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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 2: Halo 2 in the Flesh
Cutscenes are cool, but gameplay is cooler. Then again, with Halo its a pretty hard choice. Bottom line: this looks like a fun ass game.
This is the first shot you see when you step off the Pelican. Remember, this level will be in the final game. In less than a year you'll be running through these streets.
Corporal Perez is waiting for you when you step onto the landing pad. He asks you to follow him. As you follow him, you walk through a quite detailed tent hospital, complete with sound as medics try to keep the wounded alive.
You find that Perez has lead you to the lieutenant, the man in charge. Unfortunately, as you walk up, a medic kneeling next to him throws in the towel and logs time of death at 19:00 hours. This is not sugarcoated violence like the original Halo. Its gritty, its real, and its great. Cortana asks Perez who is in charge now, and he leads you to Sergeant Banks.
To get to Sergeant Banks, Perez takes you through a half-shelled out building. As you walk through, you hear ambient gunfire that really puts you right in the game. At the top of some stairs, you come upon one marine with a turret and one with a battle rifle who are picking off covenant on the street below. The whole scene reminds me a lot of Blackhawk Down, where you have a bunch of guys just trying to survive in a hostile city.
You come to a large doorway, at which point Perez asks another marine if the path is clear. Just as he says that there is a huge explosion outside. When you step outside, the first thing you see is a large Covenant mortar thing that looks a lot like the plasma bugs from Starship Troopers.
Also as you step outside, you see a firefight up ahead. As you move along the bridge, you have the first opportunity to use your shiny new battle rifle. When you get to the fight, some grunts have setup shop in a perfect grenade formation :)
When you finialy reach Sergean Banks, he is quite surprised to see command sent him a spartan. Then, the giant plasma mortar takes a large chunck out of the building you just came from. The blue-white explosion can only be described as beautiful.
As the sergeant is on the horn asking HQ for support taking out that mortar, the MC shoots up the ground below. The real gem here is the way the cars the jackals are using for cover explode. They burst and flip and cause great paint to the Covenant. Then, the MC takes up the turret. The turret is what looks like a shortened version of the LAAG. The endless stream of bullets from the turret not only kills a heck of a lot of Covenant, it also rolls a few of the cars down the street!
The sergeant’s plea for help is answered by a pair of Longswords, who vaporize the mortar. The ensuing fireball of plasma is as beautiful as the first, and the radio dialog throughout is really well done. The whole thing just seems a lot more like a real fight.
The sergeant, who appears to be wounded, gives his weapon(s) to the MC. A cheer from the audience erupts as the MC whips out akimbo submachine guns. While the demo was too dark to see how the things work, you never have to reload them.
As you emerge from a pile of rubble, there is a V formation of jackals that openfire on the MC. As they do, a pair of Warhogs pull up, crushing half of them. The marine driver of one of the hogs invites you to come along for ride. In the gunner's seat that is.
I skipped a bit of the demo here, because it is just the MC shooting his way through a big pile of rubble too dark to see anything.
Word of this has confused a lot of people. The short answer is that the yellow warthog exists. However, it only exists in a billboard add for the civilian version of the Hog. Put me down on the waiting list!
The driver then takes us on a nice ride around New Mombasa, allowing the MC to shoot up everything he sees. The vehicles being attacked here are called Creeps, which are Covenant ground APCs. They have green plasma turrets on top, which are no match for the MC’s firepower. The Warthog he is riding in has a gauss cannon in the back, Which is a gun that uses magnets to spit out a projectile at extremely high speed. This makes the gun a good anti-armor weapon, but poor against infanty. Unless of corse you get a direct hit :)
When a Ghost is destroyed, it blows up in a cool geyser of flame. All the explosions look great, and seem like they come from within the vehicles, causing them to burst at the seams. Phantoms are another addition to the game. They are basically drop ships with more firepower and less load capacity.
As the Warthog goes under the Phantom, a Brute drops down and starts riding on top of the hog. He proceeds to throw the marine riding shotgun, then the driver, out of the hog in a very violent manner. The MC hops off and gives the Brute a nice riffle butt sandwich to chew on.
Now the MC has lost his ride, and needs another. Simply put, he jacks a Ghost. A Ghost slowly comes at him, and it is his turn to kick the driver out. This is not scripted, but a new game play feature.
Cortana suggests that you try and lure the Covenant away from the other marines, which the MC does by turning down and empty road. Phantoms and Ghosts follow, and the end cut scene starts...