I was playing HALO 2 recently, and it was on the level Outskirts when I wondered why New Mombasa, and all of the city, was a light brown ish greyish color. I just thought the colors and the run-down textures of everything seemed to be an interesting choice for a mega city set 500 years into the future. It's in Africa, and the city sort of mimics lots of areas of Africa today. Compared to New Alexandria in Realooking as more futuristic looking buildings. But maybe that's just becasue Reach is a newer game or the planet is more upkept. But now that I think about it, the level Outskirts is in the outskirts of the city, so maybe that's why. In HALO 3: ODST the buildings are much taller and more modern looking. It would be cool to know what Bungie was thinking when they were planning that level, and what concepts they had in mind. Just curious.
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I think in Halo 2 Bungie was just trying to make a game that played well and had interesting areas to fight in. ODST and Reach focused a lot more on the art style and graphics, which is why the gameplay in them suffers a little. Halo 2 was a little rushed, so they put far less time into making architecture that looked futuristic and more time into just making sure the game played well and with no game-breaking glitches.