Halo 2 E3 demo

Halo 2 E3 Demo
Game:	Halo 2
Player:	John-117
Date:	October 20, 2552
Location:	New Mombasa, Kenya
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The Halo 2 E3 Demo was a real-time demonstration of early plans for Halo 2's Outskirts and Metropolis levels. It was shown at E3 2003, and showed some designs for Halo 2, including ODSTs, Battle Rifles (which were originally going to be single-shot), Dual-Wielding, SMG's, Brutes, the Gauss Warthog, and many other things.

Plot

The Master Chief is en route to a UNSC field command post turned field hospital to assist the marines in destroying an artillery cannon and securing the area. The Pelican lands and Master Chief exits with a few ODST's to be introduced to Cpl. Perez who takes him through the field hospital to where Sergeant Banks is.

The Master Chief proceeds through the camp witnessing the new animations of allied AIs. He then passes through a destroyed building housing a Marine heavy Machine gun team and Sergeant Banks. Both are pinned down by Covenant forces. The Sergeant then calls in an airstrike on the artillery cannon. A flight of Longsword fighters promptly complies, launching a successful bombing run on the cannon. After the airstrike has occurred Banks gives the player his SMG, an introduction to the new feature of Dual-Wielding. Using his new weapons, the Chief clears the area of Covenant troops before moving over a pile a debris and into an open street.

In the street there is a packed group of about seven Jackals with shields. Upon spotting the Chief they form a phalanx and begin to open fire with their plasma pistols. After a few moments of shooting, the group of Jackals are splattered by a pair of Warthogs. One of the Warthogs is the new Gauss Warthog, the driver instructs the Master Chief to man the Gauss Cannon on the back. Upon the Chief entering the turret, Warthogs drive around the street areas which are incidentally quite similar to the streets before the Scarab attack in the Halo 2 level, Metropolis. After the Chief destroys a few Shadows and Ghosts, the Warthog is boarded by a Brute who kills the Marines in the passenger and driver seat, prompting the Chief to exit the vehicle to take action against the boarder.

The Master Chief quickly kills the Brute and a few of his comrades with his battle rifle before being alerted by Cortana of a fast approaching Ghost. Chief proceeds to board this vehicle by hijacking the Ghost, introducing yet another new Halo 2 feature.

The Chief proceeds to wreak havoc on the Covenant troops in the area before he is instructed by Cortana to escape the area via a tunnel which leads to a bridge. The demo then cuts then changes to a cutscene of two Brutes on Ghosts chasing the Chief through the tunnel. As a sign declaring "Highway access denied" flashes, the automatic doors at the end of the tunnel begin to close. In response to this small crisis Master Chief speeds up, barely making it through the remaining space between the closing doors, although in the process his Ghost crashes, disgorging him upon the ground. However the two pursuing Brutes are not so lucky. The door closes completely before they get to it and a shot from the outside of the tunnel shows the two explosions caused by the crash of the Brutes' Ghosts.

Just after Cortana points out a Covenant ship in the sky, a barrage of glowing drop pods begin to land around the Chief. Elites step out of these Drop Pods and draw their Energy Swords. Chief responds holstering one of his SMGs and charging up a Plasma Grenade. Cortana, noting Chief's action, teasingly says "bet you can't stick it" to which the Master Chief responds "You're on." As he lunges forward to toss the grenade, the demo ends.

Transcript

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Fade in on a massive building complex that dominates the sky

NEW MOMBASA. EAST AFRICAN PROTECTORATE

A Pelican zooms into view. We see the Master Chief

• Cortana: "It took two in the nose then dropped into the atmosphere."

• Master Chief: "Who was first contact?"

• Sergeant Johnson: "405th out of Diego Garcia."

Zoom out. We see the Pelican flying over the cloud layer.

• Sergeant Johnson: "But, don't expect a big welcome; the Covenant wiped most of them out before they hit the ground."

The Pelican drops right into the city.

Fade to white

Fade in. We see two marines looking on the LZ. Plasma mortars fly over the air above

• Spotter: "Immediate. Grid Kilo 23 is hot. Recommend mission abort."

• Pilot(O.S.): "Roger, recon."

The Pelican flies overhead

• Pilot: "It's your call, Sarge."

• Sergeant Johnson: "We're going in. Get tactical, Marines!"

In the back of the Pelican, We see ODSTs getting their weapons ready

• Cortana: "Covenant ground forces own this city. We'll need to deal with them before we can kill that cruiser."

The Pelican lands smoothly on top of the government building)

• Sergeant Johnson: "Pile out! Go! Go! Go!"

