Halo 2 E3 demo
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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 ODST's, 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 a artillery cannon and securing the area. The Pelican lands and Master Chief exits with a few ODST's to be introduced to CPL who takes him through the medical field base to where Sergeant Banks is.
The Master Cheif proceeds through the camp witnessing new animations of Allied AI and through a destroyed building housing a Marine heavy machinegun team and to Sergeant Banks who is pinned down by covenment. After he delivers his infamous line "When I asked for reinforcements, I didnt think they would send a Spartan" he calls in an airstike on the artillery cannon after which he gives you his SMG introducing the new feature of Dual-Wielding, the cheif clears the area before moving over a pile a debris to a open street.
However in the street there is a packed group of jackals with sheilds who are shortly splattered by two Warthogs. one of them being the new Gauss Warthog, the driver instucts the Master Cheif to man the Gauss Cannon on the back, upon entering the Warthogs drive around the street areas which are quite similar to the streets before the Scarab attack in the level Metropolis after the cheif destroys a few Phantoms and Wraiths the Warthog is boarded by a Brute who knocks out the 2 Marines in the front of the Warthog thus killing them and stopping Master Cheifs ride.
The Master Cheif fights the Brute who dies quickly and then is alerted by Cortana of a fast approaching Ghost of which the Chief boards by hijacking the Ghost yet introducing another new feature.
The Cheif proceeds to wreck havok on Covenant in the area before he is instucted by Cortana to escape the area through a tunnel leading to a bridge. The video then changes to a cutscene of two brutes on Ghosts chasing the Chief through the tunnel, the automatic doors at the end begin to close and master cheif speeds up and leans to the side to make it through the narrow gaps in the doors catching a bit of his ghost before falling off and sliding to a halt, however the two brutes are not so lucky as the door closes completely before the get to it and a shot from the outside of the tunnel shows 2 explosions from the other side.
Cortana points out a covernent ship in the sky right before pods land around the Cheif on the overpass that they are on, elites step out of these a draw their Energy Swords, while in a low shot we can see the Cheif Charging up a Plasma Grenade and Cortona ends with "I be you cant stick one of them" to which the Master Cheif responds "You're on"
Differences with the final game
The demo had a vastly different storyline from the final game. Much of it was essentially rewritten to change the events.
- The New Mombasa Orbital Elevator is nowhere to be seen. Instead, a massive building complex dominates New Mombasa's skies.
- The Pelican Master Chief lands in is not destroyed, instead it lands normally and disperses its troops without a problem.
- The crosshair is in the Halo 1 position, in the center of the screen, there is also a much larger field of view.
- Master Chief passes through a battlefield hospital before engaging Covenant ground troops in combat.
- Sergeant Banks is an injured marine who gives Master Chief his SMG, introducing the Dual Wielding feature. He is directing an attack against a Covenant artillery cannon, instead of a Scarab.
- Sergeant Banks is introduced at the beginning instead of the end of Metropolis
- Brutes attack Earth side by side with the Elites.
- The Chief is trying to destroy one of many landed CCS-class Covenant battle cruisers, instead of a single Assault Carrier.
- The Battle Rifle reloads like an Assault Rifle.
- In the Pelican there aren't normal Marines, there are ODST's inside it.
- The Master Chief fires the SMG's at the same time, and he never reloads them.
- When the Master Chief changes to the Battle Rifle from the SMG's, he doesn't drop the other SMG.
- The battle rifle is semi-auto and has no ammo counter
- The Shadow's turret shoots green plasma blasts that look like charged plasma pistol shots, not purple shots. Also, it shoots more automatic, it doesn't get faster as it shoots.
- It is Cortana, not Lord Hood, who outlines the mission (defeat Covenant ground forces and destroy their cruiser, instead of infiltrating their carrier to capture the Prophet of Regret).
- Only one Pelican, instead of three, heads to New Mombasa. Also the In Amber Clad is not seen.
- Major Easley does not appear in the final game.
- The Elites you see are either some sort of stealth elites or some sort of new elite that didn't make the game.
- The Brute Shot shoots some sort of plasma grenade which flies straight instead of the frag grenade that falls and bounces after a few feet.
- The Plasma Pistol shoots a larger bolt.
- Grunts were seen driving the Shadows, as well as Ghosts.
- The Phantoms have a different appearance and are destructible.
- The Grunts and Jackals died the same way they did in Halo 1, with an ocean of blood that fly's out.
- The Fragmentation Grenades made the same type of explosion like they did in Halo 1, but are much weaker.
- When a brute jumped on top of Master Chief's warthog, he knocked out two marines instead of just one.
- 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.
- Pete Stacker may have appeared driving a Gauss Warthog like in the final game but is killed by a Brute.
- 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 Prophet of Regret does not lead the Covenant invasion force on Earth.
- The SMGs have no recoil.
- The Ghost's plasma cannons fire simultaneously and faster than in Halo 1, but in Halo 2 they fire one after the other.
- The back of the Phantom is open and the troops disperse like in a pelican
Other Links
It can be viewed here: http://files.mythica.org/halo/halo2_e3_realtimedemo_hires.mov Or downloaded here: http://www.bungie.net/Games/Halo2/page.aspx?section=AudioVideo&subsection=GameVideos&page=1