Halo: Combat Evolved developer commentary

The developer commentary for Halo: Combat Evolved is a commentary track that can be enabled in the "Halo - Halo 2 Cinematics" menu on the Halo 3 Legendary Edition bonus DVD. It plays over the cinematics and gameplay scenes, with commentary from Bungie staff:

Project Lead Jason Jones;
Writer, Director of Cinematics Joseph Staten; and
Composer, Audio Director Martin O'Donnell.

Transcript[edit]

The Pillar of Autumn[edit]

Main article: The Pillar of Autumn (Halo: Combat Evolved level)

Martin O'Donnell: Well, hello everybody out there in fan land. I'm Marty O'Donnell. I'm the audio director and composer for Bungie Studios. And joining me today in these developer commentaries on this evening is Joe Staten, the director of cinematics, and Jason Jones, the fearless leader of Bungie Studios. Welcome, guys. Let the fans know what your voices sound like.

Jason Jones: Hi, Marty.

Joseph Staten: Jason has a deep, rich, manly voice.

Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

Joseph Staten: Wow, do you know what?

Martin O'Donnell: There it is. Opening scene. What do you think?

Joseph Staten: Well, since it's been a while since I've seen this, the really funny part about all this stuff with the Pillar of Autumn in all of these shots...

Jason Jones: ...is that Paul Russel built it in like four minutes.

Joseph Staten: Other than that... is that the Pillar of Autumn never moves. Uh, in this cinematic and other cinematics, it's just a piece of BSP geometry that the camera always moves around.

Joseph Staten: So, to simulate movement--

Jason Jones: Oh my god, it's Captain Keyes.

Joseph Staten: ...we had to do some crazy stuff.

Martin O'Donnell: He's got at least 12 polygons.

Joseph Staten: Now, just...

Martin O'Donnell: Go ahead.

Joseph Staten: ...from a behind-the-scenes point of view, the really interesting thing about Halo 1 cinematics is that probably at least 60% of all the movement of the characters is either done through AI behaviors or through "playbacks." And playbacks are just someone possessing the character and running him around the space and recording what he does—the player input—and then playing that back again. So, Keyes moving around... um, that's just a playback animation with a bunch of custom animations fired off in script, right?

Martin O'Donnell: Right. Like this—the pipe, which you had a lot of trouble with the pipe. And I remember you having a lot of trouble with handshaking and other things like that.

Jason Jones: What was Keyes doing just there?

Joseph Staten: He was packing his tobacco. What do you think he was doing?

Jason Jones: His eyes closed suggestively.

Martin O'Donnell: You know what I love about these guys though, the crewmen, is that--

Jason Jones: ...they all have Matt Segur's face.

Martin O'Donnell: They all are Matt Segur. Matt Segur, who was the sound programmer on Halo 1, and my good, good, good friend.

Joseph Staten: Now, here is a scene—one of many scenes that we'll get to—where Jason and I wrestled about exactly how much stuff we could put, 'cause you can see a couple little frame rate pitches in here when I'm spawning Warthogs and putting in Pelicans. And Jason was a stern master, a stern master with the number of things I could throw in the scene, but then I always threw in a couple more.

Jason Jones: I don't remember any of that. I don't remember ever being a stern master.

Martin O'Donnell: You know what I just realized?

Jason Jones: Does this Warthog... still crash when it goes off frame?

Martin O'Donnell: Okay, listen to it. It's going to crash as it goes off-screen.

Joseph Staten: This is not a—no, I think it's the one that comes after this one. And again, all these guys are just running—they're either running AI or playbacks to make these animations happen.

Martin O'Donnell: Hey, Jason, explain to me why human beings would make a jeep that big. I mean, look how big that is compared to Sergeant Johnson.

Jason Jones: 'Cause it looks awesome.

Martin O'Donnell: He looks like a four-year-old when he's trying to drive it.

Joseph Staten: And I think it's Sergeant Johnson goes through these lines here written by the unforgettable Matt Soell. I think this was the moment where—wait, wait for the crash.

Martin O'Donnell: Here it goes. It's going to go behind.

Joseph Staten: Oh, looks like somebody fixed that bug, Marty O'Donnell.

Martin O'Donnell: You know what? We did do that.

Joseph Staten: This was the moment we all realized that Sergeant Johnson was going to...

Martin O'Donnell: Here it is, this is the one that's going to crash. Listen for it.

Joseph Staten: No, they fixed it. They fixed it.

Martin O'Donnell: I shouldn't have fixed it. In the game, you hear it crash.

Martin O'Donnell: Here's what I'm thinking about this whole director's commentary thing... Whatever this is called—developers' commentary.

Joseph Staten: Designer commentary.

Martin O'Donnell: Designer commentary. It reminds me of the famous Jaime Griesemer quote about "30 seconds of fun."

Joseph Staten: Yeah.

Martin O'Donnell: I think if anybody who sits through the two and a half hours, they'll probably have about 30 seconds of fun.

Joseph Staten: ...if we're lucky.

Martin O'Donnell: Okay, Jason.

Jason Jones: I'll take it from here.

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. You're on.

Jason Jones: I'll carry through the next two hours.

Joseph Staten: Look at that sync, Marty. That's good foley sync. Remember how hard we had to work to make that happen?

Martin O'Donnell: Only in Normal is it in sync. I think it's out of sync in every other version.

Joseph Staten: Wow. I guess we just skipped all the way to this cutscene.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, here we go. He's going to shake hands. Let's... look. Yeah. How hard did you work on that?

Joseph Staten: Let me just say that those animations were not authored together. They were authored separately. So getting them to actually shake involved slightly nudging their spawning points closer and closer until it actually worked.

Martin O'Donnell: And of course, the lovely Jen Taylor as Cortana, who we just couldn't live without. Captain Keyes is played by Pete Stacker, who's also Sergeant Stacker. He's a dual role. Steve Downes...

Jason Jones: Oh, that looked like it hurt.

Martin O'Donnell: Steve Downes is Master Chief. But crewman... You know who that crewman was, right?

Joseph Staten: Did you see me just blow through like six Dutch angles there? That was awesome stuff.

Joseph Staten: Ah, where did the pipe come from? There you go. That's the question of the day. But if you look from this point on, I believe Keyes mouth is permanently sort of turned down in the lower right corner from his bite.

Joseph Staten: And who kept shooting Cortana from the back? That's just not right.

Martin O'Donnell: That's why we have so many little boy fans.

Joseph Staten: Hey, do you remember the bug where because she was transparent and the display was transparent and we went 'round? I think that was one of the last bugs we fixed on these cinematics was getting her to "sort" properly.

Jason Jones: Oh, really? No, I don't remember anything about Halo 1. Did I work on this game?

Joseph Staten: I think.

Martin O'Donnell: (imitating Captain Keyes) "Earth." Oh, sorry. He delivered that so well, though. Come on. Captain Keyes also said the best line in Oni. Joe?

Joseph Staten: "Dead, keep moving." Well, the great thing about sort of Bungie games is that we have this really cool stable of actors, right, that stick around from game to game.

Jason Jones: All two of them.

Martin O'Donnell: All two of them. You got to get rid of the guy that plays the Grunt, though. He's a hack. I mean, in Halo, we really didn't have that many more characters that... you had Keyes, Cortana, and the Chief and Spark, but the cast was so much... I mean, even Sergeant Johnson wasn't called Sergeant Johnson. He was just called Sniper Sergeant. But yeah, I mean, I think that that alone just made everything a little bit more simple. And you know what? Honestly, we just weren't too worried in Halo 1 about tying up loose ends.

Jason Jones: Oh, yeah. The chapter titles were pretty—some of them were pretty good.

