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Halo 2 Overview at E3 2003 May 20, 2003 Marcus Yam |
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Summary: Marcus gets a preview of Microsoft's biggest hit of E3, Halo 2. Find out what's new this time around and view the Halo 2 screenshots. Is it worth the wait until its 2004 release date? Read on to find out!
 Overview | Page:: ( 1 / 3 ) |
Hello Halo 2
Microsoft’s biggest Xbox game at E3 was without a doubt Halo 2. It was another one of those behind closed doors presentations given “Disneyland ride” style. That is, you line up for hours just to experience a thrill ride that excites your senses for only a few precious minutes with the outcome hopefully being you walking out with a silly grin on your face.
The folks at Microsoft/Bungie have decided that Halo 2 was to be their thrill ride of E3, and we were able to catch a run of it at the show. What we saw was a live demo running under Bungie’s controlled environment. The presentation kicked off with the marine sergeant telling the live Bungie employee to sit down and shut up so that the game demo could get underway. It’s great to see that Bungie humor.
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As many of you have already seen from the original Halo 2 trailer, the graphics have been given a huge overhaul over the first game. The distinct style of the Halo universe is still there, but everything is more detailed and there are more special effects. Remember that Halo spent some of its developmental life as a PC/Mac game before switching over to Xbox. This time around, Halo 2 is being designed from the ground up as an Xbox game, so it will take better advantages of all the NV2A GPU. The lighting system is a huge improvement over the first game, giving everything a greater sense of depth. MasterChief’s suit looks especially impressive when its bump-mapped surfaces reflect the light around it. Having said that, the lighting model doesn’t seem to be as advanced as DOOM III’s, but then again, Halo 2 has shown far more onscreen action and larger environments.
SIDEBAR: Jakub and polyester doesn’t mix well. Plastics make him molt.
| Gameplay | Page:: ( 2 / 3 ) |
New Features of H2
On the gameplay side, fans of the first are going to have a lot to look forward to. The original Halo had the subtitle of “Combat Evolved,” and Halo 2 looks to have gone through another evolutionary cycle. Part of the new game takes place on Earth, and the setting for the demo we were shown was in Mombassa, Africa. The city was under siege by Covenant forces, and MasterChief has been sent to take out the trash. You’re dropped in a war zone, and immediately we noticed that combat has definitely evolved. There’s a sense of urgency in the setting as you fight from area to area – paced with the excitement that you expect from a war movie.
Once again you’ll be facing battles with the aid of human marines, but this time they promise to be smarter and tougher – just like the Covenant. Your marine help will be able to drive the warthog, allowing you to hop on the back and play the game as a rail shooter. The warthogs have upgraded firepower as well. The first game’s warthogs only had a Vulcan cannon mounted on the back, but the sequel has a large plasma type cannon which just loves to make things go boom. The fantastic Halo physics are back again, demonstrated by even larger explosions causing and even greater number of flying enemies and debris.
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Many of weapons from Halo 1 were shown again in Halo 2, and just like in the first you’ll only be able to hold two weapons at any given time. New for the sequel, however, is the ability to wield two assault rifles akimbo. MasterChief’s gonna be going John Woo on the baddies fo’ sure. That’s not the only move our favorite Spartan has picked up. Apparently MasterChief has been getting some ideas from Grand Theft Auto and figured that it’d be pretty cool to hijack Covenant vehicles. During this one greatly entertaining instance of the E3 demo, MasterChief grabbed onto a slow moving Ghost and proceeded to give a quick boot to the head of the pilot and took control of the ship. Instant classic!
The E3 demo we were shown was composed almost entirely of combat scenes, and from those scenes we can safely say that Halo 2 will have great action. That still leaves the question of what type of gameplay takes place away from the action. The first Halo was plagued with repetitive levels, almost to the point of classifying them as boring dungeon crawls. Hopefully, Halo 2 will have none of that – but we’ll find out for sure early 2004 when the game is released.
SIDEBAR: Even though the filenames have an .asp extension, FiringSquad is running on php.
| Halo 2 Gallery | Page:: ( 3 / 3 ) |