The Master Chief hops out

{Gameplay}

• Sergeant Johnson (O.S.): "I'll evac the wounded. Keep me posted, Cortana."

• Cortana: "Of course, Sergeant."

• Perez (To the Master Chief): "Sir, Corporal Perez, A- Company. CP is this way."

Master Chief follows the marine through a field hospital

• Marine Medic: "Must be seeing things, guess the brass do give a shit." (Referring to the Master Chief arriving)

• Marine Medic #2: "Come on, come on! Stay with me, marine!"

• Marine Medic #3: "No tags. Hang two units, O-neg, and he needs an airway."

Perez stops near a wounded Marine

• Marine Medic #4: "I'm calling it, 1900."

• Perez: "The Lieutenant got hit as soon as we dropped in."

• Cortana: "Who's in charge now, Corporal?"

• Perez: "Sergeant Banks, Ma'am. He's pinned down out front. C'mon. I'll show you."

Master Chief follows Perez yet again. He walks into a building, up the stairs. They hear gunshots.

• Marine #3: "No, no! Behind that ST. Yeah, yeah, yeah! Three more! Coming left."

• Marine #4: "I'm running low, man!"

Master Chief follows Perez to another part of the building. They come to a doorway where another Marine has taken cover.

• Perez: "Parsons!"

• Parsons: "Yeah?"

• Perez: "Is it clear?"

Giant explosion

• Parsons: "You tell me!"

• Marine #5: "Friendlies, moving out! Covering fire!"

In the background, an artillery cannon fires a plasma mortar, which flies out overhead. The Master Chief moves along.

• Marine #6 (O.S.): "Grunts, down low."

The Chief meets up with Sergeant Banks.

• Sergeant Banks: "When I asked for reinforcements, I didn't think they'd send a Spartan."

The artillery fires another mortar. This time, it hits a nearby building, destroying part of it and causing debris to fall.

• Sergeant Banks: "We gotta take that thing out. Cover me!"

Sergeant Banks walks over to a dead Marine, and takes out his radio

• Sergeant Banks (O.S): "Tech Aids H.Q. This is Sergeant Banks. I got a hostile Artillery 200 meters east over my position. Bring smoke, over."

• ODST (O.S.): "Hostiles right."

The Master Chief continues to fight, with the Artillery Cannon still intact

• Sergeant Banks: "Dammit, H.Q. is anybody on this freq!?"

• Major Easley (COM): "Sergeant, this is Major Easley. Hang tight. We're inbound."

Overhead, two Longswords approach the Artillery Cannon, and destroy it, then continue on

• Major Easley (COM): "Verify delivery of ordnance on target."

• Sergeant Banks: "Dead on, Major! Target neutralized!"

• Sergeant Banks (to Master Chief): "Take my weapon, you'll need it."

He gives the Master Chief two SMG's

Master Chief jumps off the balcony, and into further battle. Later, he goes into the damaged building, where more Jackals and Grunts appear.

• Marine #7 (O.S.): "Frag and clear. Clear out."

A grenade is tossed into the enemy hiding place. The explosion doesn't kill the Covenant inside, but it stuns them long enough for the Chief to kill them all.

Later, the Chief exits the building and sees a group of Jackals, which get run over by a Gauss Warthog.

• Marine Driver: "Could use you on the gunner, sir. We got your back."

The Chief enters the gunner. A Shadow passes by, and he destroys it.

• Marine Passenger: "That's the way. Yeah!"

The Warthog goes along. Then, two Ghosts appear.

• Marine Driver: "That better buff out."

• Marine Passenger: "Ghosts! Making a break for it. Quick!"

• Marine Driver: "Don't worry. I got'em."

• Marine Passenger: "Do you wanna let me drive?"

More Ghosts arrive. The Chief destroys them.

• Marine Passenger "That's one!"

• Marine Passenger "That's two! C'mon! Whose got more?"

A Phantom flies overhead

• Cortana: "A Phantom!"

• Marine Driver: "Hang on!"

A second Phantom flies by

• Cortana: "Brutes!"

• Cortana: "Look out!"

A Brute drops in from the Phantom. He kills both the Marine driver and passenger, then knocks out the Chief, and the Warthog crashes into the wall. The Chief kills the Brute.

• Cortana: "Ghosts! To your right!"

A Ghost approaches

• Cortana: "Wait for it..."

Master Chief hijacks the enemy Ghost and kicks the Brute driver off.

• Cortana: "Nice!"

• Cortana: "The Marines won't stand a chance if those Phantoms double back. See if you can draw them off."

