Slashdot Mirror
Fixing Bungie's Broken Masterpiece
1up.com has an unflinching article looking at what is broken about Halo 2, and what can be done to fix the problems. From the article: "The problem isn't the cliffhanger ending, because then you'd have to hate The Empire Strikes Back. Nor should you blame the prelaunch marketing plan that had consumers believing Halo 2 would be a battle for Earth -- it was documented before launch that the adventure would take place across the universe. It's not the Metal Gear Solid 2 hero-fakeout trick; while Master Chief represents Halo to many people, Bungie's use of the Arbiter to show another facet of the Halo universe demonstrated the company's commitment to the world of Halo and not the characters of Halo. And it's certainly not because Halo 2 didn't have cooperative online play. No, Halo 2 polarizes fans because of its multiplayer mode... and, more to the point, the problems therein. "
A company only has to provide the majority of its customers with a decent playable experience. Pet Peeves, balance issues, and equipment issues are all assigned straight to the circular file.
We care, but only to the extent that its profitable to do so. You see, we have your money. So, you're not in a good position to make demands.
Using this, they've made Halo 2 exclusive. Halo 1 CoOp exclusive, and Don't expect Halo 3 to be any different, what with them being owned by Microsoft.
Its the same thing with all big titles: BF2? Lots of Glitches, Balance Issues, Horrible Interface, etc.. but Does EA care? No. They'd rather just put out BF2.5, and have you pay 49.99 for more of the same broken game.
...it's Xbox only.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"No, Halo 2 polarizes fans because of its multiplayer mode... and, more to the point, the problems therein"
No, the single player game wasn't finished and that's the problem with it. I've never played Halo 2's multiplayer as I don't want to pay for Live. The simple fact is the game was too short, towards the end it had too many "copied and pasted" sections of levels and it didn't have an ending.
Comparing Halo 2's "ending" to The Empire Stikes Back is misleading, TESB clearly had a conclusion to its story, Halo 2 just felt like it had a bug that skipped the last level of the game. The game wasn't finished, it was rushed out and it suffered for it. Halo 2 did have some very good, very fun levels early on, but pretty much once you left Earth the game became repetitive and lost the epic feel the Earth levels had.
Well, I'm sorry to hear yet another game has a less-than-ideal MP experience.
Let's face it, MP design is an expensive and unpredictable proposition: by definition, you need to pay a group of people to validate and refine any design, and try to find loopholes.
Then you release it in the wild, and social interaction throws everything out the window. Imbalances come out, and the most effective, simple play style comes to dominate (aka "Gaming the Game"). Many users get alienated and leave for other products. At that point, you can either nerf-and-patch -- usually with the result of alienating the remaining players who stayed with the product because of that "simple play style" -- or you can adjust for those deficiencies and charge for an "update" -- the case of the infamous "battlefield 2.5" joke made above. But then you're locked into updating once every year, tops, and perpetually chasing the gameplay problems.
So, what are the options?
A) Hit a home run: by divine inspiration, get it right.
B) Keep it as simple as possible. Social interaction is complex; games don't need complex rules.
C) Give the users wide latitude in developing their own maps and rules, and hope that some evolutionary theory lets the best stuff float to the surface.
The first, mentioned above, is that there is a problem with the single-player. The entire campaign story of Halo 2 is one giant build-up with to a climax that simply isn't there.
.25 or .5 second "overheating" delay between switching weapons might help gameplay a bit, but not nearly so much as increasing the speed of, and damage caused by, the needles fired from the Needler. An increased needle speed would allow the needles to actually hit a moving target, and an increased damage per needle would mean that a whole half-clip wouldn't have to be emptied at a moving target just to take it down.
Second, the hype did play a big role--that the I Love Bees A.R.G. had such a large following (and with due cause!), but such a small amount of actual interaction or blending with the Halo 2 game is a shame and, in my opinion (be it humble or otherwise), a flaw in both marketing and gameplay... because it isn't just the A.R.G. that should have had some sort of impression on the story--it was the books, too.
Thirdly, the author might be having a bit of cognitive dissonance, in that he or she laments the loss of the three-shot-kill pistol (a single weapon), and then laments the so-called "n00b combo" of the plasma pistol and battle rifle. The truth is, the pistol of the first Halo could kill faster than the combo of the second, and while not everyone starts with that combo, those who utilize it forfeit carrying the "power weapons" that can counter them--namely the sniper, rocket launcher, sword, and shotgun. Yes, a
~UP
Eat the Path.
Multiplayer is fine. Single player is broken. You must remember that Halo is a coop game (that's where it shines) and the experience should have been far better than it was. Coop is the future. Once I played Halo with a friend, I couldn't go back to simply trading shots with the computer. Titles like Half Life 2 and Splinter Cell 3 are the rare exceptions these days because the story is so good and there's something unique to do or confront on each level.
The best levels were the Earth levels and the first Arbiter mission. After that, Halo 2 just slowly degrades from there. The final levels flat out sucked. They were nothing more than Doom 3 corridor crawls - which is an outdated gameplay. There was nothing unique or interesting (like fighting in space or taking down the scarab) to spice up the second half of the game's levels. It got boring, Master Chief's objectives in the second half did not progress the story very much, and the game's ending left a really bad taste in my mouth.
Things that should have been obvious to Bungie:
- not being able to pick up and carry the turrets
- can't steal the jackal's shield
- can't pilot and wreak havoc with the scarab
- very few pitched battles where you're fighting with the marines; there should have been more chaos on Earth with fighting raging everywhere
In short, Halo 2 was missing it's polish. The improved graphics were much appreciated but Bungie took THREE years to make Halo 2 and what we got was Halo 1.5 (and with the amount of resources Bungie has at their disposal they have no excuse). We should have been given an expansion pack by now; some new multi-player maps do not count.
Gates says that Halo 3 will ship when the PS3 ships. Even if that's Christmas 2006, Bungie's only got 2 years this time around to make that ship date and 1 year is already gone. Bungie is screwed. There's no way they can retool their 3D engine (next gen graphics, physics, AI, etc.) and make a ton of really cool content (new levels, new bad guys, new equipment, cutscenes, etc.) by 2006 if they want to deliver a true sequel. This is Microsoft's flagship title running on their next gen console. Expectations are sky high as they should be given the hardware specs.
Fact: I've read at least two articles (one from anandtech.com) claiming that it will take 2-3 years AFTER the new consoles come out to redesign the 3d engines to take advantage of the complex multi-core architectures. Until that happens, you won't get to the next level of gameplay. That means 2007-2008 at the earliest.