Full scale battles with vehicular combat galore… I know we’ve asked for them since what, Halo 3? This suggestion would most likely be more suited to Halo 5, assuming it will be on the Xbox 720, which will no doubt have the graphical and networking capabilities to support this.
I’ve always been a fairly competitive Halo guy. I tend to dislike vehicles in matchmaking, and I like the game being kept simple. However, recently I have been playing a lot of Battlefield 3 and Halo: Custom Edition for the PC. In Battlefield, I’m sure you all know that there are enormous maps, and jets, helicopter, tanks, and humvees constantly patrol the map, and engage in vehicular firefights. I’m not a fan of this in Battlefield (I stick to close quarters maps), but in Halo, a large, vehicular combat map would be great. The vehicles mechanics in Halo are better than any other console game in my opinion. It could work out rather well.
Yesterday, I was playing alone on Halo CE’s map, “Extinction”. This map (and some other ones in Halo: Custom Edition) features the following drivable vehicles:
Pelican (with tons of cargo seats)
Phantom, with multiple seats as well.
Longsword, a UNSC bomber that drops large bombs and has front-mounted machine guns
Seraphs, the flying covenant ships in Halo Reach’s space battles
Scarabs. You know what those are. It functions like it would in the campaign if it were drivable.
Human Scarab. I forget exactly what it’s called, but it’s pretty badass.
Driving the Scarabs around, and soaring across the map on the Longsword are a lot of fun, and got me thinking: Imagine if these were in an actual matchmaking game of Halo, and not just a user-created Custom map? The flying mechanics are a bit lacking, but give them the Reach Space Battle mechanics, and they’d be tons of fun. The only problems are how slow they turn, and how slow they fly; quite easy fixes.
Now, imagine the Xbox 720 can support 16v16 Halo games on Battlefield-sized maps. A Seraph soars by you, doing tricks, attempting to shake off your teammate, who’s in hot pursuit with a Sabre. a Scarab is to your left, and it just took out a friendly Pelican, attempting to drop off troops to seize the enemy flag. Right after that, a Longsword flies out of your team’s spawn, and you hear the noise of a bomb dropping. Soon enough, the Scarab bursts into sparks and blue flame. Your teammates in a Gauss hog are attempting to blow up an enemy Phantom, dropping off heavy infantry near your base. The Phantom’s turrets take out the man on the Gauss turret. You watch the heavy infantry get out of the Phantom with Overshields and Rockets, and you get a swift Double Kill with your Sniper Rifle. Vehicles could spawn outside the map, so you’d have to enter the map the way that Phantoms and Scarabs do in campaign mode. Pelicans, Sabres, Phantoms, and Banshees could spawn in the map, in the teams’ respective spawns.
Halo’s vehicles have always been pretty balanced. We’re rapidly approaching this idea, with some of the BTB variants in Reach. Giant vehicular battles are something we have to see by the end of the Forerunner Trilogy. Not just Huge Team Battle, with Scorpions and Wraiths being the largest vehicles. We need Seraphs, Longswords, Pelicans, and Scarabs to truly feel like it’s an epic battle. Thoughts?
And you forgot to mention the human jet!