MW2, and it gets even more sick when you add in the extra-narrative context Jackson being your avatar; you can be engrossed as one of the dying 30,000, as the world who watched from the comfort of their homes, or as someone somewhere between these two positions. If you add other people to that scene, it cheapens the impact of the scene itself, and retroactively cheapens the hypothetical impact of what Shepherd says in the sequel; all by telling us how we should feel in that scene through what happens to the NPCs, over showing us the scene and letting the player react to it.
Actually Al-Asad voice is redubbed during the interrogation to have him make references to Zakhaev and Makarov, which wasn't present in the original game. So they did re-voice some lines.
I definitely think you're over thinking a lot of the story and character points. The Devs didn't think that far into Story or characters or drawing parallels to certain things. They wanted to make a shoot bang bang game where you're a good guy stopping bad guys. The morality and sacrosanct nature of preserving the original artistic nature of the game isn't and wasn't a priority for anyone
You know it’s possible to have multiple thoughts at once, right? Some of the best brain dead media had a lot of thought put into it. And if you didn’t want to hear any criticism about the game why the hell are you watching this video lol you clicked this video cause you wanted to hear someone go into detail on your favorite game and are upset that they went into details lol
Nah that's far from the truth, everything, every small detail is deliberate. It was thought through and planned. You start to notice a lot more when you realize that
You mention liking the Halo CE Remaster. it's definitely a weird "remaster" because it runs both the new version on top of the old one and uses the same geometry (this does mean there are many invisible walls and trees are not lined up with their geometry in the new version, so you can line up a shot and shoot a wall you couldn't see...). This is all to ask, have you watched Noodle's videos on Halo?
I think he just meant he likes that feature of switching back and forth, and I do agree, it's a great idea. Every remaster should do that, ideally. But if he made a video about Anniversary itself he'd probably shit all over it.
The lack of views, comments etc you have for the effort that goes into your videos is criminal. Good luck and I'm looking forward to the mini series on cyberpunk and MW3 video. :) Edit - Future me has noticed a lot of comments and views on other videos, oops.
Considering your thoughts on remasters, what's your take on the DaH! Remaster? That one added a whole cut level from the final release, added in new challenges and unlocks, and a sprint function with accompanying time trials. I'm personally fine with 'Remasters' doing this. I feel the problem is too many games get remastered, and what should happen more often is just straight up ports. To me, a 'remaster' should be reserved for a game that had something lopped off it and is restored, or was buggy on launch and needs a fresh coat of paint, whereas most games just need to be ported to modern hardware.
Really good video, loved the interesting on the nature of remasters/remakes. I'd love to hear your opinion on the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, as the devs said they were not aiming to replace the original with the new, shiny version; but instead encouraged people to play both the remake and original, and view them as two wholly seperate entities, only with the same spirit.
I also dislike remasters, but there's two ways of doing them I don't mind: 1) When Capcom did so for Resident Evil 1. They improved the graphics considerably and with enough reverence that I didn't mind other changes to voice acting and music. Some story changes I thought were a bit unwarranted, but the game does what I felt the similarly treated Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes did not do. 2) When the game is either a console port or console exclusive, and the only changes are making the game run at a higher resolution and frame rate. FromSoftware seems to have done this with Dark Souls. Square Enix, when they're not making questionable changes to original art, comes very close to making their Final Fantasy remasters perfectly. If Square would simply upres background textures in addition to their character models, they'd be perfectly acceptable. I hear their pixel remasters correct the issues of their FFVIII and FFVII remasters. If a game is "remastered" and it is available on PC, then owners of the original should always be given the remaster free or at a discount.
Tbh Remaster, Definitive Edition, Special Edition, etc are all stupid names. We really need 3 dedicated words for this crap. I personally believe those 3 should be: "Graphical Update/Overhaul" for... well visual/sound updates 5+ years later, Definitive Edition for various gameplay and/or graphical/sound updates released less than 5 years after the game's release that includes all the content, Remaster for a gameplay overhaul, cut content, story fixes, etc (optional graphics/sound overhaul) that _improves_ upon the game, and then of course we'll still have Remake for reimagining the game from the bottom up.