The Chief gets the Phantoms' attention and escapes

Fade to white

{Cutscene}

The Ghost zooms off, and the camera follows it. Behind it, a Phantom approaches, followed by a ghost, and another Phantom. The camera zooms in on the Master Chief. He looks back. The first Phantom starts shooting at the Chief with the frontal turret, with another ghost leading the Chief. He narrowly misses the shots of plasma. The Phantom shoots at the 'Welcome to New Mombasa' sign to stop the Chief. It ends up falling on the Phantom, and the Phantom flips on its side and explodes, with the Chief escaping

• Cortana: "Chief..."

• Master Chief: "Hang on!"

The Chief approaches a closing wall in the highway tunnel. He narrowly escapes, and scrapes the road behind him as he slides down the bridge

Inside the tunnel, an enemy Ghost piloted by a Brute crashes into the fully closed wall, and explodes. There are two explosions on the other side of the wall.

The Chief gets back up and looks at the Covenant Cruiser hovering above.

• Cortana: "Bingo! There's the cruiser! Now all you have to do... is..."

Covenant drop pods descend from the sky

Several drop pods land around the Chief. He turns around, and another drop pod lands in front of him. It opens up to reveal a black armored Elite. The Elite jumps out and activates an Energy Sword.

• Sangheili: "Wort! Wort! Wort!"

More Elites surround the Chief. They activate their swords and snarl menacingly.

Cortana: "Betcha can't stick it." Master Chief: "You're on."

• Cortana: "Bet'cha can't stick it!"

The Chief activates his plasma grenade.

• Master Chief: "You're on!"

The Chief throws it

Cut to black

The demo ends

Differences with the Final Game

• The Brutes voices are deeper, much like an ape, than in the final game.
• The Battle Rifle reloads like an Assault Rifle.
• The Master Chief fires the SMG's at the same time, and he never reloads them.
  • In addition, when the Master Chief changes to the Battle Rifle from the SMG's, he doesn't drop the other SMG. This lead many viewers to assume that "dual SMGs" was a single weapon.
• The Battle Rifle is semi-automatic, has no ammo counter, and is reminiscent of the way a paintball gun fires. This makes it more like the much later Designated Marksman Rifle.
• The Shadow's turret shoots green plasma blasts that look like charged plasma pistol shots, not purple shots. Also, it shoots more at a more regular pace, it doesn't get faster as it shoots, although this is the same in the final version when manned by Elites.
• The SpecOps Elites featured are black colored rather than dark blue in the final game.
• The Brute Shot shoots like a large plasma projectile which flies straight instead of the frag grenade that falls and bounces after a few feet.
• The Plasma Pistol shoots a larger bolt.
• The Phantoms have a different appearance and are destructible.
• Brutes bleed purple, but in the final game, they bleed Blackish-blue.
• The Fragmentation Grenades made the same type of explosion like they did in Halo: Combat Evolved , but are much weaker.
• When Master Chief hijacked the Ghost, he stood on the ghost for a considerable amount of time before he kicked the driver out.
• The Brutes are weaker than they are in the final game and were easily killed.
• The Battle Rifle's melee attack shows three different animations at the same time instead of only one at a time--this was the first animation shown by Bungie of their proposed "melee combo" system, which was cut out of the final game due to time constraints.
• When the Chief shoots a Phantom with a Gauss Cannon a green and blue plasma spark appears.
• The Gauss Cannon has a faster rate of fire.
• The back of the Phantom is open and the troops disperse like on a Pelican.
• If one looks closely at the Elites' Energy Swords, they can tell that they have the same appearance as the Halo 3 ones, with the pointed edges around the hilt when turned on.
• Jackal Shields are a bright fluorescent blue, instead of bluish-green in the final version.
• The Jackal Shields appear to be a figure-8 shape, instead of the circular shape seen in the final game.
• Jackals are also seen moving foward togather in a phalanx formation (as opposed to just running around normaly) shortly before being run over by Warthogs at 4:46.
• The Ghost's fire mode is different to that of the final version. In the final version, the mode was alternating blasts from each Plasma Cannon. Here, it was more like Halo 1's fire which fired both Cannons at the same time. The rate of fire was also increased and the Plasma Bolts travel faster.
• There is a huge increase in the number of Grunt death animations where they stop in their tracks when killed and slowly fall forward. Few of the killed Grunts in the trailer perform the classic "Grunty Death Backflip" when killed with Battle Rifle fire.

Trivia

• The Halo 2 E3 Demo received an honorable mention on Gametrailers list of the Top 100 Trailers of All Time in 2011.