This is actually a megareview made by Generic, who nobody knows anyway! He wanted me to post this for discussion, and it doesn't really fit into the halo thread open right now.
In anticipation for Halo 3: ODST, the urge to play Halo 3 struck me a while ago. When it did, I thought "Hey, why not play the entire trilogy while I'm at it." So, here I am, having recently played Halo: Combat Evolved (twice), Halo 2 (twice), and Halo 3 (many times), and I wanted to share my thoughts on this famous series. Given this series has been picked apart to hell by now, I doubt any revelations will be made here, but I still wanted to put my thoughts down. And, in case you're wondering why I played each multiple times, it's because I've learned that Halo is the type of game you need to play more than once to fully appreciate. Few things you should know: I was not able to get online for neither Halo 1 nor 2, so I never cooped or played online against people in it. Having talked to some people, co-op can make even the worst parts of campaign a drag and online was what made Halo 2. But since I never could access areas, I can only tell my opinion from a solo campaign point of view.
Halo: Combat Evolved
Despite the hype surrounding this game, I have never actually played it until recently because for a very long time, I hated the FPS genre, but I eventually got into it. At the very least, I expected a very different sort of game from it than Halo 3. And, for the most part, that was exactly what I got.
First, let me note that Halo: Combat Evolved may have one of the best openings of any game ever. Presentation wise, anyway. You just got out of your cryo-sleep thing, and as soon as a quick tutorial with aiming is done, you see an elite come in and kill one of the instructors. Then, you spend the rest of the level running with chaos all around you as the aliens are invading the ship, and you have no weapon. Though you're never in any real danger of dying, with everything going on, and the enemies all around you, it certainly feels like it. It set the atmosphere, depicted the enemies perfectly, and was actually pretty exciting.
Once I got into the game, there are many things to praise about it. While I don't think the graphics themselves held up especially well, the design of the levels is just HUGE. I typically don't see environments this big in games that aren't open world, or often they are cluttered with things that can narrow the number of ways you can approach a situation. No such thing here. You can snipe them from afar or you can take a shotgun and sneak around for a nice surprise, you can lob grenades from the safety of cover, or use the otherwise useless marines as bait and flank. Ride the ghost, a wart hog (or try to at least, if you're playing with an AI), the banshee, or the scorpion (and, man, is the Scorpion fun). When the Flood is discovered, grab the attention of one enemy faction and lead them straight into another, sneak away, and wait until one kills and trample the weakened enemy. If the objective is not to defeat an enemy but something else (like reach a certain waypoint or location), you can simply by pass the enemy by clever maneuvering.
Sometimes, you can catch the enemy off guard and stealthily knock them out using melee. Often though, you will be using combinations of these to win a battle. And, of course, because of the huge environments, even if you use the same tactic when replaying a level, if you are in a different position, the fight will play out differently. The simple act of approaching from the left side rather than the right completely changes the scenario because 1. The enemy is not facing you as they were and may not see you coming 2. You will fight the enemies in a different order than you did before 3. You may pick up different weapons/power up/vehicles 4. You'll have different cover (or no cover at all) and 5. Any varying factor I may have forgotten.
The AI is very advanced. Each enemy appropriately reacts to my actions, the level design and battlefield status. Enemies will retreat and find cover when they feel that they are outgunned, they acknowledge that there are enemies other than you they must fight (making the bait and other enemy distractions possible strategies possible), they use formations to an extent (Jackals in back, grunts up front, Elites wherever they feel is the best vantage point). They react appropriately to whatever environment they are in and whatever your doing. If you decide to hide out in a fortress, they will come after you. They may or may not decide if you are larger threat depending on the battlefield status. They know to dodge a grenade if one if thrown their way. The best combinations are when a number of elites come at you at once, as they are all capable warriors, you have to watch out for all of them.
With such a wide arsenal of weaponry, huge open levels with a variety of entry points, and enemy AI that can actually react to what you are doing to such an extent, Halo is a unique situation every time. No two playthroughs are quite alike. This kind of open-endedness is nothing short of beautiful, and it serves to create memorable epic moments on a regular basis.
The game isn't perfect, however. The main issues: The graphics have not aged well, in my opinion(and I'm running the game on the highest possible settings), copy and paste level design, and the Flood. The hitboxs are strange and don't always work and the vehicles and physics engine are very underdeveloped. The animations are very stiff and the textures are horrid (my eyes bleed whenever I see MC's visor). However, I should point out that the game does have at least some aesthetically pleasing moments, like looking up the planet size inner band of the Halo ring or the way Guilty Spark shines in the distance is surprisingly impressive. Beyond that though, little looks very good. The recycled environments are, once again, the absence of a decent budget for good production values.
