The rumors are swirling that 343 Industries (Bungie's successor after the sale of the Halo franchise to Microsoft) will cut its teeth by remaking Halo: CE.
Assuming this happens, I'm curious whether hardcore Halo:CE fans would even consider trying to improve upon that glorious single player campaign. Many of us would say no, and would only accept a strictly cosmetic upgrade to our beloved classic (i.e., put the graphics in 1080p high definition, no changes to the physics, enemy animations, speech, the weapons, the cut-scenes, or in-game dialogue). 343 ought to make sure it includes the option to play the game this way. Let's call this version "Halo: CE Classic."
Now that the purists have been pacified, let me dare to suggest a list of potential changes if 343 went beyond a mere face-lift of the game. Let's call this version, "Halo: CE Enhanced." Whether you agree with the Enhanced label obviously turns on what you think about the following suggestions.
I don't make these suggestions lightly. I'm a Halo geek, but I'm not a fanboy. I have played every Halo game since CE and read all the related novels (Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, Contact Harvest, Cole Protocol, and Evolutions). I became a fan because of Halo: CE's wonderfully balanced campaign gameplay and intriguing story. And I've been increasingly disappointed with each new sequel. You feel the same way, or you wouldn't frequent this forum.
I popped Halo: CE in my XBOX 360 last night on Heroic and had a blast tearing through the Pillar of Autumn level. The campign is just as wildly fun as it was 10 years ago. But I've noticed little niggling things over the last decade that annoyed me. I've also seen a few good ideas in later Halo sequels and other first person shooters. Here are my suggestions for improving on Halo: CE's near perfect campaign.
1. Updating The Library level
This was the weakest campaign level of Halo: CE, primarily due to boring, repetitive architecture and monotonous combat against the Flood. That said, I still enjoyed playing it for the nuggets of information that Guilty Spark 343 slowly disclosed about the Forerunners.
For example, he remarks "Why naturally the Flood is simply too dangerous to release, and mass sterilization protocols may again need to be enacted. Of course, samples were kept here after the last catastrophic outbreak...for study. It seems... that decision may have been an error." If you are into Halo lore, you love each new revelation about the Forerunners. Playing off the Library's (few) strengths, why not add quasi-secret new rooms to the level, similar to the Terminals found in Halo 3. These would require a little exploration, so that the casual player would miss them altogether. There could be a functioning labratory room, where the Chief could access Forerunner technology and view a mini-documentary (in holographic form, of course) by Forerunner robots stationed on the ring describing their experiments. Perhaps this could give a clue as to why the Forerunners saved samples of the Flood rather than eradicating them.
As a means to break up the monotony of fighting the Flood, I would suggest a rescue side mission. The novel Halo: The Flood had the Chief coming upon the body of a lone Marine deep in the Library facility (p. 245). (The Monitor had previously teleported a lone marine survivor from the Pillar of Autumn into the library in an unsuccessful attempt to recover the Index.) Imagine stumbling upon a second such fellow holed up in a secret room, barely alive, half-insane with fear and pain, and hear his story. Then you have to get him out alive. The best part is that such a Marine would be totally vulnerable to enemies. No invincible Johnson/Half-Jaw here! If he lives, you get an additional cut-scene at the end of the level where he explains what he went through. If he dies, the level continues as normal. Saving him would be a small but satisfying achievement.
2. A Mythic difficulty level
I know that there's already unofficially such a difficulty level in Halo 3, etc., by activating all the skulls. But let's be honest. The skulls didn't make the sequels more fun than Halo: CE, whose Legendary difficulty setting was epic for both its difficulty and fairness. To create an even greater difficulty level, I think it's easier to suggest what NOT to do. Don't weaken the Chief any further (remember how lame it was when you died in Halo 2 by being sniped once in the toe). And don't make the bad guys stronger (it was equally lame to have to empty 2/3 of an assault rifle clip to kill a Grunt).
Instead, I would increase the actual number of bad guys, especially higher-ranked Elites. Those guys duck, dodge, dive, and dodge until you've pulled your hair out and squandered four stickynades. But boy is it satisfying to take them out, especially with an unshielded head shot. (Unlike Halo 2, where the "stun effect" from a plasma pistol overcharge and the Battle Rifle's three-bullet spread made things too easy, Halo: CE's Red Elites were very satisfying to take out.) One of the most significant differences between Halo 3 and Halo: CE's legendary is the relative scarcity of bad guys on the screen at once. Let's fix that and call it Mythic difficulty.
