Halo 2 Anniversary (confirmed as thing now)

[Higuy]

Halo 2 had by far my favorite multiplayer in it to date, hell, it was what got me into the series. Almost all of the maps that came out of the game are still some of the best in the franchise, including some of its SP missions.

I also dont see how you can say Halo 2 was a "completley different animal" in comparison to the other games. The multiplayer was pretty similar but had much more attention imo, and ofc it included some of Halo 2's newer mechanics. Halo 2's mp was great becuase it was much like Halo 1 - simple and fun. This time it just included XBL so you can play with your friends.

I hate how people hate on Halo 2. Even though the game was rushed in some areas and Bungie does not even deny it, the game as a whole is still very good and a very enjoyable experience.

[Btcc22]

Imagine Halo 1's spam-cannon assault rifle with attachments. You could put a heavy barrel to reduce the spread at the cost of recoil, or a laser sight to improve the accuracy of sustained fire.

Nope. You'd just end up with a massively rock-papers-scissors sandbox with most players using cookie-cutter templates despite the 'choice'. That and having to unlock stuff for multiplayer is anathema to skill-based gameplay.

On another note, I view Halo 3's multiplayer as a refinement of Halo 2's. After a while, they realised dual-wielding wasn't really working out and put more emphasis on the Battle Rifle, carried over the grenade balance changes they made in the first update and at least tried to make the sword not so utterly overpowered.

Halo 1 to Halo 2 was a revolution but Halo 2 to Halo 3 was evolution.

[Warsaw]

Halo 2 had by far my favorite multiplayer in it to date, hell, it was what got me into the series. Almost all of the maps that came out of the game are still some of the best in the franchise, including some of its SP missions.

I also dont see how you can say Halo 2 was a "completley different animal" in comparison to the other games. The multiplayer was pretty similar but had much more attention imo, and ofc it included some of Halo 2's newer mechanics. Halo 2's mp was great becuase it was much like Halo 1 - simple and fun. This time it just included XBL so you can play with your friends.

I hate how people hate on Halo 2. Even though the game was rushed in some areas and Bungie does not even deny it, the game as a whole is still very good and a very enjoyable experience.

Halo 2's forte is in its ability to deliver a cinematic experience. It is the best-looking game on the original Xbox, bar-none. Out of the entire series, it by far has the best-looking and most interesting cutscenes, aided by the lack of loading screens between every level. It had the most interesting plot points as well. It was great.

What makes it a completely different animal is that it plays nothing like the original. Now you HAVE to finish off your target instead of hurting him and then setting ambush at the health pack. Now you HAVE to bum-rush the "power weapons" because it won't ever respawn. Now you HAVE to use melee up close because it's so powerful it autoaims and kills in two hits. Now you HAVE to use the Battle Rifle because every other weapon in the game is so woefully inadequate.

Campaign had a different set of issues. First, the encounters were generally boring, with to few enemies at once (the Flood were especially dumbed down from Halo 1). Legendary was also a huge crock of rigged bullshit. A larger issue was the lack of ammunition provided to the player. If I wanted to use human weapons, I had to melee fight my way through the mission because some doofus thought it would be fun to give the player three magazines as a maximum limit. I tracking hate using Covenant weapons in Halo 2+, and Halo 2 and 3 had a very noticeable bias for Covenant equipment.

[Donut]

Nope. You'd just end up with a massively rock-papers-scissors sandbox with most players using cookie-cutter templates despite the 'choice'. That and having to unlock stuff for multiplayer is anathema to skill-based gameplay.

Man you really didn't give that a chance at all. Are you trying to tell me what Halo is right now isn't a massively rock-paper-scissors sandbox? You'd rather have 30 guns with 3 or 4 in each weapon profile instead of 10 that the player can meaningfully customize? The argument about unlocks is null after the first week of play anyway. Putting those unlocks, say, 10 kills apart would make the unlocks quick, but still give the player a chance to experience the gun with and without it. Also, I fail to see anything cookie cutter about allowing a player to choose between suppressing their weapon and making it more accurate at range. That's a pretty significant choice.

[Ki11a_FTW]

Halo 2s campaign is an unfinished dubbed down piece of crap compared to what they were presenting prior to release.
Especially playing the game in 1080p makes its obvious issues even more obvious. Ex:

Every cutscene has a flaw. Especially the intro to outskirts like wtf? That and the intro with the scarab if you look to the back you can see where the road just cuts off.

Half the characters in the cutscenes don't move their jaw while they talk (specifically johnson in parts of outskirts and metropolis).

The whole heretic sequence was an abomination. Especially when the BSP's it uses were designed for a completely different mission.

I get confused sometimes because even though the Arbiter was critically acclaimed a good character, I sometimes feel like the story could have went in a way better direction if there was no Arbiter side of the story, period. Now basically, bungie and 343 want to go back and add mystery behind the covenant again. Which you can't do now considering what we saw of them in Halo 2\3. Well bungie not so much considering their last product was a prequel, but still.

Almost every BSP is in some way unfinished. Especially the city levels.

The only things I feel like were done right were the Flood and the Covenant. Halo 2 had such a great style of assets. To bad the lackluster environment's don't help bring it all together.

[TeeKup]

It doesnt help that Halo in general has this nasty habit of having the player completely backtrack previous levels, either spread over 2 missions or crammed into one. The Library was god aweful because of this. The Covenant did that as well in Halo 3.

[=sw=warlord]

The library had no backtracking at all.
It's just every corridor looked the same.

[Tnnaas]

343 Guilty Spark had some though. When I first played that mission, I got severely lost for about five days. >_>

[Warsaw]

I am probably the only one who liked The Library. Why? Because it was perfectly representative of the Flood: they are numerous, they are faceless, they all look alike, and they attempt to wear you down through those characteristics.

You get out of The Library what you put into it.

[TeeKup]

The library had no backtracking at all.
It's just every corridor looked the same.

Then its essentially the same thing. The Library was great for the flood, but the level itself just grinds my gears because of the aformentioned reasons.

EDIT: if the flood ever make a return they need to be how they were in Halo 1. Genuinely terrifying, endless in number, and completely relentless. More often than not in H2 and H3a I could encounter random combat forms that would just stand there and do absolutely nothing.