Differences in builds of halo.

[Sally]

I guess i'll share what i know...

I don't know much about the first halo aside from what's been seen on the Halo 2 bonus disc. I didn't really pay much attention to the game until it came out.

As for Halo 2. In earlier versions the Brutes were easier to kill. Melee attacks did a whole crap load more damage. If you were dual weilding, it was impossible to fire the guns independantly. If you were dual weilding, you could store the second gun when you switched weapons. If you were dual weilding, you could still throw grenades with the second trigger but there was no animation. Brutes didn't have brute shots, but more of an explosive plasma rifle. They played around with having the sniper bullet drop over longer distances, but they dropped that idea. The tank like things you can see in the tunnel in old mombasa were drivable, grunts could get in them. Voices were recorded for the Brutes to be friendly, but in the final game they were never allies. Early concepts had the entire freaking game on earth. You could shoot through the center hole in the jackel's shield. Elietes didn't look like ass in the concept art. I've seen builds where the vehicles wern't distructable, but i think that was just for debug purposes. Obviously the weapons balancing was being played around with throughout development... i'm sure i'll think of more differences...

[Paintballpsyco2369]

That is really cool. SOme of those ideas would have been great for Halo 2. I gues from what I have been hearing, and reading, anything pre release of halo is the hardest stuff to find for Xbox. It sounds to me like everyone has been keeping a very tight lid on it if they had a build, or even the Bungie, and them ot releasing any thing. I wish I could find one of these builds, but with the rarity of it all, I very highly doubt I will ever find one. Does anyone know if there were any enemies, or allies in either Halo or Halo2 that never made it? I know thee were some that were drawn, and animated, but I mean as far as guys who were in a pre release version, and never made it to the final. Like that jaugarnaut thing. Or any weapons or anythign else like that? As I said before I know there was supposed to be some kind of bonus map on halo, but that never made it, if I can't find the acrticale to post a pic, I will just take a screenshot of the part that proves it's there. THanks again for the info Ace.

[DeadperfecT]

As for the first Halo, I know for sure the engineer was commented out as well as the flamethrower. If you get the Halo Cache Editor you can switch the offsets to play as an engineer or replace another character with him. Same goes with the flamethrower. You can also assume the flamethrower was removed before even completed because it does no damage to other players.

Also if you want a list of other stuff that was not included in Halo 2:

01. Three to four-hit melee combo strings in campaign and multiplayer.

02. The four-wheel ATV, or "Mongoose". Initially weapon-mounted. Render made.

03. The human assault hovercraft, or "Kestrel" flying vehicle Banshee equivilent in campaign and multiplayer.

04. Damage to vehicles effecting how they drive/function (boosting, barrel-rolling wingless Banshee, anyone?)

05. The RELIABLE, and effective versions of the Needlers. Video available of prototype versions.

06. The single SMG that could kill w/o aid of nades/melee. Videos available of prototype versions.

07. ODSTs having more advanced AI/behavior/tactics than Marines. Watch the demo.

08. Giant, plasma-throwing Covenant artillery installations. Watch the demo.

09. Human bomber jets (Longbows) being seen actively in campaign. Watch the demo. Very cool.

10. The "Juggernaught" flood-giant form. Bigger than a Hunter. Very cool. Video available.

11. The "Drinol" giant ogre-like Covenant alien. Render made. Kind of like Star Wars "Rancor".

12. The Covenant sniper alien. Very cool. Render made. Concept art in LE dvd.

13. The "Blind wolf" Brute-mounted walking creature. Render available. Concept art in LE dvd.

14. The Covenant "Engineer". Render available. This guy was even meant for Halo 1.

15. Grunts without their masks actively seen in campaign. Render available.

16. The Flamethrower for campaign and multiplayer. Render made. See LE dvd.

17. Jungle and Arctic variants of the Warthog. Renders made.

18. Plasma swords that actually looked like burning plasma & not plastic. Watch the demo.

19. Black Elites that emerged from fallen drop-pods on Earth level. A sad loss. Watch the demo.

20. The great, last battle, meant to be all across earth and in space. See original teaser-trailer.

21. Covenant AI that knew formations, like Jackals in defensive lining. See demo.

22. The original models for the Battle Rifle and SMG. See renders on b.net.

23. The original effective and cool-looking version of the Plasma Pistol. See demo.

24. Balance between the UNSC weapons and Covenant weapons. (Carbine vs. BR anyone?)

25. Balance between the Elite model and Spartan Model. (Elite = Giant walking target)

26. The effective version of the Plasma Rifle, even single-wielded. Video available as prototype version.

27. Fuel Rod Gun being in multiplayer as an effective Rocket equivilent.

28. The reliable version of the Warthog that doesn't explode to one or two frag nades.

29. Vehicle's that didn't burst into flames just because the pilot was killed. Video available.

30. Lighter auto-aim on the BR so a monkey or an infant couldn't easily get 4-burst kills.

[Smithy]

Wasn't there also some weird gravity gun type thing that could be enabled in Blood Gultch? It was really glitchy, but did do some damage..

[Borman]

A lot of the stuff never even made it "in" to the game to ever be taken out.

[Taemos]

As for the first Halo, I know for sure the engineer was commented out as well as the flamethrower. If you get the Halo Cache Editor you can switch the offsets to play as an engineer or replace another character with him. Same goes with the flamethrower. You can also assume the flamethrower was removed before even completed because it does no damage to other players.

The flamethrower does do a bit of damage, although it only does it when it wants to. I've had strange luck with the thing.

As for the Engineer, it almost always crashed my game. I don't remember what I actually replaced in order to see it. If I replaced a rock or an enemy with it, the game just froze up. Wierd stuff...

[DeadperfecT]

Wasn't there also some weird gravity gun type thing that could be enabled in Blood Gultch? It was really glitchy, but did do some damage..

Yeah, I forgot about that one too.

[Sally]

Found this while digging through some old discs, its off of a promo video for Halo. You can see banchees flying over "The Silent Cartographer". There were taken out before the final build... There's some other cool stuff on the video, but it's nothing that would be interesting from screenshots, i'd have to capture video for that... and i'm lazy...

[Paintballpsyco2369]

Cool picture. Any other Info at all?

[Taemos]

Using the program mentioned earlier, you can put the Banshee back into the level. It was a bit buggy when I did it, but I remember flying around Silent Cartographer for awhile (until the game crashed, at least).

[atomiX]

It's amazing what you can do with that app.