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."

Comments

As I posted a few articles back...

[Blakey Rat]

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.

Re:As I posted a few articles back...

[empaler]

/. is main stream.

If you would at least read the summary, by the way, you'd notice these words:
Useful as a cautionary tale about out-of-context quoting (..)

You could even go as far as to RTFA which has the title:
"Eliminate the Positive (or "The Only Negative Review of Halo 2 You're Ever Likely To Read")

Add the ability to abstract thought into the reading of these things and you might detect some attempts at making people laugh and/or smile.

Re:Explain, please?

[laard]

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.