Halo 2 Was It Worth It?
<div class="IPBDescription">*quasi spolier*</div> Ok just finished playing, and man was I disapointed. The ended was terrible, it would be ok if Halo 3 was coming out soon, but they end it in the middle of a conflict and bungie has already said that there next project will be Pheonix and not Halo 3, so wow. Im just not sure it was worth it.... but other than that it was awesome and I was rather pleased with the story line.
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When the hell was that announced? I even went to the Bungie site, and don't see anything about Pheonix or anything of the such. Who fed you that line, Gamespot?
*edit* That wasn't a bash at you, that was a bash at Gamespot. I love how almost all their info is incorrect: 1.5 million preorders for Halo 2? Uhuh. Try 3 million worldwide, dumbasses <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Oh yeah, and Bungie said in one of the FAQs that the human-covenant war ends in Halo 2. Liars.
Didn't you just say it yourself? 1.5 million preorders <i>in the US</i>.
Didn't you just say it yourself? 1.5 million preorders <i>in the US</i>. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, 2.3 mil of that 3 mil were US, being that Halo wasn't exactly popular much anywhere else. So their STILL off.
And yeah, as said in the Gamespot review(I haven't played the game), by the end, you have sympathy for many of the aliens by the end, which is wierd. But I imagine thats for the Grunts- they are VERY smart, and almost exactly like human beings, except their entire race is basically slaves for the higher. Jackals are **** generally, and Elites are obviously ****. Hunters are big and stupid, but get bullied by the Elites anyway. The Brutes generally stay secluded, but downright abuse the Grunts- many a time you'll hear(in the books) about either a Hunter or a Brute just walked right over a grunt, crushing it.
Covenant + Humans x Flood + Covenantremains = Halo 3
My roomie had his mom get to the gamestore at midnight to pick it up for him....all I'm going to here in the next few weeks is sounds that sound like he's pleasuring himself, repeated saying of "its beautiful!"
Thanks.
I really hope its worth it.
Say the same thing to Half-Life.
Halo2 manages to improve on every good point about Halo. The problem is that it also takes the main falling of the original, and if anything, makes it worse.
The graphics are pretty nice, no where near as good as in hl2 though.
The dual weapon system works really well.
The vehicle boarding is great.
The new weapons and redone vehicles are very nice.
The gameplay is rock solid.
The story is pretty good.
The mapping is awful, like the original.
In my opinion, the quality of the mapping can make or break a game. I would have thought Bungie would have figured this out from the original, it seems they have not.
To be fair, not all the maps are crap. There are a whole two maps that are pretty good, infact. The maps on earth look great and play great. The end boss (of sorts) is pretty good and the use of vehicles is top notch. If only the other 15 or so levels could be that good.
After the first few minutes of a map, Halo2 turns into an ordinary corridor shooter, room after room after room after room. All looking near enough the same. We got lost several times on several maps and often had to backtrack to a familiar part of the map. You dont even have the arrows from the original to guide you.
In conclusion, if you liked Halo you will like Halo2. If you (like me) did not like Halo, i very much doubt you will enjoy this one.
Oh, the ending was crap as well.
Did they really copy and paste again?
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Well I'm glad I don't care about the game, HL2 is what counts.
Now that the Wart-Hog has a horn, yes.
I, like many others, have already finished the game (it's not that long at all) and I would have to say that it's almost the same as the original, which is exactly what I expected.
What I didn't expect was for Bungie to once again screw up in the mapping department. After the first game's horrible levels I would've thought that Bungie would've fixed the problem, but nope, it's still there. It's even worse in fact because the outdoor enviroments are also boring this time around, I could've sworn that I passed by the same building 10 times in one section of the game, and not because I was going around in circles. While that was an isolated event, the entire art design of the game felt uninspired. Boring walls, boring buildings, and boring textures were everywhere. In the day and age of Far Cry, Riddick, HL2, and Doom 3, details are a <i>must</i>, and like the original, Halo 2 didn't put details to good use.
The gameplay was once again rock solid, not the best, but very very very good. The vehicles felt solid and the enemies were more fun to kill than in the original, though it still got stale after 2-3 hours of playing. I've heard alot about the "revolutionary" A.I. in Halo 2, but it was pretty much the same as the original's, though the marines seemed to be smarter, they used basic tactics and were fairly good. The physics seem to be implemented poorly, especially the ragdolls, gliches are everywhere and the annoying "flail around in the air even though I'm dead" effect is still there. Vehicle physics were nice though, especially the parts falling off, though after awhile it began to feel gimmicky. (more parts would've greatly helped)
Controls were perfect, this has always been Halo's specialty and while the Xbox's controller isn't up to speed with a K&M setup, it's pretty close. I loved how duel weapons were implemented as far as controls go (though gameplay wise they, like many other things, felt gimmicky) and vehicle control was once again great.
The first half of the story was outstanding, though like many others have said, the ending was poorly done, IMO. It's ok to have a cliffhanger, but Bungie just cut us off and left us hanging. I'm not going to get into details as I will release spoilers if I do, but the story was pretty basic sci-fi, which actually fit in quite well with the feel of the game.
Even though my review was very picky, I would still give Halo 2 around an 8, probably an 8.2-8.4. It felt great, but once you got into it there didn't really seem to be much detail. Above average? Hell yes. Worth the hype? Probably not, at least in my book? Fun game? You bet. Once you get past many of the gimmicky things (ragdolls, duel weapons, exploding vehicle parts, ect.) it's almost identical to the original, which isn't really a bad thing, but it doesn't help it out much either.
