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| HCE Remake: The Pillar of Autumn 1.1 | |
| Posted By: SonGoharotto <SonGoharotto@gmail.com> | Date: 4/29/11 5:13 p.m. |
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Minor revisions to clarify certain points that I may have been hazy on. Mostly, I just needed to straighten out my formatting. To wit: narrating game events are in italics, explaining game mechanics are in normal font, and [me directly making comments are in brackets]. The Pillar of Autumn {Cutscene} Fades into space. Halo is visible above Threshold. [As this sequence -- and most others -- should remain untouched, I will simply summarize events.] The UNSC Pillar of Autumn has just escaped the siege of the planet Reach, once humanity's greatest military stronghold and now merely another notch in the belt of the belligerent alien collective known as the Covenant. As part of the standing protocol that safeguards the locations of human-held colonies, the Autumn has made a blind jump out-system through Slipspace. However, due to the Covenant's advanced technology, a branch of the Fleet of Particular Justice that assaulted Reach was able to track and head off the Autumn's escape. Now both forces find themselves within sight of a mysterious ring world. Captain Jacob Keyes of the Pillar of Autumn consults with the ship's Artificial Intelligence, Cortana. The Autumn is brought back up to combat readiness and all forces on board are mustered. The technicians in Cryo Bay 2 receive explicit orders to awaken from cryostatis Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, a SPARTAN-II super soldier assigned to the Pillar of Autumn for a top secret mission. Reveille Cryo Tech Officer Sam Marcus and Tech Chief Thom Shephard lead Master Chief through a brief series of diagnostics. The majority of this level is meant to familiarize new players with basic gameplay mechanics. The first is to press X when prompted to perform a specific action. {Cutscene} The Master Chief gets out of the cryotube. In his burnished green and matte black MJOLNIR powered armor, he towers over Tech Chief Shephard. A second cryotube holds another figure in a suit of MJOLNIR, but this one is heavily marred by plasma scoring and freeze-dried blood. This is Linda-058, another SPARTAN who was wounded in combat before reconnoitering with the Autumn. Master Chief silently lays a hand over the tube's window. • Tech Chief Shephard: (shakes head) "I'm sorry, sir. We got her in as soon as we could, but the damage is so extensive. Thawing her out now would kill her, if she isn't already..."
Tutorials for movement, aiming, and understanding of the health/shield meters continue. This entire sequence is skipped at higher difficulty levels or in campaign multiplayer. In the event of the latter, all four cryotubes will be empty and no mention of Linda is made. In keeping with canon, all story sequences will play out from the perspective of Master Chief being the sole surviving SPARTAN. Covenant boarding parties have penetrated the Pillar of Autumn's interior decks and Master Chief is ordered to report to the bridge. A black-armored Sangheili officer breaks into the observation chamber above Cryo 2 and executes Tech Officer Marcus. Recognizing its target, the alien fires a plasma weapon at Master Chief, but its efforts are thwarted as the tempered glass melts without breaking. • Tech Chief Shephard: "This way!" Shephard leads Master Chief out of Cryo 2 and down a corridor. He tries to open a second bulkhead door, which explodes, killing him. The Master Chief finds an alternate route, catching glimpses through portholes, jammed doors, and barricaded corridors of crewmen battling the Covenant boarders. The Autumn rocks with explosions from the ship-to-ship combat. Along the way, the player is prompted to engage in more advanced mechanics: Jumping over or crouching under obstacles, using the melee attack, and the Sprint mechanic to pass through a hallway that is awash in flame without dying. The Chief finds his way to another room where he stumbles upon a blue-armored Sangheili Minor. The saurian aliens of this species are nicknamed "Elites" by UNSC personnel. Comparable even to SPARTANs in battle prowess, they are the commanding military caste of the Covenant's religious hierarchy. It doesn't see the Chief, instead firing at Marines in the next room and gloating in its alien tongue. The Chief is