legionaire45
February 18th, 2007, 04:17 AM
Here are some of my thoughts on H2's story, not multiplayer. I just recently bought the game for my 360 and have the story fresh in my head, and its a far cry from what the E3 demo was. Please dont turn this into a flame war though, I dont want to have to lock my own thread or waste a mod's time.
I learned something very interesting about H2 the other day: it was rushed. REALLY RUSHED. If you remember the E3 demo it was awesome, filled with tons of action, and also didnt make the master chief look like some unstoppable god of a person. The Humans were losing, people were DIEING. Chaos was everywhere, and you could really tell just how screwed humanity was. Little things like the longswords bombing the covenant morter added in a ton of spirit and coolness to the story being told. The fact that the Earth was being invaded everywhere left a sense of hopelessness and made you wonder how exactly you would combat the covenant threat. The master chief being put into an impossible situation at the end made you really want to know how you would stop the army of elites about to lunge at you. Sadly, no one every would get to see that side of Halo 2.
In order to get that awesome demo set up, bungie had to spend 8 months on content and testing alone. Bungie did not have 8 months to spend on each level, or else we still probably would be waiting for H2 to be done. If Bungie wanted to get H2 out the door in time they had to cut dev time at the expense of the story. That is where I feel many players dont like Halo 2. Many have said that it just does not play like the original, and I can attribute this to that fact.
For example, compare the Earth levels between the E3 demo and what actually was put into Halo 2. In what was actually released (i'll refer to it as "H2R" from now on), There is very little in terms of the feeling of being on the front lines of a gruesome war. Instead, you are crawling through a maze of buildings after a glorified wraith-with-legs, which you some how destroy even though it has a small army of covenant onboard/in the surrounding area. Somehow, you manage to kill this army, and conveniantly find yourself following the prophet of regret to yet another Halo, destorying yet another Halo, conveniantly with the Daughter of the captain of the Pillar of Autumn. gj.
If you look at some of the pre-H2E3 screenshots you will notice unmistakeable Delta-halo-ish landscapes. However, my guess is that in H2E3 you wouldnt get to delta halo the way that was protrayed in H2R. According to the books, which Bungie describes as Cannon while completely blowing them off, the covenant refused to enter slipspace from within a planet's atmosphere even though they had the capabilities to do so. They even considered it heresy, as pointed out by a covenant AI in First Strike. Would a prophet really want to commit such a blasphemous act? Would a prophet really want to risk giving away the location of a Halo, especially in light of the recent events at the first one? Also, if the Halo you fought on in H1 was the first one found by the covenant, then how the hell did Regret have his own personal fortress built up on Delta Halo in the few weeks to months that it took the MC to get back to Earth (once again, according to the books)? Also, back to halo 1, the covenant would not risk destroying a relic on Halo in order to take out all of the humans (or a significant portion) even though they had the opportunity many times. That was the only reason you weren't blown to hell in the first place. In H2, they actually BOMBARD where the masterchief killed Regret with their plasma bombs, essentially using their Glassing technique on their holy relic. Complete 360 from Halo 1 in any case. There are quite a few more hypocrasies I can mention, but won't add for sake of keeping this post shorter. If you think about it, they aren't hard to find.
The reason I mention the books is that Eric Nylund, the author of 3/4 of them, had direct access to the Halo Story Bible. I would hope that Bungie did too, but why do the books and H2R dispute each other so much? Because Bungie had to rush H2 and skip certain content in order to get the game released, at least thats my theory.
About the weapons, which many people do not like. I believe that Bungie was honestly trying to improve Halo 1's weapon set, but failed miserably in doing so. In Halo 1 every weapon had its own unique use. Matches didnt devolve into who could get to the power-weapons first because every weapon was balanced perfectly (except the pistol, but that still is counterable by a skilled player). In Halo 2, every weapon is simply made to counter another. Im sure we all know which one counters which so I wont mention them here. Also, all the weapons are so dumbed down that it really isn't hard at all to go on a raping spree. Making the RL home in on targets was a stupid move on Bungie's part considering it took one of the few hard to master weapons and made it into serial-rape in a tube. The BR is basically the pistol except that you can 3sk with one trigger pull. The SMG's are either completely useless alone or extremely overpowering together especially when you have a brute plasma and SMG combo. And as a side note on the design of the weapons, they just dont fit Halo very well at all. Yet another side note, how the heck does the UNSC completely refit their army in 1-2 months while getting rid of all the old weapons stocks? yet again, gj.