Most of the missions require backtracking in some fashion and I don't mind that too much, but the number of times the interior environments are repeated is nothing short of ridiculous. An entire third of the game consists of the same level, over and over again. What saves it from being unbearable is that it's still wide, allowing a choice in how to approach situations (even if the choice is narrowed due to the Flood's resistance to Covenant weaponry) and it's not that easy to get lost because Guilty spark is relatively easy to find. But it was still an utter drag to play through. If the gameplay hadn't been so open ended, this would have been one of the most tedious games in existence.
I think is the Flood is the worst flaw in the Halo series, which is ironic because the Flood is the core reason for everything happening in Halo. It's because of the Flood that Halo exists, that the Forerunners are gone, and that the Covenant exists and wants to wipe out humanity. Clearly, they are integral to the Halo Universe. Gameplay-wise, the Flood adds variety. You cannot fight the Flood the same way you fight the Covenant. My problem with them is that they are so completely uninteresting to fight against or look at. Compared to the Covenant enemies, who actually think and use tactics, all the Flood ever do is swarm you. On top of that, Covenant weapons are pretty useless on them, so you are stuck to the pistol, the assault rifle, the rocket launcher and the shotgun. And with a 2 weapon limit and limited ammo, taking the rocket launcher would be stupid. So you have 3 practical choices of weapons against an ever repeating swarming cycle of dealing with 3 types of enemies (the spore form, the combat form, and the carrier form), all of which do nothing but swarm you. They aren't even visually interesting like the Covenant enemies either.
Whenever I see them, all I see is a pale yellowing blob. Because they all use the same swarming tactic, even though I read on Halopedia that Elite Combat and Human Combat forms look and play differently, I seriously never noticed it, and I still I couldn't tell you from memory what the gameplay differences are despite playing all 3 games at least 2 times each. I understand Bungie's reasons for creating them the way they are, but I wish Bungie had thought up of a different way of playing against them.
I should probably also point out that the nearly all weapons are horribly imbalanced. The pistol is the most blatant of them, with how it can be used to snipe and can take down enemies with a few shots. The plasma pistol is notorious as well, since a full charge homes in on an enemy and can either fully take their shield out or kill them with one hit. The shot gun has an amazingly large range of fire, and the sniper can typically take out an enemy in 1 or 2 shots with a very rapid fire rate, and tank kills everything (though, I guess it's meant to make the player to feel unbelievably powerful, the player still should be in some danger). I suppose this isn't as noticeable in campaign gameplay because most enemies have higher hit points, and greater numbers than you so the fights last longer, but it's still somewhat grating and I can only imagine how horribly unbalanced the game was online.
Still, this was a solid ride from start to end. I don't think there was a single mission that I can say I disliked. Maybe the middle 3rd of the game dragged a bit for me for reasons already explained, but it was bearable. And the levels can be downright amazing when they want to be, like Halo (the level), Truth and Reconciliation, and the Silent Cartographer (I especially love this one). But what the game succeeds in most is just making you feel like a badass. At certain points in nearly all levels, you get a new objective and this awesome music starts up. You know an epic battle is heading your way and you are ready for it. You check your equipment and head out, ready to take on whatever alien is stupid enough to stand in your way. It's a just a feeling of heroism you rarely feel in other games.
I feel I should note that this game gets much harder in the last few levels. It's obvious that the game would get more difficult as you progressed through it, but it's more than that. The Grunts and Elites are of the highest level and you get thrown much more difficult situations than you'd expect (Like in one part taking on 2 wraiths, 10 grunts with 2 mounted turrets, 10 Flood enemies with 2 rocket launchers). Beyond giving a sense of real progress, this gives out the level of challenge I felt in Halo 3's Heroic difficulty. Other than that you got tougher enemies to deal with, I never really felt this much of a jump in difficulty in Halo 2 or 3, which is a disappointment.
I felt that the story was one of the weakest parts of the game. This is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, it's just that it felt more like everything happening in the story just a justification for whatever the objective in your mission is. In that sense, I honestly felt that this was the perfect type of story for this particular game, because Halo really is all about the gameplay. Still, when I gave it more attention, I began to notice more subtle themes in the story that I didn't notice at first. Mainly, it portrays just how desperate humanity is. It starts off running away from the Covenant, you have to rescue troops constantly, and Cortana often comments on clever tactics the Covenant uses. There is also the feel that most victories have a pyrrhic or bittersweet quality to them. Just using the ending as an example, you have to kill everyone on the ring for the greater good. It doesn't exactly evoke much emotion from me, but it does say exactly how much must be sacrificed for victory. However, keep in mind that I have been spoiled to everything in Halo's storyline for quite some time now, so the betrayal of Guilty Spark, the Rings purpose, etc, it may have affected me differently had I not known about it all.