Joseph Staten: Mhm.

Jason Jones: "Shut up and get behind me..."

Joseph Staten: "... Sir."

Jason Jones: "...Sir."

Joseph Staten: I think we'll see that one in a little bit.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh gosh, we're all the way through the Pillar of Autumn already.

Jason Jones: We're skipping all the good parts.

Joseph Staten: Great animation by, uh, Mr. Steve Abeyta or maybe Stephan Okasaki. I can't remember which. But this is one of the few scenes where we actually had a ton of custom animation because, you know, I couldn't walk the Master Chief around in a life pod or do AI. So yeah, the Pillar of Autumn is not moving at all. Everything else is moving.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, and here's the famous... so I don't know how many people know this.

Joseph Staten: Yeah. Oh, wait. This is the... this is my worst, my most... The bug that will always make my eyes bleed. If you look in the lower left-hand corner, I think you can see the edge of the matte in this next shot, where Halo's coming up and you can see a little bit of... Wait for it. Okay. Autumn, not moving.

Martin O'Donnell: Yes. Gotcha. Oh, it looks like it's moving.

Jason Jones: Clever camera work, Jay. Oh, wow.

Martin O'Donnell: And actually, Brian Morden, the guy who visited us, uh, from a Make-a-Wish program, did that line: "The Autumn, she's been hit—"

Joseph Staten: Yeah. Ah. There was the edge of the matte.

Martin O'Donnell: Really? I still missed it.

Joseph Staten: Am I remembering correctly that this was your favorite cinematic from Halo 1? I think... was it?

Jason Jones: That was brilliant. I'm crying right now.

Martin O'Donnell: Jason is crying. I can attest.

Halo[edit]

Main article: Halo (Halo: Combat Evolved level)

Martin O'Donnell: By the way, who's the voice of the, uh, drop ship pilot at this moment?

Joseph Staten: Is it Jay's wife?

Martin O'Donnell: No. Who is it?

Joseph Staten: I forget. Who is that?

Martin O'Donnell: That's Jen Taylor.

Joseph Staten: Is that Jen Taylor?

Martin O'Donnell: That's—we put a Cortana line and a Jen Taylor line right next to each other and you didn't even know.

Joseph Staten: Interesting.

Martin O'Donnell: Brilliant. She's a brilliant actress.

Joseph Staten: Mhm. Now, that little snippet there of the inside the life pod thing—again, that was a playback recording, which is me sort of standing in the life pod as it's actually going in, and recording both the movement of the pod and the camera. And that gets used a bunch of different times in Halo 1 cinematics, because Halo 1 cinematics were filthy, cheap-built, duct-tape-and-bailing-wire--

Jason Jones: ...awesomeness.

Joseph Staten: ...cinematics.

Martin O'Donnell: That's Bernie's bloom, right?

Joseph Staten: Bernie's little rays-of-Buddha action.

Joseph Staten: Rays-of-Buddha.

Jason Jones: Halo 1 was awesome.

Martin O'Donnell: It is!

Joseph Staten: When we have the long gameplay sections, you got to start saying something.

Jason Jones: Next time he shoots a Grunt, I'll start talking.

Joseph Staten: You know, clearly Marty was filming the gameplay sequences, because they are--

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, see, I knew this was going to come up.

Joseph Staten: ...they are plodding but very, very helpful.

Martin O'Donnell: They're helpful. I didn't want it to look like someone actually playing the game, but someone sort of filming the game.

Joseph Staten: So, I can't help but notice there are a lot of waypoints. Jones, what's up with all the waypoints in Halo 1?

Jason Jones: I had nothing to do with them. I deny everything.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, on cue... AI.

Joseph Staten: Combat highway.

Jason Jones: That's my favorite piece of AI.

Martin O'Donnell: Unbelievable. Now, here's my favorite line in the game.

Joseph Staten: I don't know if they show it.

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah, we show it. Here it comes.

Jason Jones: It's not? It's not a natural formation?

Joseph Staten: I don't believe it.

Martin O'Donnell: No duh. Wait a minute. It looked like a natural cave to me.

Joseph Staten: You remember how mad you were at me before the GameStock demo that we made where the Master Chief was flying around, um, uh, Silent Cartographer, and we had the basics of the AI combat dialogue system in and one of the few things the Marines did was raise their arm and say "Woohoo!" when they went over rocks?

Jason Jones: Uh-huh.

Joseph Staten: And I went back in the studio and re-recorded them because they didn't sound like "Woohoo!" enough. And the Marines sounded really "Woohoo!" And you started playing the game... man, you were mad as a hooty owl when you heard that new Marine dialogue.

Jason Jones: Wow. I seriously don't remember anything.

Joseph Staten: Did you hit Jason over the head, Marty? He seems to...

Martin O'Donnell: Yes. Jason has been in India.

Joseph Staten: He seems to have collective memory loss.

Martin O'Donnell: He is just so mellow now.

Jason Jones: So mellow.

Joseph Staten: Marty, talk a little bit about that little moment that we just saw.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, that was one of those moments.

Jason Jones: Famous light bridge.

Joseph Staten: It wasn't actually a cinematic. It was a—what did we call those? We didn't have a name for them.

Martin O'Donnell: That's right. Now they're going to be called... perspectives.

Joseph Staten: "Vignettes" or "prinspectors."

Martin O'Donnell: But you and I talked about making sure we had little moments in the game where music would come in, camera control would be taken away for 10 seconds.

Joseph Staten: Right. But those really didn't come in until the very—the very end of the project. But they were really easy to do and I think were some of the more interesting moments of the game.

The Truth and Reconciliation[edit]

Main article: The Truth and Reconciliation

Joseph Staten: Nice silence, musical moments... Scriptive.

Martin O'Donnell: ...and give you a sense of where you were.

Joseph Staten: Good context with not a lot of overhead.

Martin O'Donnell: 'Cause, the rest of the time you're just inside your own head.

Joseph Staten: That's right.

Martin O'Donnell: And this, you could see yourself in your environment.

Joseph Staten: Right. Jones, you got to step it up. I'm dying over here. I think this is my favorite level from Halo 1. Paul Bertone scripted The Truth and Reconciliation.

Jason Jones: It's the sniper rifle.

Joseph Staten: Well...

Jason Jones: You love the sniper rifle.

Joseph Staten: That's true.

Martin O'Donnell: What? There's an original line.

Jason Jones: Some weird dialogue, Joe, though, really.

Joseph Staten: Well, you know, I mean, this is really—you think... John Howard wrote some of this stuff. I think Matt Soell wrote some of it, and you wrote some of it.

Jason Jones: I don't remember.

Joseph Staten: You wrote all the stuff that was cool. Remember?

Jason Jones: Oh yeah, I do. Oh, he's going to shoot a Grunt. I'm going to have to start talking now.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, man. Look at that. We skipped all the way up to here.

Joseph Staten: Mhm.

Jason Jones: All the dreamy gameplay skipped right over.

Joseph Staten: ...which was a very good fight.

Jason Jones: We were so proud of these little lens flares, these little volumetric flashlights. I think Bernie and I spent like six hours one night just running around watching the Marines...

Joseph Staten: ...with their lights on.

Jason Jones: Yeah. From like midnight to six in the morning.

Joseph Staten: ...but there were girls around, right?

Jason Jones: No.

Martin O'Donnell: It's one of those things. There are never girls around. So how big a team worked on Halo 1? Who remembers?

Joseph Staten: I think there was about 40 people, right? I mean, all the burly men of Test and—

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah, don't count Test only because—

Joseph Staten: Don't let Harold hear this.