However, I do have to add that Bungie did do a few good things with the weapon system. The Shotgun really didn't change much and is one of the few counters to the noob impaling stick known as the energy sword, and the melee was sped up and made more natural when compared to H1. Dual wielding is a mixed blessing but depending on the weapon can be good. Adding Lunge to all weapon's melee also leaves me with a mixed reaction considering it tones down the sword whoring and gives you a chance in close quarters fighting, but also makes it easy for a noob to abuse it. Then again, you cant really abuse something that is given to you can you? xD.
Thinking about it now, I believe I have found yet another pausible cause/factor as to why H2 doesnt seem/play like H1. From what I remember, the former head of bungie either was kicked off of the team or left part way through development. I remember H1 playing a lot more like Marathon story-wise, while Halo 2 seemed radically differant. I believe this trend will continue with H3 sadly =/. This is the part that saddens me the most, considering I have followed Halo basically from Day one all the way back at Macworld 1999.
On the topic of H3, another interesting thing I learned about H2 and H3 was that originally H2 was going to be the last game in the series. However, either Bungie didnt have the time to finish H2 or the wanted to release the H3 element of the story later in another form. If that last reason is the case, then either Bungie wanted the game to be shorter, they couldn't fit the content onto a single DVD (I can't verify that) or they wanted people to have to buy a third Halo game, hence making them lots more money. That obviosly is not easily proven but still is a slight possibility.
I want to hear what you guys have to say since generally this forum doesnt start large wildthreadfires, something I can not say of GBX. However, I want to avoid a flamewar as much as possible because I'm sure that the mods really don't want to deal with another pointless H1>H2 battle. I want to hear your ideas. Just try not to bash heads too much, since this type of topic generally lights like Gasoline.
I learned something very interesting about H2 the other day: it was rushed. REALLY RUSHED. If you remember the E3 demo it was awesome, filled with tons of action, and also didnt make the master chief look like some unstoppable god of a person. The Humans were losing, people were DIEING. Chaos was everywhere, and you could really tell just how screwed humanity was. Little things like the longswords bombing the covenant morter added in a ton of spirit and coolness to the story being told. The fact that the Earth was being invaded everywhere left a sense of hopelessness and made you wonder how exactly you would combat the covenant threat. The master chief being put into an impossible situation at the end made you really want to know how you would stop the army of elites about to lunge at you. Sadly, no one every would get to see that side of Halo 2.
In order to get that awesome demo set up, bungie had to spend 8 months on content and testing alone. Bungie did not have 8 months to spend on each level, or else we still probably would be waiting for H2 to be done. If Bungie wanted to get H2 out the door in time they had to cut dev time at the expense of the story. That is where I feel many players dont like Halo 2. Many have said that it just does not play like the original, and I can attribute this to that fact.
For example, compare the Earth levels between the E3 demo and what actually was put into Halo 2. In what was actually released (i'll refer to it as "H2R" from now on), There is very little in terms of the feeling of being on the front lines of a gruesome war. Instead, you are crawling through a maze of buildings after a glorified wraith-with-legs, which you some how destroy even though it has a small army of covenant onboard/in the surrounding area. Somehow, you manage to kill this army, and conveniantly find yourself following the prophet of regret to yet another Halo, destorying yet another Halo, conveniantly with the Daughter of the captain of the Pillar of Autumn. gj.
