Rampancy

[image:9927 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Two more tidbits from the Halo script today. One features the Master Chief doing what he does best (killing Covenant) while the other features Cortana doing what she does best.

Talking, of course.

In the initial moments of Halo 1, between the Cryo bay and the Bridge, the Chief is unarmed and essentially cannot be harmed by Covenant units, all of which are separated from him by invisible walls except one. This portion of the game was essentially designed as a bit of a tutorial, as the game shows you how to do things like jump and crouch to make your way around obstacles.

The film, of course, has no such need for doing that; so before the Chief ever makes it to the bridge, he's picked up a couple of weapons and already started taking his toll on Covenant boarding forces.

That first Elite you see when you play Halo 1 the first time, that surprises you from behind a door and then quickly disappears down the corridor? Well, in the film script, the Chief comes up from behind him, takes out his shields with a melee strike from the assault rifle, and then finishes the job with half a clip (30 rounds). Even the number of rounds mentioned in the script here is correct.

Of course, in the game it wouldn't have been necessary to fire a shot had the melee strike come from behind. And on any difficulty other than easy, a single melee shot from the front would not have taken out the shields entirely.

Within the game, the silent melee kill mechanic works well-- it's about the only stealth option available in a game that is most decidedly not about stealth. However, perhaps it was worried that such an easy takedown wouldn't be believable on the big screen; so the Chief pumps the Elite full of lead just to make sure. Makes sense.

[image:9928 right hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]After leaving the Bridge with Cortana onboard, there's a new exchange between the two that is not in the game, seemingly to establish for the audience the fact that most of the time, Cortana is a disembodied voice that only the Chief can hear. (There is a stage direction later in the script that reinforces the same concept.) The author even manages to make a humorous little scene out of it, a Taxi Driver moment where the Chief gets to ask, "Are you talking to me?"

This, and other touches throughout the script, seem to indicate that the film is being prepared for a wide audience, not just fans of the game who don't need this concept explained for them. While that seems like a good idea, it's also a road that just about every terrible, failed videogame adaptation-- I'm looking at you, Doom-- has tried to go down.

If there's a saving grace for the project here, it will be the involvment of Peter Jackson. He was able to produce a trilogy of movies that did a remarkably good job at pleasing hardcore fans of Tolkien's works as well as attracting a broad audience. It seems clear that Microsoft would want the Halo movie to do the same; they would want to expand the audience for the film to include nongamers without unnecessarily alienating the franchise's core fans. A nice little scene like this I think is a step in the right direction; it's short, unobtrusive, doesn't conflict with any known facts in the Halo story, gives a touch of humor and a helping hand to those not that familiar with the story.

What do you think? Post a comment below!

PALGN, an Australia-based gaming site that humorously advertises itself as being both slow and late, has finally got around to recycling several busted rumors about Bungie and Halo into the bold prediction that Halo 3 is being done by a developer other than Bungie.

Now, to start off, this idea is not half as ridiculous as it sounds; I pondered it myself not a few weeks ago (although for the life of me I cannot find where-- it's possible it was done only in IRC).

What is ridiculous are the five points they cite as evidence of this:

• Bungie has repeatedly refused to confirm the name of their next title. Why? If it was Halo 3, why would they bother not telling us?

There is a little something here. Bungie itself gave mixed messages right after the release of Halo 2, with some quotes indicating that the studio was going to do something different. Maybe they are. However, Microsoft's only other high-profile in-house development studio that would seem to be a match is Rare, and they have their own franchises, Perfect Dark and Conker, to worry about, not to mention the Xbox 360 showcase, Kameo. It's difficult to see what would be gained by shuffling work around like that.

If it was an external developer, no doubt they'd want to publicize their involvement with the Halo franchise to make maximum value of it. Nothing's been said at all. I'd guess that whether the logic is flawed or not, Bungie's reasons for keeping quiet about what they are working on are separate from the question of who, if anyone, is working on Halo 3.