Overall, Halo: Combat Evolved is great. It succeeds in many areas, gameplay most of all. This is the sort of game that can be played 10 times and be a unique experience each time. It's the kind of game that you remember for years on end. It's earned its place in history.
Halo 2
I still remember the immense hate Halo 2 suffered when it first came out. I rented it due to hype. I was immensely bored with it, but I believe that had more to do with my disinterest in FPS games in general at the time. Having a chance to step back into it with more experience under my belt, my feelings have changed. I will say that the general distaste that so many gamers felt with it is valid in many ways. However, Halo 2 made plenty of advances in the series, and this should not be ignored.
I am happy to say the repetitive environments are mostly gone. Most levels are unique and they all have a clear sense of progress. Rooms are now distinguishable from one another, and the level of detail has been upped by 10. Aside from the graphical upgrade, it seems they got an artistic one too. Just compare the training rooms (where the training guy tests your ability to move the analog stick and recover your shield) of both Halo's and you will notice that not only does everything look better, but it also feels more authentic. There are things scattered around the desk, a sign of a lazy (or at least messy) armory keeper. The walls now hold weapons and there are no more wide open spaces of emptiness. For lack of a better word, it feels alive.
You know what's missing, though? The huge, wide open levels! Where are they? Very few levels exist throughout the game where you are just on a huge field, and when they do, they are almost always designed for vehicle use. I can definitely see where they were going with this, after all, this gives a much more cinematic feel to gameplay, it allows for easier tactical maneuverability, and in some cases even allows for different kinds of tactics than an huge environment would allow. And it's not like the levels themselves are small. They are rather large, in fact, but often somewhat more crowded with various objects (which, again, gives each room a sense of purpose and allows different tactics to take place). However, the fact that this makes the game generally more linear is undisputable, and I can sympathize with the gamers disappointment when they found no huge wide open areas from the first Halo.
However, they managed to keep their open world feeling by giving you a huge new arsenal. They added a bunch of new weapons and vehicles, plus a lot of equipment we saw in Halo 1 but never got to play (Energy sword, Fuel Rod Cannon and Wraith) were made available. Beyond that, they reworked nearly all weapons to give a much more even experience. I understand that many people were pissed off about the pistol no longer being a mini-sniper, but I don't really understand why because they got the battle rifle now, which virtually functions the same way, except now it's more balanced. The vehicles all got major upgrades in arsenal, making them much more effective, plus the physics engine makes them drive far more realistically.
The enemies have undergone a good deal of changes as well. New Covenant enemies have been added and existing ones have been given new abilities. Jackals now act as snipers as well as shields, Drones and Brutes are introduced. The Hunter probably have the biggest change, making them much more deadly with the backhand attack, eliminating the easy "get behind him" tactic. Unfortunately, Elites are no longer as reactive to grenades as they once were. They used to jump at the very sight of them, and for good reason. Now, it's much easier to stick them or get them caught in the explosion.
As far as the general campaign goes,...I have many things to say on it, really. First, let me say that I honestly and seriously feel that the entire first section starring Master Chief are some of the very best levels in the entire Halo series. As soon as you finish the bomb cutscene and get back on Earth. Of all the levels in Halo 2, this seems to be the most open-ended and varied. You defend a station from an onslaught of enemies, take a drive along the beach, have a thrilling race using armed vehicles through tunnels (though this part would have been so much better with multiple pathways), then after an absolutely EPIC bridge sequence in a tank, you get a warthog with a gauss cannon and take out a bunch of Wraiths on the streets of a major city, before it's time to take down a Scarab then seeing one of the most cinematic explosions of all time. It's just an hour of unfiltered awesomeness on steroids. It's what the entire game should have been made of.
Now, I'm not one of the people who hated playing as the Arbiter (on a gameplay level, anyway), but as you keep going through the campaign, the deterioration in quality becomes more and more apparent. The first Arbiter section and second Master Chief sections weren't too bad (in fact, I enjoyed them quite much), but by the time you get to the "Retrieve the Sacred Icon" missions, the decrease in quality was quite apparent. I remember somewhat repetitive game design, the Flood, very crowded interior levels, plenty of deaths from having nowhere to run to for cover, annoying Enforcers who took forever to die. Then you get Master Chief in High Charity going through small, repetitive corridors with very little freedom and maneuverability. (Also, small room, 2 hunters. Rage.). THEN you have to backtrack. Except now it's full of Flood. I felt the last levels with the Arbiter were a step up, but too little too late.
