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Drat, I've been spotted!
Posted By: mnemesis <mnemesis@bungie.org>Date: 9/10/04 2:25 a.m.

I suppose some of you had seen earlier that I had been one of the lucky few to be invited to play Halo 2 up in Redmond a few weeks ago. Well, what with the embargo on information from that date being lifted this morning, I figured I should kick back whatever info my tired, old brain can dredge up to anyone who might be interested. Let the reader beware: This is just my recollection of the game I played then. It was too hard to tear ourselves away each night, and I was pretty much living off of MnM's, Brisk Tea, and no sleep by the time we left, so forgive me if everything's not as detailed and/or comprehensive as one would hope. ;-)

I should mention a couple of things right off, though. The first is that the people at Bungie are absolutely the coolest bunch of gaming freaks anywhere in any reasonably civilized section of the galaxy. We were there for two nights, both times until way after midnight, and both times the place was full of people, painstakingly slaving over the final details of the game. Artwork, netcode, UI, multiplayer, graphics rendering, whatever. All of it being tweaked this way and that, by people who obviously were loving it, and wanted to make as sure as possible that we'd all love it, too. And nice, too. Different people kept coming by the room that we were all set up in to hang out, talk, and usually jump in to whatever game was going at the time. And always with a friendly comment as they smeared my corpse across the map again and again and again.

The second thing is that the game I describe (and most especially, the different aspects of it seen in the images from the French Halo site and hopefully here sometime today) is still in flux, still being adjusted, tweaked, shaded, painted, optimized, and otherwise manipulated. Nothing is set in stone, nothing is final. All this is to provide a sample of what the game probably will be like come November, but not definitely will be like. For that, we're all just going to have to wait to find out ourselves. ;-)

We played over an internal Xbox Live network, accessible only to the thousands of Microsoft employees who are in on the beta. The choices were one-on-one or Optimatch - small team and large team. Since those were the only options available in that version of the beta, we couldn't set up a dedicated game for those of us in the room. Instead, we would form teams using our friends list, then jump into Optimatch at the same time, trying to get the Live system to see us as obvious matches. It actually worked, a couple of times. :-) We also had a bit of time on a set of dev kits with a slightly different build of the game that were all networked, so that we could all play a more traditional-Halo-LAN game or two. I'd tell you a bit about the various setup menus and whatnot, but at one point, Dave Candland (Evil Otto) wandered in and after a few minutes said something along the lines of, "Isn't that UI great? Yeah, well, it's all different now. I changed the entire thing." In a nutshell, from that faked flash menu a few weeks ago to the screenshots seen at Halo.fr, everything's been re-designed. We'll all have to wait to see the final UI design until November. Then we can all heap withering scorn on Otto when we see him on Live.

One of the few things I made sure to jot down were the blurbs on the splash screens for the different maps available to us. Here they are, along with some brief thoughts on the levels themselves:

Midships
"The Begotten Angel may not be the most agile command cruiser in the Covenant fleet, but it is certainly the most luxurious." 

This was all reflective purples and blues, circular paths, fairly easy jumps up and down from the upper levels to the lower ones, with the energy sword up on the top on a kind of see-saw platform.  The platform was pretty cool. If you stood on one end of it, it slowly dropped, raising the other side, until you fell off of it. One of my favorite games we played was shotgun ctf on that map with sixteen people.  It's a bit small, so there was no end of carnage and mayhem.  :-) If anything, this game served to remind me, and hopefully anyone from Bungie who was watching, that small maps with constant carnage can be fun, fun, fun. ;-)

Lockout
"Some believe this remote facility was once used to study the Flood.  But few clues remain amidst the snow and ice." 

This one is kind of smallish, very tight (as in "economical use of space," not "cramped") with a high, exterior base and a low, interior one. It's all attached to a cliff face (at least it looked like one, as I fell from it enough times) in a frozen landscape.  Lots of ramps up and down, back and forth and around the bases and a central platform area.  This was the one I most wanted to find a way to get "on top of", but didn't due to time and my general suckiness at that sort of thing.  ;-)

Zanzibar
"Wind Power Station 7 sits as a mute reminder of the EAP's late 25th-century attempt at re-nationalization."

That's the East African Protectorate, by the way. You've seen this one already all over the place.  There are a surprising number of places to check out, paths to take, and possible strategies with this one.  I'd like to note that the actual map is way more intricate than the concept drawing that's been seen lately. We ended up playing it a lot, since the Optimatch system kept picking it.  Although it's not too big, vehicles are surprisingly useful and entertaining. This reminds me of one particular favorite aspect of the new game:  Ghosts that have been mostly destroyed will make this cool "wind-up-reactor-exploding" sound just before they finally detonate.  If you manage to get a really disabled one near someone and it goes off, it's quite satisfactory.  :-)

Ivory Tower
"Once home to famous socialite Lance O'Donnell, the top floor of this building is now a public park." 

This was pretty big, and had  three or four large "zones" that everybody would end up one or the other of.  There was the interior "park" area, the lower base, a circular overhead path around the park, and some upper gallery areas overlooking the whole thing. The carbine and/or the Covenant sniper were here, but my total awareness of them is limited to, "What's that? Ooh! I wonder how it w-BLAM!"

Waterworks
"While the Forerunners excelled at mimicking natural beauty, the machinery in this cavern exemplifies their true genius." 

