unforum

[OmegaX]

!behold extern proc 1-9999999999
!label naysayers
!behold Halo
!behold Halo 2
!behold possible Halo 3
!behold naysayers
creepy

[johnny5]

Maybe it won't be Halo3 because they rename the franchise into something else. Like: Master Chief; the Covenant Wars or some other silly thing to throw people off.

[Smoke]

Oh, believe me, I will happily buy another Bungie game were it to contain resolution to all of this. That would restore my faith in the company entirely.

But I'm seeing rumors that Bungie is not making a third Halo. These are rumors, and so I'm not chiseling my pledge of hate into any mountainsides anytime soon, but things aren't looking good.

People can go on about how Bungie is free and I can't demand anything, etc. I am of the opinion that if you make something really awesome, then make something and promise, repeatedly, that it will be even more awesome, you should deliver on that pledge. Pardon me for feeling suckerpunched.

Until I hear that they are working on such a product, they will, in my opinion, be a group of Very Not Nice People and most certainly not deserving of my hard-earned money. I don't care if their next game is so good all other game companies shut down in shame. If it doesn't resolve this story, then I will never purchase it.

The possibility exists that I am taking this too seriously, that I'm just some bitter old man. Quite possible. I've been known to be a passionate old coot. But as a customer of Bungie, as a person who has consumed what they have produced, I feel very wronged by their apparent disregard for their fans.

Ultimately, the way you feel about the game is your own. It is still an excellent game, and the multiplayer sounds like a ton of fun. But I did not buy the game for the multiplayer, and I feel that I have been wronged.

[johnny5]

To me this smacks of "Legacy of Kain; Soul Reaver"
If you recall, Crystal Dynamics couldn't get all the content into the original game, so Eidos shiped it with a cliffhanger ending and released LoK 2 later.
I wouldn't put it past Bungie do have done the same, except with an extra layer of secrecy to protect their reputation.

[Ranger D]

•••This thread is labeled as [SPOILER]. As such, there are no spoiler roll overs to hide plot elements in my post. You have been warned.•••


I'm going to chime back in, now that I have finished the single player and had a chance to cool down.

Things I liked about Halo 2.
•Game play was great, just like Halo 1. I found the dual-wield to sometimes be a curse, as I would forget that I have grenades to use and would charge into a mass of brutes, only to get owned.
•Multiplayer is terrific. They put a lot of work into the MP and the xbox live aspect of this game. The multiplayer and xbox live portions live up to the hype.
•The musical score, as usual was masterful. Except the level with the commercial hard rock musak. Everything else, my hat goes off to you Marty.
There were a lot of things that left me dissapointed in Halo 2 singleplayer.

Technical
•Cut scenes where horrible. I have no issues using the in game engine as opposed to full motion video CG to do cut scenes. Most games do it and so did Halo 1. But there were serious errors. And I mean simple mickey mouse stuff. Stuff that shouldn't come out of a professional company. Case and point: the texturing. I posted before about it, but essentially when a cut scene (actually any scene, I saw this happen in Multiplayer) would begin, the character models would appear. But they would have very basic texturing on them. Then more "layers" of textures would get applied within the next 1-2 seconds after the scene would already begin. There was a cut scene with a head shot of Maranda Keyes. It showed her face, but she had no eyes or any defined facial features. She started talking, and then the rest of her facial features just materialized. Armor on covenant that starts dull, then all of a sudden becomes shiny. These are amateur mistakes. Bungie's biggest reason for selling out was so they could make games on a unified platform, guaranteeing the same gaming experience for everyone. They've been working on the xbox for over 4 years. They should know the capabilities of it by now.

Story
•I had no issues showing the Covenant side of the story. The elite/brute conflict was somewhat boring, but I tolerated it... in the cut scenes. However, I couldn't care less about playing as an eilte. When I was playing the Covenant levels, I kept thinking, "I should just beat this level as quickly as possible so I can play as the MC and see if the main story will progress." Mazian and I were talking about our dissapointment over lunch the other day, and he said that if they simply took out the covenant play, kept the same story and cut scenes, but had you play as the MC for the entire game, he would be happy. I would say that's a step in the right direction.