9:28 that is just... Was that supposed to be a joke or something? Is that an actual critique? Is this a joke? Where is the punchline? Who was this joke dedicated to? Am i supposed to laugh?
Please bear in mind that I had 34 subscribers when I uploaded this video.
You’re a loser
Still very nice and entertaining. Playing it while trading some engine components between Bretonia and Kusari space in Freelancer.
EDIT: I don't even remember leaving this comment here a bit over two years ago, lol. I rewatched the video, and I've come around to agree with some of your views, mainly do to HeadFullOfEyes' video on Call of Duty 4 and how he really laid everything out, no offense, much better than you did.
I still think that none of it really matters in the end because the original is still around in fine shape. Though I have to very much so agree, a graphics toggle on a graphics remake should always be a thing. I'm not gonna change my old comment, just cuz it still sort of stands, even if overly passive aggressive, and a bit rude.
"Ah yes, because they changed the shape of this one shadow texture from square to circular, changes the entire atmosphere of the watermelon. The watermelon is meant to be bleak and depressing, a reflection of it's time. Now it's nice and circular, more realistic. This isn't what the original artists wanted."
If you replace watermelon, with something valid, then yes, this quote is 100% correct.
There has to be a mistake...theres no way a video this high quality has less than 1k views
I think you might be overemphasising how sacrosanct MW1 was. I get the core argument of not interfering with an artist's vision because doing so without actually being that artist has a high chance of getting the spirit of their intent wrong and agree it should be upheld as a general principle, but this particular game might not be the best case to make that argument with. If you've seen Raycevick's Modern Warfare retrospective there's a few useful snippets of interviews scattered throughout and it doesn't seem like artistic vision was high on their priorities. Even for a moment in the game which some people regard as profound, namely the AC-130 sequence, there was only one person at the studio who voiced that there was anything artistic behind it in that they described it as being a horrifying glimpse into how dehumanised warfare can become - everyone else just expressed it was cool and fun to engage in a spot of unstoppable carnage. Then you get into things like the missions weren't made with a story in mind and they instead brought someone else in to narratively string all the levels together, you're not looking at a cohesive work of art. You're looking at a team of guys who just wanted to make an FPS and get away from making games endlessly set in WW2 by contract. I sincerely doubt any of them care remotely about the addition of animations, timing for dialogue or character movements since they never cared about any of those things in the first place.
The terms 'remake' and 'remaster' have also become extremely muddied and I don't know where to draw the line anymore. I'm not sure anyone else does either.
What you're saying is mostly true, but his point still stands, just because they didn't have an artistic vision as a group doesn't mean that they did not both individually have an artistic vision nor that the ultimate product was not an artistic work as a whole.
@@PenumbranWolf I'm really just saying I don't know how worthwhile it is to lament the loss of a cohesive artistic vision when the original wasn't very big on that in the first place, but sure I'm all for respecting even the individual intent of people who worked on it and those intentions should always be respected.
Fantastic video, but you kinda lost the plot a bit on the Halo remaster thing. "How they were originally" isn't accurate, when you're talking about a Gearbox port that changed a bunch about the original title, broke the AI, and removed a bunch of effects. The "original graphics" are actually a broken port, more egregious than the MW remaster you're trying to contrast it against. I get exactly what you mean with the option for new and old visuals, but I'm sure you can understand why, in a conversation about the importance of preserving art, citing an example that destroys the original in that way isn't a great look.
I wasn't giving my full endorsement of HCEA, moreso how a graphics toggle switch can at least help preserve one aspect of the game. Programmers are artists, with even lower priority in terms of preservation than modelers, texture artists, and sound engineers, because often their code gets changed post-launch in game patches. The way I see it, changing things for the sake of getting a game released to PC is better than changing things because "that design is out of date". Gearbox are of course known fuckups, so it's little surprise they broke things along the way.
