Translated & Transcribed by Harry "flowery text is my middle name" Al-Shakarchi, FCA (tomeone@bungie.org)
Original Article can be found here.
Cinematic graphics
There's not a more beautiful place to shoot than Halo: with amazing effects and interesting ideas put into the game, it could become the highlight of the action games of 2000.
It's over. Soon, the use of cutscenes done by video could be part of the past. A graphic artist would have to be locked up in a cellar with a high-end wrkstation if a developer wanted spectacular graphics or simply some nice pictures to print onto the box. With the use of detailed still pictures and painstaking handwork, a small movie is made that gives some cutscene glamour into the actual game. Nice to look at, but not interactive enough; the fantastic space chases or the huge battles just don't do it for the player who simply sits back and watches. Enter Halo. This game will have the fabulous look of rendered graphics for cutscenes in game. The pictures in this article where not, so Bungie tells us, rendered but done in real time on the monitor, und you can interact anytime. At the presentation wie got to see it in action: beautiful out of this world 3D graphics on a Pentium III.
Survival of the fittest
You find yourself on the Halo through bad luck: your ship loaded with approx. 1000 civilians and 800 heavy armed marines had to crash land on the planet. This has happend to other ships of other races, and like Unreal a battle for survival and rulership unfolds. Your enemy are called the Covenant, these evil aliens don't do diplomacy, they would rather use the laser.What other alien races you might find on this alien world is unknown right now, but Bungie plans at least 3 more races.
War of the worlds
Alien hovercrafts slowly glide down a hill, alien flying vehicles patrol their areas. Behind one such hill, human marines are creeping up to launch an assault on the aliens. Suddenly shots are fired at the first alien vehicle, marines make huge leaps towards the enemy and at the same time ahuge jeep comes roaring out of the hills, with two marines both firing their weapons. The jeep gets knocked over at a curve, and the marines fall out, but they quickly stand up and continue firing.
This is somewhat how your missions in Halo will look like. A typical thing in this game will be the choice of what you want to do, be it a sniper, jeep driver or infantry, and if you want you can choose to be the same type of marine all the way through. In this game you don't make huge attacks with large, heavy vehicles, rather, you plan small surprise attacks with flexible and light infantry. Later in the game this could change, because your troops might grab larger alien machinery and use it against them, i.e. you can use the alien hovering craft. Not only do you simple attack and battle enemies in this game, you can also get a mission where you must search team mates and free them from captivity.
A real impact
You see the player from behind, the Tomb Raider perspective, but the camera will be free moving. The marine will be animated much more fluidly compared to Lara Croft, adding a few jumps and saltos and movements which correspond to unexpected situations. For example: if the jeep suddenly has to break hard, and you are thrown forward a little, there will be no pre-calculated movement, rather, the Skeletal-Animation-System behind the marine's textures does a calculation for the impact on the steering wheel - and that neweverytime, in real time!
Halo
Genre: Action
Developer: Bungie
Release: Q3 2000
First impressions: Very good
Comment by Peter Steinlechner: "the graphics of Halo speak for itself: a game can't get look and play any better by current technologies. I'm very interested in the solo-game, I bet Bungie has a few surprises set for that one."