Martin O'Donnell: No. I just am... Just in terms of working on the game and not testing, 'cause right, we've got all sorts of extra people in the Test.

Jason Jones: Invisible sword Elite!

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, obviously...

Joseph Staten: How many sword Elites came out on Legendary difficulty? Does anybody remember?

Jason Jones: No, I don't.

Joseph Staten: Paul Bertone, who's not here to answer for his crimes.

Martin O'Donnell: Legendary was—that was the worst on Legendary.

Joseph Staten: Oh, wait. This! That was... All right. what level did we cut that necessitated this cinematic?

Martin O'Donnell: Oh...

Joseph Staten: Do you remember?

Martin O'Donnell: I don't remember.

Jason Jones: Oh my god...

Joseph Staten: But there's some choice dialogue that's about to happen where Captain Keyes...

Martin O'Donnell: ...talk about exposition.

Joseph Staten: Yeah. Well, you know, he is Captain Exposition. That was our nickname.

Jason Jones: Yeah. No, tell me about the level we cut.

Joseph Staten: I can't remember what level we cant.

Jason Jones: I seriously don't remember. But I mean, it's all familiar, but...

Joseph Staten: We cut the level where we in a more elegant way described this.

Martin O'Donnell: Here it comes. What do they call it?

Joseph Staten: Well, of course they do.

Martin O'Donnell: "Halo."

Joseph Staten: Chief takes it in stride. Come on.

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah.

Joseph Staten: Chief knows exposition when he hears it.

Martin O'Donnell: Remember those guys down at E3 that thought Chief was a girl because there's always a girl's voice coming out of him?

Joseph Staten: Well, in every movie or game, I mean, there's always that scene, right, where, you know you've got to expose the critical details. Usually, you try to dramatize it nicely, but there's some drama there. Keyes has got some pipe business.

Martin O'Donnell: Hey, explain...

Joseph Staten: The camera's moving around.

Martin O'Donnell: Explain the lighting in this level 'cause this is cinematic lighting, par excellence.

Joseph Staten: Well, I mean, really, I think all of this lighting... I really don't remember how much lighting—cinematic lighting—we had turned on for Halo 1.

Jason Jones: I think it's all—just the way it was. I don't think you— yeah, I don't think you had any choices. You just had to eat it. This was like our—

Joseph Staten: Oh, I remember that now. It was fun.

Jason Jones: The moment when all the Marines get Covenant guns and you leave the ship you just invaded with the captain in tow. I don't know. I was always really excited about this emotionally.

Martin O'Donnell: There it is!

Joseph Staten: Best chapter title.

Martin O'Donnell: "Shut up and get behind me... Sir."

Jason Jones: Yeah.

Joseph Staten: Now giving Keyes a Needler... you want to describe that bug?

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. Yeah. Come on, Jason. Whose idea was that?

Jason Jones: That was Paul's idea.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, okay.

Joseph Staten: But if I remember correctly, the bug was that Keyes still had AI behavior, right? Which was taunt enemy corpse with his weapon. And so Keyes with the Needler would, of course, unload into the dead Elite or what have you...

Martin O'Donnell: ...and then explode and kill himself.

Joseph Staten: And explode and kill himself.

Jason Jones: That was pretty classic when Keyes ran up to a guy, yeah, just filled them with needles and then blew everybody up.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh wait! Explain this part.

Joseph Staten: Oh, it's perfectly obvious what happens.

Martin O'Donnell: What's happening here? Weren't there Hunters or something?

Joseph Staten: Yeah.

Martin O'Donnell: And where's the shot that shows us killing the Hunters?

Joseph Staten: I think this was one of those cinematics in Halo 1 where we kind of ran out of time. If you notice, there aren't any characters really...

Martin O'Donnell: Here's the Hunters!

Joseph Staten:...except for the two Hunters.

Martin O'Donnell: He's going to kill them.

Joseph Staten: Controls and... boom.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh.

Jason Jones: Jesus. Keyes is a badass.

Martin O'Donnell: So, we were supposed to just like—

Joseph Staten: I had to take the Hunters out because the collision with that cinematic model of the drop ship that they sort of interpenetrated and it didn't look too hot.

The Silent Cartographer[edit]

Main article: The Silent Cartographer

Jason Jones: Ah, first level.

Martin O'Donnell: B30. That was our code name.

Jason Jones: We spent so much time rebuilding and rebuilding and rebuilding B30. It turned out pretty well. Were you swaying that drop ship 'cause you're just trying to make it look cool?

Joseph Staten: A little Steve Abeyta right there animation. Marcus looking good. The Marcus marine.

Jason Jones: I totally guilted Steve into doing that, 'cause that guy was just standing in his seat facing forward.

Joseph Staten: Yep.

Martin O'Donnell: This is one of my favorite encounters, though. And we have the full Halo music playing in this encounter for the first time. Oh, and there we're done.

Joseph Staten: Now, what—Jones—was the original objective for this mission? Do you remember?

Jason Jones: It's sort of becoming the theme of the evening, but I don't remember, Joe.

Joseph Staten: It was to kill the Prophet, who was trying to find this Silent Cartographer. Remember? You were supposed to—the Prophet was going to go, he was getting the map, and you were supposed to go and assassinate the Prophet, which like most good ideas that we don't execute on the first time around, we save for the next game.

Martin O'Donnell: Are you saying...

Jason Jones: Awesome.

Martin O'Donnell: ...that we haven't thought through every story point for every game all the way from beginning to end?

Joseph Staten: I could be saying that, but really what I'm saying is we usually fail to execute on brilliant ideas the first time around and then knock them out of the park next time.

Martin O'Donnell: Here's one of my favorite... we did this because we did this in the X02 demo. Here it is. Just to show you.

Joseph Staten: Ah, little playback animation. Little AI walk, cue the custom animation.

Martin O'Donnell: Why is there a stone here?

Jason Jones: He's got a big backpack.

Joseph Staten: What? "Why is there a stone there?" What kind of question is that?

Jason Jones: There's not a stone there anymore.

Joseph Staten: I think the Chief just took care of that problem.

Martin O'Donnell: Yes. That's a great perspective.

Joseph Staten: I think the Chief's motivation was to walk to the end of the diving board and kick off the one and only stone in all of...

Jason Jones: ...all of Halo 1.

Joseph Staten: ...all of the interiors in Halo 1. He didn't like it.

Joseph Staten: Ah, some good Shi Kai Wang animation.

Jason Jones: Ladies and gentlemen. Shi Kai Wang.

Martin O'Donnell: Yep. Beauteous.

Joseph Staten: Som talk about the mirrored floors.

Jason Jones: I don't remember anything about the mirrored floor. I think back then mirrors were all the rage.

Joseph Staten: Did we have any mirrors in Halo 2? But then I guess we are talking about Halo 1.

Joseph Staten: There is one on the floor of the control room, but we'll get to that in about two hours.

Martin O'Donnell: After the 30 seconds of fun are done.

Jason Jones: Ah, yeah. B30. I have a lot of fond memories of B30. It's like a childhood home. Backyard.

Martin O'Donnell: Well, you could go two different ways around the island.

Joseph Staten: Well, I mean, it was the Halo 1 test bed, right? I mean, that's where—

Jason Jones: That's where everything started.

Joseph Staten: Now this cinematic... again, we cut a level and I don't remember what level we cut.

Martin O'Donnell: That's horrible.

Jason Jones: Aerial insertion from underground.

Joseph Staten: I had to—well, we had to cobble this...

Jason Jones: No, no, 'cause this is B30 and the next level is B40, right?

Martin O'Donnell: That's true.

Jason Jones: But I don't think there was anything cut.