currently armed with only a standard combat knife, a non-wieldable weapon whose purpose is made clear as the player is prompted to engage in the game's Assassination mechanic; taken directly from Halo: Reach. Walking up behind the Elite and holding RB prompts a canned animation of the Chief swiftly and stealthily executing his target. {Cutscene} The Marines are stunned as their Elite harasser falls into the room, dead. Master Chief enters behind it, holding the Elite's Plasma Rifle. He test fires it, but the device fizzles, battery apparently drained. As the UNSC lacks the knowledge to recharge Covenant plasma weapons, the Chief drops it. {Gameplay} The Chief is approached by Private First Class Chips Dubbo. • PFC Dubbo: "Sir! The Captain needs you on the bridge, ASAP. You better follow me." The Chief follows Dubbo through embattled corridors and an armory that has been stripped of gear, but hastily converted into a triage center for wounded crewmen and Marines. Unarmed as he is, Master Chief can only dodge fire and move swiftly to the bridge, to which Dubbo dutifully leads him. {Cutscene} The Chief approaches Captain Keyes. Cortana has done remarkably well in keeping the Pillar of Autumn afloat, but they are simply overwhelmed by Covenant forces. Keyes institutes Article 2 of the Cole Protocol, which demands the ship be evacuated and scuttled to keep sensitive material out of Covenant hands. • Captain Keyes: "This is where you come in, Chief. Get Cortana off this ship. Keep her safe from the enemy. If they capture her, they'll learn everything. Force deployment, weapons research... Earth."
Cortana's avatar reappears on the holotank emitter. • Cortana: "The Autumn will continue evasive maneuvers until you initiate a landing sequence. Not that you'll listen, but I suggest letting my subroutines handle the final approach."
Cortana looks around the bridge for a moment, then sighs. • Cortana: "Yank me." Captain Keyes pulls a data chip out of the holotank and gives it to the Chief. • Cpt. Keyes: "Good luck, Master Chief." The Chief slides the chip into a port at the back of his helmet. • Cortana: "Ah! Just as much space in here as I remember."
{Gameplay} AI Constructs and Cyborgs First! Keyes hands his standard-issue sidearm to the Master Chief. • Cpt. Keyes: "I know the leathernecks cleaned out this deck's armory. This is the best I can do for you, son." [This is going to piss off all sorts of people, but I prefer a sidearm to be just that, a sidearm. The remake's pistol would basically be the same as Halo: Reach's: an eight-round magazine, 2x scope, roughly same power as the Designated Marksmen Rifle, but a quicker firing rate. The point is that it excels in close-range combat, but is no match for the DRM when it comes to prolonged combat over mid- to long-range. Halo:Combat Evolved's hand cannon is out. And while I'm on the subject of UNSC weapons, the Automatic Rifle is coming up. I'm pretty happy with Halo: Reach's MA37. Maybe it can be tweaked to more closely resemble the bullet hose that is the classic MA5B, but those details are largely inconsequential at this stage.] Exiting the bridge, Master Chief loads a magazine and chambers a round. He soon encounters a small squad of Unggoy Minors lead by a Major. A client species of the Covenant, these squat aliens are nicknamed Grunts due to being used largely as canon fodder by their commanders. The Chief handles them easily, but they drop no weapons the player can pick up yet. The Chief enters the mess hall for bridge crew, where Marines are engaged with Covenant forces on the far side of the room. Before he can advance to help, his path is blocked by a black-armored Special Operations Grunt. A Marine steps in and kicks the Grunt to the ground, spraying it down with his Automatic Rifle. He tosses a spare AR held in his other hand to the Chief. • Staff Sergeant Avery J. Johnson: "Good to have you with us, Chief. Let's show these bugs what a real fight looks like!" Act fast and you can headshot this Grunt first (maybe for a "Quick Draw" Achievement), but it doesn't change the interaction. Master Chief and the Marines mop up the boarders and he moves on, leaving them to their task of defending the bridge. As in the original, you may now pick up Plasma Pistols and Plasma Rifles, and eventually grenades. [I like the idea of expanding the available arms, but I just don't see the point of Halo: Reach's Plasma Repeater, so I