A Very Special Weekly Willy Update (WWU)
The Warthog Evolution
When most of us hear the word warthog, we don't think of some wild animal, we think about a green military grade vehicle that has aided us in combating the covenant forces for years now. So I got to thinking how did the warthog go from an animal to vehicle? Well hopefully this article will inform you as well as entertain you, I hope you like it.
Warthogs have been around for a long time even before we were born, they are truly amazing creatures. While digging up info on this article I found some interesting facts about real life warthogs that the current evolution of warthogs in the Halo series do as well.
Real life Warthog fact #1
Warthogs range in size from 0.91 to 1.5 meters (3–5 feet) in length and 50 to 150 kg (110–330 pounds) in weight.
Halo Warthog fact #1
The current generation of warthog found in the Halo series has gotten much bigger and deadlier. They can weight upwards of 3 metric tons (3.25 tons) to Approximately 6 tons with The Troop Transport Warthog found in Halo 3.
Real life Warthog fact #2
A Warthog is identifiable by the two pairs of tusks protruding from the mouth, which are used as weapons against predators.
Halo Warthog fact #2
The Halo warthog also has tusks protruding from the front of its chassis, and they still help with attacking their predators, the current gen of hogs are more identifiable by its many shades of green paint. Also the current gen hogs rely more on the gun mounted to its tail to attack predators. No one knows how the gun got there it is probably just an evolutionary mistake that overtime helped the warthog survive in the wild and it eventually became standard on all warthogs.
Real life Warthog fact #3
Warthogs are fast runners and quite capable jumpers. They will often run with their tails in the air
Halo Warthog fact #3
Like the first generation of warthogs, the Halo warthogs are also very fast and are good at making jumps. Also the current gen hog is very good at getting up steep inclines because of the wheels it has. Overtime the new warthogs ran around less with their tails in the air, they only have their tails in the air when there are banshees attacking nearby. The new warthog's tails move around a lot more then they used to, they sometimes point in the direction of near by predators.
Real life Warthog fact #4
Warthogs have been observed allowing banded mongooses to groom them to remove ticks.
Halo Warthog fact #4
The relationship with the mongooses and the warthogs has not been very good over these long years. One day all the mongoose disappeared for no reason leaving the warthog all along, then as early as September 25th 2007 there have been rare sightings of warthog and mongoose together. The relationship has also changed dramatically over the years. Sometimes they get along great, but there have been reports of warthog charging into the mongooses and splattering them. No one knows why they do this but they just do.
Other times these two can be seen working together, the mongoose will go out ahead of the warthog and scout out near by predators called Spartans.
That was just some brief facts on the first generation of warthogs compared to the newest generation. Now lets see how the warthog became the Warthog we all know and love.
2nd generation Warthog 1994: The Lion King (VHS and DVD)
How can one forget the lovable cartoon warthog from Disney’s The Lion King, I know I almost did.
Pumbaa is one of the main side characters in the movie and he and his buddy Timon went on to star in other Lion King movie’s as well as their own TV show. Also they have been in some videos games like Kingdom Heart II
3rd generation Warthog 1995: Twisted Metal (series) Playstation
This is actually the first use of a vehicular warthog a video game, the Halo Warthog we all know and love was not the first. A man by the name of David Jaffe creator of the highly acclaimed God of War series had the idea to turn the warthog into an all out killing machine.
Like the Halo Warthog, Warthog from Twisted Metal was piloted by a person as well, but instead of holding three people it only had room for one. He could do it all fire rockets, fire a front mounted machine gun and he didn’t need friends to help him kill.
Generation 3.5 Warthog 1999 and 2000: Halo (MAC) and (PC)
It's no secret that Halo was going to be made on the PC but surprisingly it was being made for the MAC as well, here I just thought it was coming out for PC but not both. Anyway before Microsoft bought the rights to Halo, Bungie was at the Macworld Expo in 1999 and they showed a video of a little game called Halo. Looking back at that video now, I am glad Bungie changed the things they did.
Originally in this video from 1999 it shows that the Warthog started off having a chain gun for the turret. So eventually this hog idea ended up in Halo: Combat Evolved just a way better looking one.
After Microsoft bought the rights to Halo, Bungie decided to make a few adjustments and came up with the Rocket Warthog, which surprisingly always looked like the Gauss Warthog but this turret was a lot bigger and had more armor to protect the gunner.
Eventually both these designs would make their way into Halo games.
4th generation Warthog 2001: Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)
Even though Bungie had a few redesigns before this one, they really did nail it on this design.
The 3rd gen Warthog is the most popular and most redesigned model of the Warthog to date. This is the Warthog most people remember the most, Bungie may have gotten some ideas from the 2nd generation Warthog seeing how they are both Humvee type vehicles. What Bungie did for the Warthog is truly amazing and their wonderful design can still be seen and used to this day.