Joseph Staten: You're saying we always had planned that we were going to open up the magic hidey-hole?

Jason Jones: I'm not saying it was a good plan.

Joseph Staten: Wait, here's Shi Kai covering our asses again with the absolutely fake manhole.

Jason Jones: Oh, yeah. That's—

Martin O'Donnell: The Pelican can actually fit in that manhole?

Joseph Staten: No! The Pelican is like 14 miles long. It can carry 70,000 people. Yeah, that's why we didn't actually show the Pelican.

Assault on the Control Room[edit]

Main article: Assault on the Control Room

Martin O'Donnell: Okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Staten.

Joseph Staten: Grunt comedy?

Martin O'Donnell: Grunt comedy.

Joseph Staten: Oh, "I Would Have Been Your Daddy"... Marty.

Martin O'Donnell: I forgot about that. That was Pete Stacker's line.

Joseph Staten: A fine Pete Stacker line.

Martin O'Donnell: He improvised that line. Here we go! Let's listen.

Joseph Staten: Yeah.

Jason Jones: A little sniffing.

Martin O'Donnell: Academy Award time right there.

Joseph Staten: Grunt comedy... always gets old.

Jason Jones: I forgot how we painted ourselves into a corner where we, yeah, needed to do a drop ship insertion from like inside a structure, and so we ended up flying down through the manhole on B30.

Joseph Staten: Well, in Halo 1, we really didn't have a lot of big sort of matte painting helped transitions from one space to another. I mean, we had like this tropical island and then we went to snow, right? And I think I remember one of your concerns was that it was just going to be hard to pull off that transition from one place to the next. So, you decided it was easier just to put the Pelican through a tube.

Jason Jones: I decided it was easier to make you suffer. Is that it?

Martin O'Donnell: The Control Center. We just talked right over me singing. I'm...

Joseph Staten: Was that you?

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah.

Joseph Staten: I'm sorry.

Martin O'Donnell: That's all right.

Jason Jones: That's a big room.

Martin O'Donnell: Big room. Look at that thing. I love it. Master Chief always looks like he's walking with a slight little gimp. What's up with that?

Joseph Staten: You know, and you can see in this scene, 'cause this is a lot of playback animation where it's just me running around recording his stuff. And I mean, you probably have the more technical explanation for this, but it was keeping track of my input, right? And so if I had bad—and I was doing this all in the tool on the PC—so if I had bad lag on my mouse, it made the Chief's movements...

Jason Jones: ...jittery.

Joseph Staten: Jittery, right? So you can see him. Oh yes. Giant Cortana.

Martin O'Donnell: Giant Cortana.

Jason Jones: There was an alternate very early version of the story where when he rediscovered Cortana, she'd like gone berserk with power and wanted to take over Halo and the universe.

Martin O'Donnell: What happened to that story?

Jason Jones: It was too good. We had to use this one instead.

Joseph Staten: Are you saying you came up with a story where a woman became drunk with power and wanted to take over the universe?

Martin O'Donnell: Let's not go there.

Joseph Staten: I don't believe that for a second.

Martin O'Donnell: Let's not go there. He's sensitive.

Joseph Staten: Oh, we'll get to Miranda strapping a bomb to the Chief's back when we get to Halo 2.

Jason Jones: Tha would have been awesome.

Martin O'Donnell: I was for it, Jason.

Jason Jones: If only the world of video game fans knew what they were missing. Knew what had been taken from them.

Joseph Staten: Who was the jerk that told you--

Martin O'Donnell: Jeez. This is scary. Her eyes.

Joseph Staten: Now, why did—

Jason Jones: Well, this was cool. And I love the Chief animation there. And he like starts running away before he even knows what he's doing. "I'm going—I'm doing it. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going. Uh, the glowy lady said to go."

343 Guilty Spark[edit]

Main article: 343 Guilty Spark (level)

Joseph Staten: Now, this, I think, is the cinematic that almost killed me and you two guys, too, because it is pretty much start to finish—not this one, but the one that comes after.

Martin O'Donnell: Yes, it will come very quickly, I hope.

Joseph Staten: Except for some really cool custom animation about toward the end. All playback animation, AI stuff, back-to-back, taking one character as the lead actor, running him through his moves.

Jason Jones: Oh, yeah.

Joseph Staten: And selecting the next guy, running him through, recording his stuff, and just building up this collection of different recordings for all these characters.

Martin O'Donnell: But do you remember how careful we were to not let anybody know... I mean, this was the big twist that the Flood was being introduced and...

Joseph Staten: Right.

Martin O'Donnell: This was the big moment that we had to like fake everybody out into thinking they were doing something else, but we were actually introducing the Flood. Oh, I love this little... "We're under... attack" or something.

Jason Jones: This was good. This was the cutscene I was looking forward to the most, I think, to seeing done in its final place in the whole game. Not this one. The one we're about to see.

Joseph Staten: Mhm.

Martin O'Donnell: And luckily, we had a little extra time after that cutscene, which somebody—Jaime Griesemer—wanted to take away and go right into action. I'm like, "Jaime, you got to have a little time to let the players adjust to they're in the same place."

Jason Jones: Oh, Crazy Marine.

Joseph Staten: Now, the original plan--

Martin O'Donnell: Ken Boynton.

Joseph Staten: ...the original plan for Crazy Marine was he was actually going to, when you... remember Marty? We had a fight, not a fight about this, we don't ever fight.

Martin O'Donnell: No, we never fight.

Joseph Staten: ...but a fight. The Crazy Marine was supposed to stay alive and then when you walked however many world units away from him and we checked, you know, to see that you weren't looking, he was—we were just going to have this big bang, right? And you would come back and he'd be dead on the floor.

Martin O'Donnell: No, I was fine with that. The thing I didn't ever want you to see him kill himself, but I also didn't want all of his lines to be said all in a row. They were supposed to be said at different times, but instead Jaime said, "Uh, boring. Let's have them all said in the same time."

Joseph Staten: Right.

Martin O'Donnell: Not that we're going to speak bad like Jay.

Jason Jones: Not that we're kind of belaboring that here.

Joseph Staten: Well, Marty is focusing on Crazy Marine.

Martin O'Donnell: Well I guess...

Jason Jones: He's got the bottomless clip.

Joseph Staten: Those little light sticks. Those were some of the few cool... like, the I remember the—who made the big pass on this level at the very end? Was that Jaime? They just went through and splashed... Jeez! Marty!

Martin O'Donnell: Sorry, I didn't know I did that.

Joseph Staten: Jaime went in and just splashed a whole bunch of blood decals and a whole bunch of crazy—like, made these little Covenant barricades and really did some awesome stuff.

Jason Jones: Coming down the elevator and seeing the blood all over the walls.

Joseph Staten: Right.

Martin O'Donnell: Notice how the music takes you down this hallway. Of course, I'm going as slow as I possibly can.

Jason Jones: Yeah, notice how Marty's exactly running everywhere perfectly to maximize the effect of the music.

Martin O'Donnell: I'm looking in. What is that?

Joseph Staten: You know what, Marty? This music takes me other places, too. Takes me to some real special, special happy places deep inside my heart.

Martin O'Donnell: Good. And then we go down this. You see, I'm being real cautious like every player would be--

Joseph Staten: No player walk this slowly.

Martin O'Donnell: They should in this level. They should be kind of freaked out. That's what I was saying. Look at the blood. The thing. It's scary. I'm looking left. Wait, what's to the right? Hm, a trigger volume?

Jason Jones: Yeah. The idea that knowing something horrible happened and going into the very room where it happened, but not knowing that's where it happened until you listen to the video.

