NationStates Jolt Archive

Okay, who has Halo 2 and what do you think of it?

For me:

Good
Excellent Graphics
Great Gameplay
Loads of New Weapons
Hijacking Vehicles
Better AI
Homing Rockets
Scope on Battle Rifle

Bad
No Health Bar
Awkward weapon change from duel to secondary single
Gernades don't seem to be as effective
Pistol Sucks
Ending is Horrible
You Can't skip through the credits

Okay, who has Halo 2 and what do you think of it?

For me:

Good
Excellent Graphics
Great Gameplay
Loads of New Weapons
Hijacking Vehicles
Better AI
Homing Rockets
Scope on Battle Rifle

Bad
No Health Bar
Awkward weapon change from duel to secondary single
Gernades don't seem to be as effective
Pistol Sucks
Ending is Horrible
You Can't skip through the credits
good appraisal dude; pretty much what i think... even tho i havent had a chance to play it in 2 weeks! still havent finished it :(

You are very accurate.

I try. I got it Tuesday before Thanksgiving and have played it at least an hour a day since. I think I logged 15 hours in the first two days I owned it.

Other than that, I still need to play it on Xbox Live to rate it there.

Okay, who has Halo 2 and what do you think of it?

For me:

Good
Excellent Graphics
Great Gameplay
Loads of New Weapons
Hijacking Vehicles
Better AI
Homing Rockets
Scope on Battle Rifle

Bad
No Health Bar
Awkward weapon change from duel to secondary single
Gernades don't seem to be as effective
Pistol Sucks
Ending is Horrible
You Can't skip through the credits

Agree with all the good things. Add voice acting though. It was superb. And multiplayer (both LAN and Live), love it. As for the "bad things" you mention.

1. I liked having no health bar. You SHOULD did after a few hits with no shield. But I'll leave you to your opinion on this point. Some people like a health bar. I like the mystery (makes taking cover more important and a more significant part of gameplay).

2. I didn't have a problem.

3. If you can aim it (you can aim right?) it really isn't an issue with plasmas. And frags never worked well on shielded opponents, they are more for grunts, jackals, flood anyway, and still work well on them.

4. Pistol being downgraded is a good thing. Dual wielding it more than makes up for the punch of the old pistol. The scope I could care less about since for long distance its sniper/beam rifle bitch!

*Slight spoiler warning*


5. Think in the long term. The second part of any good trilogy ends with very little, if at all closure. They didn't rescue Han Solo out of the carbonite in "Empire" did they? Or didn't go into much detail about Vader being Luke's father. No, they give you something and leave most questions to be answered in the climatic third installment. The bit of closure you get is stopping Truth's immediate plans. In the mean time, like any good second installment in a trilogy, you find out a whole lot of new things and new questions are raised.

6. For even wanting to skip through the credits you are an ungrateful bastard. Just kiddin, but the credits give the guys who brought this game to us get the credit they deserve.

All being said...you can't please all of the people all of the time. Someone is going to like something and another is going to hate it.

The only problem I had was the sudden placing of graphics on occasion during a few animations. Since it serves the purpose of no load times, it is a little detail I can forgive.

O, and I am not some rabid fanboy. I just think there has been unfair criticism on the part of many "hard-core" gamers against this game, probably because it is popular to more mainstream gamers (and yes, Xbox fanboys) and the media attention it has received in some attempt on their part to appear clever. Graphic wise Halo 2 isn't as good as some of the newer PC shooters (yes, Half-Life 2 is gorgeous) but it can definitely stand alongside them. Besides, console owners have always been willing to take a drop in graphics to play on our TV. Halo 2 is just a sign that consoles (which are looking more like hardrives nowadays) are catching up...

I agree with your good stuff most certainly.

I have some beefs with your bad stuff, but hey that happens.

I like the fact that the pistol is weaker, but that probably has to do with the fact that I sucked with the pistol in Halo and all the other people on my network rocked with it.

I thought the ending was pretty good for a second trilogy installment.

