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."
On Slashdot?
Next thing, you'll try telling me that the Earth is round.
Here's a not-so-great review of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
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
People seem to love it or hate it... with the majority loving it.. Halo had a decent sci-fi plot and fun though sometimes repetitive action. But the probably the biggest accomplishment of the first game is this:
It brought the LAN party to the masses.
Joe Fratboy doesn't know squat about networking PCs and making sure each one has the same revision of the game and are all on the same subnet (or routed appropriately). But anybody can plug in an Xbox.
Halo was also arguably one of the best FPS to grace a console. There were a few titles that shined before (such as Goldeneye 007 for N64) but Halo had for its time had great graphics, great sound, decent story, innovative enemy A.I. and an enjoyable multiplayer that was a blast with your friends. All those things may have been surpassed now, but remember the first game is now 3 years old.
That being said, Halo 2 is the "second coming." There really are no drastic changes in the sequel. They simply took a good thing and they made it better. Tweaked the engine for better graphics, bump mapping and such. Larger more expansive level design. These sound like shallow things to the more critical slashdotter, but to the masses this is what they want. And don't forget the big addition that is probably responsible for selling a lot of units... online play.
Basically Halo and now Halo 2 offer a fun single player campaign with good graphics and above average A.I. They take the experience of a LAN party and simplify it enough for average joes to be able to do it without tech supervision. They allow people to have fun together. And I haven't even mentioned Co-Op mode.
Write me off as a fanboy, but you asked.
--- If we knew half the things we shouldn't we'd stop wishing we knew it all
Linear campaign - open-ended campaign
Less weapons - More weapons
Less than 10 vehicles - 200 vehicles
Microsoft/Bungie - Rockstar
Dedicated soundtrack - Rage Against The Machine, Cypress Hill and Dr Dre.
Sexy aliens - Girlfriends
Green armour - More clothes than Final Fantasy X:2. And tattoos. And haircuts.
Excellent multiplayer - Fun multiplayer
Great graphics - Good graphics
6 hours gameplay single player at least - 40-50 hours at least
No sex - loadsa a sex
Warthog racing - Monster truck racing
No stats increase - Starts increase
Just my initial notes
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
Ok, let me say up front I never thought Halo was that amazing. It was missing things that I had grown used to in games like Perfect Dark, but I did enjoy playing multiplayer Halo with some friends and co-op. My friend got Halo 2 yesterday so I went over to play some multiplayer.
Ok, I'll start with what I liked:
The vehicles are more fun.
The banshee and ghost have a boost now.
The ghost has a gun that can actually kill someone as opposed to just stunning them long enough to run them over(though running them over is still far more fun)
Some jeeps have a cannon instead of the machine gun.
Vehicles can be detroyed and damaged, but they respawn.
You can jump higher.
The way Master Chief looks can be customized more.
You can play as the lizard thing(I never pay attention to the names) None of us used him yet so I can't comment on if that changes game play dynamics or not.
The rocket launcher can't be outrun quite as easily.
You can always zoom, though weapons without a zoom automatically retract if you fire while zoomed(It is like binocs embedded in your visor)
Dual weapons.
More than two teams.
It tracks more stats such as hit percentage and who killed who.
Ok, now dislikes:
It seems to take an hour to kill anyone.
Most of the weapons seem weak. Even saw a friend take a direct hit from a rocket with no overshield and survive.
The sword(lightsaber) is too powerful in close quarters. One direct hit and you die and it gives you super human speed when you are close to your target.
He throws grenades like a sissy girl.
When you melee you lose one of your dual weapons.
In order to throw a grenade you toss down one of your dual wepaons. (Why not put the second weapon away for a moment instead?)
If you have two weapons and you could dual wield them, you have to toss one down and then pick it up to dual wield instead of just switching to dual wield.
Can't play Xbox live in a rated room unless everyone has a Live account.
Picking your profile before multiplayer is a one at a time ordeal instead of everyone choosing at the same time.(Not sure how that got ruined from Halo 1, but it is horrible and slow and you have to do it log off as well.)
No fall damage
Still only two team multiplayer ctf.(though it seemed like you could play more. Maybe we just missed the option.)
Still doesn't track favorite weapons. Doesn't track where you shot most often though it does tell you how many head shots you had.
It added "catch phrases" to let you know how your enemy killed you. (You were assassinated means someone meleed you from behind), but they don't seem very funny or original.
Still no bots.
To play 16 player on live you have to have friends to invite or everyone has to have a live account.
Anyways, it is about time for class. That is most of what I can think of off the top of my head. I am not impressed, but I am going to give it a chance still. I haven't played single or co-op so I can't comment on that.
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.
Apparently, when running in 480p the game overscans the HUD right off the screen on roughly 90-95% of all HDTVs on the market. Grenade
info, Radar and Shield information are all lost from the left part of the display.
There's a large discussion thread about it on Bungie's forums.
This post sponsored by Ninja Burger. "
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.