Slashdot Mirror
A Negative Review of Halo 2
KaiEl writes "An avalanche of glowing reviews has already made Halo 2 the second-highest ranked game of all time on GameRankings.com. Looking for an alternative viewpoint? The Video Game Ombudsman has gathered the bad points from nine separate Halo 2 reviews into the only negative review of Halo 2 you're ever likely to read. Useful as a cautionary tale about out-of-context quoting and as a reference manual for rampant Microsoft haters who might want to make the Halo 2 argument a little less one-sided."
The Slashdot prime directive is:
If it's mainstream, we hate it.
HALO is popular? I hate it. I think it's boring. Millions of people watch network TV? All the shows are crap. Thousands go to a Britney Spears concert? She sounds like a banshee. 90% of the people use Windows? God I hate Windows, it crashes all the time.
See how it works? Now that you know the prime directive you can mentally discard all the messages that fit this mold and find the *real* conversation in the thread hidden underneath... good luck!
Now let's try to fill this discussion up with better comments than "HALO 2 *does* suck," ok? We can make the world a better place.
Comment of the year
I picked up the game at midnight, went home, got a good night's sleep, and since I took the 9th off from work in order to beat the game, started the game around 11:00am.
I beat it at 5:30pm. I loved the entire game...except for that ENDING.
Mein Gott, it's one thing to have a cliffhanger ending when you know that you'll only have to wait a few months for resolution. It's another when you know you'll have to wait for an additional 3-4 YEARS.
Especially since the end boss battle is a bit anticlimatic. I didn't even get in the killing shot...my AI teammates did.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
Yet another 3D shoot-em-up. Wake me up when there's something new. Mod me down if you wish, but can you honestly say that there's anything new in this game over all the other 3D shoot-em-ups save for different graphics, different sounds, and some type of thin plot?
Nothing wrong with dedicated, original-scores. I'd rather have those than licensed crap (though it depends on context). However, Halo's soundtrack features..... HOOBASTANK. -1000 Crap
Funny how marketing will pump up games to a god like status that people will blindly follow. When the game is actually released it never seems to be as good as the marketing make it look. It's a setup for disappointment everytime. Halo 2 is subject to the eyes of the beholder problem. Take drinking beer for example as marketing. If I have enough beer, almost any girl is hot. Apply that to Halo 2 and you have one ugly girl under all that marketing.
Here is the simple solution. Don't listen to the hype. Don't read the site to see what new features are going to be added...don't watch the E3 videos, don't read the reviews. When you play a game based on no assumptions, you can just enjoy the game (or not) and you don't have any expectation that need to be met or exceeded. Just don't buy in...if you do, well, you get what you deserve. I'm sorry that marketing makes things look good...that is kind of what it supposed to do. As a consumer, it's your job to read through the lines. If a mass of people can't do that, then they can only blame themselves.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
But not THAT great. That's the thing most "critics" around here are astounded by. As a big gamer it puzzles me how just yesterday it averaged 98% from 134 reviews. That put it right into the "second coming of Christ" category. I can see how Zelda: Ocarina Of Time got up there, but not Halo 2. It's not described as leaps and bounds better than the first, which many gamers outside of Xbox circles consider woefully overrated.
To avoid trolling I'll add that all the points made below are my own opinion, agree or not with them. Second of all, let me say I enjoy immensly Halo 1. I still play it regularily with my friends. Ninety percent of the MP levels suck, but that doesn't matter when you can play CTF in bloodgulch. That's where it's at. I agree with some of the finer points here: - weapons. The game's lacking what made the first one enjoyable - a weapon that kills without a billion shots. Seriously. I think we might have to set our sheilds to 50% to play this from now on (if it's an option, unsure) because watching someone take a full clip of assault rifle ammo at point blank range only to kill you, is stupid. - 2 team ctf - we haven't figured this out either. That sucks, it's stupid. - no bots - I like bots. they're fun. I think no bots was part of the idea of "no friends to play with? you can have unlimited friends for $7.99/month on xbox live" scheme from MS. - additional point - levels - they all seem cramped, and not very tweaked. I want levels with sweet spots and little gems, not seemingly random placements. Personally, I want a clone of perfect dark for a current-generation console. It's that easy, PD was hands down the most innovative console (possibly any) 3d shooter. Look at all it's options - bots mp, challenges, good levels, innovative weapons. Not to mention the scripted single player game, which looked pretty cool too. Endless fun. Not many games have as much to offer as PD, even still.
twitter.com/gravitronic
You mean that even though it took a lot of things out of context, it still ended up being surprisingly accurate?
Rob
Apples and Oranges. Seriously.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
... Halo2 hasn't really caught up.
Fewer weapons, fewer weapons fire modes, fewer vehicles, fewer game types, no multiplayer bots, slow movement, (not quite) "destructible" vehicles...
I'll be trying it out at a friend's, to see if destructible walls, etc, work well enough to justify scoring it as "surpasses UT2004" in at least one area.