Admittedly, nearly all the levels had moments here or there that were really fun, like taking a tank against the Flood in the Sacred Icon mission, or the part where Breaking Benjamin kicks in, and having the Hunters as allies was awesome. But after having a first level that was epic win after epic win, it set a standard that the rest of the game couldn't match. And as you went through the game, those incredible moments became further and further apart until it culminated, near the end with Master Chief, where I didn't even feel the game was fun anymore. The last Arbiter level saved it from ending on a bitter note (again, gameplay-wise only), but it shouldn't have sunk that low in the first place.
I feel I have to mention I know lots of people hated the boss fights, but honesty, I don't see what the big deal was. Each one of them could be beaten within 20 seconds or less on normal difficulty. Maybe they were grating on other difficulties or something, but they were all easy in my experience.
The story of Halo 2 is one of the worst (best?) examples of brilliant concepts executed in horribly wrong ways I've ever seen. The story of an antagonist working for a corrupt theocracy and later defecting after finding out the truth is a great concept because it'd involve ALOT of character in the Arbiter development to make this a believable turn, but it'd be really moving if done correctly. However, because it's an 8-10 hour game, with half of it being Chief's, this is overly simplified. Instead of having the Covenant be corrupt, they are cartoonish and superficially evil. Which leads to some really stupid decisions that would have horrible consequences if they were looked at realistically. Such as-
While Regret may have screwed up by going to Earth, killing him would do nothing but demoralize the Covenant, and once the public found out that Truth pulled the Elites from the rescue, there'd be an outrage and Truth would be called a traitor for doing this. And I cannot even think of a reason why Truth betray Mercy that way. And as far as "The Great Schism" as cannon likes to call it, what was the point of replacing Brutes with Elites? Especially when the Arbiter has proven to be one of the most capable fighters in the Covenant? Why couldn't they have both positioned as the Honor Guards? Halopedia suggest Truth did it because the Brutes asked less questions, but other than the most stupid shit that the prophets pull (like pulling out the rescue, and then blaming the Elites for what happened), they don't seem to complain much. The Arbiter himself considers himself as good as dead because he couldn't protect Halo, even if there was obviously nothing he could do. Keep in mind, that for pacing purposes, I'm trying to keep my complaints about it short, as most of you know why the story sucks, but I could literally go on for hours. And, unlike Halo 1, I keep getting the feeling that we are suppose to think that this story is great and deep and amazing, and we are actually suppose to take this tripe seriously.
The main problems come from the Arbiter. Master Chief's story is just "Those guys are attacking, and you need to stop them. Get to it." And that's all that was ever needed. I suppose Bungie was going for some complexity, but if they wanted to do that, bite the bullet, throw out master Chief, give the Arbiter a whole game and actually spend time in a believable manner.
Oh, and Gravemind. Again, a good idea, but...well, I believe it would have worked better if we had never seen him. Mostly, because it would have presented him as more godlike, and intimidating. As it stands....he's just a big plant thing. Not nearly as effective. He gets the coolest lines though. "There is much talk, and I have listened, through rock and metal and time. Now I shall talk, and you shall listen.."
For all my complaining, there are redeemable parts, especially in presentation. The opening, for example, was very impressive and it set up both characters rather nicely (though it was marred by the Arbiter's pathetic roar, which is very perplexing because he was VA'd by Keith David. Goliath from Gargoyles, people. How they botched that winning formula is beyond me.) and the first part of the level just after the Elites are betrayed set up a really nice scene. The music playing, the way you heard Brutes slaughter your friends, etc. Despite not liking the Arbiter, that was a really effective scene for me.
Between the nonsensical story that they somehow expected us to take seriously, the lame secondary character, the steadily deteriorating quality of the campaign, and, of course, the utter BULLSHIT of an ending (yeah, even though Halo 3 was the first game I played and I knew the story, I still felt cheated), and how the level design is so radically different from Halo 1, I can definitely see how fans got alienated by the campaign. However, I still feel that Halo 2 deserves praise for what it does do right. It really advanced lots of things, especially in the weapon balancing department. Overall, I can't say that it's more than an decent experience, which is hardly up to the incredible standards Halo 1 set. However, when it does do things right (like the entire first Master Chief section) it does things right.
