Opprinnelig skrevet av Bungiue.net
We also started discussions about combat dialog for single player mode in Halo 3 - that is, the speech uttered by Marines, Brutes, Elites etc., in campaign mode as you play through regular levels. That could be anything from "ouch" to "Give me all your grenades or I shall pull off your head."
The process is complex, requires a lot of planning, a vast amount of writing and significant amounts of technology. We already have a lot of the work done - the game designers are primarily in charge of deciding what those "triggers" are- such as, how will a Marine react if his buddy is stuck? Or what should a Brute say if you board his Ghost? The trick is to make the language natural, believable and yet never intrude on the action at hand.
The audio guys get a lot of that responsibility too and are currently at work building out a new AV suite for screening, sampling and testing both audio and video. My plan is to trick them into coming to my basement and calibrating the geometry on my now thoroughly wrecked Sony CRT
I also got the chance to try out not one, not two, but three new levels on Halo 3 this week. And play through somewhat "complete" campaign missions. The new AI is sick. It does things that are at once video gamey and fun, yet occasionally eerily realistic. The trick is making bad guys behave in ways that are challenging and fun, while instilling enough illogical aggression to make an encounter frightening too. There are some very neat moments where the behavior of bad guys alters as you even the odds in combat. It means that battles never become repetitive "pockets" of action.
The behavior of the good guys too, has to be carefully balanced, and not just for difficulty. They have to feel like they’re helping you, without making a mission too easy. You need to be the bad-ass, after all. I can already tell you their driving skills have improved greatly over the last game. Maybe they went to driver's ed.
Graphics of course are all over the place. They range from a carefully detailed leave, moving in a breeze, to a big gray blob that represents "water." The mix of placeholder and finished graphics is less jarring than you'd think, thanks to the unified lighting model. Even ugly untextured things are beautifully lit. So they look sort of cool.
I also developed a new found love for the Carbine. On an HDTV, in HD resolution, it becomes almost sniper-like in its accuracy (although not power). But it is incredibly, almost erotically satisfying to take out Grunts with headshots. Back in the day, I never even bothered trying, because of my crappy TV and the Xbox's then-normal resolution. Now that I can do it, it's going to make Legendary runs that much easier (except it won't, because the designer jerks will account for that).