- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
The "Create Your Own Multiplayer Map" thread is ingenious--but half the people replying to it are not. This writer is frustrated by the..."uh...I don't knows"...and the "like blood gulch, but bigger and stuff"...statements!
Let's be honest with ourselves this time around--completely HONEST! Think like you've never read the ign or oxm Halo 2 exclusives. What kind of game would you like to own this holiday season. I'll go ahead and share some of my creativity in the hope of true inspirational spark for my fellow fraggin' friends. Dive in--with no holds barred!
Idea Number 1
Stage Name: Centrifuge
Picture a satellite in outer space. There are plenty of windows to look of. What is outside the windows? A planet in the middle of war and in the middle of a tropical hurricane / thunderstorm. Sudden flashes of light flicker on the surface either from lightning or atomic detonations. Yes indeed...a truely chaotic situation...but one that must be overlooked because of the true insanity that will take place inside this rotating vessel of madness. The satellite is divided into three main rings. The rings are connected by a single column. Each rotating ring has several path's to reach the center. Once at the center of the ring, you can use the column that connects all the rings together. This stage is most definately designed for CTF! Each flag would be at the outer extremity of the rings that were furthest from each other. But that doesn't mean you wouldn't want to traverse throughout the middle ring. Indeed it would be worth your trip to pick up the overshield and shotgun. This stage would have lots of up close confrontations, going through the narrow passageways. But these passages open up into wide rooms when you get to the outer edges of the rings. The whole trick to this stage is that it rotates! All the rings rotate clockwise. Imagine if you had the flag, but your stupid teammate bumped you into the wrong tunnel! You would have to wait for the station to rotate another 270 degrees before you could move again. In the mean time, an enemy could drop down on you like sephiroth on aeris (sorry for the FF7 metaphor). And like I said the rings would all turn clockwise--that is, unless your enemy saw you heading home with the flag and hit a button in the center of the map that would turn it counter-clockwise! Ooh la la! Voila...now he has time to catch up with you. So you decide not to stand around waiting to be obliterated. You start to double back, knowing there will be butt to kick around the next corner. But by then another enemy sees you doubling back and hits the rotation button again! Uh oh...seems like half the battle of this map will include controlling the satellite's rotation! But don't worry...navigation through this map won't be brain surgery. You can read the icons on the tunnels--just incase you forget which way is up after an intensely heated battle. Like I said earlier, the tunnels all disperse into outer edge of the rings; which are huge rooms reminescent of a hamster wheel. If you come out at the right place, the flag will be right in front of you--ready to be snatched and taken in to the maze of tunnels; however...if you don't time things right, you have to wait for the ring to rotate you to the flag. This can be extremely dangerous. Why?, you might ask. Simple! Think back to Halo One, Assault on the control room. Next, try to remember the elevators in that level. Usually, right before the elevator rooms there was a room with a large ramp in it. You could go over the ramp or around to the left or to the right. Centrifuge will incorporate those ramps near the flag. The ramps lead to two places. One is a small box in which you can hide with a sniper rifle. You'll never have to worry about falling out of the box, and you don't have worry about your back. Just turn around when someone switches the rotation from clockwise to counterclockwise. When you see the feet of an enemy Master Chief wait-- he'll slowly reveal more and more of his chest, you can take that hampster out before he gets to see you. The moral of this lesson is don't be a hamster, instead be a sneaky rat. Oh...the other place is a box to the other side where you will find invisibility. Now you're probably thinking right about now, "How could anyone handle such chaos?", but unfortunately there is another factor which must be included. On the outer edge of the rings, is the path you must use to get to the enemy flag. And as I said before, there is a scenic view though the windows on the walls on your fancy hampster palace. But DO NOT get distracted, lest you fall through a hole beneath your feet! Yep...watch yer step or it's a doozy. The last thing you'll see is the raging planet alongside you as you plummet to your ultimate damnation. But what is even more awesome is that there are holes strategically placed at the base of the ramps I described to you earlier. So if you miscalculate something as you're going up the ramp, no one will see you--and not because there is invisibility in the box next to the ramp, but because you were a noob and plummeted to your death. But the real adventure is when people start to figure out that the hole is not really put there for noobs to fall through. Instead if strategically you time things correctly, you can stand on straight edge that makes up the side of the ramp. Then just before you start to fall down it, you jump through the hole, and to the outside of the satellite!!! That way you are on the outside of the satellite walking around! This won't be the only place you can achieve this. There might even be one or two teleporters where this can take place. But please, use the teleporters at the right time; or else it's your own fault for once again plummeting to your death, Gerbal Boy. Don't worry though, most of the time it will be hard to reach the teleporters until they would corectly teleport you upright on the outside surface. The outer surface will be great for anyone who likes to sneakily assault an enemy's base. But be careful. If the enemy knows you are up there, he'll send you tap dancing all night with the rotation control button.
Well that's about it for Centrifuge! Please someone, anyone, everyone come up with something even more insanely and inarguably grand! For all of you who understood the logistics of this stage, I SALUTE YOU. For all the rest of you, I don't blame for wondering "how the heck?", etc, etc. And I promise to put up a few schematics for those of us who think visually, more than we do verbally. When I do post the schematics for Centrifuge, you can check them out at www.portfolios.com/joshuacreedgilmer
P.S. If you do come up with something awesome, I will gladly collaborate with you to make schematics of your stage too. And if enough peoples come up with cool stuff, I'll make a fansite with awesome quicktime VR's and video walkthoughs to show off to the world a magical montage of halo multiplayer map making madness. This is Northface84, saying peace out!...err typing peace out...um...yeah.........whatever!