*SPOILER OF DOOM*

Speaking of the ending, what do you think the little bit of talking between Cortana and Gravemind after the credits at the end of the game was all about?

I don't see what the big deal is. Sure, the ending was horrible, but big deal. It will be resolved in Halo 3. Not having the health bar sucked, but oh well. The major thing that pissed me off was the difficulty levels. Instead og being progressivley harder in equal amounts, like Halo 1, it was like 4 giant steps. Easy was pitifully easy (I could cut my thumbs off and beat it on easy), normal was hard enough to frustrate you a little. Heroic was inbetween the heroic and legendary of Halo 1. Legendary was damn near impossible. All in all, Halo 2 was an excellent game, and is as good as, if not better than the original.

Speaking of the ending, what do you think the little bit of talking between Cortana and Gravemind after the credits at the end of the game was all about?



*Spoiler*



Cortana has now had access to two Halos. The Forerunner knowledge she has is probably considerable. Gravemind probably wants to find out more. Now a question. I might have missed some info considering it was 3 AM during the one cutscene..but does Gravemind ever mention what exactly he is?

Cortana has now had access to two Halos. The Forerunner knowledge she has is probably considerable. Gravemind probably wants to find out more. Now a question. I might have missed some info considering it was 3 AM during the one cutscene..but does Gravemind ever mention what exactly he is?
I...don't...think so...

1. I liked having no health bar. You SHOULD did after a few hits with no shield. But I'll leave you to your opinion on this point. Some people like a health bar. I like the mystery (makes taking cover more important and a more significant part of gameplay).


Most of the bad things I deal with, I just didn't like them that much. On the health bar though, it just gives me an idea of how close to death I am. I liked that. Cover was still important in Halo 1 because of Legendary a single grunt could tear you up without your shield.

Ok, my question. Is it just me or does it seem like the game is implying that humans are the descendants of the forerunners? After all with the ark being on Earth and needing Capt. Keyes daughter to activate the Halo, it seems that way to me...

Still haven't actually bought it, what with being a poor English student, so er.... is it worth buying, yes or no?

Ok, my question. Is it just me or does it seem like the game is implying that humans are the descendants of the forerunners? After all with the ark being on Earth and needing Capt. Keyes daughter to activate the Halo, it seems that way to me...

I'm betting that the forerunners are someone we are quite familiar with.

Played, beat on Heroic, my thoughts follow.

Halo 2 is slightly inferior to Halo 1, I'd say, maybe equal. Why you say?

Graphics - Halo 2 is pretty :p Aside from some loading issues, it beats Halo 1 down.

Sound - Sounds effects are good, Music is great as always... and now the downside! To me, it doesn't seem like the music fits the action as well as Halo 1. Probably just personal taste, but Halo 1 seemed to make the transitions from epic, to blastin', to tension better. Also... voices tend to get lost in the combat and music. I'll have a look later, but I think my volumes ingame are at max, so short of turning music down and cranking the TV volume... To end on a high note, the script is cool as hell :D

Gameplay - It's Halo, babe :D Dual Wielding is cool, though I wish I could switch to my secondary without having to drop my dual-weapon first. (There a way to do this I'm missing?). Two Plasma Rifles = Sex. My gripes are that the crosshairs are too low, or the guns too high, either way my bullets don't tend to go where I'd expect. Grenades also seem to have been tweaked, throwing wise, and I like the way Halo 1 did it. Lastly, the difficulty is odd, sometimes it'll get so hard you scream, then you find a way around the enemies. Which is no fun. I want to slay all that dare stand before me!

Biggest Gripe Thus Far - Missions. Sometimes I had no freakin' clue what was going on, or where to go, and some bosses were just plain annoying. I mean, Tartarus, WTF? Am I hurting him or not? Is this thing timed?

Storyline - Right, I'm drawing a blank here. I honestly do not get where the criticism is coming from. The only downside is the way you lurch from Master Chief to Arbiter and back, sometimes you just wanna continue what you were doing. And the ending? I understand it. I got all I needed to know from it. Having seen Halo 2's ending now, and HL2's, I can see no real difference between them. Cliffhangers, woo.

