Mentionables

If it could have been better...

August 9th 2002
Last updated August 23rd, 2004

(A list of suggestions and possibilities, preserved for reference and posterity.)

This list of ideas is by no means exhaustive. Some of the content, specifically under General and Multiplayer, does overlap but has been arbitrarily assigned to one or the other for the sake of convenience. We have tried, when possible, to limit our suggestions to those which seem the most realistic and would least upset the game's excellent balance of fun and complexity. Also, we have tried, I think with some success, to avoid the wholesale duplication of items found in others' "wish lists".

And no matter what, when all is said and done and the sequel is released, we won't know what hit us...

We've been taunted for years: the title screen from Marathon, early builds of Halo, and then, nothing. No portable mini-gun.

Shovelface and I have done a lot of brainstorming and have come up with what we consider to possibly be the best way of incorporating and balancing it against other weapons. Read on:

• It must be large... and powerful. If the weapon exists at all there is no point cutting it's firepower short for the sake of balance. The scales must be evened in other ways...
• It should be fairly accurate. At least as accurate as the jeep's gun or slightly more so.
• Holds a lot of ammo but cannot be reloaded; when its empty you just have to drop it.
• The mini-gun will still take up one weapon slot (two weapons can be held) but the player may not switch to or use their secondary weapon (ex. pistol, shotgun, etc.) without first holding X and completely dropping the mini-gun.
• Holding X while carrying the gun will exchange it for another weapon if one is available, or if not, will cut it loose, dropping it to the ground leaving you with only one weapon (the one in your possession before you picked it up).
• As noted above the Y button will not switch between weapons but instead will switch "modes". A carrying position will have the gun lifted up, unable to fire, but running and dodging speed will be almost normal. The actual firing mode, the gun leveled at a target, will greatly decrease maneuverability, but the smack you can lay down should compensate for that.
• The analog trigger should also be utilized. A slight pull will spin the barrel up to speed, while only full depression of the button will begin firing. The spinning barrel would emit a slight whine alerting keen adversaries of your ambush but that is just the price you pay to have the gun warmed up.

Films... in both solo and mulitplayer, though the player's eyes, fixed camera, and adjustable third person...

Now that that's out of the way ;)

Now, we have to disclaim this section so it is understood that in all likelihood the multiplayer on Halo 2 will surpass a good deal (if not all) of anyone's expectations, ours included. Of course more post-game stats and choosing team colours would be nice; these are just a few items that have come up over and again:

• "Press X to pick up Flag" (or Oddball): It never fails to happen. You cheated death a number of times and are finally at the enemy's lair. You bust in; a flurry of shooting, skull bashing, and grenade tossing when suddenly, you have acquired the flag. Sure that is the goal, but not yet. You're in the middle of a fire fight and there are still 2 guys to kill. So you toss it down (it doesn't go far) but before you know it, its back in your hands. This may happen a few times but the outcome is the same. "You were killed by...", "Waiting for space to clear", and a whole lot of "That stooopid flag! I had a shotgun, if I could have just kept it out!"

  A press X option may be the answer. The flag would not take up a weapon slot and would still be thrown down with the grenade or weapon buttons, but would need to be picked up intentionally each time, freeing you to do what you need to do.

  (This was mentioned to Jaime at the E3 Fanfest, who acknowledged that at some point in testing, the flag had been set as we are recommending. Apparently it was pretty annoying. Not to undermine them, but we still think it could be done right.)

• Dials and Switch boxes for all options: The presets offer a great deal of customization, but we feel that the multiplayer options could be improved by allowing players to select most things with dials or switch boxes, in any increment they so desire, even to the point of seeming ridiculous. The maximum setting of 50 is intense but to have a game of Team Slayer to 100 or even 400 kills would be glorious. Sometimes a 3 capture game of CTF is too long; one is too short. 2 captures would be just right.

  Perhaps a more applicable example is vehicle selection. My comrades and I often discover that the tank, though fun at times, really negates the efficient and fun use of the Ghost and Warthog. The ability to check off only the few vehicles wanted and to leave out the rest would be an excellent addition.

