I have now watched the 8-minute trailer from E3 about 45 times. As a hobbyist gamer, it’s a wet dream. While it goes a long way to show us what we have to look forward to, it still leaves many questions unanswered.

Graphical Porn
The graphics, even though the video trailer is not a direct feed, are stunning. They will probably be the best graphics we’ve seen on the Xbox. I hope load times do not suffer in-between levels because of it. It also looks like Bungie has taken the time to make the environments rich with detail.

The explosions are rich. I recently spied some Planetside beta action and the explosions were weak. There are two things that can make or break a game: great explosion detail and environmental sounds. The explosions need to look good, not like the light bulb popping in Planetside, and the gun sounds have to have texture and depth. Skimping on either can weight a game down lead shoes on Jimmy Hoffa.

I Could Use a Buddy, Sometimes
One thing that made Halo a tad too much like all the other FPSs was how often you had to clear a whole level alone. While I don’t want to mess with friendly AI that often turns out to be not so friendly, those times when you were with some squad mates made the game fun. We’ve seen in games like Ghost Recon where your teammates suffer from sometimes bad AI scripting and they end up being more a burden than help.

I”m not suggesting Bungie lasso a squad of mates to follow you around, but I hope they stay away from the “I saved the whole planet alone” motif.

Storyline
I hope the story line is more complex than just “save Earth.” In the first Halo the storyline was more complex. While on many levels it was just a FPS, there was an underlying story if you chose to play attention to it. I’m hoping Bungie has some surprises in store for us here.

A Babe of Sorts
From the trailer it seems as though Cortana is your companion again. Why, and for how long is unclear. The simple reason is that she keeps the player on task and moving toward the next objective. From a storyline though, I”ll be interested to see how they keep her in the game.

A Step Above
What I’ll want to know over the coming months is how the game play is going to be handled. How will system link work with the game? Will they steal, er um, borrow the ideas from Brute Force the way Brute Force borrowed Halo’s controller configuration? Brute Force is taking a step away from the split screen by allowing you to play on multiple TVs with the System Link cable. Halo forces a split screen even on multiple TVs.

Brute Force will also allow you to switch from one-player to two-player on the fly. So you don’t have to start a new game if your buddy wants in on the action. Hopefully Halo 2 takes a lesson from that.

With Halo 2 still possibly a year away, we have plenty of time to speculate. But in the meantime, you can already pre-order the game.