Joseph Staten: Mhm-

Martin O'Donnell: See, that's what's cool about this. Yeah. But somebody needs to explain to me—

Joseph Staten: Yeah.

Martin O'Donnell: Why does the Master Chief put this little video playback chip in his head, and it makes these fast-forward noises like some old VCR tape?

Joseph Staten: I'm not quite sure, but why does every time that someone talks on the radio in Halo does it make the (imitate radio sound).

Martin O'Donnell: They just haven't improved radio communications 500 years in the future.

Jason Jones: I think it's the same already been improved actually in the present. Yeah, this was—

Joseph Staten: That's because real weapons 500 years from the future are going to be totally boring. As Rob McLees likes to say...

Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

Joseph Staten: ...a weapon 500 years in the future is going to be a glass of water, and you drink it and all your enemies die. And I think we probably got to that point like 300 years in the future and then we decided to go back to fun guns.

Jason Jones: Fun guns. Private Jenkins.

Joseph Staten: Remember I wanted you to license an actual song for this? What were we going to license? Magic Carpet Ride?

Martin O'Donnell: Paint It Black.

Joseph Staten: Oh, that's right.

Martin O'Donnell: The Rolling Stones. Instead, this is a O'Donnell-Salvatori original, Rock and Roll something. Oh, you know, Mendoza was cool. I liked him.

Joseph Staten: With Lorraine. Lorraine McLees.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, yeah. She was the drop ship pilot. "LZ looks clear." Excellent. Lorraine.

Joseph Staten: And again, this is the only time I shot out the back. Well, when I wasn't shooting out the back of the Pelican, it's because the Pelican, 'cause it was all a playback, was just vibrating like a bitch in the trees and they kept like cutting through the bay and stabbing people in the head. Oh, it was horrible. And then I think Chris Barrett put that bush there right at the very end. Not to blame Chris. He didn't do it, but like the magic bush that was never there before when I made all the playbacks.

Jason Jones: No, let's blame Chris. That's more fun.

Martin O'Donnell: Yes. So, what is this video effect?

Jason Jones: Jaime probably helped him. They did it together.

Joseph Staten: Now, pretty much every time I'm not pointing the camera at the action, it's to avoid an animation pop, spawning a character, something that was bad. And I think I must have tried to record this 'cause I ran all the guys through and then tried to record a camera. And like once you do the... all this camera stuff is being recorded in real time. So, he's just going through and trying to make--

Jason Jones: I like how the Elite is made of concrete when he kicks him.

Joseph Staten: Wait, was he?

Jason Jones: Yeah. He doesn't move at all.

Martin O'Donnell: He doesn't move at all.

Joseph Staten: See, look. I'm looking away 'cause Keyes is about to pop off screen. Pop! Oh, hey, Keyes. And this is all playback stuff with the... like this is me. Mouse and keyboard in our tool, controlling every single character.

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah, those were the good old days.

Joseph Staten: I don't remember them as good precisely.

Jason Jones: They were old, though.

Martin O'Donnell: They were old.

Joseph Staten: They were old.

Martin O'Donnell: Good voice acting covers everything.

Joseph Staten: But just... like watch. He's gonna pop before he does his custom animation. So look away. Pop. Here he goes.

Jason Jones: Look back.

Joseph Staten: Hey!

Jason Jones: And that's what the Chief saw.

Joseph Staten: That's right. That's the same thing.

Martin O'Donnell: And now we're going into the room where the Chief was last seen.

Joseph Staten: Marty, I noticed there's no music here. What was that choice about?

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, it's all ambience. If you guys are listening closely, there's really cool spooky ambience here. Mhm. You don't want to... hear it. It's just spooky.

Joseph Staten: Yeah.

Martin O'Donnell: This is actually—the name of the piece is "Spooky One."

Joseph Staten: You hear the gun noise? Every time you spawn the character in Halo 1, it made the reload sound.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, and Halo 2... Halo 2, and Halo 3, by the way.

Joseph Staten: Jason.

Jason Jones: Jason.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, wait. Private Carney.

Martin O'Donnell: Chris Carney, ladies and gentlemen.

Joseph Staten: Look how casual Keyes looks.

Martin O'Donnell: Now the guy's obviously dying. "Mendoza."

Joseph Staten: Do we know how much Scully was going to kick ass before we cast him?

Martin O'Donnell: No. No. Yeah. Actually, when he came in, he was great. David Scully, Sergeant Johnson, stole the show.

- Jason Jones: How many times did Sergeant Johnson die in this game?

Joseph Staten: Look at poor Keyes doing his playback animation with his neck. Ah, yes. Here they come, busting out.

Martin O'Donnell: First time ever. The party hats.

Joseph Staten: They're not so much busting as getting stuck on the door. Wait, here comes one! God damn, those things are big.

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah, they are big.

Joseph Staten: It's like they're getting mobbed by turkeys.

Martin O'Donnell: Hey! Boy, that was some bleepable language from Sergeant Johnson.

Joseph Staten: Now, there's this bug—I don't know if this is one... where an infection form would invariably fix itself to Keyes's crotch. Just start munching away. This is all just AI Like spawn a couple of infection forms and let the—let it happen, right?

Martin O'Donnell: Well, that's why I had to capture that movie a couple of times I swear—

Joseph Staten: ...because of the crotch-diving of the infection form?

Martin O'Donnell: Mhm.

Jason Jones: Well, now the Chie. He's worried now.

Martin O'Donnell: Now, this is where...

Jason Jones: ...it's all right here.

Martin O'Donnell: What Jaime wanted to do here is immediately have: Boom, the Flood attack. And I said, "Please just give me a little time to say 'alright, this is a creepy place.'"

Jason Jones: You saved Halo 1.

Martin O'Donnell: I did.

Jason Jones: Right here.

Martin O'Donnell: Right here. Jaime would have been out of control. And then... here come the party hats.

Joseph Staten: Wow, that looks cool.

Martin O'Donnell: Man, that is so cool.

Joseph Staten: Ah, yeah, Marty. Way to build anticipation.

Jason Jones: The only time we could get more than like four enemies on the screen at once in Halo 1 is if they were infection forms. Oh, wow. Look at the field of view on that shotgun.

Martin O'Donnell: Now, the name of that level was... Wait a minute. What was the name of that level? 'Cause that was 343 Guilty Spark there. That was a chapter title.

Joseph Staten: That was a chapter title. I think the name of the...

Martin O'Donnell: What was the name of the level?

Jason Jones: I'm trying to listen to the light bulb.

Joseph Staten: Poor Spark. He didn't have any custom animation or playbacks in that scene, but he could look to points. You saw right there, where I could script him to look down, or look up, or look right or left.

Martin O'Donnell: Poor Foehammer.

Joseph Staten: It's just funny to watch him here, and he's still got that great little character piece of his eye moves in time with— flickers in time with his speech.

The Library[edit]

Main article: The Library

Joseph Staten: But if you look at the stuff in Halo 3 now and the great work that's getting done, I mean, he's just so much more animated and cool. But thank God, we had the light flickering and the cool voice acting of Tim Dadabo.

Martin O'Donnell: Listen to the sound effects.

Jason Jones: Is this a level from Mario? You get to see what you're going at.

Martin O'Donnell: Exactly. Right.

Joseph Staten: Now, the question is, who opens this door? I...

Martin O'Donnell: The cameraman.

Joseph Staten: Who opened that door? You know who I think it was?

Jason Jones: Joseph.

Joseph Staten: The Gravemind.

Martin O'Donnell: Yes, I think you're right. Oh, the humming Monitor. Tim Dadabo, ladies and gentlemen.