In anticipation for Halo 3: ODST, the urge to play Halo 3 struck me a while ago. When it did, I thought "Hey, why not play the entire trilogy while I'm at it." So, here I am, having recently played Halo: Combat Evolved (twice), Halo 2 (twice), and Halo 3 (many times), and I wanted to share my thoughts on this famous series. Given this series has been picked apart to hell by now, I doubt any revelations will be made here, but I still wanted to put my thoughts down. And, in case you're wondering why I played each multiple times, it's because I've learned that Halo is the type of game you need to play more than once to fully appreciate. Few things you should know: I was not able to get online for neither Halo 1 nor 2, so I never cooped or played online against people in it. Having talked to some people, co-op can make even the worst parts of campaign a drag and online was what made Halo 2. But since I never could access areas, I can only tell my opinion from a solo campaign point of view.
Halo: Combat Evolved
Despite the hype surrounding this game, I have never actually played it until recently because for a very long time, I hated the FPS genre, but I eventually got into it. At the very least, I expected a very different sort of game from it than Halo 3. And, for the most part, that was exactly what I got.
First, let me note that Halo: Combat Evolved may have one of the best openings of any game ever. Presentation wise, anyway. You just got out of your cryo-sleep thing, and as soon as a quick tutorial with aiming is done, you see an elite come in and kill one of the instructors. Then, you spend the rest of the level running with chaos all around you as the aliens are invading the ship, and you have no weapon. Though you're never in any real danger of dying, with everything going on, and the enemies all around you, it certainly feels like it. It set the atmosphere, depicted the enemies perfectly, and was actually pretty exciting.
Once I got into the game, there are many things to praise about it. While I don't think the graphics themselves held up especially well, the design of the levels is just HUGE. I typically don't see environments this big in games that aren't open world, or often they are cluttered with things that can narrow the number of ways you can approach a situation. No such thing here. You can snipe them from afar or you can take a shotgun and sneak around for a nice surprise, you can lob grenades from the safety of cover, or use the otherwise useless marines as bait and flank. Ride the ghost, a wart hog (or try to at least, if you're playing with an AI), the banshee, or the scorpion (and, man, is the Scorpion fun). When the Flood is discovered, grab the attention of one enemy faction and lead them straight into another, sneak away, and wait until one kills and trample the weakened enemy. If the objective is not to defeat an enemy but something else (like reach a certain waypoint or location), you can simply by pass the enemy by clever maneuvering.
Sometimes, you can catch the enemy off guard and stealthily knock them out using melee. Often though, you will be using combinations of these to win a battle. And, of course, because of the huge environments, even if you use the same tactic when replaying a level, if you are in a different position, the fight will play out differently. The simple act of approaching from the left side rather than the right completely changes the scenario because 1. The enemy is not facing you as they were and may not see you coming 2. You will fight the enemies in a different order than you did before 3. You may pick up different weapons/power up/vehicles 4. You'll have different cover (or no cover at all) and 5. Any varying factor I may have forgotten.
The AI is very advanced. Each enemy appropriately reacts to my actions, the level design and battlefield status. Enemies will retreat and find cover when they feel that they are outgunned, they acknowledge that there are enemies other than you they must fight (making the bait and other enemy distractions possible strategies possible), they use formations to an extent (Jackals in back, grunts up front, Elites wherever they feel is the best vantage point). They react appropriately to whatever environment they are in and whatever your doing. If you decide to hide out in a fortress, they will come after you. They may or may not decide if you are larger threat depending on the battlefield status. They know to dodge a grenade if one if thrown their way. The best combinations are when a number of elites come at you at once, as they are all capable warriors, you have to watch out for all of them.
With such a wide arsenal of weaponry, huge open levels with a variety of entry points, and enemy AI that can actually react to what you are doing to such an extent, Halo is a unique situation every time. No two playthroughs are quite alike. This kind of open-endedness is nothing short of beautiful, and it serves to create memorable epic moments on a regular basis.
The game isn't perfect, however. The main issues: The graphics have not aged well, in my opinion(and I'm running the game on the highest possible settings), copy and paste level design, and the Flood. The hitboxs are strange and don't always work and the vehicles and physics engine are very underdeveloped. The animations are very stiff and the textures are horrid (my eyes bleed whenever I see MC's visor). However, I should point out that the game does have at least some aesthetically pleasing moments, like looking up the planet size inner band of the Halo ring or the way Guilty Spark shines in the distance is surprisingly impressive. Beyond that though, little looks very good. The recycled environments are, once again, the absence of a decent budget for good production values.
