Jaime Jams
Jaime says they've finished adding "boarding" seats to all the vehicles. That means that quite apart from the vehicle-jacking stuff, every vehicle that can be boarded, sat on or otherwise utilized, now has functioning seats for real-life multiplayer and AI single-player modes. One thing hardly anyone at E3 noticed, was that when you board a Warthog, instead of taking over the driver seat immediately, you simply yank the driver out you then have to hop into the Warthog manually. A two-stage process designed to create interesting encounters on the slightly more boardable Hog.
Jaime also showed off the largely complete HUD which has moved everything around dramatically, but should still be recognizable to Halo folks. Obviously adding dual wielding makes this challenging, but the new HUD handily shows off the ammo/charge left in a gun, and more importantly, it tells you what your reserve, or third weapon is. THIRD WEAPON!!!? WHATCHOO TALKIN ABOUT FRANKIE? Well, if you're holding a weapon in one hand, and you have another "holstered" you can dual-wield a third. That means the reserve weapon simply stays put when you pick up the dual-wield weapon. Effectively that lets you have three weapons at one time.
Of course, that means that for newbies at least, it can be tricky keeping track of what you've got. To be honest though, after an hour or two of play, you stop thinking about it.
There's also been something of a separation for church and state as far as the shield level and health meter are concerned. You'll see in good time how that works, but it makes a big difference.
WATER!
One cool new graphic feature being played with right now is water. The briny deep demoed at E3 is not the final water. In fact, several techniques are being experimented with, but I saw a cool one yesterday in a Zanzibar test level. Only it was deliberately broken. So when you jumped, the level literally filled up with water. It was kind of funny to go inside the control room part of the level (where the defender's flag normally sits) jump once and flood the place with sparkly, gorgeous, reflective wet stuff. Did I mention I loved video game water?
Rest here...
