Heh, don't count on it forever.

: As an aside, definitely not feeling excitement for the H2A versions,
: especially with this Ascension stuff.

See, I am, but only if (and it appears that way) it is separate from the touched-up version of that same map.

One of my favorite things in Halo 2 was the interactive maps, having buttons and switches to fight over that could alter the flow, especially for objective maps. When those went by the wayside in Halo 3 and Reach I missed them.

Now, the bubble idea IN this Ascension seems kinda "ehhh" to me too, BUT, I like where they're going with this.

:I keep getting this nagging comparison in my head of 343 trying really hard to be George Lucas when it
: comes to the Star Wars special edition and blu-ray releases. You know?
: Just adding a bunch of worthless shit and filler that they think looks
: cool but almost serves no practical purpose and just clutters things up
: (graphically and gameplay-wise).

Using a Movie as an example: So long as they keep that stuff to the "extras and special features" section, in this case the 5th engine or remastered maps- I think it's OK, and a great idea.

It's a great way to show off the things that got cut, what could have been, and maybe gauge what could be used later. Considering a lot of this came straight from Max Hoberman, this puts my mind at ease.

It's almost like a mini-beta, and I think that might be the plan. We might find somethings that were like "OMG, why was this left out, this is AWESOME" to things that are more "yeah, this is a bad idea, lets not use this going forward". When you put that stuff in the "extras" section you get a free pass if it sucks because it's just there as a footnote, more or less.