- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
To quell the repetitive questions asked by many newcomers (and just plain unobservant regulars), I've compiled some often asked about info straight from the source, everything stated in this post is straight from the write-ups of those who have played the current Zanzibar Demo, which I will provide links to at the end. Enjoy.
[color=red]Weapons[/color]
-The Battle Rifle takes eight zoomed in head shots to kill
-Unlike the pistol, you can fire the battle rifle as fast as you can pull the trigger, so these eight shots could be just as quick as the original 3 shot pistol, if you're good.
-Another player said he remembered killing someone with 6 shots, but this guy stood there and had a buddy stand still so he could count exactly.
-Unzoomed, the battle rifle takes 3 three round bursts (9 shots) to the head to kill
-Like the pistol's 3 shot kill, only harder to keep steady and execute cause it's a burst)
-The Sniper Rifle now has 5x and 10x zoom, not 2x and 10x
-It also has a small recoil, meaning you cant pull off 4 straight shots, practice up on those headshots boys.
-To counter the recoil a bit, the trail left by the bullet is much fainter and harder to see.
-The lethal explosion range of the Rocket is about 50% that of Halo.
-The lock on feature works only on vehicles but seems to be rather effective, making the new RL essentially anti-vehicular, not anti-personnel
-Plasma sword melees are not instant kill, unless you use the lunge attack
-If you miss or are in the open when you use the lunge attack, you are very vulnerable because you remain prone for a few seconds after you lunge.
-The timer on frag grenades starts when they first hit something, not when they land. So you can time a grenade to bounce off something and explode mid-air.
[color=red]Gameplay[/color]
-Melee is much quicker than in Halo1, but the melee distance has been reduced quite a bit. Meaning you quite literally have to be toe-to-toe with your opponent to hit them.
-Different weapons now have different melee strengths. Most notably the Energy Sword, which can one hit kill with a lunge attack. It also has a longer melee range.
-There is no health indicator. There is only a shield indicator. Once your shields are gone, you can take minimal damage before death and a head shot will kill you. Just like in Halo.
-There are no health packs (Duh)
-This could just be a placeholder for the current demo. However, there has been no evidence or speak of the health bar returning. Read that right, the health BAR may not be returning, you always had and will still have health.
-The spawn system seemed different. When a player tried to camp on a base the enemy started spawning elsewhere. Perhaps Bungie has changed that ever-frustrating system.
-There are customizable icons that appear over your teammates heads instead of the green arrow.
-These icons not only tell you who is where, but colors indicate their condition. It's green when they're just moving, yellow when they're firing, and red when they are taking fire. A red 'x' covers their icon when they die.
-At any time (with any weapon that does not have a scope), you can press in on the right thumb stick and go to 2x zoom. This is the equivalent of binoculars for MC.
-At this point however, you do have to zoom out to fire.
-You can jump a lot higher now, clear over speeding ghosts.
-You can no longer pilot a vehicle or sit in a gunner seat when you have the flag. You're only vehicular option is the passenger seat, where everyone can see the flag.
-Along the same line, the flag has a 'weight' now, which is customizable. In the demo, you ran 2/3 your normal speed when you had the flag. This makes vehicles and teamwork that much more important.
-You can change your control scheme and even your team (if the host allows) when you pause, no more exiting whole games cause you're accidentally inverted.
-Falling environments (crumbled walls, etc) seem to do damage. i.e. Blow a chunk out of a wall with a rocket while an enemy is hiding beneath it, crunch.
-The flag can be 'contested' now. Meaning in CTF games, when the flag is dropped, the timer for it to return to the home base will not go down while an enemy is near it.
-If the attacking team has the flag within the last 4 seconds of a match, the timer will stop and not start again until the flag was no longer contested.
-While dual wielding (pay attention here), you CANNOT stash away both dual wielded weapons and switch to your reserve. When you switch to your reserve (by pressing 'y'), you drop one of the dual wielded weapons
Links to the sources:
http://rhoxbox.com/articles/00007page8.html
http://www.mlgpro.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&am p;file=articl e&sid=99&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
http://nikon.bungie.org/misc/bdaiber_mountaindew.html
[Edited on 8/8/2004 3:37:28 PM]