Halo 3: What are you doing Bungie? PT. 1 -- HUD

2006. For many Halo fans, it was a joyous year. Announcements flew from all parts of the Halo universe. The Halo Movie was put off indefinitely (and possibly canned), Halo Wars and a Peter Jacksonian non-game, non-film Halo adaptation for the 360 was announced. Almost all of these are being handled by other companies in the industry. Except, of course, the biggest of them all, made by Bungie themselves - Halo 3.

Fans were mesmerized, yet not as suprised as you may think, at Halo 3's announcement at the very last Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. In the Chinese Grauman's theatre, Microsoft heads Peter Moore and partyman Bill Gates himself were prepped to show off the first ever trailer for the game. At the words of, "before we walk off stage, let's show these people a little in-game footage of a game they've hopefully heard about" from Gates, the room shook violently, the ground split, and out of the cracks rose a giant Mister Chief, carrying with him his "special" smile and a glint in his eye. Because he was just about to drop the bombshell that was the Halo 3 Announcement Trailer.

The Holy Grail -- The Shiny "3" Sign From the Announcement.

Well, ok. That part wasn't true. But then again.. you weren't there, so how could you tell the difference then? The point is, Halo 3 was announced to stunned audiences in LA and across the world hours later when people saw the video online through providers like YouTube, or on their TVs, on stations like G4. Overall, the announcement was a huge success, garnering massive amounts of attention from everybody from industry insiders and competitors to your average Halo fan.

Fast forward months later to October 2006, and what I'd like to call the "Humm.." month for Halo 3. Why do I call it that? One word - "leak". You know you've seen them, perhaps as far back as the month I'm referring to those foreign magazine scans and translations you scoured for online. Grainy images showing unpolished graphics and somewhat sketchy translations of the European magazine story led to some to squeal in pleasure and envy for the editors who had the chance to play Halo 3's multiplayer, while others moaned in discomfort at a few things disclosed within the magazine.

Yeah, I'm talking about another quite possibly the strangest name of anything to ever (grace?) videogames. And this one's a little embarrassing to utter -- yes, we're talkin' the "Man Cannon". At first, many believed the "Man Cannon" was simply a bad translation, and Bungie wouldn't be insane enough to name anything in the Halo universe something so... childish. But alas, in a post on Bungie.net, one of the staff at the company unfortunately confirmed that, at this time, the "Man Cannon" is set to make it into the game, name included. For a company aparently striving for realism in this fictional, future sci-fi universe, it seems strange that Bungie would go and name one of their new, big "weapons" of the game something that will surely be mocked and/or be the subject of Man Cannon jokes years after the game is released. I can see it now: "Dude, I just pwned you using my Man Cannon!!!11!one! LOL!"

Badly named features aside, a couple of other things were leaked in the wake of the magazine's release, and various internet stories on Halo 3. Namely, the new HUD.

Here it is. Notice the "curved" look, which had been described online previously.

You'll notice a few things about the above image. First and foremost, the overall "curve" of the HUD. No, it's not a picture taken on a curved box TV, it's on an HD Samsung. So the only logical explanation for the curving is that it's in-game, for whatever reason. This change has been described online before, but many dismissed it; not wanting to believe Halo had taken a step more toward Metroid and other sci-fi games of the like. Another note about the new "Metroid" vibe going on is the fact that it is rumored when you die and respawn, a bright wash fills the HUD as it flickers online. It will be interesting to see how this actually looks when the game ships, but right now it's sounding more like a strange, out of place little feature.

Another noticeable difference is the shield bar. Unlike it's Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 counterparts, the shield bar in Halo 3 is now located at the top center of the heads up display, also akin to Metroid Prime. An exact reason why is not yet given, seeing as how Bungie has not talked about the HUD or even actual gameplay for that matter at the time of this article. The shield bar being moved could be attributed to many things, though. For one, the curved shield bar in Halo 2, located down on top of the motion tracker was somewhat hard to actually track how much shield energy was being depleted. A few plasma pistol shots wouldn't even lower the thing on Halo 2 easy, but somehow a single energy sword swipe from an Elite Ultra could easily kill you. But I'm getting off track here. Another possible answer for moving the shield bar is to free up a small amount of space down in that area. For what, who knows. Gameplay wise, I don't see that particular area as being dangerously obscured by the old H2 shield bar (in fact, I'd think where the shield for Halo 3 is would see more action), but perhaps another bar of some sort will show up there. Bubble shield recharge bar anyone?

The final thought for this part of the 3-part (perhaps 4 -- we'll see) series analysis on the design of Halo 3 is a question I have to ask. Why would Bungie make all of these changes to the HUD, control scheme, weapons, and enemies? Is it simply because they have somewhat forgotten what Halo was about? Many gamers were left with a feeling totally different when they finished Halo 2 than when they finished Halo 1. Whether Halo 3 will continue this with changing Halo's old formula again is left to see -- but all signs are pointing to yes. In the end, does something like the Man Cannon give you the feeling you got when you first encountered the Flood on 343 Guilty Spark? And will a Spike Grenade give you the same "freakin' sweet!" moment as when you stuck a Grunt, just to watch them explode and fly 30 feet into the air? Or will these new changes and new weapons just seem like out-of-place, tacked on features to the last of a once-great franchise?

To answer those questions, it's likely we'll just have to wait and see. Until then, keep an eye out for more entries into this Analysis within the coming weeks!

*This article was written between the dates of January 13th and January 21st, and also posted on the 21st. So ignore the "January 13th" post date.

~Major Silva