Joseph Staten: I hope you capture some stuff of you shooting the Monitor.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, yes, I'm sure I do. I bet you I do right now. Come on. Yes.

Joseph Staten: Marty, you're not zooming when you're shooting the pistol.

Martin O'Donnell: Well, 'cause zooming a pistol never made any sense to me.

Joseph Staten: Look how fast that pistol is firing. What were you thinking?

Jason Jones: It's cool. I remember liking this level a lot. I like The Library. I want to play it right now.

Joseph Staten: Absolutely.

Jason Jones: Good work, Tyson.

Joseph Staten: That was good stuff.

Martin O'Donnell: Tyson has gotten a bad rap for this level. I love this level. I seriously do.

Joseph Staten: Wow, look at the textures. They're like 4x4.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh jeez. We're done already. Sorry, guys. We just zip through it.

Joseph Staten: Well, you know, you got to be efficient.

Martin O'Donnell: Yes.

Joseph Staten: Well, here's Spark doing a little some playback stuff. There's a little bit more animated. Now, you again, I remember you—Jason—disliking pretty much every time that I put rumble in the controller in a cinematic. And I think I put some right there. A little rumble.

Jason Jones: I probably just didn't notice it.

Joseph Staten: Now, how is the Chief standing where he's standing?

Martin O'Donnell: It's a mirrored... it's a glass surface, right?

Joseph Staten: I don't know. That's so interesting. What bug number was that? I forget.

Jason Jones: Bug number "won't fix."

Joseph Staten: Bug number "ship it." Look at that jerk. Incident one of the magic disappearing index in Halo 1.

Martin O'Donnell: 'Cause what is the index made out of? No one really knows.

Jason Jones: It's made out of neurons.

Martin O'Donnell: It's the same as the Cortana chip that just disappears into slots.

Joseph Staten: I for—I mean, just looking back, I'd forgotten how much of the Halo 1 cinematics really was just camera movement. I mean, it just was things which stood still or moved in simple ways.

Two Betrayals[edit]

Main article: Two Betrayals

Jason Jones: And neither of these characters even have lip sync.

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah, that's true. Made it a little easier.

Jason Jones: Genius.

Martin O'Donnell: I just nod my head.

Joseph Staten: I swear, it was a little bit laggy because the input is funny. I mean all that looking, all the walking around is playbacks.

Martin O'Donnell: Watch, he's going to gimp right now.

Jason Jones: ...Some kind of... yeah... code.

Joseph Staten: He's been through a lot. He's hurt.

Martin O'Donnell: Also known as wack.

Joseph Staten: Look at Spark fly to his points. Man, that is an actor that can hit his marks. And cut on the poppy animation. Pop! Now, it was funny because I don't remember exactly why this was true. Probably because in Halo 1--

Martin O'Donnell: It's because we have no idea how we took the index from Spark. We just... that's always off camera.

Joseph Staten: It happens off camera.

Jason Jones: He just...

Joseph Staten: Aw, Spark!

Martin O'Donnell: Brilliant.

Joseph Staten: Here she comes.

Martin O'Donnell: I love this scene.

Joseph Staten: Boom! Now, when you don't have time to make an effect, you just make the screen go kind of green.

Martin O'Donnell: Toady! Toady?

Joseph Staten: Remember why she says things like "toady"?

Jason Jones: No...

Joseph Staten: Because originally you wanted Cortana to have a British accent, Jason.

Jason Jones: What?

Joseph Staten: Yes, you did!

Jason Jones: I don't remember any of this.

Joseph Staten: Absolutely.

Jason Jones: You guys can say anything.

Joseph Staten: "Bastard", all those words were...

Martin O'Donnell: You know what? That's actually true, because when we cast Cortana, we asked every woman to do an English accent for us at the same time.

Joseph Staten: Mid-Atlantic, maybe kind of...

Jason Jones: Don't try to blame this on me.

Martin O'Donnell: We did, and then we decided not to.

Joseph Staten: I absolutely am.

Martin O'Donnell: "Sod off, toady." What is that?

Joseph Staten: Sod off, toady. And I think this was one of those cinematics where we'd already—gee Marty—this was one of those cinematics where we already had a bunch of dialogue recorded, and I made the point that maybe a sort of American-sounding AI shouldn't be saying things like that. And I think your response was, "Jim, beep this, go fuck yourself. We're not re-recording that dialogue." Marty wouldn't say something like that.

Martin O'Donnell: I would never.

Joseph Staten: Marty wouldn't say something like that. That's my interpretation.

Martin O'Donnell: I'd re-record everything you want, Joe.

Joseph Staten: You said, "I'm very busy. I think we should ship what we have. But thank you for your suggestion."

Martin O'Donnell: "Whatever." Now, does that make a lot of sense? Should someone explain that to me? I just... I've never quite gotten that. All sentient beings. So, we starve them to death.

Joseph Staten: In exactly every Halo game, we always have to have this scene, where someone explains how the Flood works and what the Halo rings do to them.

Martin O'Donnell: I mean, Jason, when did you come up with...

Joseph Staten: This was written all by Jones.

Jason Jones: That is so not true!

Joseph Staten: No, no, the—this—the Spark, more technical...

Jason Jones: The Chief's just staring at him.

Martin O'Donnell: He's trying to decide who to believe. That's what... he's making up his mind now.

Joseph Staten: Behind the mask, he's going through a variety of emotions.

Martin O'Donnell: Yes. "Do I stay with my little glowing friend or my AI girl? What do I do?"

Joseph Staten: Yeah, there are only so many different ways you can move a camera around a non-moving object.

Martin O'Donnell: See, look. He's going, "Do I do this? Do I do this? Hm..."

Joseph Staten: Oh, here they come.

Martin O'Donnell: Wait a minute. He's got an AR in his hand.

Joseph Staten: I hope the Chief has a really punchy, awesome line to finish this scene. I guess we gave it to Spark, didn't we?

Martin O'Donnell: Here it is. Yes.

Joseph Staten: Wow, those Sentinels just aren't moving, are they?

Martin O'Donnell: They're threatening.

Joseph Staten: "That's not going to happen."

Martin O'Donnell: "That's not going to happen."

Joseph Staten: Of course it's not!

Martin O'Donnell: Here it comes. Oh. "Take his head, dispose of the rest." I love that.

Joseph Staten: Now he's got a plasma pistol. Somebody explain that to me. I swear he had an AR.

Jason Jones: Explain to me how you missed that first Sentinel.

Martin O'Donnell: That was Joe. I remember he, uh, he—

Joseph Staten: Nice decaling. Now this—this was one... What level did we cut here?

Jason Jones: This is ridiculous. You were like trying to... how do you disable the power cores? How do we do that? There's got to be explosives. There's got to be an explosion.

Martin O'Donnell: You just walk into it!

Jason Jones: How could this possibly happen? Wait, why don't we just walk into a big glowy light? If we walk into the light flare...

Joseph Staten: Wait! Here comes the best exposition of the game. Of course there is.

Martin O'Donnell: That's how the monitor moves about. Yeah.

Joseph Staten: Listen to how fast Jen is talking.

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah, because you wrote this like the last second before she showed up. What?

Joseph Staten: Jen's saying, "What the hell are you people making me read?"

Martin O'Donnell: "Pull it from your suit." Only once." Why is that, Joe? So, how are you going to like distract people from saying, "Why haven't you been using this method of transportation this whole time?"

Keyes[edit]

Main article: Keyes

Joseph Staten: Let me just say, the worst cinematic in the game, which is what we just saw, is actually bookended by the best cinematic in the game.

Martin O'Donnell: What, the fly-through here?

Joseph Staten: No, don't you remember?

Martin O'Donnell: Oh gosh. Well.