What would your reward be for beating the game on Mythic difficulty? A long cut-scene showing Sergeant Johnson's escape from the subterranean Flood containment facility (a la Halo Graphic Novel) and how he made it off the ring itself (described in the Halo: First Strike novel).
3. Reveal the fate of the surviving Marines on Halo
You know, those Marines and pilots that you rescued on the second level, Halo, waived goodbye to, and then coldly forgot about when you decided to nuke the entire ringwold and escape by yourself on a Longsword? Where the heck did Foehammer take them in her Pelican dropship anyway?
One of the things the novel, Halo: The Flood, did well was explain what ELSE was happening on the ringworld. It tells the story of the Marines setting up Alpha Base (which the Chief periodically retired to between missions) to stave off the Covie and later Flood onslaught. Learning of the Chief's plans to blow up Halo, the surviving Marines planned to seize the Truth and Reconciliation from the Covenant as their escape route off Halo.
But their commander arrogantly believes that a few Flood samples can be saved for research purposes, rejecting Cortana's insistence that no Flood escape Halo. When his top lieutenant finally grasps the terrible risk this poses to Earth's billions of inhabitants, she triggers an explosion in the cruiser's engines that causes the entire ship (herself and Marine survivers, Flood invaders, and remaining Covie crew included) to be vaporized.
That was a fantastic story, and it deserves to be told. But it needs to be done in a way which doesn't erode the eerie solitude and mounting tension of the second half of Halo: CE's campaign. It was this sense of desperation, loneliness, and despair that absolutely sold the dark, wintry atmosphere of the last five levels of the original Halo. I would use in-game messages from Cortana rather than show a cut-scene of something happening far away from the Chief. I liked how Halo: CE's cut-scenes almost never showed events which you, the Chief, weren't participating in. It maintained verisimilitude and created a nice tension, because you didn't know what others were doing. Why not make the Truth and Reconciliation's destruction occur in the distance, on The Maw level, right after Guilty Spark 343 betrays you again, where you can look out the windows on the ship's bridge? There would be a collosal explosion, the horizon would turn white, and the Pillar of Autumn might even shake and slide a few feet further over the edge of the precipice.
4. Improved control and interaction with fellow Marines
Halo: CE gave you Marine allies in the first five levels, but left you entirely alone for the second half of the campaign. When the Marines were around, their personalities genuinely made the game even more fun (macho alien dissing, whooping from air in the Warthog, surprised screams when stuck with a stickynade or whacked by an invisible sword-swinging Elite). Their fragility made it challenging and satisfying to try to keep them alive. You felt somehow more heroic if you achieved that, especially on level 2 when survivors are airlifted out.
But don't you wish you had just a little bit of control over those tough blustering doofuses? I've given up on decent Marine driving AI, so let's assume only you, the Chief, can drive. You should be able to swap weapons with Marines (a la sequels) so that your passenger riding shotty uses your rocket launcher. And the gunner should automatically hand his sniper to a passenger equipped with an assault rifle.
On foot, those loveable morons tended to either hang around behind you or rush ahead and get killed. What if you could give simple order using the left directional pad? For example, UP means rush ahead and attack , DOWN means retreat or take cover. Very simple, but great when you want to be the one leading the charge.
What other ideas do you have to improve upon Halo: CE's campaign perfection?
5. Updating Halo:CE's Final Warthog Run
Ooh, it was cliche, but geeze was it awesome to stomp that gas pedal and then sprint the last 100 meters into the belly of that Longsword before everything went boom. How do you make it better? Obviously, add a few off-the-beaten path alternate routes to the end. Maybe leave spare Ghost out for an especially narrow and tricky route that is the only way to access more secrets and easter eggs. (I'm getting carried away here, but everything seems cool when you've only got 15 seconds to explore before you have to rush back to your ride or die.) What if that secret Grunt would beg you to take him with you? And you did, letting him ride shotty?!
[Edited on 12.17.2010 1:36 PM PST]