prefer to omit it.] Master Chief navigates the corridors of the Autumn, assisting Marines and putting down Covenant boarders along the way. The ship is honeycombed with redundant support structures, so it can withstand a considerable beating. But due to the damage incurred from on-going ship-to-ship combat, the Chief must take several detours to the lifepods. As the room-to-room fighting heats up, Cortana initializes the MJOLNIR armor's Motion Tracker system. The remake Motion Tracker now resembles that from the Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta. Presented on a bias, enemy contacts are identified with red circles, which change shape and color depending upon elevation. Contacts above the player are indicated by triangles leading up from the x-plane, shifting in color to orange. Contacts below the player are indicated by squares leading down from the x-plane, shifting in color to maroon. Friendly contacts will always be blue dots, regardless of elevation. [I don't know why Bungie went back to the old-school "ring of blurry dots." I've been accustomed to this new Motion Tracking system since the early days of Armored Core and I find it far more informative.] When a detour through some service tunnels is required, Cortana will lay down a navigation beacon on the player's HUD. Entering them prompts the player to engage MJOLNIR's low-light visual enhancement mode, unchanged form Halo: Reach. [I liked Halo 3: ODST's VISR mode, but it also presents all sorts of visual design challenges.] {Cutscene} The Chief approaches some Marines prepping an undamaged Bumblebee escape pod. One is suddenly cut down by an optically cloaked figure wielding a formidable Energy Sword. Master Chief lays down suppressive fire, knocking out the Elite's shields and Active Camouflage, which forces it to take cover. Master Chief tosses the wounded Marine into the pod and scans the corridor for his target. {Gameplay} A Special Operations Elite cleverly darts around obstructions in the corridor, preferring to strike from the player's flank. Master Chief uses grenades and his Motion Tracker to flush it out into the open. At lower difficulties, you can survive the first swipe from an Energy Sword, but this Elite is no more or less powerful than any other in the game. This is merely an introduction to "advanced" tactics -- e.g. anything more complex than walking into a room and spraying everything down with bullets. [Such scripted events are as far as I'm willing to go when it comes to "boss fights."] {Cutscene} The Elite is felled, blood pooling under it. Master Chief enters the escape pod. The hatch closes and it blasts off, but our focus briefly remains in the ship. The Elite's hand twitches. A SpecOps Grunt approaches. The escape pod closes in on the ring world and we get a good look at water, landmasses, and atmosphere across its inward-facing surface. Inside the pod, seating capacity is maxed out. The way Marines stare transfixed at the SPARTAN in their midst shows they are just as intimidated by him as any Covenant foe. Master Chief awkward consoles a frightened private and moves up to the cockpit. Around them, other Bumblebees are being shot down by teardrop-shaped Covenant Seraph fighters. The pilot initiates full burn, exceeding the recommended safe atmospheric reentry speed. Ignoring Cortana's misgivings, Master Chief dials up the pressure on his MJOLNIR suit's hydrostatic gel layer and braces for impact. Fade to black. Level ends. [By the way, that SpecOps Elite was indeed Zuka 'Zamamee, from Halo: The Flood. Don't worry, there won't be any Elites speaking Shakespearean English in this remake. But you may notice I nixed the line about a SpecOps Grunt entering frame, because I don't want this coming across too much as a subplot. While I plan on having Zuka return in future encounters, it'll be restricted to an Elite with a unique character model who runs away from fights when bested.]
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| Replies: |
| HCE Remake: The Pillar of Autumn 1.1 | SonGoharotto | 4/29/11 5:13 p.m. |
| HCE Remake: Halo v2.1 | SonGoharotto | 4/29/11 5:15 p.m. |
| HCE Remake: The Truth and Reconciliation v1.0 | SonGoharotto | 4/29/11 5:15 p.m. |
| Re: HCE Remake: The Pillar of Autumn 1.1 | Document | 4/29/11 5:24 p.m. |
| Re: HCE Remake: The Pillar of Autumn 1.1 | SonGoharotto | 4/29/11 5:25 p.m. |
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