• Classic Multiplayer Levels in Halo 2: Damnation, Damnation, Damnation.
• The weapon select menu could also benefit from these changes. A checkbox beside each weapon would allow much more control over game types, rather than only being able to choose them by class. Sometimes you don't want the pistol available, but you still want the sniper rifle around. The option to randomly shuffle the weapons in their various locations would also add an extra element of anticipation.
• An option to select the players' starting weapons precisely (including how many and what kind of grenades) would eliminate a lot of whining.
• Grenade Options: Generic, Custom (mapmaker's presets or your own), Infinite, or OFF.
• As well, very often after a valiant fight, when all looks hopeless, you throw off that last grenade of spite. Unfortunately, many times the sound of the pin being pulled can clearly be heard, but there is no 'splosion. Sad :(
• Flag Monitor on HUD: Rather than just the voice announcing flag possession, an option to have a marker near the HUD showing, for example, a solid circle when the enemy has the flag and a hollow circle any other time the flag is away from it's stand (just laying on the ground somewhere) would be awfully handy. There have been many times that, after scoring, if the flag is picked up the moment it returns and run directly back to base, the announcer will not declare that the flag has been touched the second time.
• Sniff, sniff... turrets in multiplayer sure would be cool... alien and maybe some human ones...
• The ability to have more than 2 teams during Team Slayer, King of the Hill, Rally, and Oddball (all game types except Capture the Flag, although that too would be very interesting).
• Soft Cover: Most levels (especially the large, outdoor ones) suffer from a lack of soft, and even hard cover. Shrubs, drifts, anything that one can even pseudo-hide behind but won't necessarily take a bullet for you. As fun as those levels are, they can be extremely frustrating; deaths in the open seem often indiscriminate as you had no choice but to venture through the open. This cuts down on large available portions of the maps to a few spots that are frequently trafficed, reducing the number of realistic vantage points and passageways, and generally making play more predictable. Just more soft (and hard) obstacles, essentially.
• More numerous plasma grenade caches on large, vehicle optimized levels and perhaps in general; for being so tricky to use, those darn things are just never around when you need them.
• Shield at the sacrifice of health: New images and gameplay assessments have pointed out that the old Shield/Health tandem system has been replaced by one large shield gauge. If an opponent struck once by a sniper rifle manages to escape, he would then be fully recharged at the next encounter without any effort on his own to have become so. While this does simplify gameplay, it does remove the strategic importance of "wounding" a character, or the deliberation of whether or not an assault should be attempted without first being rejuvenated. Hmmm...

• Vertical look sensitivity should be separately adjustable from the horizontal option, or at the least, should increase accordingly. More experienced players would greatly benefit from this feature as tracking Banshees, falling/leaping adversaries, et cetera would become much more natural and far less labored.
• Ahhh, the Flamethrower. We would devote an entire section to it, as was done with the mini-gun, but really we have only one concern about it's implementation: In order for the flamethower to be truly wonderful, the napalm/plasma/sticky-burny should stick to, and continue to burn for a time, not only enemies, but walls and other inanimate objects. It would then be extremely useful for covering a retreat through a hallway, not allowing anyone past unless they were willing to take the hit.

• Even more realism with firearms: For instance, not needing to re-cock the pistol each time it is drawn, taking into account if a round is already in the chamber after reloading (allowing then 13 shots with the pistol instead of 12), etc. Good things.

• Melee Weapons: Energy swords, human swords, and other assorted hand to hand only weapons. It makes me giddy just thinking about it.

• Cooperative play: At least 4 player (or more) would be intense, but regardless of the numbers, coop would most greatly benefit from the ability to be played on separate Xboxs system linked.
• Being able to appear as your preselected colour during coop, instead of only green, would be a nice change and would not detract from the serious nature of the Campaign. This would also be very useful for keeping your team members straight in any future coop games involving 4+ players ;)
• Tighter 3rd person views while in vehicles, showing less of the surrounding area, and keeping the camera from going through the ceiling when indoors.
• No cut off on the post-death cinematics: It keeps the flow going, but so much enemy speech, friendly dialogue ("No, without the Captain we..."), and funny activity (flying across the map or watching the Flood and Covenant continue to fight it out) is cut short by the automatic checkpoint restart after you die. By enabling the player to choose the time to restart with the press of a button, these things can be watched in their entirety and also give players a break between attempts by default.
• As great and subtle as the aim assist feature is, the option to turn it off would be appreciated. Trying to fire at one foe in particular amidst a large crowd can be very frustrating at times.
• Have the control scheme set up so that the left hand trigger fires a vehicle's secondary weapon, no matter what control set up is selected.
• The sniper rifle's ability to penetrate "stuff" should without a doubt carry over onto vehicles ie. the jeep, it's windshield, and the Ghost (though perhaps not through the tank).

