• 19Oct 07

  Argh, curse my choice of favourite map

  I, like everyone else in the known universe, have myself a copy of Halo 3.

  Thing is, it's only recently that I've really noticed how deep all this goes.

  Things like Bungie tracking every multiplayer game I've ever played, or exactly what weapons I used to get the kills in those games, help you realize depth.

  So I've begun to play around with the non-standard stuff.

  Specifically, I've made myself a level in the Forge.

  Nothing special, I just took my favourite map, Sandtrap, and added all the stuff I thought it lacked.

  So now each team starts with a tank, one of the Warthogs on each side is now of the Gauss variety, and I've also thrown in energy swords, turrets, teleporters to the perfect sniper post, sentinel beams (just because), a Hornet, fire grenades, and oh yeah, I've also lowered the vehicle respawn time to ten seconds.

  In other words, I've taken Sandtrap and given it MORE POWER, as the Toolman would say.

  (hunh hunh hunh)*

  Here's the problem. Now that I've created the appropriately named "Desert Storm", there's nothing I can do with it. Sandtrap is the biggest map ever to grace a Halo game outside of the PC. Just playing it with my brothers would be ridiculous, It'd take forever to find each other. And I don't know enough people who play online to invite them all to my playground of explosions.

  With 16 people, Desert Storm would be a Symphony of Glorious Destruction. As it is right now, it just sits there and looks pretty.

  Argh indeed.

  -JW.

  *My attempt at reproducing that odd sound Tim Allen makes whenever he says "MORE POWER".

  • Posted Oct 19, 2007 9:58 am GMT
  • Category: Technology
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• 14Jul 07

  Crap, I landed on the Prophet.

  Salutations. I was finally inspired to start writing here by an idea I had while trying to fall asleep last night. Since there seems to be a problem with originality these days, I thought I'd do something to help. Seems to me that about 80% of the games on the Nintendo Wii are collections of minigames, and at least that percentage of Xbox 360 games are mindless action games. Maybe if we started making minigame collections on the 360, action games (read: GOOD action games) will start showing up on the Wii. Viva Pinata: Party Animals is a step in the right direction, but we need to take it further.

  So that's how I came up with Halo Party: Fun Evolved.

  I'll be honest with you, the ideas I have for Halo Party are direct comparisons to Mario Party. This is because people already understand how to play Mario Party and I didn't want to make my first entry an instruction manual for a game that doesn't exist.

  So you start by having everyone choose their character, and then a map to duke it out on. Characters include:

  • Master Chief
  • Cortana
  • Sgt. Avery Johnson
  • Cmdr. Miranda Keyes
  • The Arbiter
  • Tartarus
  • Spec. Ops Leader (that one Elite from Halo 2 without his left mandibles)

  The game boards would of course be based on locations from the games in the series proper, such as

  • The Pillar of Autumn
  • The Library
  • The Truth and Reconciliation
  • Halo's Control Room
  • New Mombasa
  • Cairo Station
  • High Charity

  Gameplay would handle more or less like in Mario Party, with players rolling dice to determine how far they go in a given turn, and interact with the boards in various ways: Landing on a ? space in the Pillar of Autumn could set off an explosion near you that makes you drop all your items, while hitting one in the Library would open a door, and then either let you take a shortcut across the map, or unleash a torrent of Flood and chase you even further back than you already were. Bowser spaces, which always make something bad happen, would become Prophet of Truth spaces, since that guy would sell his own mother to get ahead. Meanwhile, Donkey Kong spaces, where something good happens to you no matter who you are, would become Gravemind spaces, since that creepy plant thing isn't allied with anyone in particular.

  Instead of collecting golden coins, players are vying for ammunition. So instead of paying an NPC x number of coins to let you use an elevator, you use x number of bullets to kill them and get them out of the way. (slain NPCs are magically revived between turns) Items would range from Ammo caches, which are self-explanitory, 343 Guilty Spark, who will teleport your enemies' precious goods away from them, (though he can be distracted if they have an Index) Cloaking Devices, which makes nothing happen to you one way or the other, no matter where you land, and many many more.

  Now, so far Halo Party has been a shameless conversion of Mario Party, but the Minigames would be very, very different from the style you see in the Nintendo series. They'd tend to lean more away from the cheery, family-friendly atmosphere of Mario Party, and more towards the gritty, blood-soaked atmosphere of Halo: Combat Evolved. I see most of them taking place in a first person perspective. For example:

  • A free-for-all game where players try to shoot more Infection Forms than their opponents.
  • A 3 vs. 1 game in a Longest-sized map where three players have guns and 1 is constantly cloaked. He has to survive for 1 minute to win, they have to kill him once to win.
  • A 2 vs. 2 game in a pitch black room. 1 player is up on a pedestal with a sniper rifle, the other is unarmed except for his flashlight, which can't be seen by the enemy. The spotter has to find his counterpart so his partner can take them down.

  
  And so on. That's all I've come up with so far, but the idea of a Halo Party game is so amusing to me, I'll probably revisit it. Hell, I haven't even figured out what they'd use for stars.

  I'll be back eventually. Til then, be happy.

  • Posted Jul 14, 2007 9:52 am GMT
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