I'll give you 2 having better maps, but I enjoyed 3 much better. Everything just felt more balanced and enjoyable. Loved 2, but I just have so much of a better time with 3.
Phil Spencer on Halo 2 Anniversary
- Thread starter jbug617
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I'll give you 2 having better maps, but I enjoyed 3 much better. Everything just felt more balanced and enjoyable. Loved 2, but I just have so much of a better time with 3.
I agree that true online CE multiplayer would have been awesome but I still doubt that they could have gotten it to work in a way that would've been satisfactory. CE was great because you had your friends there right next to you. It just wouldn't have been the same thing if it was online. Maybe Frankie will tell us what really went down with CEA multiplayer. Splitting the Reach user base and so on just doesn't sound right.
i'm no no halo fanboy, but i hope for you guys' sake that this is the result of a real introspective look at how piling more shit on top of a streamlined core doesn't necessarily result in a better game, and becomes something of a reboot for the series' multiplayer, rather than a cute token throwback.
- Exploiting a bug (and yes, it was a bug) is skill? Ok man.
Hear hear!
Twilight Gap
Member
why not both? use the anniversary's opportunity to see how a return to form would work, and then tweak new mechanics with that in mind.
He meant Halo Anniversary which had Halo Reach multiplayer. Good job with the gif though.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
Respect. I fucking loved Halo 2 and played it far more than I should have, more than any other Halo game in fact. I still think Halo 2 campaign gameplay wise was some of the very best Halo solo has had to offer (hi Delta Halo). All that said and done it was a broken piece of dog shit for the first 6 months of online multiplayer life and that ending of the campaign still hurts!
Modders, glitches, combos and basically a metric shit-ton of things not in the game manual easily translate to a remake having to alter the game semi-drastically. While I enjoyed superbounces (in customs), RRX & BRX it's not skill in the online environment when all gamers don't have the same knowledge for even starts as so many "pure Halo fans" spout on about. In LAN/tournies where all are aware of the nuances they're welcome additions to the base game.
I still don't see H2 returning personally. The tech, the engine, the XBL platform, the new dedis, the resources to redevelop a game/assets that simply would have to be altered in many ways...not happening IMO. If it does happen it won't be a straight port to say the least.
Delta halo, cairo station, outskirts, regret, classic arena, ivory tower, relic, midship, lockout, zanzibar, burial mounds, colossus, coagulation, headlong, waterworks, sanctuary, terminal, elongation, containment, all players with mics and wanting to get better rank, clan playlists, in game rank, community love for CTF/assault/BTB are the things I miss not the entire game of Halo 2 verbatim. The game as it came out decades ago can go the way of the dodo with respect to a re-release. Seriously the reality of a remake today would be insane, the minute changes would splinter the fans even further and the tech isn't there either...
A new game can achieve much of the old and new while satisfying far more Halo demographics while moving forward not backward. We've had countless map remakes, CEA, Reach Anniversary, 4's turbo/title update and the return of the BR dominance...how much more remakes can one franchise withstand? Time for new games please, no more remakes apart from maps and some modes that return to classic arena from the development get-go.
I still find it ridiculous how the community wants a remake but the best of Halo times are right in front of us...regional dedicated servers. Seriously think about it, reduced host dominance, no more black screen, less cheating, no host migration, no lost statistics, ranks that are more accurate and no silly split games or DNFs etc. Honestly I'm still gobsmacked how little Halo fans are excited by dedis, especially by comparison to a H2 remake. Dedis would change the entire landscape of a H2 remake, why go there 343i? The answer is don't.
block tower
Member
yo im dying! that gif is too good lol
The Xtortionist
Member
H3 didn't feel balanced to me at all. All non-power weapons sucked and were no fun to play with imo. BR was garbage. But that's the tip of the iceberg with my list of problems with it. Frustrating aim acceleration, garbage arena maps (yes, even Pit. fluid H2 circles > H3 flowless boxes), and wonky movement killed it for me.
Bring on Halo 2 in all its glory.
I loved the fuck up though
Let's list the many ways Halo 2 wasn't the game Bungie intended to put out.
Grenade Jumping
A key component of every single Halo, Halo 2 had intended grenade jumps in multiplayer mpas. The problem? There was a bug that turned off physics in a game for everyone that wasn't the host. Meaning, in Halo 2, it was impossible to grenade jump in multiplayer LAN or LIVE, meaning intended routes were only possible for the host. People thought this was just a limitation of the original Xbox's processing power. Nope. Actually just a bug.
Warthog and Ghost Balance
The physics bug extended to the vehicles. Instead of being able to be flipped over with a skillful grenade like in Halo 1, 3, Reach, and 4, Halo 2 Warthogs and Ghosts will just flinch if being driven by someone that's not the host. This ruined the intended balance of these vehicles. The only way to reliably deal with them is the rocket launcher or a sticky.
