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Halo 2 E3 2003 Real-time Demo
Welcome to my blow-by-blow overview of the amazing Halo 2 demo, shown by Bungie at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. For those of you who have been unable to see the demo for yourself, or those who find it cool to have at a bunch of Halo 2 screenshots to drool over all on one page, you have come to the right place. Here I will be posting pictures and commentary on all eight minutes of glorious trailer!
Since eight minutes is a long time, I will be breaking this up into three parts: the intro cinematic, the game play, and the ending cinematic. Enjoy!
Part 1: The Intro Cinematic
If you thought the cinematics in the original Halo were good, you aint seen nothin yet! The intro really is movie quality stuff, and while it might not quite be on graphical par with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, it certainly gets the job done. The camera movement, excellent "acting", and the snazzy new depth of field effect really make this, well, lets just say these stills don't do the game justice...
Here it comes...
Text: NEW MOMBASA, EAST AFRICAN PROTECTORATE
A Halo fan, apparently crapping his pants at these first shots, put it very nicely when he screamed out "OH MY GOD!! WOW!!" I couldn't have said it better myself.
Cortana gives her usual pre-mission briefing. A Covenant crusier has taken hits during the orbital battle for Earth, and has touched down over this city. Your mission: take it out.
A really cool shot is when the pelican is flying over the clouds, and all you can see below are blue flashes of plasma. Also, human faces are much, much more detailed. Gone are the square jawed, blocky characters of the original Halo. The Sarge not only has a face full of personality, but also excellent animation. He looks like a real person, not just a voice.
This shot had me doing a double take. Yup, this is ALL real-time. This shot in motion looks absolutely great, and is defiantly my favorite out of the whole demo.
A reconnaissance sniper team reports that the area is hostile, and recommends that the mission be aborted.
The Pelican flys low through the streets, buzzing the recon team by a few meters.
The pilot asks the Sarge whether or not to continue with the mission. The Sarge gives the expected reply. No split-chinned squid head is gonna spoil his day!
Here, for the first time, we see the extremely cool new class of marines. They wear semi-Spartan armor, and are likely the human answer to the Spec-ops covenant forces. Again, amazing animation. We see one cock his battlerifle, one load his sniper rifle, and one don his helmet. We can also see the MC standing next to a new addition to the pelican, the Door Gunner! Now that pelicans and all other drop ships can be shot down, they will need a nice big LAAG sticking out the back for protection. Though not shown in the demo, this storyboard of the trailer shows a pelican with a deployed chin-mounted gun.
A few more amazing shots. The animation on the pelican is pretty cool. I never knew those jet pods could bend like that. I also always wondered where the landing was on a pelican- now I know.
The animation of the marine as he shields his face from the jet blast is again excellent, and we get a nice shot of the pelican from above.
The marines and the MC step off the drop ship, the camera goes into first person, and the mission begins...