[dude3282]

As a foreword, I am very well aware of the anti-Halo sentiments that float around here. If you don't like Halo, or think it's a way overrated game, that's perfectly fine. We've beaten that horse to death already (if you don't remember, well, it may have been before your time, I lose track of when these things happen). This thread is intended for those who have enjoyed the games of the Halo series and are ready to discuss them in an intelligent manner.

I recently became involved in a Guild Wars guild that started out as a Halo 2 clan (Sword of Laban, if you're interested). Or I guess it would be more correct that the guild wars guild is an offshoot of the giant SoL guild. Anyways, the hot topic with them has been comparing Halo:Combat Evolved with Halo 2. A lot of them are of the opinion that Halo 2 took out a lot of the skill that was required to be successful in Halo:CE. Others claim that all you needed in Halo:CE was a sick pistol and you had mastered the game, while Halo 2 requires a much wider knowledge of tactics. There's still a huge amount of hate going around for Halo 2, as mentioned here and on halo2sucks.com. Do any of you have any thoughts on the matter? Personally, I don't own an Xbox, I just enjoy playing Halo whenever I get the chance to play with friends. I never took the game too seriously, but it seems that some people will always find something to complain about. But doesn't it make you mad when you look forward to something and expect great things and then you're let down?

Anyways, go ahead and discuss. Or tell me I'm behind the times, or just plain stupid, "Everyone knows Xbox connect > XBL OMFG u noob" or whatever. Just keep it civil, please.

[Solstis]

XBConnect was a buggy/laggy mess. Xbox Live is a pre-teen infested mess.

Er... take your pick?

I actually enjoyed the single player with both Halos, though I did enjoy the multiplayer for the first better. I would probably enjoy 2's if some reedy child didn't yell and scream throughout the game.

[Scrub]

Yea, I know what you mean about people hating Halo. It seems that "Hating Halo and Halo 2 and telling everyone you know this" is some requirement to be cool on the internet.

I, personally, loved the first Halo. Every Friday, my friend Tom would have a LAN party and we'd all go over and drink soda and eat pizza, and have a grand old time with Halo, occasionally other things(Brute Force and such). That was really fun.

Then Halo 2 came out. I liked the game a lot more, looked prettier, played nicer, and had XBL. But I can not STAND any of the people who play Halo 2 on Xbox Live. -_-; So, Game rules, People who play it suck.

[Eihwaz]

Halo is a really good gaming experience, but it's not perfect. I play it on Xbox and on PC (mainly for multiplayer). Great story, awesome gameplay, and a great soundtrack to boot. Some sections (Assault on the Control Room, anyone?) were really kinda redundant/annoying, but it was overall a really cool game.

I got the sequal too, though I didn't do the whole OMG PRE-ORDER WATCH DEMO MOVIES OMG thing. The single playerr experience was okay, I suppose. The ending was a really annoying and cheap cliffhanger. And also, I'm not so sure about the whole "team up with the enemy to fight a worse foe!" thing. It just seems kinda cliche, I guess? =/

[Link00seven]

Halo 1: Epic game. I really enjoyed Halo 1. The single player kept me interested, and the multiplayer was fun as hell. I went to and hosted alot of LAN Party's for Halo 1 on the Xbox. It required alot of skill, even though the pistol was powerful, it COULD be countered. Everything could be countered if you had the skill to do so. I really liked the map design's on Halo 1, although Hang Em' High was way overrated.

Halo 2: When Halo 2 was first released, I was disappointed. The campaign wasn't bad, but they mislead us. It was supposed to be a huge epic war agaisnt the Covenant and the Humans on Earth...but it wasn't. Overall, the story kept me interested, but the cliffhanger sucked. As for the multiplayer, I hated it at first. I thought it was completely unbalanced. Granades were bad, duel-weilding was overpowered, and the level's were bad. Now, with the Ver 1.1 update and the 9 new map's, I have a new outlook on Halo 2. I still prefer Halo 1, but Halo 2's multiplayer is now alot better, and the new level's are amazing. (Relic owns!)

However, some of the stuff on the site's you linked in your first post I do agree with. Halo 2 is alot "easier" to get good at then Halo 1 was.

That's my stand on Halo 1 and Halo 2.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Link00seven on 2005-08-16 21:37 ]</font>

[Kaio666]

i totally agree with the whole players of XBL=suck. and while i'm here i suppose i'll throw in my two cents about halo and its sequel. liked halo, above average FPS, but not the godly experience everyone says it is, granted i got into late so perhaps i was expecting something more. got swept up in the halo 2 hype, and pre-ordered it. played it, beat it, enjoyed it more than halo until the end (which i know has been said twenty trillion times). so both good games, just not great and to be honest halo 2 really felt like halo with some spit shine on it, i think they shoulda kept it under wraps for longer and put halo 2 and the eventual halo 3 together and made one giant super fps. persoanlly half-life has and always will own halo for me, yeah true both endings were cliff hangers, but valve pulled it off in such a way that at least in hl2 you still fealt some finality to it even though theres so much more to learn about gordon and all the other charcters. also i think halo was way easier than 2, a pistol with enough ammo could get you through the whole game, even halo 2 got fairly simple when you knew what to do.