As to the code changes, the reason Sabre used the Gearbox port and not the original Bungie release is because of DirectX and Xbox code compatibility with the updated engine Sabre was using for the visuals. Halo's engine has a LOT of weird quirks to it because of the nature of it's development. I recently found out that Morrowind's Xbox version quits and restarts the game every time you hit a loading screen, a byproduct of running on the OG Xbox.
I hope that makes sense.
Right, I appreciate that you have the technical understanding to not endorse what is an inferior, messed up port, and I know you were largely referring to the visual toggle. The only reason why I brought this up is that, in a video about preservation of art, someone ignorant to version issues might not be able to figure that out from the phrasing and context. This is actually an ongoing issue, where 343 has repeatedly referenced the wrong version of CE, and as a result, the far superior version creeps further and further into obscurity, as people buy a broken port of a broken port of a broken port. At least with CoD 4, the game being a multiplat on the 360, PS3, and later receiving the PC version, ensured that it would be remembered as close to correctly as possible by a huge number of people, regardless of what happens with the remaster. It also came out only 13 years ago, whereas CE is pushing 20. Halo CE only sold a few million on the Xbox, and most of those people who played it are close to or over 40 now, so there isn't as much pushback against a buggy port that's writing the original out of existence.
I'm glad that you responded with your full thoughts, because if(really, it's more of a "when," with how your recent videos are doing) your channel gets popular, people can at least read over your expanded position.
One thing i wanna add is that the fov of the ending of the first mission. In the original its zoomed in and you dont see Price face, while in the remaster the fov perspective is a bit far and you can see Price face. With the original you don't know wether price notices that you were sliping or not and that makes you worried since also the soldiers around Price doesn't notice Soap to right until the end where he picks Soap up, in the remaster you immediately see that Price is worried and tries to help Soap.
I maybe just looking into it to much but thats what i think also helps the original scene more intense.
I have to say this is the only video you have where it could be argued thay some of the points are a bit disingenuous or a bit spiteful. Either way, its still a pretty good video.
Glad to know I'm not the only one bothered by the changes to "Aftermath"
While I understand points made that it could be construed to be more "dramatic" by having other dying Marines around, the sheer loneliness and fatalism of being quite possibly the last living Marine - not just on the crashsite, but in the entire city as well - is well worth having everyone else be dead
It also adds to the fact to how tragic Jacksons death is. He's alone, scared, confused and surrounded by the dead bodies of his team. It's a horrible way to go out
Jackson being alone also adds weight to what Shepherd says in MW2: "I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye, and the world just fucking watched."
It's a raw line in the cheesy action movie that is MW2, and it gets even more sick when you add in the extra-narrative context Jackson being your avatar; you can be engrossed as one of the dying 30,000, as the world who watched from the comfort of their homes, or as someone somewhere between these two positions.
If you add other people to that scene, it cheapens the impact of the scene itself, and retroactively cheapens the hypothetical impact of what Shepherd says in the sequel; all by telling us how we should feel in that scene through what happens to the NPCs, over showing us the scene and letting the player react to it.
Actually Al-Asad voice is redubbed during the interrogation to have him make references to Zakhaev and Makarov, which wasn't present in the original game. So they did re-voice some lines.
I definitely think you're over thinking a lot of the story and character points. The Devs didn't think that far into Story or characters or drawing parallels to certain things. They wanted to make a shoot bang bang game where you're a good guy stopping bad guys. The morality and sacrosanct nature of preserving the original artistic nature of the game isn't and wasn't a priority for anyone
You know it’s possible to have multiple thoughts at once, right? Some of the best brain dead media had a lot of thought put into it.