•Not enough time on Earth. Two levels on Earth, one in space, the other on the ground. Then you are off to another Halo. Do you know what that means? That's right, another Library level. Only this time you play it as the Covenant elite. With no flashlight.

•Little Shop of Horrors. I was waiting for Gravemind to say, "Feed me, Seymor!" and the break into song.

•I am not dissapointed that the ending was a cliffhanger. I was expecting a cliffhanger and that's what we got. Halo 1 had somewhat of a cliffhanger, but at the end of Halo 1, you felt like you accomplished something. Destroyed a galactic super-weapon capable of killing all life in the galaxy? Check. Stopped a parasitc alien species from infecting the entire galaxy? Check. You got shit done in Halo 1. And that brings me to my conclusion.

I felt like I accomplished nothing. It did not hold my interest. It was not gripping. It was shlock. Filler. It had no substance. It had no direction.

In my mind 95% of this story was fluff. The first level was cool: you get to fight in space. The next level is cool also: you are defending earth. Then the story takes a nose dive and crashes into a ball of flames. For the rest of the game, you feel like you are not accomplishing anything. Only after the last level (which is played as the Covenant elite) does the story pick up. I was sitting there thinking, "Ok! NOW the story is getting interesting, time to kick some ass!" Then the credits roll. It's like the movie Coyote Ugly. All tease, no action. That's why people are angry about the ending. Because just as it starts to get up to the level of Halo 1, they cut you off.

Perhaps ILB tained Halo 2 for me. This was the first ARG I had played, and I never heard about The Beast until I came here. Perhaps this exhilarating experience set my standards too high. Like, I just did heroin for the first time, and now I'm trying to go back to ecstacy, and it's just not cutting it. I don't know.

Bungie had 3 years to work on this and 500 years of story to create Halo 2 from. Either make a better game, or spend no money adverting it. And don't do interviews titled, "The Art of Storytelling", it's just egg on your face.

How much hype in the media is there for World of Warcraft? I'm not seeing much. I downloaded the beta last night, and watched the opening cinematics. I just about crapped my pants. Now THAT got me ready to play! For me, WoW is one of the 3 heavy hitters this month and is just as desireable as Halo 2 for me. And you know what? WoW is meeting my expectations.

[thebruce]

EDIT: oops, sorry... same as Ranger D -
•••This thread is labeled as [SPOILER]. As such, there are no spoiler roll overs to hide plot elements in my post. You have been warned.•••

[DreamOfTheRood]

Look, it's a Live-enabled game. Both Ninja Gaiden and some other game have proven that you can successfully add on chapters to a game via downloading, so I expect to see the rest of the game through that mode. It'll happen, people. Just be patient; it's only Friday.

[AlexofMaceidon]

For some reason I just don't see bungie as the kind of people to tack on more levels after the product is shipped, but then again, it would be kinda cool to have everyone hating their guts, then 3 levels get shipped out over Live, and all of a sudden they are gods.

Unfortunately this would kinda screw the people who plan on getting xbox's but not on paying for Live...

[daegan]

About the texture issues - my Xbox didn't even hiccup, had no trouble loading the textures beforehand. This seems to be something that relies on how abused your xbox is (in much the same way, many ps2s can't handle GTA:SA.)

[thunderclap8]

well, bungie's new weekly update (http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=weeklywhats111204) states in part:

[MNPundit]

The Bruce

[Ranger D]

Thanks for the suggestion, thebruce. I did watch the DVD that came with the LE version of the game. It did clear some things up. For everyone that really wanted a good story, here are some points of interest on the DVD:

•Watch the main "Behind the Scenes" feature on the DVD. The very first feature on the DVD. It explains how their time managment went out the window and they tried to put too much into the game. It also explains that even after their awesome E3 demo, they had none of their shit together.
•Then go into the "Extra Features" -> "Deleted Scenes" -> "Cinematics". There is a good one in there that explains the history of the covenant, that in my opinion, really should've been in the game.

