Behind the Game:
The 1,000 Luckiest People Alive: Inside the Halo 2
Alpha Test
By Mark Diller
All this time you've been waiting for Halo 2. You've imagined the
great gameplay. You've visualized the stunning graphics. You've
drooled at the prospect of fragging your friends in Halo 2
multiplayer—and making (then killing) new friends on Xbox
Live. You've waited so long … but what would you say if
you knew that there were 1,000 lucky souls who've already played
the game?
It's the truth. While we were all waiting impatiently for Halo
2 to hit the shelves, Bungie was conducting an alpha test of
Halo 2 multiplayer. They invited 1,000 Microsoft employees
to gather online and blow the hell out of each other on three
multiplayer maps, all for the greater glory of the Halo
universe. Meanwhile, the Bungie developers were gathering reams of
data on connection rates, lag, usage patterns, and all the nuts and
bolts that go into making the best first-person shooter the world
has ever seen—but you don't care about that stuff, do you? You want
to know what it was like to play the game! Fine, let's get down to
it.
Recently we spoke to some of the participants in the alpha program
and got their first-hand impressions of Halo 2. Heads up:
It's coming for you, too, this holiday season …
Soon it will be you in this
picture.
Awakenings
First, the alpha participants heard they were "in"—and then came
the waiting. Days went by while they waited impatiently for the
alpha disc to arrive in the mail. One player, who went by the tag
"char," was particularly anxious.
I had been calling the concierge at my apartment complex all
morning, since I was pretty sure the disc had been delivered. The
[alpha test] newsgroups were buzzing with reports of discs
arriving! Finally, in the afternoon, they admitted to having it.
Clearly, I had to leave work early and go test it out. I blitzed
home, got the disc, loaded it up, and started looking for
games.
That's when it started to go sour for char—he joined a game and
promptly got run down by a Ghost. So, he joined another game, and
the same thing happened. Again and again char found himself looking
up at the bottom of a Ghost, and he could never figure out why he
couldn't frag the guy at the controls. The lesson char learned was
that if you receive a game disc with a single sheet of paper
labeled, "IMPORTANT! READ BEFORE PLAYING!" you should probably read
it. As it turns out, he was playing a build of the game that
included un-killable vehicles. Once char learned to get out of the
way, things were much smoother—and more addictive. Another tester,
daddy nathan, attests to that:
When I brought the alpha disc home that first weekend, [my
son and I] didn't play the game every waking moment (only because
my wife wouldn't let us), but we wanted to. After being sent to bed
that first night, we were up at first light the next morning
blasting away and getting blasted. We spent the next 10 hours or so
on Saturday banging on the game, stopping only because my wife
forced lunch upon us. We spent most of Sunday playing, as
well.
The Game
The test took place over five
weeks and covered three maps and three game types. The three maps
were like the Three Bears: small, medium, and large. In the small
category was Lockout, which is a high, narrow map built around a
concrete structure. The map is designed for smaller games
featuring two to four players, but nothing stops you from cranking
things up by cramming in even more.
How does it play? Take it from one of the testers, who went by the
name Lord Pi: It's intense.
Imagine what would happen if
Wizard and Chill Out hooked up and had a love child.
We're talking rockets, snipers, open areas, closed tunnels,
catwalks, falling to your death, death by massive grenade
explosions, and flags.
The test members favored Team Slayer on this map, with body
count as the sole objective. Team Slayer in Halo 2
supports multiple teams, and that can lead to some fearsome action.
Here, char tells his story:
I joined a Team Slayer game that had two teams of five or
six people and immediately switched to a third team by myself. A
few people in the lobby were confused and wanted me to join one of
the other teams. I think the last thing one of the guys said before
the game started was, "You're gonna get schooled … "
The game was a blast! I got a great spawn and was
able to equip myself nicely very early in the game. After getting
decent weapons, I went to town—I had probably 20 kills before my
first death. Imagine standing over a pile of dead bodies,
frantically reloading, as tracers whiz by and grenades explode,
sending weapons and bodies flying everywhere. Both enemy teams are
pouring in endlessly from opposite sides, rushing blindly in an
attempt to crush me with sheer numbers.
When the game was finally over, one of the guys, who
insisted I was going to get slaughtered, was absolutely
incredulous. He was convinced I was one of the Bungie developers
and had activated some sort of hack or cheat. That made my
day!
Here's a
word of warning: If you happen to meet up with char in a Halo
2 multiplayer match on Xbox Live, he's not
cheating—he really is that good.
Many players, many teams, many
maps.
In the medium-sized category was Burial Mounds, a desert-themed
map with a military base at the center. Most fun on this map was
Assault, in which two teams go head to head, one attacking and the
other defending. The attacking team has to move a bomb into the
defender's base, while the defenders get to amp up their firepower
with new toys, such as mounted turrets. At the end of a round, the
two teams switch roles, and the first team to three wins. But,
other game types are almost as much fun, and Lord Pi tells the
story of a particularly bloody eight-on-eight Capture the Flag game
on this map.
It was one-flag CtF, and it ended up taking close to an hour
to play. There were so many people that it was a constant struggle
to just approach the base. And it wasn't touch-return, either,
which caused my team to have a few flag standoffs inside the enemy
base. I remember that there were so many enemies spawning, and the
flag was so close to scoring against us, that another player and I
went back-to-back on the flag. Enemy players would spawn all around
us, but all we could do was kill and wait … and pray for the sides
to switch. It was really brutal …
Afterward, everyone was exhausted. Most people
remarked that was the best game they had ever played. Yet, after
all of the attrition, there were still eight people in the lobby.
So, we did the most natural thing: We went for another game …
It ended up going just as long, and it was even better.
In the large map category was Waterworks, a huge map featuring
two bases at either end and a giant alien machine in the middle.
Waterworks may have been inspired by Halo's Blood Gulch.
Like that venerable map, Waterworks is an enclosed area, but in
this case, it's an enormous underground cave lit by a hole in the
ceiling. The players attest that this map is ideal for Capture the
Flag and that the action was heightened by the range of vehicles
available for both teams: Warthogs, Ghosts, and Banshees. But,
don't think you'll spend your time on Waterworks just navigating
from one end of the map to the other. Bungie implemented a "boost"
function that allows the vehicles to accelerate to
double-speed.
Halo 2 Will Own You
So, what can you expect when the game hits the market? Again, we'll
let char tell it:
Halo 2 is going to kick ass. Multiplayer is going to be a
whole new world. I'm sure there are people all over who will
have Halo LAN parties with their friends, fragging each
other late into the night. Soon, all those people will be on
Xbox Live, and it'll be one big party.
As for daddy nathan and Lord Pi, they were left with great
regrets—that Bungie made them return their discs. But, soon we'll
all have a chance to get Halo 2 game discs of our own,
sign on to Xbox Live, and blow the bejeesus out of one
another. I'll see you there.