[JODDY]

Halo 2 campaign was to easy and they shouldnt have let you play any difficulty after you beat it. Like when you beat it on normal you could just play the last level on any difficulty you want.
As far as XBL goes. I love it. If you play enough you will find a very large number of people who are good, respectful, intelligent players. Especially fun when you play custom games. The immature, rude, racist, waste of your time players are in every game out there. Some more than others. It's just easy for them on XBL because they have headsets and dont have to type anything. They can say so much in so little time.

[Allos]

Personally I was very disappointed in the Halo 2 campaign. I thought it was too short, I hated playing as the Arbiter after about 10 minutes, and I was extremely pissed after finding out you wouldn't actually be fighting on Earth for the whole game.

However, I love multiplayer to death. 16 player LANs never get old.

[silvermax]

Every thing about the character control in Halo 1 was/is near perfect, from the melee attacks to the way you have to burst with an assault rifle to hit something at medium ranges. the Plasma Rifle was pretty much a broken gun, almost instant travel times to your target, damage was very high (though in Multi the assault rifle always seems to win)... and in the single player it often made it hard dealing with Elites(granted as you get better at the game its not so bad, and it made every elite encounter dangerous, just like it should be), and then there was the Elite Melee attack, you could strafe half way around the back of one and it would still hit you as if you where in front of it very annoying.

what really drives me nuts about Halo 2 is that they went and changed how almost everything worked. Melee now has this rather stupid lunge crap and half the time you just bounce off your target, in multi this gets REALLY annoying when you know you got a back shot but then just bounce off then they turn around and waste you. The jump is WAY to high for a simple push of the button, if the jump was like from a platformer or something so you could do a little hop when you need to it would have been much better IMO. Dual weapons seemed like a nice idea at first but when you have 1 wep in your hand 1/4 of your view is already blocked by it, and when you have 2, good lord your blind on half the screen. Dual only gets really stupid in multi, even with the update 1.1 (something) SMG Plasma rifle combo at a close to medium range is still far too powerful, the shot gun is more of a liability then a help, and the B Rifle can kill in 3 or 4 bursts (love it and hate it all at once). in single player Elites with one hit kill melee attacks is just not right at all. (at least they cant hit you like they did in Halo 1)Giving Jackals sniper rifles, and then giving them reflexes so fast that they see you and hit the first 2 or 3 pixels of your character as you try to step out from behind cover is also not right from a game play perspective; we have to work with somewhat inaccurate controls, joy sticks... we cant be all cool with a mouse and Key board.

and even though i hate so much about Halo 2.. i find i miss the things it adds when i go back to play Halo, like No health bar, Hunters that don’t sucks complete ass, the Battle rifle, better vehicles overall, and the sword.

from a story perspective i give Halo CE the nod, it sucked me in, i bought the books, i wanted to know back story, i wanted to know what happened after the game, what happened to the rest of the Spartans.

but from Game play perspective Halo 2 added things that just make the game much more playable, minus the Legendary difficulty which can be extremely frustrating. i can live with the melee BS, bounce off your target crap, even though it can get very stupid sometimes. sniper jackals are wrong and Bungie was stupid to put them EVERY WHERE.

i wrote me an essay =/

[Blitzkommando]

The Halo games are fun. Not groundshattering or anything, just above par fun. Halo, even with as... cliche a storyline as it is, was interresting. I thought it was better than many games out there. But, I also think it is not as good as others.

I know it is unfair to compare games, especially from different time periods and mediums, but I see it happen all the time anyway. Halo, I admit I have played through a few times. Both on Xbox and PC. I really like the PC version better. Of course, I just love keyboard and mouse combination far and above a controller. But, the comparison I see all the time is between Halo, and Half-Life. Personally, I don't see it. Half-Life is several steps beyond what Halo could ever dream of being. I still enjoy playing through the entire game, over and over again.

Halo, it is fun to play through again, but... It just kinda, dunno, doesn't have the feel to it that other shooters have. I do like some of the aspects, but others, like a regenerating shield, just scream of, well, childsplay. Of course, I like having more realistic gameplay than that. It is like the Sonic games in a way. As long as you have shield/rings you are practically invincible. Seems kinda, well, easy.

Halo 2, I still haven't pushed myself to beat yet. I've been working on it recently, if for no other reason than just because I watched Red vs. Blue a lot recently. The whole storyline seems... eh, like a mess. Randomly switching between Master Chief and The Arbiter is also a bit confusing. I do like the 'prettyness' factor of Halo 2 but obviously gameplay and storyline are far in front of that. I hate how they seem to be using the whole cliched dark rooms thing now too. The customizable Squad patch things is pretty nice, you know, for the half second you see it on someone before you kill them or they kill you.

Overall, they are above average, but below great. The worst part of the series? The fanboys. I don't have a problem with someone saying that a game is good, or great, but, I do when they get into rabid frenzies about it. Basically, there are better FPS out there, especially if you are playing a PC. UT2004, Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Doom II... But, if you do like non-traditional FPS that use, unique, forms of gameplay, Halo might be worth a try at the very least.