Jason Jones: I don't remember.

Joseph Staten: It was the signature comedy moment of Halo 1 that—that I—I think—I think eventually you came around to thinking was actually pretty good. But I mean, you know, my impulse is always to put in a little comedy.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, this.

Joseph Staten: This, I remember you thinking was a bit too much.

Martin O'Donnell: So, is this Captain—is this Master Chief and Cortana flying through the level or is this just—is this how they're getting around? What are we looking at here?

Jason Jones: This a gratuitous flashy light.

Martin O'Donnell: And then... yep, here we are.

Jason Jones: Oh yeah, this is brilliant.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh! Aww...

Joseph Staten: Aww... Nice spark.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, see, he hit Cortana.

Joseph Staten: It's a nice little moment.

Jason Jones: It's a great moment.

Joseph Staten: It's a nice little moment

Martin O'Donnell: ...and that will distract us from thinking about why we're using this transportation grid for one time only.

Joseph Staten: Yeah. I'm thinking in the cinematic that came before that one, the Chief just should have started hitting his head a lot to distract people from that dialogue.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, I love the blob blurpy drops that come down here. Yes.

Jason Jones: Yes, you got to jump.

Joseph Staten: But you could stay here for quite some time.

Jason Jones: Wait, Tyson, why don't you start an infinite Flood respawner right behind this?

Martin O'Donnell: You know, Tyson told me it wasn't infinite. Is that true?

Jason Jones: I don't think it was infinite so much as it became more and more demonic as time went by.

Martin O'Donnell: Certainly not the 30 seconds of fun we all talk about.

Joseph Staten: I think Tyson just started spawning Flood that didn't have weapons, like carrier forms.

Jason Jones: Oh my gosh. The most brilliant thing in Halo 1 was the fact that the carrier forms didn't explode from a grenade until they landed.

Martin O'Donnell: That's cool. So yeah, I waited for her to give the line that jump in the fluid is looking better all the time.

Joseph Staten: Here comes one of the few matte paintings in our game.

Martin O'Donnell: Whoops.

Joseph Staten: Wherever it is, I guess we missed it.

Martin O'Donnell: Interactive music right there.

Joseph Staten: Nice splash. Hey, look! You're underwater.

Martin O'Donnell: I love it. No, you're under fluid.

Joseph Staten: That was the Halo 1 Marathon moment right there.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh...

Joseph Staten: Back we go. This grav lift wasn't quite as much fun as the Truth and Reconciliation grav lift.

Martin O'Donnell: Now, I'd like to say that I was the guy who said we need to have Captain Keyes say, "Chief, leave me..." Because I said, we need to have a reason why you're looking for Captain Keyes, and you believe that he might be on there. Just want you guys to know that.

Joseph Staten: I think, Marty, that was a really good suggestion.

Jason Jones: That was the second time you saved Halo 1.

Martin O'Donnell: Twice!

Jason Jones: This is where you really started to feel sorry for the Covenant. Yeah. And a little bit for Keyes, too.

Martin O'Donnell: Why'd you feel sorry for the Covenant here?

Jason Jones: Why not? 'Cause they're... did you play this level?

Joseph Staten: Now, I think it's true that in Halo 1, since all the camera points were placed by hand in the tool...

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah...

Joseph Staten: ...we didn't have an ability in Halo 1 to actually just make them start at a set speed and continue at that set speed and stop. They all had a curve—sort of an acceleration curve—where they would start slow, then speed up, and then slow down again. So, if you look, all the camera moves have this weird sort of very even... I mean not even, but they all sort of swoop in and swoop out, right? Which I'm not saying is good, but it's just a little detail you notice. Rob McLees with that excellent Flood Keyes brain-goo particle effect when you shake that thing.

Martin O'Donnell: If you listen closely right there, he's still going "uh... uh... uh..." even though he smashed his head in, yeah.

Joseph Staten: ...from his shattered head.

Jason Jones: Oh, not a lot of cover in this room.

Martin O'Donnell: There we go. Some action, baby!

Joseph Staten: I think it's safe to say that was the easiest cinematic in Halo 1.

Martin O'Donnell: Now, Joe, what do you think about this next cinematic?

Joseph Staten: Um, I don't know. I don't remember what it is.

Martin O'Donnell: You'll see.

The Maw[edit]

Main article: The Maw

Jason Jones: Oh, yeah. I like this one.

Joseph Staten: I take it back. This is my favorite cinematic from Halo 1. And I got to say, Marty...

Martin O'Donnell: I heard you say this before.

Joseph Staten: I got to say this, because it was the cinematic where I came into your office and said, "Hey, Marty. Uh, I don't know, man. I don't really know. I just.... there's I got this camera move. There's no dialogue. I think it's going to look cool." I remember being dog-tired and you said, "I got it. Like, I got to take that."

Martin O'Donnell: Got some music for this? That's all you need. Just like the Halo announcement trailer in 1999. It's just music and action. That's all you need. No dialogue till the... until the comedy moment at the end.

Joseph Staten: Great-looking ship and environment. So simple, but yet I mean that—that's what it was all about. Just the—

Martin O'Donnell: ...but Joe has to get the comedy in.

Joseph Staten: Well, it was a Halo 1 hallmark. Another Steve Abeyta animation coming here. Whoa! Nice.

Martin O'Donnell: What Chief was that?

Joseph Staten: Chief and Cortana had such a good little witty back-and-forth in Halo 1.

Martin O'Donnell: That was good. This is a great level. I love this level.

Joseph Staten: Mhm.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, see now, let's go and look to see...

Joseph Staten: Oh, I doubt my eyes, Marty. I doubt my eyes.

Martin O'Donnell: There's the Banshee, see? Yeah. I just wanted everybody to know the Banshee was still down there burning. Here we are.

Joseph Staten: The return. The return to the beginning.

Martin O'Donnell: Hey Jason, how come we're reusing geometry again?

Jason Jones: Because otherwise the game would have been two levels shorter. Three levels.

Joseph Staten: Now, I think this was Paul Russel. I don't know how the hell we figured out that countdown clock, but I remember that was a huge pain in the ass.

Jason Jones: Oh yeah, somebody wrote code like shader...

Joseph Staten: Was it Bernie?

Jason Jones: Yeah, I think that's actually like in the pixel shader... like running that freaking clock.

Joseph Staten: ...for a cinematic.

Jason Jones: Yes.

Martin O'Donnell: Wow.

Joseph Staten: A little cutaway. He looks excited, doesn't he?

Martin O'Donnell: All of our lost time. What does that mean?

Jason Jones: Human history, is it?

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, fascinating. That's a clue.

Jason Jones: Yeah, Guilty Spark's my favorite character.

Joseph Staten: He's good times. And Guilty Spark is one of those characters that's completely easy to write for.

Jason Jones: ...because nobody's actually listening to him?

Joseph Staten: I think it's safe to say there's a lot of you and a lot of me in little Guilty Spark. Some bookish, kind of annoying little fellow that nobody listens to. Wait, here comes the grenade that's larger than the world. So, what was up with that, Jones? Making every single object laying on the ground in Halo 1...

Jason Jones: So people could see it. It was better than standing it up and spinning it around.

Joseph Staten: Wait. What games do that?

Jason Jones: This is great. I love the way Cortana says she doesn't know what to do.

Martin O'Donnell: Yes. That's so cute.

Joseph Staten: Oh, poor Chief. I forget what bug this was. Whenever he got shot playing a custom animation, he went a little bit crazy. Oh, poor Chief. No! His arm's going to go all wonky. Ship it.

Martin O'Donnell: I never noticed that. Hey, at least he's got the AR now coming out of the cinematic.