This still doesn't change how I feel about the game. To me it's clear that time wasn't managed properly, and this game really only started to come together in August; two and half months before the game hit the street. No wonder there were no referneces to ILB in Halo 2, Bungie barely had time to finish what they started. Hopefully Bungie can learn from their mistakes, understand that they are mere mortals after all, and put this blemish on their outstanding record behind them.

[Mazian]

SPOILER warning

no tags

bah

You've been warned!





My opinion of the game is very similar to Ranger_Ds, to wit:

• On 480p, once all the textures are loaded, the gameplay is beautiful.
  
• Dual wielding is the shiznitz, 3 weapons baby!
  
• Multiplayer XBL features live up to the hype
  
• The music scoring minus the commercial guitar musak is awesome
  
• The LE case is snazzy
  
• It is Halo and the Master Chief
  
• There is a tolerably good story contained within Halo2
  
• When you play as the Arbiter, you get to play with Hunters on your side for one act.
  
• The things that the various NPCs say in game (not just in cut scene) is really amusing and varied.
  

Ok, now that I've gotten all the good things out of the way, let me describe the bad things.

• The story about the Arbiter, while fun to watch, ruined gameplay for me. As Ranger_D said, when I first played the Arbiter I said "Can't I just kill myself and move to the next level?" In the DVD they say "we wanted to build a character that was just as cool as the Master Chief." Failure.
  
• TBH, while I think it was good storyplay, I and many others, cannot get emotionally invested in the Covenant. They, along with the Flood, are THE ENEMY. Bungie could tie cute little kittens to their weapons and armor and I would not feel less compunction about blowing them and the kittens up. Failure.
  
• When playing at the Arbiter, with the visual scene so dark, it was very easy for me to mistake the "good Covenant" from the "bad Covenant" and I found myself more than once killing my teammates.
  
• On my second run through the single player campaign, I find myself still having to check the impulse to assassinate the "good Covenant" from behind. (Except the Hunters, which it is ultra swank to have them on your side.)
  
• The arbiter is nothing more than the Master Chief's best Mjolinar suit, without a flashlight and with temporary invisibility. Way to go Bungie, really distinguish the Arbiter from everything else.
  
• You only play 2 acts with Marines in tolerably human surroundings, 1 on the orbital MAC gun, 1 on earth... You barely get to play with the ODST.
  
• The human AI is just as dumb in Halo 1, but the Covenant AI gets a boost? bah (humans don't coordinate fire, they don't call out their targets, they give barely adequate warning of the grenades they throw, and they will shoot you in the back and cross your line of fire when you are stationary.)
  
• Even in Easy, a melee attack to a Jackal no longer will kill it with one hit. WTF!?
  
• In multiplayer, things that are available in single player, are not. (this was a complaint by many in Halo 1, you think they would have learned.)
  
• In the "Cutscenes" between acts, the texture load occurs sometimes a full 1-2 seconds AFTER the cutscene begins. And when the perspective changes on a scene, the textures have to load all over. Results in choppy "cinematics." Unlike thebruce, I would have prefered longer load times on the cinematics, or if they had done what The Matrix XBOX title did and just recorded everything as a DVD entry on the game disc and cut directly to pre-rendered cinematics. I would have tolerated a load time after the cinematic to get better cinematics.
  
• After watching the "Behind the Scenes DVD" that comes with the LE version, I was greatly disappointed. Over 75% of the material is available on Bungie.net. The material that was original was pointless in my opinion. Most of the stuff they put on there was a whiny "We wanted to make this game better for you, we're sorry, we ran out of time." BS (acronyms used for the word I really want to say.)
  
• All of the duplicate material on the "Behinds the Scenes DVD" was hype and did not help the game live up to its promise.
  
• Playing through on Easy results in more enemies, not less. (I swear!) This is balanced only by the fact that your allied AI units live longer. The net result: Difficulty is more about accuracy and damage done (because on Legendary, every enemy is a crack shot.)
  