Most of the missions require backtracking in some fashion and I don't mind that too much, but the number of times the interior environments are repeated is nothing short of ridiculous. An entire third of the game consists of the same level, over and over again. What saves it from being unbearable is that it's still wide, allowing a choice in how to approach situations (even if the choice is narrowed due to the Flood's resistance to Covenant weaponry) and it's not that easy to get lost because Guilty spark is relatively easy to find. But it was still an utter drag to play through. If the gameplay hadn't been so open ended, this would have been one of the most tedious games in existence.
I think is the Flood is the worst flaw in the Halo series, which is ironic because the Flood is the core reason for everything happening in Halo. It's because of the Flood that Halo exists, that the Forerunners are gone, and that the Covenant exists and wants to wipe out humanity. Clearly, they are integral to the Halo Universe. Gameplay-wise, the Flood adds variety. You cannot fight the Flood the same way you fight the Covenant. My problem with them is that they are so completely uninteresting to fight against or look at. Compared to the Covenant enemies, who actually think and use tactics, all the Flood ever do is swarm you. On top of that, Covenant weapons are pretty useless on them, so you are stuck to the pistol, the assault rifle, the rocket launcher and the shotgun. And with a 2 weapon limit and limited ammo, taking the rocket launcher would be stupid. So you have 3 practical choices of weapons against an ever repeating swarming cycle of dealing with 3 types of enemies (the spore form, the combat form, and the carrier form), all of which do nothing but swarm you. They aren't even visually interesting like the Covenant enemies either.
Whenever I see them, all I see is a pale yellowing blob. Because they all use the same swarming tactic, even though I read on Halopedia that Elite Combat and Human Combat forms look and play differently, I seriously never noticed it, and I still I couldn't tell you from memory what the gameplay differences are despite playing all 3 games at least 2 times each. I understand Bungie's reasons for creating them the way they are, but I wish Bungie had thought up of a different way of playing against them.
I should probably also point out that the nearly all weapons are horribly imbalanced. The pistol is the most blatant of them, with how it can be used to snipe and can take down enemies with a few shots. The plasma pistol is notorious as well, since a full charge homes in on an enemy and can either fully take their shield out or kill them with one hit. The shot gun has an amazingly large range of fire, and the sniper can typically take out an enemy in 1 or 2 shots with a very rapid fire rate, and tank kills everything (though, I guess it's meant to make the player to feel unbelievably powerful, the player still should be in some danger). I suppose this isn't as noticeable in campaign gameplay because most enemies have higher hit points, and greater numbers than you so the fights last longer, but it's still somewhat grating and I can only imagine how horribly unbalanced the game was online.
Still, this was a solid ride from start to end. I don't think there was a single mission that I can say I disliked. Maybe the middle 3rd of the game dragged a bit for me for reasons already explained, but it was bearable. And the levels can be downright amazing when they want to be, like Halo (the level), Truth and Reconciliation, and the Silent Cartographer (I especially love this one). But what the game succeeds in most is just making you feel like a badass. At certain points in nearly all levels, you get a new objective and this awesome music starts up. You know an epic battle is heading your way and you are ready for it. You check your equipment and head out, ready to take on whatever alien is stupid enough to stand in your way. It's a just a feeling of heroism you rarely feel in other games.
I feel I should note that this game gets much harder in the last few levels. It's obvious that the game would get more difficult as you progressed through it, but it's more than that. The Grunts and Elites are of the highest level and you get thrown much more difficult situations than you'd expect (Like in one part taking on 2 wraiths, 10 grunts with 2 mounted turrets, 10 Flood enemies with 2 rocket launchers). Beyond giving a sense of real progress, this gives out the level of challenge I felt in Halo 3's Heroic difficulty. Other than that you got tougher enemies to deal with, I never really felt this much of a jump in difficulty in Halo 2 or 3, which is a disappointment.
I felt that the story was one of the weakest parts of the game. This is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, it's just that it felt more like everything happening in the story just a justification for whatever the objective in your mission is. In that sense, I honestly felt that this was the perfect type of story for this particular game, because Halo really is all about the gameplay. Still, when I gave it more attention, I began to notice more subtle themes in the story that I didn't notice at first. Mainly, it portrays just how desperate humanity is. It starts off running away from the Covenant, you have to rescue troops constantly, and Cortana often comments on clever tactics the Covenant uses. There is also the feel that most victories have a pyrrhic or bittersweet quality to them. Just using the ending as an example, you have to kill everyone on the ring for the greater good. It doesn't exactly evoke much emotion from me, but it does say exactly how much must be sacrificed for victory. However, keep in mind that I have been spoiled to everything in Halo's storyline for quite some time now, so the betrayal of Guilty Spark, the Rings purpose, etc, it may have affected me differently had I not known about it all.
