This is a copy and paste of the pertinent part of the interview with HBO that refers to the "tricks".
HBO: You've said that the new graphics are an overlay, running on a separate engine; are these purely visual in nature, or do they alter the collision geometry of the scenery? (For example, in Silent Cartographer, some standard pillars in the first structure you get to had been used for jumping - they've now gone from fat pillars to curved, narrow structures. Does this change how you interact with them?)
343i:
Every jump we've tried so far has worked.
We haven't looked at every existing trick, but what you're talking about SHOULD still work, because of how the collision model overlays - but in a worst-case scenario, you can switch to classic mode, make the jump, then switch back to see the results in the new engine.
One of the big tests for next week is the Tower to Tower jump that was just completed last week - we hadn't thought that was possible, so we didn't try it out, but now that we've seen it, we're going to give it a shot. The tops of the towers are still flat, so there's no real reason it shouldn't work.
HBO: Did you add any soft barriers to keep people from getting to spaces they were able to get to in the original?
343i
:
We added no soft barriers at all. If you could get there in the original, you can get there now.
HBO: Some tricks relied on exploiting bugs in the original code - are those bugs still there? (Examples might be overloading the engine to remove geometry, or using the timed blasts from the Forerunner towers to get past dead zones.)
[indent]343i: We're emulating the same RAM space as the original - but the 360 DOES have more memory than the original Xbox did. It's POSSIBLE that some bugs that used to be exploitable are no longer available - but we consciously tried not to fix anything that had been 'broken' before. We understand that a significant chunk of our audience for this product will be using it for these kinds of tricks, and we made sure that they'd be able to do most, if not all, the things they could do on the original.[/indent]
I have highlighted in blue the specific statements being made relative to this topic. This interview was posted here in the forums months ago. I was curious if this was one of the sources. I encourage members to elect his link and read the entire interview for themselves, I pasted what appeared relevant to this discussion.
Thank you for the links Mator. The video is long and time does not allow me to watch it right now. I will in the evening.