Customer Reviews

The Art of Halo: Creating A Virtual World

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This has to be one of the most fascinating and amazing collections of artwork I've ever seen... and it's from a videogame! The artwork produced by Bungie is nothing if not spectacular. The artistry, imagination, and dedication needed to bring those ideas to life in a game is beyond what one would expect from a game. Halo is truly a work of art in itself. The look into character development and design is something a gamer doesn't always get to see. This will make them appreciate the amazing work that Bungie does even more.

Packed with plenty of eye candy for the reader to look over and interesting writings about the development of the game. I was pleased to find a decent amount of conceptual sketches and beautiful environmental renderings.

As far as the down side of the book, a good portion of the art is cut outs of in game 3D characters and weapons, which is fine in it's own right, but what really caught my eye is the amount of stretching and poor quality anti-alias 2d images all over the place. I wouldn't mind them so much if this was a general HALO book, but seeing that this is the ART of HALO Book, it leaves something to be said about the editors.

That aside, i am really pleased with this book. I wish it were somewhat thicker but for it's size it really does provided plenty of good stuff to look over and read about.

4 out of 5 from me.

My advice is for the buyer to look over the actual book before purchasing.

I had expected the book to be filled with awesome illustrations previously exclusive to Bungie employees, but most I had already found through Google. I was disappointed that they fill a good portion with space-filler character templates. The quality of some pictures printed don't match up to the quality of the same images uploaded onto the net by the company.

The writers could of placed some effort in detailing how Bungie created the virtual world, considering how its part of the title... Its not as well written as other reviewers would lead you to believe. I'm not hating, the art work is GREAT. It's just not worth the money as it's currently priced (That's why I gave a rating of three).

I bought this as a gift for a Halo addict, who loved it. A must have for devoted fans, but never buy it for yourself.

This book clearly shows just how much time, energy, passion & love went into creating the entire world of Halo. The creation of the art work is simply stunning, if you enjoy glorious colour & unbelievable creative spirits, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of this book. Then as a added treat, check out on-line some of the HD trailers which are available, if your able, try to get copies on DVD & watch them on a large screen TV in full HD mode ... check your heart rate before & after ... if you don't have goose bumps & want to run out & buy a Xbox 360 & Halo 2 or 3 ... you may want to check your pulse. 5 stars out of 5 stars ... easy.

This has great artwork from the Halo Game Series. Very crisp and detailed - all on glossy print paper.

The Art of HALO: Creating a Virtual World is a book that must be a part of your Halo collection. Much like the Halo Encyclopedia, The Art of Halo demonstrates all the character designs of different versions to the final product. This goes for all the different locations in the Halo Universe. Ranging from:

Environments.
Vehicle Design.
Character Uniform Study.
To the Weapons and Gear.

The artwork and amount of detail that Bungie has put into the Halo franchise is outstanding. The created worlds and level of design is beautiful.

Although i did expect a little more out of the book, but it is still a great book for your collection.
So go out there and buy it for your collection
Happy Shopping!

I was expecting this book to primarily be for displaying conceptual drawings and paintings created during the designing process of the games. There is some of that, but the book is mostly filled with images of the 'in game' 3d models used for the characters and still shots of the 3d environments. The actual conceptual drawings take a back seat. The paintings that are there are great, but why aren't there more?! Overall, I think a 3d modeler would enjoy this book more than a 2d artist.

The Art of Halo is something that every major fan of the halo universe and Halo's art should have. The book itself is of good quality; you won't find weak binding or cheap manufacturing problems here. The book covers pretty much all of the basic topics you might expect, from character studies to weapon designs and environment studies. All in all i was hoping to be surprised a little more, this book covered all the typical topics that might be expected but didn't have anything too special. However, the art was great and it covered the many stages of development that the various species, machines and characters went through.
On a side note, i was somewhat misled by the title to assume that this book would cover the more modern games in the halo franchise, only to find that it was made apparently before the second game even came out, which was the biggest disappointment for me, but i guess that's my fault for not doing a little more research on it. I later found that "Art of Halo 3" was much more of what i was looking for, but apparently it is now a rare collectible and currently around $500. Sure hope they reprint a second edition sometime for cheaper. . .

After reading some mixed reviews, I decided for the price to go ahead and give it a buy. I was not disappointed. Yes, this book does not cover anything past Halo 2, but, the book contains a lot of behind the scenes making of tidbits, as well as TONS of concepts and sketch art that you would not find published anywhere else. I was not disappointed with this book, and am glad to add it to my Halo collection. Like I said, any TRUE Halo fan should and would not have any complaints about adding this book to their library, and I strongly recommend purchasing it just for the eye candy alone! HALO FTW!!

Being a big fan of Halo myself, I got this as a Christmas present and was very amazed from the level of detail the book goes into. Although it being slightly outdated, only talking about Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, This book was definately a great gift.