Overall, Halo: Combat Evolved is great. It succeeds in many areas, gameplay most of all. This is the sort of game that can be played 10 times and be a unique experience each time. It's the kind of game that you remember for years on end. It's earned its place in history.
Halo 2
I still remember the immense hate Halo 2 suffered when it first came out. I rented it due to hype. I was immensely bored with it, but I believe that had more to do with my disinterest in FPS games in general at the time. Having a chance to step back into it with more experience under my belt, my feelings have changed. I will say that the general distaste that so many gamers felt with it is valid in many ways. However, Halo 2 made plenty of advances in the series, and this should not be ignored.
I am happy to say the repetitive environments are mostly gone. Most levels are unique and they all have a clear sense of progress. Rooms are now distinguishable from one another, and the level of detail has been upped by 10. Aside from the graphical upgrade, it seems they got an artistic one too. Just compare the training rooms (where the training guy tests your ability to move the analog stick and recover your shield) of both Halo's and you will notice that not only does everything look better, but it also feels more authentic. There are things scattered around the desk, a sign of a lazy (or at least messy) armory keeper. The walls now hold weapons and there are no more wide open spaces of emptiness. For lack of a better word, it feels alive.
You know what's missing, though? The huge, wide open levels! Where are they? Very few levels exist throughout the game where you are just on a huge field, and when they do, they are almost always designed for vehicle use. I can definitely see where they were going with this, after all, this gives a much more cinematic feel to gameplay, it allows for easier tactical maneuverability, and in some cases even allows for different kinds of tactics than an huge environment would allow. And it's not like the levels themselves are small. They are rather large, in fact, but often somewhat more crowded with various objects (which, again, gives each room a sense of purpose and allows different tactics to take place). However, the fact that this makes the game generally more linear is undisputable, and I can sympathize with the gamers disappointment when they found no huge wide open areas from the first Halo.
However, they managed to keep their open world feeling by giving you a huge new arsenal. They added a bunch of new weapons and vehicles, plus a lot of equipment we saw in Halo 1 but never got to play (Energy sword, Fuel Rod Cannon and Wraith) were made available. Beyond that, they reworked nearly all weapons to give a much more even experience. I understand that many people were pissed off about the pistol no longer being a mini-sniper, but I don't really understand why because they got the battle rifle now, which virtually functions the same way, except now it's more balanced. The vehicles all got major upgrades in arsenal, making them much more effective, plus the physics engine makes them drive far more realistically.
The enemies have undergone a good deal of changes as well. New Covenant enemies have been added and existing ones have been given new abilities. Jackals now act as snipers as well as shields, Drones and Brutes are introduced. The Hunter probably have the biggest change, making them much more deadly with the backhand attack, eliminating the easy "get behind him" tactic. Unfortunately, Elites are no longer as reactive to grenades as they once were. They used to jump at the very sight of them, and for good reason. Now, it's much easier to stick them or get them caught in the explosion.
As far as the general campaign goes,...I have many things to say on it, really. First, let me say that I honestly and seriously feel that the entire first section starring Master Chief are some of the very best levels in the entire Halo series. As soon as you finish the bomb cutscene and get back on Earth. Of all the levels in Halo 2, this seems to be the most open-ended and varied. You defend a station from an onslaught of enemies, take a drive along the beach, have a thrilling race using armed vehicles through tunnels (though this part would have been so much better with multiple pathways), then after an absolutely EPIC bridge sequence in a tank, you get a warthog with a gauss cannon and take out a bunch of Wraiths on the streets of a major city, before it's time to take down a Scarab then seeing one of the most cinematic explosions of all time. It's just an hour of unfiltered awesomeness on steroids. It's what the entire game should have been made of.
Now, I'm not one of the people who hated playing as the Arbiter (on a gameplay level, anyway), but as you keep going through the campaign, the deterioration in quality becomes more and more apparent. The first Arbiter section and second Master Chief sections weren't too bad (in fact, I enjoyed them quite much), but by the time you get to the "Retrieve the Sacred Icon" missions, the decrease in quality was quite apparent. I remember somewhat repetitive game design, the Flood, very crowded interior levels, plenty of deaths from having nowhere to run to for cover, annoying Enforcers who took forever to die. Then you get Master Chief in High Charity going through small, repetitive corridors with very little freedom and maneuverability. (Also, small room, 2 hunters. Rage.). THEN you have to backtrack. Except now it's full of Flood. I felt the last levels with the Arbiter were a step up, but too little too late.