*Cough* Half-Life *Cough*
*Cough* Opposing Force *Cough*
*Cough* Half-Life *Cough*
*Cough* Opposing Force *Cough* <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
those at least had some closure (unlike what ive heard about Halo2)
Say the same thing to Half-Life. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
How about no? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
from what I've heard, it should by rights be called "Halo: Expansion Pack" rather than "Halo2", correct?
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Ok. as someone who pretty much dispises Halo, i'm a fair enough person to give the sequel a chance. A lot of people had made excuses for Bungie pulling off a distinctly mediocre game with the first one, and, believing the excuses, naively, i've given the sequel a shot.
I'll be the first one to say that the mapping isn't <i>as bad</i>. It's still a far cry from the current standards of level design, and they still rely on overuse of spec, normal, bump, etc, maps to make up for their lack of complex geometry. There are a few noteably rather good parts of mapping (Erm, those towers in the water, whatever they're called) but they are extremely few and far between. On the most part, the mapping is, once again, repetetive and overly simplistic. Sorry guys, but it's not the fact that Microsoft pushed Bungie for a tight deadline with Halo 1, it's the fact that Bungie just aren't all that great.
One thing that **** me off, that giant robot thing, when you see it down the street and it marches up to you and eventually over your head, that was cool, that was really cool, then you follow it for a little while, jump onboard the sparcely mapped interior (1 room), kill a few of the same old enemies and magically the whole thing is dead. Massive anticlimax there.
More irritations. Playing through the game and guess who pops up. Yeah, 343 Guilty Spark, or whatever his name is, i can't stand that little ****.
As for a Halo 2, no, this is no sequel, this is an addon at best. There is very little new here. Added to the small handful of weapons that Halo had there's an additional what, 2 weapons? There's about 1 or 2 extra vehicles, and the enemies, sorry, i didn't notice any new ones....
As for the story, i don't much care about it. Oh no, the Halo is back, and guess what, you've got to get to the library again and find the index again and lookie here, 343 Guilty Spark again, Master Chief again, whoop-de-freakin'-do. Sorry, but this is the same game but with a little extra tagged on the start.
The main annoyance that i've had, however, is the lack of any sort of direction. Very often you're left in an area to find the single exit forward, fight more enemies, find the single exit, progress, etc. This game is 100% linear. The only exploring you do is searching for that single solitary exit hidden down some dark back passage somewhere. Is it really so hard to implement a waypoint system? To be confused about where you're going is one thing, but throw into the mix the bland as hell mapping and you just get plain lost.
Hmm, anything else i can fault the game for....
The music is quite good, in places. The title track, for instance, is extremely good, and there are a few ambient pieces that are also enjoyable to listen to, but the dodgy "ambient electronic," HAH! Don't make me laugh. I swear, for some of the tracks they must've paid some drunk hobo to stagger around on one of those big keyboards (Like in the movie BIG) and record it for their soundtrack. The good tracks are really good, but when it's bad, it's really bad.
Now, ai. On the most part it's very average. Doesn't impress much, but at certain points they actively try to appear as dumb as possible. After going through that city and about to go into the long, repetetive tunnels, an ai teammate had the warthog. I'm not lying, he was just doing donuts and crashing into stuff, constantly. I had to kill the guy to get him out of the damn warthog. This is artificial stupidity.
On the whole, this game is entirely lacking in a lot of places. The team battles aren't a patch on the likes of Call Of Duty, neither with the "hold this area" type objectives, the control scheme works, but still pales in comparison to K&M, the engine isn't a patch on Doom 3, the story doesn't even nearly compare to Half-Life (And yes, i know that story is entirely lacking too) and generally, this is mediocre.
I guess if you're a foaming-at-the-mouth Halo fanboy you'll love it, hell, they could just take a crap inside the box and it'd be a best-seller, but if you're a gamer that's interested in fps games or played anywhere near as many fps games as i have (Virtually every single one since ~1994, including ones previous to that) you'll have seen it all before and, well, it's not all that impressive. I'd recommend hold your money for Half-Life 2, Pariah, FEAR, STALKER, You Are Empty, or any of the big name shooters coming in the next year, or if you really need an fps for your console, get Second Sight, yes, i know it's average too, but playing with the physics using telekenisis is fun as hell. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
EDIT: Just remembered another part of Halo 2 that made me laugh. The "space chases" when you're chasing the heretic (as the covenant guy), it's probably the slowest chase i've ever had the misfortune to play. Infact, i'd go so far as to say it's laughably slow. And what is it with the covenant guy? Seriously, you use the exact same weapons as when you were playing MC, can jump the same, same amount of shield, same. everything. Except one thing. You're backed up by other covenant troops, but you're also fighting covenant troopers and there's pretty much no way to tell the difference between your own troops and your enemy. Great work Bungie. Next time you think to implement another player character, how about thinking up a better list of differences than "he has a different player model."
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Did they really copy and paste again?
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Well I'm glad I don't care about the game, HL2 is what counts. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
bs.
You won't see me wasting my money on that game anytime soon, I'm glad you think I even own an xbox.
every second of this game has been f*ing spectacular. the mapping and atmosphere of each level is quite honestly GRIPPING. it's friggin awesome.
Its it good? Yeah. Was it just a >wee< bit overhyped? <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I hear that. Over hyping games is the best.
And yes, I do also own Halo 2. I have played it. I've been going casually through it, because like the first Halo, the game has so much potential to just screw around in. That's one reason why I enjoyed it so much. Screw the reptative mapping, you perfectionists, and just deal with what you get.