unforum

[water10]

[Anton P. Nym]

[krystyn]

Also, you all glow so pretty and blue, and that's worth like, a trillion 9.9 ratings from $gamereviewsrus.com

[water10]

[Clayfoot]

Wow, I don't think I can improve on these explanations why Halo 2 is not overrated. Instead, let me supply an anecdote from an online communities class:

In Everquest, you have to spend a fair amount of time making money, so you can go on quests and so forth. There are two obvious ways of making money a little at a time: bake bread at the bakery or fish off of the dock. A surprisingly high number of people spend their time fishing at the dock --even when they arguably have enough money to go adventuring. Why? When you're fishing off the dock, you can sit around and chat with everyone at the dock. It's a social institution.

Halo 2 on XBox Live supports that congregating, chatting, and playing together that you find in good online communities. For a FPS, Halo 2 is a remarkably social environment. I suspect that aspect of Halo 2 is rountinely underrated. Indeed, it may prove difficult to transition the established Halo 2 XBox Live community from the XBox to the XBox 360, unless Microsoft/Bungie provides a seamless transition between the two; i.e., XBox 360 Halo 3 players playing in matches with XBox Halo 2 players on XBox Live.

[water10]

[Guest]

Just to toss in my two cents (and some more hot air) and playing a bit of the devil's advocate...

I really have two qualms with single-player Halo 2. First, the story isn't as urgent and focused. Sure, fighting the Heretics leads to some character development of the Arbiter, but it didn't seem entirely necessary. Second, we start out trying to save the Earth and then go out on a side quest to another Halo, which just felt entirely done before. Plus things are further muddled by the Elite rebellion.

I realize the game is called Halo 2, but maybe we don't need another Halo, but some insidious threat. Human/covenant hybrids? Evil humans selling out the human race? Maybe just some giant flood doomsday spore before headed towards Earth (then again, that would just end up like a Resident Evil)?

The story was all over the place, but the ending in and of itself wasn't so bad. Hopefully all the story/character development will be out of the way for a focused, action-packed Halo 3.

Second qualm, the sense of discovery isn't there. I was really fascinated by the environments of Halo 1. I still love blasting out of the giant forerunner facility in Halo 1, from "Flawless Cowboy" into "Reunion Tour", out into the open to find the other Marines. The thing is that level, though still essentially on rails, feels so wide open. Same goes with the island in "Truth and Reconciliation".

Halo 2 involves an outer-space environment which is cool, but really way underutilized, and the exploration of a city in future Earth was great, but then since the story recycles itself, it goes back to the same old alien corridors and halo interior environment and the forerunner temples, a cool new environment, are really overworked and become boring by the end. Vast alien wastelands and lava pits feel like laziness in level design to me.


Graphically, Halo 2 is fine for a console.

Other minor issues:

Destructable environments a la Red Faction would be nice, especially on a tactical level (there are elements there, but they don't affect gameplay).

A timed level like "The Maw" would be nice (the scarab in Metropolis stops eventually when it runs into a wall, I wish it was on its way to destroy some crucial place, and on a short timer). As a secondary note to this, how about necessary secondary objectives? As an example, there's no consequence if you don't destroy the troop carriers in the tunnel at the end of "Outskirts" before they regroup (as Cortana tells you to).

I would have liked another racing the clock in a Warthog level as well, those things are so much fun. More warthogs in general and less every other vehicle (and if you followed development, they had 6 warthog models, where did they go?).

The fundamental thing with single-player is it feels like they just made do with less instead of building on to really cool ideas they already had.

As multiplayer goes, it's just really fun to play for whatever reason, though it's not especially original. The failure of Halo 2 multiplayer for me is it feels so much like Bungie are telling you how your gaming experience should be rather than leaving that up to you.

I wish there were matchmaking games like Big Team Battle 3-plots in levels like Midship, which would be completely chaotic. The matchmaking playlists feel so constrained with the same levels and gametypes all the time. I rarely see new strategies and tactics used in the same old games, though when I do, it's a joy.

Sure, I could make custom gametypes along those lines, but then I'd have to convince 15 other people to play which is easier said than done.

Though I haven't played it yet, I would buy and play Time Splitters: Future Perfect if I thought more people would be online playing. I really loved Time Splitters 2, its customization, level designer, and dozens of characters. The zany weapons are a lot of fun too.

I would've liked some sort of bots and maybe a level designer. Really customization in general feels lacking in Halo 2 multiplayer. Even when it's possible, people always seem really confused making custom games.

Which brings me to the ATV and flamethrower, which exist according to the development vids (and the ATV is fully implemented!), but they couldn't figure out how to work it into gameplay. Why not give them to the players in custom games to use as they please? I for one would love a couple of ATVs in a level like "Coagulation". Maybe it would have no firepower, but as a speedy way of getting around, it would be great.

Like I said, telling you what you want rather than giving you the tools to make your own experience.

[water10]

[hamatoyoshi]

[VMVash]

I think that halo2 was inovative... look at the UI. It's amazing. If a game has a really weird butten layout then it's not gunna be fun. A game doesn't need to be origenal to be good, it just has to perfect what it takes from other things. There was this indi. game that looked like it was just another brake out, but if you played it you would see it had so many things that no other brake out game had. Like if you hit a brick that was on a line the whole line would shake and the other bricks would spin how it would if something was hit that was stuck on a string, and it had an amazing physics/graphics engine. I'm just saying that you should play a game and see if you like it befor you bash it. I don't see how you could think that halo is just another fps. Halo is fun.

[Pluvius]

Is Halo 2 overrated? Certainly; it adds little if anything to the original (which itself was somewhat overrated), and in fact it's arguable that it's actually worse than the original, at least in single-player. PC FPSes like Half-Life 2 are better than Halo 2 in pretty much every category. But it's overrated for one really good reason. To wit:

"[O]ne brilliant game that appeals to gamer's [sic] not wealthy enough to purchase a PC and those not smart enough to operate and configure one."
--Truthmedia on Halo 2

Now obviously this is a joke by Something Awful to get Halo 2 fanboys riled up, but at least the "not wealthy enough" part has an element of truth to it. Halo 2 doesn't have to be a great FPS, it just has to be a great FPS for the console. Not a very hard task, since the only console FPSes of note before Halo were Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. And since multiplayer is widely considered more important than single-player for FPSes, the weaker SP gameplay of Halo 2 is mostly irrelevant. The simple answer is that Halo 2 is the best FPS available for those who refuse to spend $1000 or more to get a PC capable of playing Half-Life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 decently.

The only thing that really saddens me about the immense popularity of Halo 2 is that it makes it much less likely that Bungie will ever make a game worthy of their name again.

Rob

[water10]

[VMVash]

i dont like ut04... i own it but i never play it. Half-life2 I will say is the best fps i have ever played(yes i have played perfect dark).

[Ranger D]

[Ranger D]