In Response To: Day 3 Halo Overload - reminiscences (Louis Wu)
: On the plane home yesterday, I wrote out some thoughts about the last day of
: the expo (I stayed pretty close to the Bungie booth all day - I'd seen
: most of what I wanted to see in the other parts of the expo in the
: previous two days). It's a little disjointed - blame the guy sitting next
: to me, who felt the need to talk pretty much continuously through the
: flight. I hope it conveys the fun we had, though.
: We arrived in the Microsoft enclave near 11 am, and immediately checked the
: large plasma displays for an S-Video Out port - we'd looked at some of
: these displays in another section of the Expo, and realized that we could
: plug into this port and capture net or solo play directly to a DV camera,
: providing an awesome view for those not fortunate enough to be at E3.
: Unfortunately, the displays Microsoft used had source inputs only - no
: outputs. Apologies, therefore, for being unable to bring you the
: crystal-clear footage we were hoping for.
: In a conversation with Max Hoberman (Yeroen), the Bungie Online Team Lead, we
: learned that the light bridge visible at the beginning of the xbox.com
: video footage was near the top of the second demo level - in an area that
: Max believed nobody had reached in the three days of the Expo (nobody from
: the general public, that is). He jumped onto a Solo machine to demonstrate
: this area. He quickly ran through the beginning of the level, and passed
: into unseen territory - he proved unable to pass one critical juncture in
: the time allotted, but we got to see some amazing gameplay in the process.
: The stumbling block was a battlefield deep within the underground base, on
: a large staging platform before a tight bottleneck - your first job was to
: clear out the covenant in the open area. This was no small task - the
: enemy did a great job of using the local environment to shoot at you from
: cover; Max entered the area in a jeep, with a chain gunner for assistance,
: but manouvering room was tight, due to large drops on two sides, and
: warehouse equipment littering the floor. Once this area was clear, he
: entered a tighter corridor - the jeep had to be abandoned. The first rule
: of combat in these quarters - be careful where you throw your grenades -
: throw them at a wall in front of you, and they'll bounce back. On the
: second runthrough, he decided to forgo killing all the Covenant troops in
: the lower open platform... and though he was successful at wiping out the
: guards in the corridor, and avoiding his own grenade blasts, he was taken
: out from behind by those he chose to ignore. Subsequent runthroughs showed
: tactics such as blocking the entrance to the corridors with the jeep
: (effective in keeping out the lower Covenant - success would have been
: possible but for the indiscriminate pattern of the chain gun, fired from
: behind at the Covenant horde swarming towards you from in front), and
: using the jeep as cover, wedged into a corner (almost successful; the
: chaingunner took out the corridor guards, and the jeep provided safety
: from almost all directions... but the Covenant elite found a notch between
: two structures with a clear shot at Max, and the battle was lost again).
: We surrendered the machine to other Expo-goers, and moved around to the
: Multiplayer side of the wall. Here, a rotating phalanx of Bungie employees
: provided guidance and encouragement to the two ever-changing teams playing
: in a continuous stream of first-to-three Capture the Flag games. At one
: point, a team made up of Louis Wu (HBO), Freewill (Bungie Sightings),
: Noctavis (Rampancy.net) and Santa's Head (Mumbo Jumbo) took on Yeroen and
: three unnamed teammates... and were beaten soundly. (In our defense, it
: was Noc and Santa's first runthrough on Halo - and we provided some decent
: entertainment anyway.) Multiplayer proved to be seriously addictive (the
: adrenaline rush that hits you when you drop a grenade in front of a jeep
: barreling towards you, only to see it spiral through the air above your
: head, landing upright behind you and continuing to your base, intent on
: mayhem, was unmatched by anything else we ran across at the Expo), and
: Miguel and I stayed pretty close to the booth for the next few hours,
: jumping in as often as possible. Meg Sagi (Pallor) stopped by periodically
: to snicker at our mishaps, and cheer us on when our skills began to
: improve, and at 3:30, we jumped into our final game. The match took far
: longer than usual, due to a mistake near the beginning in which one player
: flipped a jeep and wedged it into the back entrance of one of the bases -
: this effectively took that jeep out of play (leaving only one), and made
: flag capture in that base far, far more difficult (there was now only one
: exit, which was easily covered by the defenders). We fought valiantly,
: nonetheless, and after a hectic 35 minutes, we lost by a single flag
: return (just in time - the lights came up, signaling the end of the Expo,
: and folks began to come around, turning off machines in preparation for
: display breakdown). Whatever complaints people have about the changes that
: have occurred in Halo development over the past year, it cannot be denied
: that 8-person team play is just flat-out fun.
Man, i REALLY can't wait to play this game, of course i have to wait for it to come out for mac :((((((
Buying an X-box is out of the question, way too expensicve for a 14 year old. I suppose i could rent one though....
Is halo going to come out at the same time as the box?
|