Joseph Staten: There were so many cool little screen effects that we—that we lost in Halo 2 as well, like the ability to go in there and just sort of do the, you know, sort of radial blurs. I mean, not that's not exactly what we call it, but just all the—the colors that we could wipe across the screen.

Martin O'Donnell: Now, here we go. More interactive music, guys. Watch this. Did you hear that? That little string crescendo.

Joseph Staten: Did you get Foehammer's death in here, too?

Martin O'Donnell: I probably did.

Joseph Staten: Mhm.

Martin O'Donnell: Come on. The trench run. This is one of the best endings in the history of games. I love this ending.

Joseph Staten: You're so humble.

Martin O'Donnell: Well, I didn't write it.

Joseph Staten: Now, if I remember, Marty--

Martin O'Donnell: I scored it. Then I just crashed like that.

Joseph Staten: You know, I think you might have used this piece of music before, Marty.

Martin O'Donnell: Oh you know what? You know, I didn't get Foehammer's death. I'm sorry.

Joseph Staten: That's all right. That's all right.

Martin O'Donnell: No, actually, this piece of music you're hearing right now, this is the only time it's used in the game.

Joseph Staten: Oh, is it?

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. So, there.

Joseph Staten: It must be your, you know, your great re-use of themes, Marty. I was recognizing the theme of the music is what I was doing.

Martin O'Donnell: Reuse of themes. Yeah. That's just laziness.

Joseph Staten: Those Flood could run a little bit faster, I think.

Martin O'Donnell: I'll almost catch you.

Joseph Staten: Steve Abeyta animation.

Martin O'Donnell: See, that's great.

Joseph Staten: Well, when your character has no face...

Martin O'Donnell: All body.

Joseph Staten: All body. "Here we go."

Jason Jones: Oh, you guys can sure talk.

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. Jason, you got to hold up your end now. Okay?

Joseph Staten: Someone's got to.

Joseph Staten: And Lee Wilson, who's, you know, the full-time Bungie storyboard guy now, was when he was, you know, a contractor living in New York doing storyboards, he had drawn these beautiful scenes of just this Flood army spilling toward—spilling toward High Charity. And I remember thinking— High Charity... um...

Martin O'Donnell: Pillar of Autumn?

Joseph Staten: Pillar of Autumn. And I remember thinking, "Damn, how the hell are we ever going to pull that off?" But it's pretty funny. I don't know. Six or seven little Flood guys walking across the screen.

Jason Jones: Looks like an army shot from the right angle.

Martin O'Donnell: There is no sound in outer space.

Jason Jones: Wow, this game was awesome.

Joseph Staten: There is no sound in space. It's true. Ah, yes. I got a little bit too close to those particles, maybe, but that's all right.

Martin O'Donnell: Here we go. Private Dustin Echoes.

Joseph Staten: He's out there somewhere.

Martin O'Donnell: He is.

Jason Jones: We almost... I don't even know how this happened. We didn't have any time to do this. I don't know how this—the ring ever even blew up.

Joseph Staten: Marcus made it blow up one night and, uh, we all came in the next day and yeah, it had been done.

Martin O'Donnell: Here it is.

Joseph Staten: Marcus made a lot of stuff happen that way in Halo 1.

Jason Jones: Yeah.

Martin O'Donnell: Dustin Echoes! We'll go back for him.

Joseph Staten: I think Dustin Echoes was the guy that opened that door in the Library.

Martin O'Donnell: That's true. You know, I always did want Sergeant Johnson to, like, come out of some little cubby hole here.

Joseph Staten: Well, we had a bunch of legendary ending jokes, where Sergeant Johnson came out like brushing his teeth and he came out doing a bunch of funny things, which we couldn't do. Now, the funniest thing about that was I remember when fans finally were able to go in, in Halo PC, I think probably, and sort of detach the camera and see what was going on and try to see what was under the Chief's helmet.

Martin O'Donnell: Mhm.

Joseph Staten: Unfortunately, the Chief takes off his helmet... he's wearing another helmet.

Martin O'Donnell: Brilliant.

Joseph Staten: And I remember--

Martin O'Donnell: And there, here we are.

Joseph Staten: Just give me—just give me some black.

Martin O'Donnell: "Just give me some black." That's right, Joe. Some black.

Joseph Staten: Marty, how much black? About 15 seconds.

Martin O'Donnell: It's not 15 seconds.

Joseph Staten: 20.

Martin O'Donnell: Come on. It's the ending of the entire game.

Joseph Staten: Or is it the beginning?

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, that's so—

Joseph Staten: Duh-duh-duh...

Martin O'Donnell: Do we show credits now? 'Cause that's going to be really boring.

Credits[edit]

Main article: Halo: Combat Evolved credits

Martin O'Donnell: Oh my gosh.

Jason Jones: Since we're not recording anymore, I think it's safe to say like this is awesome. Like Halo 1 had a beautiful simplicity that—uh, yeah, doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, this is awesome. Like this is fucking inspiring to see. But it's, I mean, it's funny. Halo 1 seemed unwieldy compared to Marathon, but like, yeah, now Halo 3 seems unwieldy compared to Halo 1. Like everything is just like the simplest brush strokes trying to—a couple lines from Cortana that... I mean, the ship is being attacked. Like, that's the whole message of the beginning coming up on Halo.

Joseph Staten: Mhm.

Jason Jones: But it's in the art too. It's in the environments and the characters, just the way like everything pops. There's no like mess, like all the Jackal shields in there like are just—they're really like crisp.

Martin O'Donnell: Look at the size of that credit. Woo!

Joseph Staten:Wow. You know, I think the only thing bigger than that credit is your ego.

Martin O'Donnell: Here we go. Here we go.

Joseph Staten: So, Marty, seriously, come clean. How much of the music did Michael Salvatori write in Halo 1? Good stuff. I think—this is the old Mullins' matte painting. Chris Barrett After Effects work. Scroll the credits.

Martin O'Donnell: I really hope we get more Jason in Halo 2—but he—he might just curl up into a little fetal position on that one.

Joseph Staten: So Jason, as we're watching the credits, fondest memory from Halo 1?

Jason Jones: Bernie's girlfriend almost killing me with a dart gun at three in the morning.

Joseph Staten: I don't remember that.

Jason Jones: That's the first thing I thought of.

Joseph Staten: What was your least fond memory of Halo 1?

Jason Jones: Bernie's girlfriend almost killing me with a dart gun at three in the morning.

Martin O'Donnell: "Marcie-last crunch!" Huh?

Joseph Staten: Is that Halo 1 or Halo 2?

Martin O'Donnell: I just said it right there in Halo 1.

Joseph Staten: Really?

Martin O'Donnell: Yeah. That didn't work out too good.

Joseph Staten: Does Marcy know that you lied?

Martin O'Donnell: Oh, look at that. "Susan Lusty (&then?)"

Joseph Staten: My wife was pregnant with her first child.

Martin O'Donnell: That is so cool.

Joseph Staten: God damn, I'm glad Jason talked during the break, 'cause that's going to be some good stuff to put over those credits, 'cause what we just said was fucking stupid.

Jason Jones: Wow. I was really... that's cool. I was really kind of floored by that. I haven't... yeah, I haven't watched that in a long time.

Martin O'Donnell: More black.

Joseph Staten: Well, there's always got to be more black.

Martin O'Donnell: Got to be more black.

Joseph Staten: Oh, what? Is that a star?

Jason Jones: I think it's Darth Vader.

Joseph Staten: Oh, this has never been used before. Wha! Not over.

Martin O'Donnell: Ah, yes.

Joseph Staten: It's not over.

Sources[edit]