The Antitype said:
Nah. Weapon balance was better in Halo 3.
Matches in Halo 2 were dominated by spray-and-pray dual-wielding, noob combo and BR combo bullshit, swipe-sniping made the sniper-rifle stupidly over-powered, and the rocket lock-on did more to discourage vehicle play than the laser ever did.
Maps in Halo 2 were better though.
You're going to complain about spray and pray while touting Halo 3 as the bastion of good gameplay? That whole fucking game was dominated by spray and fucking pray assault rifles followed by a melee. Add to that the dumbass idea someone at Bungie had to institute double melees where both players would die. Only on larger maps or in MLG or "hardcore" gametypes did you see anything beyond idiots running right at each other with ARs.
Halo 2 had balance where dual wielding worked in close situations, but a skilled BR user could still take them out. Can't do that in Halo 3 because, once again, idiot design choices removed hitscan, making the BR a random, at best, weapon.
The lock-on rocket did nothing to discourage vehicles in the way way the laser did. The laser is a damn vehicle sniper. I remember them touting how skilled one would to be to use it. Big laugh there. Due to shit netcode, you couldn't tell if you were getting painted and you'd blow up out of nowhere. Sandtrap was supposed to be a vehicle paradise, but was completely neutered by the laser. At least with the lock on rocket, it was extremely easy to avoid.
Meh.
Equipment didn't give anybody a second life, they just introduced new strategies for players and (more frequently) teams to use in a battle. It varied things up, forced players to think on their feet, and generally made combat more interesting.
Well-placed grenades and melees, or intelligent use of surroundings have given players second life since Halo CE. In Reach, everybody has access to an AA, so everybody can use that 'second life' if they use their chosen AA effectively. Use it in effectively, it doesn't help you.
People that complain about armor lock, evade, or whatever the hated AA of the day is are funny.
Every Halo comes down to who can use shoot/grenade/melee better. Navigating all the tactical wrinkles above that core just adds more variety, options, and fun to the experience. Otherwise, we'd be playing the same fucking game we played in 2001, just on new maps.
Bubble shield? Regen? How the hell did these NOT give second lives? I'm convinced you didn't play Halo 3. Because if you did, you would experience shooting a guy with a random BR, about to kill him and then he drops a bubble shield or shield regen and killed you because of terrible equipment. It was a crutch for bad players to have an upper hand, plain and simple.
Armor abilities in Reach are just as bad. Armor lock is terrible because you can come close to finishing a guy and he enters invincible mode and can live while his teammates finish you off. It's completely broken in tight maps and in small skirmish gametypes. I don't have a problem with it in BTB like a lot of people do, but I can see why they hate it. The same goes for jetpacking, which breaks most maps. Invis completely breaks the sniper, allowing people to completely ruin games. Evade is even more broken allowing people to hop around large swaths of the map like damn frogs. The only armor abilities that aren't easily exploitable are sprint and hologram. Sprint is absolutely needed because of the molasses-paced speed of Reach. That's why Classic is the best playlist in Reach. No bullshit armor abilities, faster paced and a tighter feel. Nerf the AR and it'd be the perfect playlist. It's no coincidence the two worst games, multiplayer-wise, in the series tried to add all this extra bullshit into the formula.
claviertekky said:
Most people including myself dismiss Halo 2's campaign because we expected a large scale attack and Master Chief had to save Earth.
Instead, we were treated 1-2 levels of Earth that were nothing close to the (perhaps unrealistic) expectations , and then the rest of the game was on Halo because of slipspace.
I did too. I wanted to save the Earth, etc. But it was still a damn fine story, even if it wasn't what I expected. The separate campaign with the Arbiter really expanded upon the lore and gave us a character that wasn't Gordon Freeman with a cool voice, and that was what was needed.
claviertekky said:
Let's face it. It was rushed as the ideas from the E3 2003 demo were trashed, and Microsoft wanted the game out in 2004. Bungie knew at the time that this game would last for people who love multiplayer, so I feel it's obvious most of their efforts went there.
I don't think it's too much to ask that Bungie deliver a game three years after the original. Let's face it, they're not the most efficient studio when it comes to delivering quality games within a timely period. They're like the opposite of Valve. They work best under pressure. Their two best games were Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, and both were developed in about 9 months each.
