In Response To: The Tru7h About Wall-Hugging Hippos (Matt)
: Back in the very early days of Halo's development, before we'd even announced
: it, everyone at Bungie was very excited about the game. One of the things
: Bungie people do when they're very excited is come up with all sorts of
: wacky and impossible ideas and press the developers to include them in the
: game. My wacky and impossible idea was an easter egg: a hippo for net
: games that was invulnerable to attack and available only to Bungie
: employees. That way I could jump into people's games to wreak havoc in
: style, erupting out of marshes and ponds when nobody expected it and
: tearing suckers to shreds with my enormous teeth as I galloped gracelessly
: across the beautiful landscape.
: I explained this idea to Rob McLees and he very kindly and politely explained
: where I could stick my idea. Too difficult to implement for an easter egg,
: especially one that existed only to satisfy my hippo fetish and sadistic
: impulses.
: "How about an anthropomorphic gun-toting hippo?" I asked.
: "Just take the cyborg model and slap a different skin on him."
: Rob explained the way Halo handled models enough for me to realize that I
: was still asking for the impossible.
: Rob realized I'd be enormously happy if hippos could destroy people in Halo,
: even in some symbolic form, and did his best to accomodate me. One of the
: ideas we were kicking around at the beginning of development was a sort of
: proximity mine; it came in two pieces which you'd slap together to arm it,
: then stick it on the nearest convenient surface and stand back to watch
: the suffering. Some weeks after our initial conversation, Rob invited me
: to look at the model for the mine, and I was thrilled beyond belief when
: he spun the model around and I saw the cheery hippo painted on the one
: side. "When you see some chump run into a room and then see what's
: left of him blown right back out the door," Rob told me, "you
: can think to yourself 'A Hippo did that.'"
: Of course when we started talking about Halo in public I couldn't say
: "wait until you see the proximity mine" because at that point
: there was no guarantee it would be in the game and I didn't want to
: promise anything - a policy that turned out to be a smart move since the
: mines never made it in. But saying "beware of wall-hugging
: hippos" was fun because people wondered what the hell I was talking
: about and discussed it, which wouldn't have happened with a boring,
: less-evocative description.
: Some of you might be thinking, "But Matt, whether you call it a
: 'proximity mine' or a 'wall-hugging hippo' doeesn't matter because it's
: not in the game, you lying bastard." To which I say: they may not hug
: walls anymore, but they're still in the game (thanks again to Robt.), and
: they're still extremely lethal. But you'll need excellent vision and a
: really nice TV to spot them.
: -Matt
Matt. I think I may have seen the remains of a Wall Hugging Hippo on a warpath. On the 5th level where you have to go up that giant pyramid stucture. I remember I killed the tank, but as I went up all of the enemies along the pyramid were ALREADY KILLED. This was my second time through and I know there are supposed to be live enemies on the pyramid. There are no flood here. Anyway, I thought it was the banshees that killed them because they were the only enemies that weren't dead. It must've been a wall hugging hippo...
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