Big, freakin' huge indoor cavern space.  We played a number of games on it (This was the map we played mostly on the networked dev kits). One thing I hope stays in through the final: I kept hearing people saying "Stalactite!" and hearing these huge explosions, before finally seeing Max shooting towards the ceiling.  I looked up and saw these massive pillars hanging up there, which you could shoot off (it took a lot of shots to accomplish this though) and crush people under.  Woo!  The tank was available here, and the controls were different somehow, but I didn't get enough time in one to figure out what it was.  Damn things kept exploding with me in them.  Banshees too, now that I think of it. I did manage to roll one over while flying, but I'd be lying if I said I knew how it was done. ;-)

As far as controls were concerned, we were stuck with one control scheme for everybody, and it wasn't Boxer :-(.  I got used to it pretty quickly, but I hardly ever dual wielded, melee'd, or threw grenades to test things out. Usually when I tried I just blew myself up. ;-P As with a few others I saw here recently, I'm also hoping that there's an elegant dual-wield/grenade/melee solution for us Boxer folks in the final.

A couple of last things: There was a "Films" option on one of the UI screens, but i heard that that was most probably cut.  :-(  Also, I saw an "Allow Observers" option on a "Create Game" screen, which would be very interesting.  A lot of other stuff is bound to be mentioned over the next few days, so whatever I missed should be covered somewhere.

Gah! Back to the HSP closet!

Message Index



Replies:

Drat, I've been spotted!mnemesis 9/10/04 2:25 a.m.
     Re: Drat, I've been spotted! *NM*Schedonnardus 9/10/04 2:33 a.m.
           Cool!! *NM*Schedonnardus 9/10/04 2:34 a.m.
           Re: Drat, I've been spotted!GRAHAMN8R 9/14/04 5:49 p.m.
     Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Devin Olsen 9/10/04 2:36 a.m.
           Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Gil27 9/10/04 2:38 a.m.
                 Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Devin Olsen 9/10/04 2:39 a.m.
                 Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Gil27 9/10/04 2:40 a.m.
           Re: Drat, I've been spotted!mnemesis 9/10/04 2:40 a.m.
     Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Pico 9/10/04 3:50 a.m.
           Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Hawk7886 9/10/04 4:19 a.m.
                 Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Louis Wu 9/10/04 8:40 a.m.
                       Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Sep7imus [subnova] 9/10/04 9:23 a.m.
                       Re: Drat, I've been spotted!KP 9/10/04 5:35 p.m.
                             Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Louis Wu 9/10/04 5:39 p.m.
                                   Cross-ContinentRampant Cowboy 9/10/04 5:42 p.m.
                                         Re: Cross-ContinentLouis Wu 9/10/04 6:03 p.m.
                                         Dude, try optimatch on MotoGP 2.Blitzwolf 9/10/04 8:45 p.m.
     Told you guysPballwizard 9/10/04 6:27 a.m.
     Re: Drat, I've been spotted!BOLL 9/10/04 7:47 a.m.
           Re: And the award for "Most Expressive use of...Sep7imus [subnova] 9/10/04 8:24 a.m.
     Now I must kill you.deanero 9/10/04 8:21 a.m.
           Re: Now I must kill you.CYBRFRK 9/10/04 10:10 a.m.
           No films... :(Finn 9/10/04 10:15 a.m.
                 Wow... a double post...Finn 9/10/04 10:25 a.m.
                       Only you can appreciate this...deanero 9/10/04 10:57 a.m.
                             Re: Only you can appreciate this...Miguel Chavez 9/10/04 1:47 p.m.
                                   Family, Halo 2, AND an 04 GSXR... OTFinn 9/10/04 2:11 p.m.
                                   Re: Only you can appreciate this...deanero 9/10/04 4:12 p.m.
                                         Re: Only you can appreciate this...Louis Wu 9/10/04 4:14 p.m.
                                               lol :) *NM*Finn 9/10/04 4:20 p.m.
                                         Re: Only you can appreciate this...mnemesis 9/10/04 5:19 p.m.
     Thanks mnem...Alex Cross 9/10/04 11:28 a.m.
     Quick Question for those who played Halo 2...Alexis 9/10/04 2:39 p.m.
           Re: Quick Question for those who played Halo 2...Louis Wu 9/10/04 3:01 p.m.
                 If memory serves me correct...TheUnknown 9/11/04 11:21 p.m.
                       Re: If memory serves me correct...Alex Cross 9/12/04 3:30 p.m.
                       Re: If memory serves me correct...Xavier 9/12/04 3:35 p.m.
     :) *NM*Jamirus99 9/10/04 4:36 p.m.
     Re: Drat, I've been spotted!mrsmiley 9/10/04 9:10 p.m.
           Re: Drat, I've been spotted!Miguel Chavez 9/10/04 11:11 p.m.
           Re: Drat, I've been spotted!mnemesis 9/11/04 12:15 a.m.
     can my body hurt others by flighing in to them orkenshin 9/13/04 10:55 p.m.
           Re: can my body hurt others by flighing in to themAin Soph Aur 9/14/04 4:41 a.m.
           Re: can my body hurt others-maybe?vshields ash 9/14/04 4:44 a.m.
     HMMM...........Andrew Gehrig 9/14/04 11:15 a.m.
           Re: HMMM...........Ross Mills [subnova] 9/14/04 11:19 a.m.
                 Re: HMMM...........Matthew C. 9/14/04 6:09 p.m.



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