When you play Halo 2 splitscreen, you'll suddenly notice how much more sense vehicles make with the sandbox.
Havok Bug - Superbouncing
A bug in the version of Havok Halo 2 used allowed players to get on top of maps and structures they were never intended to reach. Seeing as how the maps were only balanced around the playable space, this allowed people to totally fuck over the intended map movement and weapon loops. People could take the bomb around the top of Burial Mounds via it's skybox, they could get on top of Zanzibar's defense base with the windowshades destroyed, they could get on top of the Windmill and be able to snipe the beach and into the base un-impeded. The only two maps you couldn't superbounce on were Tombstone and Desolation, and that's because they came out well after superbouncing was a known thing. And their fix for it was to strap giant fall zones over the tops of the maps.
Havok Bug - Super Ejection
If you had a teammate cram themselves into certain parts of a map, you could ram a Warthog into them and Havok would eject them at 100mph across the map. You could launch a bomb carrier from the beach of Zanzibar right into the base, or launch someone across Coagulation. Amongst other maps with similar spots. Ruins intended map routes and weapon loops, AGAIN.
Fall Damage
Halo 2 was intended to have fall damage. They had to remove it later in development to get the Sword to work without killing the user. Look at maps like Collosus and tell me they weren't balanced around fall damage being present.
BXR, Doubleshot, and other button combos
I'm just going to link my post on this
Vehicle glitches
Containment was intended to heavily feature Banshee fighting and Banshee battles. The middle structures of the map are entirely intended to balance the banshee, since they limit it's firing lines and give it something to dive behind to save itself from rockets. Unfortunately, a bug in how Halo 2's walls work means the Banshee was able to fly right into the map's skybox. Bungie had to just delete the banshee from the map in matchmaking, leaving half the base's intended action space useless.
The defense team on Terminal was supposed to have a Spectre outside the base to defend with. Unfortunately, a bug in the game made it so the Spectre would explode when the game started. The vehicle slot had to be turned off.
Map Escapes
The defense team on Headlong was supposed to have a banshee. It had to be removed in matchmaking because it allowed a team to lift the flag or bomb carrier out of the map.
It was possible to easily throw the bomb under Colossus, Coagulation, Ivory Tower, and many other maps. And there was no way to prevent it or any special vehicle or weapon configurations to do it, all you had to do was just throw it at the right time at a wall, and down it'd go. This pretty much let you instantly win neutral bomb games, as the other team could not get the bomb back.
Certain Affinity made Tombstone have default BRs, which meant that when Bungie had to update matchmaking, they had to force every gametype to have SMG starts for gametypes they didn't want BRs in, which meant Covy maps lost their PR start, breaking the theme because an outside developer decided to be cute instead of letting the gametype choose the starting weapon.
Bugs that were later fixed
Dummy glitched elites that allowed you to create invisible, invincible players that could pick up objectives.
Being able to ignore closed teleporters.
Being able to grab flags through 3 foot thick walls.
Being able to launch a flag across a map in 5 seconds by simply throwing it onto the right part of the map.
More time was spent playing Halo 2's glitches than the actual sandbox of Halo 2.
paranoidfortean
Member
Can't wait for them to fuck this up live they did the Halo remake.
This is really what I have been hoping, and get a funny feeling it's what's actually going on.
Syphon Filter
Member
How if the complaint for that was the multiplayer and this is saying if it were to happen that the multiplayer will be there from the original.
Computer
Member
I remember Halo 2's faults and how much I loved the game no matter how much I hated it. I would play games where when I would spawn a rain of BR fire would hit me from all angles and would drop instantly for the length of the game. Even with this much frustration I played game after game because nothing else plays like Halo. No other game will ever give me the feeling of getting a triple or over kill. If they can fix a few of the bugs in Halo 2 it would be a sight to behold.
Are you talking shit about QuakeWorld bunny hops? Or Street Fighter 2 combos?
Sometimes bugs are the primary reason a game is as good as it is.
EDIT: To clarify, I know nothing about Halo 2's multiplayer (started on Halo 3). I just don't think you can use something being a bug as an argument to discount it requiring any skill.
well sure, take an approach like dota 2 or CS:GO, which are both iterated remakes of the originals.
i talk a lot of haughty message board guff about thumbstick shooters, but it's pretty clear that bungie had a pretty cherished formula for the sub-genre which boiled many elements of some of the best arena shooters into a couch friendly package. it's sad to see that relative purity lost in a sea of extraneous bullet point bullshit.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
+1 for knowing the reference
-1 for not knowing I changed it to emphasize my love for that comment
You're looking at a 0, my friend.
EDIT:
What say you about double melees in CE and backpack reloading?
...is this a serious post? Suggesting _dedicated servers_ are what longtime Halo fans want, and would be the redemption of the franchise?
