So tomorrow is the big day; Halo 2 finally hits. I have a preorder in but unfortunately won't be able to pick it up for a bit. I've been a Bungie fan since the Marathon days, and followed Halo's development from the beginning. In fact, I interviewed for a level designer position at Bungie during the early days of Halo. On the tour of the offices, I was shown a door and told that "in there we're working on the 'next big thing'", but if they showed me, they'd have to kill me. Sadly, I didn't get the job (probably due to my reading habits... honestly!), but it's still cool to be able to say that I was there way back when.
Anyway, I loved the first Halo, repetitive gameplay and all, and I'm really looking forward to Xbox Live multiplayer. I'm hoping that they work in some of the great narrative that has been developed in the ilovebees.com ARG, but initial reports seem to say otherwise. I'm sure it will be spiffy anyhow.
On the game front, I'm starting to dive back into it after a brief hiatus. Putting the course together with the new modular approach I've developed has really turned into a boon for productivity. It will really help down the road when we start playtesting, and can make adjustments to the holes easily and quickly.
Our game is light on framerate, so we're considering adding some newly-researched effects like the ever-popular Bloom. If it detracts at all, though, we'll lose it in a heartbeat.
Posted by mix at November 8, 2004 05:07 PM