If you look at some of the pre-H2E3 screenshots you will notice unmistakeable Delta-halo-ish landscapes. However, my guess is that in H2E3 you wouldnt get to delta halo the way that was protrayed in H2R. According to the books, which Bungie describes as Cannon while completely blowing them off, the covenant refused to enter slipspace from within a planet's atmosphere even though they had the capabilities to do so. They even considered it heresy, as pointed out by a covenant AI in First Strike. Would a prophet really want to commit such a blasphemous act? Would a prophet really want to risk giving away the location of a Halo, especially in light of the recent events at the first one? Also, if the Halo you fought on in H1 was the first one found by the covenant, then how the hell did Regret have his own personal fortress built up on Delta Halo in the few weeks to months that it took the MC to get back to Earth (once again, according to the books)? Also, back to halo 1, the covenant would not risk destroying a relic on Halo in order to take out all of the humans (or a significant portion) even though they had the opportunity many times. That was the only reason you weren't blown to hell in the first place. In H2, they actually BOMBARD where the masterchief killed Regret with their plasma bombs, essentially using their Glassing technique on their holy relic. Complete 360 from Halo 1 in any case. There are quite a few more hypocrasies I can mention, but won't add for sake of keeping this post shorter. If you think about it, they aren't hard to find.
The reason I mention the books is that Eric Nylund, the author of 3/4 of them, had direct access to the Halo Story Bible. I would hope that Bungie did too, but why do the books and H2R dispute each other so much? Because Bungie had to rush H2 and skip certain content in order to get the game released, at least thats my theory.
About the weapons, which many people do not like. I believe that Bungie was honestly trying to improve Halo 1's weapon set, but failed miserably in doing so. In Halo 1 every weapon had its own unique use. Matches didnt devolve into who could get to the power-weapons first because every weapon was balanced perfectly (except the pistol, but that still is counterable by a skilled player). In Halo 2, every weapon is simply made to counter another. Im sure we all know which one counters which so I wont mention them here. Also, all the weapons are so dumbed down that it really isn't hard at all to go on a raping spree. Making the RL home in on targets was a stupid move on Bungie's part considering it took one of the few hard to master weapons and made it into serial-rape in a tube. The BR is basically the pistol except that you can 3sk with one trigger pull. The SMG's are either completely useless alone or extremely overpowering together especially when you have a brute plasma and SMG combo. And as a side note on the design of the weapons, they just dont fit Halo very well at all. Yet another side note, how the heck does the UNSC completely refit their army in 1-2 months while getting rid of all the old weapons stocks? yet again, gj.
However, I do have to add that Bungie did do a few good things with the weapon system. The Shotgun really didn't change much and is one of the few counters to the noob impaling stick known as the energy sword, and the melee was sped up and made more natural when compared to H1. Dual wielding is a mixed blessing but depending on the weapon can be good. Adding Lunge to all weapon's melee also leaves me with a mixed reaction considering it tones down the sword whoring and gives you a chance in close quarters fighting, but also makes it easy for a noob to abuse it. Then again, you cant really abuse something that is given to you can you? xD.
Thinking about it now, I believe I have found yet another pausible cause/factor as to why H2 doesnt seem/play like H1. From what I remember, the former head of bungie either was kicked off of the team or left part way through development. I remember H1 playing a lot more like Marathon story-wise, while Halo 2 seemed radically differant. I believe this trend will continue with H3 sadly =/. This is the part that saddens me the most, considering I have followed Halo basically from Day one all the way back at Macworld 1999.
On the topic of H3, another interesting thing I learned about H2 and H3 was that originally H2 was going to be the last game in the series. However, either Bungie didnt have the time to finish H2 or the wanted to release the H3 element of the story later in another form. If that last reason is the case, then either Bungie wanted the game to be shorter, they couldn't fit the content onto a single DVD (I can't verify that) or they wanted people to have to buy a third Halo game, hence making them lots more money. That obviosly is not easily proven but still is a slight possibility.
I want to hear what you guys have to say since generally this forum doesnt start large wildthreadfires, something I can not say of GBX. However, I want to avoid a flamewar as much as possible because I'm sure that the mods really don't want to deal with another pointless H1>H2 battle. I want to hear your ideas. Just try not to bash heads too much, since this type of topic generally lights like Gasoline.