5th generation Warthog 2003: Halo: Combat Evolved (PC)
Even though Bungie didn't actually bring Halo: Combat Evolved to the PC that task went to Gearbox Software
Gearbox did add a new Warthog to the mix, they were the first to bring the Rocket Warthog to an actual Halo game.
6th generation Warthog 2004: Halo 2 (Xbox)
I remember picking up a magazine way before Halo 2 was going to come out and it said during Halo 2’s development Bungie will be adding more specialized Warthog variants including a 'Snow', 'Jungle' and 'Transport' Warthog. Eventually, the 'Snow' and 'Transport' variants would be features in Halo 3, though the 'Jungle' version was not. Here is an image to jog you memory.
Not many people know this but when Bungie was making Halo 2 they decided add a little something to the Warthog. Instead of the Gauss Warthog that we all know and love, Bungie decided to bring the Rocket Warthog from Halo PC to Halo 2. Looks like Bungie's Rocket Hog design was finally going to see the light of day, but they later scraped it and replaced the rockets with gauss.
Along with the Gauss Hog Bungie also added a horn to the hog which I personally love and honk the horn whenever I drive it.
Halo 2 Gauss Warthog
Halo 3 Gauss Warthog
Also besides the gauss hog and the horns there was another hog that we all wanted to drive but couldn’t that warthog would be “The Golden Warthog”
7th generation Warthog 2007: Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
When Halo 3 came out the warthog didn’t really change much, Bungie just gave them a fresh coat of paint and booted them out the door. Although they did add one new vehicle class to the warthog family the Troop Transport Warthog which almost made an appearance in Halo 2, finally showed up in Halo 3. The Troop Transport Hog can only be driven in campaign and players are only allowed up front, they can’t ride in the back.
Also the Snow Hog finally made an appearance only on the multiplayer level Avalanche later via downloadable content.
So really the Warthog hasn’t changed much game play wise since Halo 2 with the addition of the Gauss Hog and the Rocket Hog which later got cut like I mentioned earlier. The mechanics on them have just been fine tuned and made better with new coats of paint.
The future of the Warthog 2009 and beyond...
8th generation Warthog 2009: Halo Wars (Xbox 360)
So next March we get to play another new Halo game, and you know there are going to Warthogs in it. Basically they look and act like Warthogs but in a RTS setting. Sadly you won’t be able to physically drive them but can tell them where to go and who to kill, also they will be very small, because the camera will be zoomed out far.
Just recently it was announced that if you pre-order Halo Wars from some stores you will get a code to download the Flaming Warthog which has a flame decal on it to use in game.
Also the Warthogs in Halo Wars will have the ability to floor it. The flooring ability has not been seen in other Halo games. This allows the player to ramp the Warthog over canyons and other such jumps, achieving speeds and distances not seen in the other games of the series. This makes the Warthog a more versatile and useful attack vehicle.
9th generation Warthog 2009: Halo 3 ODST (Xbox 360)
So with all the different shapes, sizes, colors and attachments to the warthogs one may ask what does the future hold for the beloved Warthog. What evolutionary changes will the Warthog undergo in Halo 3: ODST? Only time will tell and maybe Bungie if we are lucky. Who knows how much info they are going to give away on ODST seeing how it will only be 6 hours long or so, I can see if they don’t want to give away all the cool surprises. I guess we will find out what changes are in store when Halo 3: ODST ships next fall
No one knows what the Halo ODST Warthog will look like yet.
Then of course you have the rarest of the Warthogs that resemble previous generation models that might be available to us in the future. First we got the Turret-less Hog from Halo 3 which can sometimes be seen in online multiplayer due to lag issues. I can see why this hog isn’t a full time member of the Warthog family, without a turret on its back it is basically a big mongoose that can splatter people easier then the mongoose. So it is sort of useless but who knows it might show up again.
Finally we have the real life representation of the Warthog, that we can actually drive it, if and when we get our hands on it in the future.
WETA Workshop in New Zealand built this true to life sized Warthog for the short movie Halo: Arms Race. Also Bungie got a chance to test out this life sized beast for themselves.
So there you have it the evolution of the Warthog in a nutshell.
Who knows maybe Bungie will one day let us customize our own Warthogs with as many bells and whistles as we want.
Or maybe they will have an Easter Egg when you honk the horn every one and a million horn honks, it will make the sound of an angry warthog in the wild.
One last thing I found this really cool looking screenshot and I really wanted to put it somewhere in this article but couldn't find a good place for it so I am putting it here.
From all of us at CE United, see you next week!
-Willy-