Halo 2 may have had bugs, glitches, and other problems- but it also had something that the franchise began to lose in Halo 3 and was completely absent by Halo 4- an identity. Out of the near fifty people I used to play Halo 2 with online regularly, not a single _one_ of them gives a shit about dedicated servers- or Halo 5 period.
H2A has some of them talking about getting an Xbone for- as long as the original MP is largely intact. And I'm completely on board with them.
Although I have mentioned how hype I am for this if it's real, I actually have not played it's multiplayer. I played the hell out of Halo 3 and Halo Reach's, and played some of Halo 1's during the best class I ever took in high school. But I've never played 2. How does 2 compare? (I liked 3 the best, but also think Reach is awesome. Didn't like Halo 4 much at all though.)
I remember having a lot of fun playing this with you and TBK. This seems like a leap!
it's default by the way
Twin Tails
Member
Heck yes give it to me
HiredN00bs
Banned
Different glitches, different game, not as game-breaking.
Halo 2 Vista has dedicated servers.We could... you know... have dedicated servers for Halo 2!
Altered Juice
Member
just fix the broken multiplayer and we're good,
Holy crap, there were more glitches than I thought. Oh and you missed the invisible walls at the bottom of one of the bases in Tombstone. They had to push a whole new download of the map pack because of it.
We really don't need twich gameplay in an arena shooter.
It really doesn't sound like it. If the quote was "I thought the multiplayer in Halo 1 Anniversary was good, but it never had multiplayer in the truest sense", then I'd say you're right, but he specifically says "Halo 1 never had..." Plus the part at the end of the quote:
Is in reference to why Halo 1 Anniversary's multiplayer was "something different" (because Halo 1's multiplayer wasn't online enabled). I know he probably just means Halo 1 didn't have "true" multiplayer because it wasn't online, but it still feels like salt in the wound after what Halo Anniversary was. Like it didn't deserve the effort it would take to rebuild it with online features.
BXR is the low hanging fruit and i'm more sympathetic to the argument for it's removal.
RRX and RRXYYRRX both took ABSURD amounts of precision and had massive risk/reward implications (fail and you lose the fight). When it was first discovered people balked at the idea of them ever being used in competitive play. They were simply too difficult.
2 years later we have kids like this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbXI8MtCruc
Who could join any FFA they want and straight wreck anyone they wanted. Massive, massive, massive skill gap. It's impossible to argue otherwise as far as I'm concerned.
edit: Eli the Ninja (Halo 2/3 pro) using button glitches effectively - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikAdHb6meaI
MastaKilla
Member
I wish Sony did this with Socom 2.
BXR added to the skill gap.
also a brilliant Halo 2 video by Cursed Lemon showing off a lot of game "flaws" that made Halo 2 very memorable.
also a brilliant Halo 2 video by Cursed Lemon showing off a lot of game "flaws" that made Halo 2 very memorable.
Welp Phil just announce it and I will get a Xbox One. I know its coming but I'm gonna wait for the Halo 2 edition Xbox One
I really hope they do release a Halo 2 console.
You might not need it but that's what Halo 2 was.
Poker Face
Member
Halo 4 also had lots of other stuff
I do too. I never got to play it. I played the neck out of Socom 3 but all I ever heard was how much better Socom 2 was.
The Xtortionist
Member
Nice vid. Was kind of hoping it was the one where he tears into Bungie and ends the video with "Play Shadowrun", though. Or was that u4iX? Can't find the vid.
*fistbump*
Surprised I didn't see you in this thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=790127&page=7
Could've used some support at the tail-end, breh.
But it's a pointless discussion anyways, which is why I just rambled most of my posts.
Pretty much. While everyone played Halo 1 MP, relatively few played it with the competitive lenses that they played Halo 2 with. 2004-2007, H2 was THE console FPS to dive into.
I'm curious: are you referring to degeneration from CE, forward - or some other game in the series, forward? I feel like I'm missing context for your posts. What is your stance regarding CE?
LinkToTheFuture
Member
This is what I was more leaning toward. keep the MP the same but do not let the frustrations bleed in. I am all for a H2 mp that doesnt have all the nonsense the original had.
I wasnt saying power weapons shouldnt be a thing, I like the holding areas setups and such, i just mean the game shouldnt be BR & power weapons only. I should be able to use different utility weapons and have a chance to beat others, not br only.
Completely agree.
Sup default. How's Silent Zero doing? You two were always together
I miss it when we could have you, Silent, Val, Kor, and Ratsult on our team at the same time for BTB as our Slayer squad
I still think that skill should be based on the actual game, not metagames.
It's not playing by the rules, no matter how difficult it is. A glitch is breaking the rules because the rules never said the existed. In some cases the rules say they don't. Exploiting a glitch is cheating.
Your cheating being hard doesn't make it more legitimate.