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We began by touching on Tung's history, arriving as he did to Bungie as work on Halo 3 was ramping up; we wondered how liberating it was for the Halo team as it made the leap from the original Xbox onto the more powerful Xbox 360?
'Absolutely, ' Tung says 'but hopefully its apparent between Reach and Halo 3 what happens when you ship one title on a platform, you learn everything there is to know, and then you are capable of so much more in the next version of the game. When you look at Halo 3 and Reach side-by-side, I think there is quite a visible difference; it's the same platform, but a different team with different experience levels.'
Tung went on to explain that with Halo: Reach going gold there was a certain level of melancholy at Bungie, watching the last Halo branded game from the development studio ready to roll out the door, 'We will be watching as fans of the universe, and be working on our new stuff which is exciting'
Halo 3: ODST was certainly a departure from the normal Halo formula, and somewhat coolly received by the games community, 'I think the ODST team had a very limited amount of time and resources to make their game. We are actually very satisfied with the experience, given those constraints that those guys had. Reach as a project was going on simultaneously to ODST, so we absolutely knew the challenges they had with pure scheduling of resources'
But onto the latest Halo game, Halo: Reach, what can fans get worked up for with this game?
Tung explains; 'The top line for fans to get excited about with Halo Reach is that it is the definitive Halo title from Bungie, it is the last Halo title from Bungie, and it is the culmination of ten years experience making Halo games, creating the universe and the biggest Halo game yet'
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'You are going to see tons of changes from the beta, all the way down to player movement, speed, jump height, grenade damage; everything got tweaked after the beta'
'The challenge with 2.7 million people playing your beta, and creating a new multiplayer game, adding things or changing things that the community is so passionate that if you change the number of rounds in the assault rifle by one for example, there is someone out there that really cared about that. It is a real balancing act for the designers to take meaningful feedback from the beta, but also stick to their vision. For example, a lot of the stuff that came out of the beta, there was design feedback, and we tweaked a lot of stuff, but you won't see radical design changes. People said 'I don't like armour abilities at all', armour abilities are part of reach and we are sticking them in there. But of course you can play Halo however you want, if you want to design a game without armour abilities you can, or you can define the armour abilities yourself. Halo is all about choice, always has been.'
Customisation is high on the agenda ad Tung explains; '[there will be an] insane amount of customisation available to you in Firefight. For example you can make a game mode that consists of all Grunts with 400% health, all armed with rocket launchers and heads that explode into confetti when hit; you can make that game in Firefight if you want'
Then there is customisation at a more personal level: 'no matter what you do in the game, playing campaign, Firefight or messing around with Forge, you are earning credits, using those credits to customise your Spartan, we want people to invest in their Spartan long term. That Spartan stays with you no matter what mode you are playing, you will see that custom Spartan in the cinematics, and it will be awesome in multiplayer.'says Tung.
Forge is the level editor in the Halo world, Halo: Reach comes with a enhanced version of the tool. In the past objects added would simply be dropped into the world, this has changed with the new Forge tool as Tung explains; 'Now in Forge you can actually make an object fixed so it stays where you put it. Or you can make an object 'phased' so it penetrates other objects but still stays where you put it. You can sink it into the ground or sink it into a cliff, so you can make a map hanging off the side of a cliff if you like.
'Forge-World is an environment in the game that it is bigger than anything we have done before... Blood Gulch from Halo 2 is about a sixth of the map. You can pretty much use Forge-World as a blank canvas to create whatever you want. We are super excited to see what happens when the community gets hold of this on day one'
Onto playing the HALO: Reach Campaign itself, from PAGE 3
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The forested crags of Reach are bathed in a mist that gets stirred up by the props of the military vehicles as they come in to land at the Spartan's base. All cinematics are done in engine, and whilst I did notice some brief graphical tearing during these scenes, they ultimately get a thumbs up for eye-candy scoring.
Tung explains that Halo: Reach has been created on what amounts to a totally rebuilt Halo 3 engine, this was evident in the multiplayer beta, and carries over to the campaign impressively. The system known as Imposter built into the engine maintains a high level of detail for objects in the foreground with seamless downgrading of said objects as they retreat towards the background. The result is an impressive level of scale only fleetingly seen in Halo games past.
The presented level was mostly outdoors, with no hint of the usual Halo generic corridor curse of games past, whether the entire campaign is free of this is unclear. One hint Tung did drop into the conversation was that there will be a small taste of ODST style time-shifts with the story as it plays out over the campaigns length.
As a member of team Noble, much of the campaign will be played out with AI (or four player co-op) squad members. Our play through showed a satisfactory level of smarts built into both team-mate as well as enemy actions.
The opening score is pure Halo, lots of soaring voices and moody ambiance. According to Tung, this selection of aural tones, along with touches such as grenade effects and plasma burn are all part of a solid vision delivered by the team's creative director Marcus Lehto.
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This pacing is worth mentioning, initial impressions are that it falls between the frantic gun-play of Halo 3, and the more ambient and mysterious level of ODST. There is plenty of poking around in the aftermath of some event only to be attacked by Grunts and Elites before the team can unravel the mystery.
Straight from the multiplayer beta, fans will be happy to know that the Assassination animation makes its way into the single player campaign for those satisfying close combat kill moments.
Bungie have another hit on their hands, even those that were perhaps disappointed with Halo 3: ODST should take another look into the Halo universe; first impressions are that there is a lot of love and thinking that has gone into this title.
If you cannot wait for the September 14th release of Halo: Reach for Xbox 360, you can while away a few minutes on Halo 2600, where Ed Fries has managed to squeeze the original Xbox Halo: Combat Evolved into the limitations and style of beloved home console the Atari 2600 VCS. Check it out here.