Admittedly, nearly all the levels had moments here or there that were really fun, like taking a tank against the Flood in the Sacred Icon mission, or the part where Breaking Benjamin kicks in, and having the Hunters as allies was awesome. But after having a first level that was epic win after epic win, it set a standard that the rest of the game couldn't match. And as you went through the game, those incredible moments became further and further apart until it culminated, near the end with Master Chief, where I didn't even feel the game was fun anymore. The last Arbiter level saved it from ending on a bitter note (again, gameplay-wise only), but it shouldn't have sunk that low in the first place.
I feel I have to mention I know lots of people hated the boss fights, but honesty, I don't see what the big deal was. Each one of them could be beaten within 20 seconds or less on normal difficulty. Maybe they were grating on other difficulties or something, but they were all easy in my experience.
The story of Halo 2 is one of the worst (best?) examples of brilliant concepts executed in horribly wrong ways I've ever seen. The story of an antagonist working for a corrupt theocracy and later defecting after finding out the truth is a great concept because it'd involve ALOT of character in the Arbiter development to make this a believable turn, but it'd be really moving if done correctly. However, because it's an 8-10 hour game, with half of it being Chief's, this is overly simplified. Instead of having the Covenant be corrupt, they are cartoonish and superficially evil. Which leads to some really stupid decisions that would have horrible consequences if they were looked at realistically. Such as-
While Regret may have screwed up by going to Earth, killing him would do nothing but demoralize the Covenant, and once the public found out that Truth pulled the Elites from the rescue, there'd be an outrage and Truth would be called a traitor for doing this. And I cannot even think of a reason why Truth betray Mercy that way. And as far as "The Great Schism" as cannon likes to call it, what was the point of replacing Brutes with Elites? Especially when the Arbiter has proven to be one of the most capable fighters in the Covenant? Why couldn't they have both positioned as the Honor Guards? Halopedia suggest Truth did it because the Brutes asked less questions, but other than the most stupid shit that the prophets pull (like pulling out the rescue, and then blaming the Elites for what happened), they don't seem to complain much. The Arbiter himself considers himself as good as dead because he couldn't protect Halo, even if there was obviously nothing he could do. Keep in mind, that for pacing purposes, I'm trying to keep my complaints about it short, as most of you know why the story sucks, but I could literally go on for hours. And, unlike Halo 1, I keep getting the feeling that we are suppose to think that this story is great and deep and amazing, and we are actually suppose to take this tripe seriously.
The main problems come from the Arbiter. Master Chief's story is just "Those guys are attacking, and you need to stop them. Get to it." And that's all that was ever needed. I suppose Bungie was going for some complexity, but if they wanted to do that, bite the bullet, throw out master Chief, give the Arbiter a whole game and actually spend time in a believable manner.
Oh, and Gravemind. Again, a good idea, but...well, I believe it would have worked better if we had never seen him. Mostly, because it would have presented him as more godlike, and intimidating. As it stands....he's just a big plant thing. Not nearly as effective. He gets the coolest lines though. "There is much talk, and I have listened, through rock and metal and time. Now I shall talk, and you shall listen.."
For all my complaining, there are redeemable parts, especially in presentation. The opening, for example, was very impressive and it set up both characters rather nicely (though it was marred by the Arbiter's pathetic roar, which is very perplexing because he was VA'd by Keith David. Goliath from Gargoyles, people. How they botched that winning formula is beyond me.) and the first part of the level just after the Elites are betrayed set up a really nice scene. The music playing, the way you heard Brutes slaughter your friends, etc. Despite not liking the Arbiter, that was a really effective scene for me.
Between the nonsensical story that they somehow expected us to take seriously, the lame secondary character, the steadily deteriorating quality of the campaign, and, of course, the utter BULLSHIT of an ending (yeah, even though Halo 3 was the first game I played and I knew the story, I still felt cheated), and how the level design is so radically different from Halo 1, I can definitely see how fans got alienated by the campaign. However, I still feel that Halo 2 deserves praise for what it does do right. It really advanced lots of things, especially in the weapon balancing department. Overall, I can't say that it's more than an decent experience, which is hardly up to the incredible standards Halo 1 set. However, when it does do things right (like the entire first Master Chief section) it does things right.