  People are making an escape in the Warthog. Sniper, from behind, guesses, "the driver should be about... there", and blam! The vehicle comes to a stop.

  This would also be great for taking down dropships in future multiplayer games :)

• And speaking of taking down enemy dropships, we want to be able to shoot them down. We want to be able to disable them. We want to be able to board, commandeer, and either crash them into the ground with all hands still aboard, or use them with one person flying, another manning the turret, and others taking seats ready for drop off. Solo and Multiplayer modes. Yeah!

  (Admit it, you retried the "Rolling Thunder" chapter quite a few times, until after hitting that sucker with 4 tank rounds and 3 rockets you acknowledged it couldn't be destroyed...)

  And yet, we could not help but be worried that vehicles/dropships in general may end up being TOO easy to destroy. Our hope is that such large vehicles may be destroyed only if a concerted and dedicated effort is made, and that it will be the rare, triumphant thing to do so, not just a regular turn of events.

• The present system of damage inflicted on occupants and drivers of vehicles in multiplayer could use a little balancing. Projectile weapons could perhaps not inflict any damage (or VERY little) to vehicle occupants unless they strike the characters directly, adding a slight element of realism. Energy weapons on the other hand should continue to inflict damage to riders even when hitting the vehicle, providing a little extra incentive to use the alien hardware.
• The "360" glitch, causing you to be unable to jump, turn 180 degrees or more and fire a weapon accurately is a must solve.
• Spawn-Control of Character Interim Period Glitch: When one respawns, there is a moment in time in which your character is viewable by others in the game but you have not yet indwelt it, nor are you in control of your body. Often enough, this fraction of a second is quite enough to see your shield/life reduced to very little by the time you can do anything about it. Rare cases have even seen a well placed headshot take out the individual before they took control, yielding, from their perspective, a screen that jumps immediately from "Waiting for Space to Clear" back to "Respawn in 5, etc." Quite frustrating.
• Honestly, wouldn't it be great if the Banshee made much more of a shrieking sound as it flew, living up to it's namesake? Banshee, huh, huh... work with me...
• The Needler needs to do something well: Faster travelling shots, more damage, quicker detonation after impact, fire when cloaked... just something.
• A new Pistol (light sidearm): Less rounds in the clip, not as accurate nor with zoom, but an almost instantaneous weapon switch (no cocking and recocking...); a true sidearm, when all you need are those few extra shots to finish a conflict :)

  At medium range, when the battle is merely a race to reload or switch weapons faster than the other person, a swift-drawing, swift meleeing pistol would really fit the bill. Sure you are giving up a weapon slot for a relatively weak handgun, but that would be all part of the deliberation...

• 2 of the same weapon: While there is a great deal of room for this to go horribly wrong, the ability to hold 2 of the same weapon would make things quite interesting. Overheat one plasma pistol ::switch:: keep laying it down. Empty an assault rifle on the Flood ::switch:: postpone the inevitable. Fire off two rocket rounds ::switch:: hmmm... its fairness may start to break down here :\
• Battle Scarring: One of the most satisfying parts of the game is sifting through battlegrounds for munitions, surveying the damage, and reminiscing about various little skirmishes that have just taken place. It would look pretty slick if during cinematics (and in coop), the main character would appear scorched and bloodied (both with his and his adversaries) from combat. Epic.
• Having a character's unused weapon visible, slung on his person, would not only be helpful for prioritizing threats during multiplayer games, but look fantastic.
• Ogre: the multiplayer game that never was. One player as a large biomechanical fiend while all others attempt to take him down in time, before he destroys certain targets, whatever. Essentially, an option in Oddball where the "trait(s) with ball" will stay with a single character (or team) throughout the game.
• Raid: a multiplayer option where one team will, either randomly or by assignment, start slightly earlier (5 seconds to 1 min) allowing them to organize, divide up weapons, or get a head start. An additional option could not allow the leading team to leave the predetermined starting area (one of the bases, for example) until the other team had also begun.
• Combat Roll: This has the potential to seriously change game play, but we feel it could still work. The D-pad would become a control for rolling in whichever direction it was depressed. The roll would be quite fast but would take a second to recover from, making it very unwieldy in the middle of combat and impossible to use as alternative to walking. Instead it would provide that little bit of extra push to escape a grenade, a sniper shot, or you friend's careless driving. Maybe good, maybe not. It would have to played with a bit.

We may add to this as inspiration comes to us.