- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Judging from the direction games appear to be heading in, with the likes of GRAW having a minimap which you can direct troops, tanks and air support, with the likes of games such as The Outfit having an element of strategy and resource management to their conquest action type games, and the epic large scale battles of battlefield proving to be extremely popular, one has to wonder if a halo might follow suit, with their own unique take on things. bungie have already spent over 6 years creating a well balanced universe of earth vs covenant, which if you know your history, began life as a REAL TIME STRATEGY GAME.
that meant it was concieved as a large scale tactical battlefield with resource management where you conquered certain landscapes and areas of the battlefield. it also meant that all the units were unique, with weaknesses and strengths, and counter units. this is how games like battlefield also function, but in FPS, which halo has already adopted. this meant that halo as an FPS, had the most amazing balancing of weapons and tremendous A.I that seemed to try and outsmart you rather than run towards you pulling the trigger. i attribute this to it starting life as an RTS.
now dont get me wrong, bungie will not want to alienate their core audience, so it will be tailored towards them for the most part, with all the familiar game modes, and options and what have you already there from the go, for fans to just jump right into. nostalgia always sells afterall.
however, for those that want something more, who want something NEXT GEN, for their next gen console, then we have to face up to the fact that some things ARE GOING TO CHANGE. i may not have all the answers, if any at all, but the one thing i am correct on, is CHANGE.
when you look at the scale of the announcement trailer, showing that earth has literally thousands of covenant swarming over it, it'd be a missed opportunity if the game was still as small scale as it was before, (ten whole enemies on screen AT ONCE!!!!111 oh yeah!!!111) otherwise whats the point of upgrading to xbox 360?
look at games like kameo, having thousands of allies and enemies battling it out on screen at once. the system can handle some pretty hefty numbers. Halo's story has always contained big numbers of troops and aliens, yet the hardware has not been able to keep up with imagination. now we have the power why would they waste it?
it stands to reason that the scale of multiplayer may be upped tremendously as well, and the only way you can really have that many people in a big battle with any sort of structure or order or objective, are game modes like conquest or capture the flag.
having said that, team deathmatch would be killer with 50 people. and having said that, bungie always let us customise our games to such a degree, that if you want vanilla deathmatch, with only 16 people on a remake of lockout, you got it. if you want plain BTB with 16 players you got it. all in a spartans or elites suit, which recharges shields, has a radar etc, all familiar and just as pumped up as it was in haloCE and halo2. keeps people happy right?
if you want a battlefield type experience, selecting which human soldier (assault rifle, sniper, rocket guy, or spartan for instance) or covenant soldier (grunt, jackal, brute, elite), or even, (and this is stealing from PC BF2) taking control of cortana or covenant A.I. in a commander role, and issuing orders and dropping supplies on the battlefield, and ordering air strikes to desired locations, (which if you read the halo books, is EXACTLY what these A.I's were designed for) helping to make a conquest mode richer even than battlefield, then seeing as halo started life as this very kind of game, and seeing as we now have the hardware to pull it off, and seeing as halo 3 has been in development for so very long, and is going to be there for quite some time more, and given the current trend to cross genres, can anyone really see bungie taking a plain old fps route?
at the end of the day, i'm using what i see around me, trends and so on, combined with the universe that bungie have created on paper, which has never been fully realised due to power restrictions that have now been lifted, and the subliminal theme in the announcement trailer of returning to africa, the roots and beginings of all life on earth, where it all began, just makes me think that bungie may well do the same for halo itself.
just my two cents.
P.S. i'm all for discussion and open debate, but i prefer it when reasons against or for something are less personal. i'm not gonna acknowledge responses like "bungie would never do that lamer, cause im robbie jones from 17 humans avenue and i would hate that idea!"
yes you may well hate the idea, as with change brings fear, and fear leads to anger, which leads to hate, so please be objective in your opinions, and think stuff through before you embarass yourselves.
peace.