Lemme back at that, I wanna stop the guy! Halo Threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

And Multiplayer looks like fun, but I have work/exams, no XBox Live.

Biggest Bitch Point - Those damn Buggers! Flying DEATH I tell you.

So, let's recap.

Yay!
-Boarding, Vehicle Tweaks
-Dual Wielding (And it must be memorised... Two Plasma Guns = Sex)
-SFX and Script/One Liners
-Graphics
-Storyline
-More Halo.

Boo!
-Music / Speech / SFX balance
-Mood Music
-Mission Guidance
-You changed my targetting system :O Turn it back!
-Some Difficulty Issues (And Buggers and Sniper Jackals can rot in hell.)

Curiously, most of these could be fixed with a patch or two ;)

So. There's my thoughts. w00t and such.

Oh yeah, time for more points (looked at more comments when this didn't send the first time...).

Health Bar - Actually, you can take quite a pounding on Heroic. I didn't miss the health bar one bit.

Pistol - Didn't use it. Had other weapons.

*SPOILER RISK*

Gravemind eh? Just the name itself suggests some sort of Flood Hive Mind. There may have been one on Guilty Spark's Halo, but you teleported / flew around that place, there was no covenant city nearby, and you blew the damn place up, so either way it doesn't matter.

As for the ending after the ending, I see it like this. You're the brain of a race whose sole purpose is to consume life. The best way to do this is assimilate technology, and know what you'll be facing. A being with incredible knowledge is trapped with you. What would you do? Cortana says herself that the Gravemind used you to cause a diversion, so he could sneak aboard High Charity.

Ok, my question. Is it just me or does it seem like the game is implying that humans are the descendants of the forerunners? After all with the ark being on Earth and needing Capt. Keyes daughter to activate the Halo, it seems that way to me...

I don't think they'll go that far...Probably we were just some faithful servant monkeys of theirs that they could trust to activate it if needed. Wouldn't the covies be surprised if they found out we were their gods' favorites?

Still haven't actually bought it, what with being a poor English student, so er.... is it worth buying, yes or no?
It most certainly is good Sir, it most certainly is. And the free two months of XBox Live aren't bad either.

It most certainly is good Sir, it most certainly is. And the free two months of XBox Live aren't bad either.

Right, time to start saving pennies. Could take some time, but I'll get there.

Humans, the Forerunners' descendants? Maybe.

I personally prefer the idea that Sir Peter up there touched on. As for requiring Miranda to activate Delta Halo, nah, that doesn't fly with me. Might be right though :P From what I observed, it only requires someone human / closely humanoid, or the 'Oracle's' blessing. After all, you were able to activate Halo in Halo 1, just Cortana stopped you. And Tartarus tells his troops:

"This one will do, kill the others."

Seems like he just needed a human.

I think everyone that has Live or at least done a LAN game will agree with me that the multiplayer more than makes up for any flaws in the campaign, flaws which IMO are minor anyways. I play several hours on Live or my schools network every day, I just cant get enough. The different gametypes and all the options make it an amazing experience.

I think the little problem with textures not loading immediately when a scene starts (the pop-up of things during movies) is because it loads the entire game when you first start, and it never loads between levels (a big plus I think).

I like the no-health, they improved the shields strength/recharge abilities. Dual wielding feels natural and flows great, my only slight complaint is I would like to hang on to the 2nd weapon after meleeing someone.

Though it was the same thing as HALO I, it was still a good game.

Not as good as HALO I though.

few things to add

Good
Tank Chain Gun Much more accurate (thank god)
Vehicle Explosions on both sides - nicely done
Vehicle Damage- being able to tell how far you are from distruction or how close to destroying an enemy vehicle - also well done
Enemies boarding you - just happened to me in the tank - pretty funny.

Bad
In Heroic you take damage real fast.

No other complaints as of yet.

HALO 2 is moot now that Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft are out

woot !!!! ^.^