found this article online:

Next up: Halo 3 and a movie
But Halo 2 creator Brian Jarrard is mum on what to expect in next sequel

By Andre Yeo
andrey@sph.com.sg


-- HEDY KHOO

FANS of Halo 2, brace yourselves for Halo 3.

But a spokesman for the game's creator Bungie isn't about to reveal what the next instalment has to offer.

Try asking Halo 2 developer Brian Jarrard about Halo 3 and you will find him as hard to pin down as the aliens in the game.

Mr Jarrard, 30, was here in Singapore this week to promote Halo 2.

The lead community development manager from Bungie, which created the game, has the task of converting passive gamers into loyal Halo followers. He also maintains the Bungie.net website.

The company, which used to design games for the Macintosh, was bought by Microsoft in 2000.

Halo 2 is internationally acknowledged as one of the best-selling games of all time.

Mr Jarrard said there wasn't a timeline for a release of the highly anticipated third instalment, although other Microsoft officials hinted at Halo 3 soon after Halo 2 was launched.

But if there were to be a sequel, he knows it won't be easy pleasing the hordes of fans of the game's central character, Master Chief.

He said: 'We haven't announced Halo 3. From Halo 2, there is a need for some closure. We haven't figured out our final plans. Master Chief needs to prevent the Covenant from activating the weapon.'

For the uninitiated, Master Chief is a super-soldier charged with the destruction of the aliens (The Covenant), who have a weapon of mass destruction called Halo.

PERFECT GAME

It took three years to develop Halo 2 and almost all of Bungie's 70 employees worked on the project, playing the beta versions 12 to 16 hours a day, and sleeping in their office just to make sure they produced the perfect game.

And Mr Jarrard knows that even if they could conjure a good plot for Halo 3, it still won't please everyone, judging by the criticisms the team received for Halo 2.

Fans have a reason to be upset - the game appeared to end with a cliff-hanger, just as Master Chief was about to attack the Covenants at their own base.

He said: 'There were lots of criticism. People were disappointed with the ending of Halo 2. They were caught off-guard. That was their biggest disappointment.

'Many of the people I talked to said they wanted Halo 1. And many of them wanted to be Master Chief and not the Arbiter. They wanted to save the earth as Master Chief.'

The Arbiter is one of the aliens' elite warriors battling Master Chief, and one of the new features in Halo 2 was that players had to play this character.

As the story goes, Arbiter felt betrayed by his own kind and had decided to join forces with Master Chief.

Their other gripe was the confusing plot. The games won rave reviews for their well-developed storylines, which was similar to a movie. But for many ordinary players at home, all they wanted to do was shoot the bad guys and complete their missions.

Said Mr Jarrard: 'The story was very complicated and people had a lot of trouble following it.'

And what slowed them down in Halo was the confusing and repetitive levels. One of the most difficult was The Library, which Mr Jarrard says is now infamous.

He conceded: 'It's the most difficult. Even I got stuck. Halo 2 was made more user-friendly. The challenge is how do you satisfy the experts but at the same time how do you attract new players?'

And what about the much-rumoured Halo movie?

Again, he was non-committal.

He said: 'It's not been confirmed by Microsoft. There are many risks in doing a movie like that. There is a lot of high expectation of what a movie should be.

'We are a game developer, not a movie studio. So, it's something we won't have time to worry about and it would be beyond our control.'

So which actor would he pick to play Master Chief, who always wears a fully-shielded helmet and never reveals his face?

He said: 'As a fan for an unconfirmed movie, I would not pick a big-name actor and I would not take off his helmet.'



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


DID YOU KNOW?


More than 15 million copies of Halo 2 have been sold.


On the first day of its launch on Nov 9 in the US and Canada, it earned US$125 million (S$205m) in sales, more than the opening day sales of any of the Hollywood blockbusters like Spider-Man 2 or The Matrix Reloaded.


Michelle Rodriguez (The Fast and The Furious), Laura Prepon (That 70s Show) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) lent their voices on Halo 2. The ladies played Marines while Perlman played Lord Hood, an army officer.