And if you didn’t want to hear any criticism about the game why the hell are you watching this video lol you clicked this video cause you wanted to hear someone go into detail on your favorite game and are upset that they went into details lol
Nah that's far from the truth, everything, every small detail is deliberate. It was thought through and planned. You start to notice a lot more when you realize that
You mention liking the Halo CE Remaster. it's definitely a weird "remaster" because it runs both the new version on top of the old one and uses the same geometry (this does mean there are many invisible walls and trees are not lined up with their geometry in the new version, so you can line up a shot and shoot a wall you couldn't see...). This is all to ask, have you watched Noodle's videos on Halo?
I think he just meant he likes that feature of switching back and forth, and I do agree, it's a great idea. Every remaster should do that, ideally. But if he made a video about Anniversary itself he'd probably shit all over it.
The lack of views, comments etc you have for the effort that goes into your videos is criminal. Good luck and I'm looking forward to the mini series on cyberpunk and MW3 video. :)
Edit - Future me has noticed a lot of comments and views on other videos, oops.
His complete Morrowind retrospective got picked up by the almighty algorithm.
Considering your thoughts on remasters, what's your take on the DaH! Remaster? That one added a whole cut level from the final release, added in new challenges and unlocks, and a sprint function with accompanying time trials.
I'm personally fine with 'Remasters' doing this. I feel the problem is too many games get remastered, and what should happen more often is just straight up ports. To me, a 'remaster' should be reserved for a game that had something lopped off it and is restored, or was buggy on launch and needs a fresh coat of paint, whereas most games just need to be ported to modern hardware.
Really good video, loved the interesting on the nature of remasters/remakes.
I'd love to hear your opinion on the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, as the devs said they were not aiming to replace the original with the new, shiny version; but instead encouraged people to play both the remake and original, and view them as two wholly seperate entities, only with the same spirit.
That sunset looks ok
Great video dude. Really like your stuff.
Like your videos! Good job on both the original and the remaster :)
Second interaction for the algorithm
You didn't mention the part where they removed the word "ХУЙ". That's what really pissed me off in this remaster.
Human voices vs a human shooting and recording it and/or synthesizing the sound
Thanks to this video I realized that the new Modern Warfare and MW Remastered are not the same game.... phew, saved me
Big ups for calling the airman an airman and not a soldier.
Who cares.
whole thing was fantastic. 11:41=love it
I also dislike remasters, but there's two ways of doing them I don't mind:
1) When Capcom did so for Resident Evil 1. They improved the graphics considerably and with enough reverence that I didn't mind other changes to voice acting and music. Some story changes I thought were a bit unwarranted, but the game does what I felt the similarly treated Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes did not do.
2) When the game is either a console port or console exclusive, and the only changes are making the game run at a higher resolution and frame rate. FromSoftware seems to have done this with Dark Souls. Square Enix, when they're not making questionable changes to original art, comes very close to making their Final Fantasy remasters perfectly. If Square would simply upres background textures in addition to their character models, they'd be perfectly acceptable. I hear their pixel remasters correct the issues of their FFVIII and FFVII remasters. If a game is "remastered" and it is available on PC, then owners of the original should always be given the remaster free or at a discount.
You are a little nitpicky here...
“WOKE” level
Melon Man Go Bang.
Tbh Remaster, Definitive Edition, Special Edition, etc are all stupid names. We really need 3 dedicated words for this crap. I personally believe those 3 should be: "Graphical Update/Overhaul" for... well visual/sound updates 5+ years later, Definitive Edition for various gameplay and/or graphical/sound updates released less than 5 years after the game's release that includes all the content, Remaster for a gameplay overhaul, cut content, story fixes, etc (optional graphics/sound overhaul) that _improves_ upon the game, and then of course we'll still have Remake for reimagining the game from the bottom up.
9:28 that is just... Was that supposed to be a joke or something? Is that an actual critique? Is this a joke? Where is the punchline? Who was this joke dedicated to? Am i supposed to laugh?
These changes are not just bad they actively undo the tone the original developers fought hard to get greenlit the first time around
You are wroing in this vdieo
too true