• On Legendary, the Marines are more dangerous to the Covenant than you are. WTF!?
  
• A lot of Halo 2 in the later levels is all cut and paste and paste instead of like in Halo 1 were it's cut and paste and paste and paste and paste and paste and etc. The repetition was very noticable though and was obviously done to increase the length of gameplay. As cheap a trick as it was in Halo 1.
  
• They directly contradict First Strike. The fleet movements on the Unyielding Heirophant and assembled ships were to jump directly to Earth. They had over 500 ships according to First Strike. They they didn't even use that many ships against Reach, where humans were, or Halo were they thought humans were not. Why else would they assemble that many ships but because they knew where Earth was? Then why would Regret jump to Earth with so many fewer ships? Inconsistant.
  
• If you play a SPARTAN in Multiplayer, why don't you play an Arbiter? Inconsistant.
  
• The MC never gets Invisibility like in Halo 1? Inconsistant.
  
• They directly contradict The Flood, but remain true to Halo 1. Covenant followed the Pillar of Autumn to Halo Installation 04. They need better proofing on the books.
  
• Gravemind is so obviously flood, one wonders why the Arbiter and MC didn't see it earlier? I mean, what would the Flood want less than for Halo to fire?
  
• Speaking of which, the Flood get off of Halo Installation 05 on to the High Charity, and Cortana doesn't destroy the ring... looks like the Flood have become mobile. While interesting for FUTURE stories, it seems to be a "loose end" to the story.
  
• Gravemind gets no explanation or background, another loose end to the story. Additionally, the appearance is derivative.
  
• WTF happened to Sgt Johnson? loose end.
  
• WTF happened to Miranda Keyes? loose end.
  
• WTF happened to Earth? loose end.
  
• WTF happened to the Covenant? loose end.
  
• WTF is the Ark? loose end.
  
• I've repeatedly heard rumors that there is unlockable content, but that it is poorly implemented. Someone said that it only happens when you beat the campaign on Normal, but only if you get the tutorial on each of the vehicles? WTF?
  

Yes, there are a lot of bad things about Halo 2, in my opinion.

The hype of ILB, because of the intricate story and well developed interactions, did spoil me for Halo 2. However, I am still able to go back and find some redeeming qualities when I'm dispassionate about the game.

As Ranger_D said (and so I'll keep this pithy): All tease, no substance. The E3 trailers moved me more than the game itself did.

Things I would have changed:

• Remove the Arbiter campaign to it's own campaign, if not entirely.. Leave the items about the Arbiter in the MC's campaign a mystery until you play the second campaign. Gives you more reason to care about the Arbiter.
  
• It took me 10 hours of gameplay (roughly) on Normal to beat the game, the first time through. Half was Arbiter material. Make it 10 hours of MC, or 10-10 of MC and Arbiter.
  
• More time defending Earth, on ships, on orbital MAC platforms, on Covenant ships, on Earth itself. Even if they had only ended the game the way it began. A failed Covenant raid on Earth is a great way to finish the game with a cliffhanger. And makes you feel like your accomplished something.
  
• The first Halo 2 trailer had 3 or 4 items "completed" and "save earth: in progress." I don't know what we accomplished in Halo 2. As far as I can tell, nothing.
  
• More resolutions, fewer loose ends. Yes, we need them for Halo 3. But if Halo 3 isn't coming out next year, and Bungie has already said that Halo 3 is not their next project, we need some resolution between the games to keep us story nazi's satisfied.
  

[Mazian]

[Nova]

I pretty much agree with all of the points mentioned here. After they made such a big fuss about defending Earth in all the hype and buildup to the game, it was disappointing to spend so little time around Earth. I really don't care about the Covenant's side of things, if I did I wouldn't be shooting them quite as much as I have been. I would rather have spent the entire game as the MC.

Fun game; deeply disappointing story. We have the ILB story to show us how cool it could have been.