Personally I consider this the best FPS of all time. It even manages to top the original and remains a classic to this day. An 11/10 game, you could even say.
It's got the best story and soundtrack, but man the level design is a huge downgrade. Halo 1 was full of open areas with limitless tactical opportunities, but Halo 2 is mostly just linear spaces and a WHOLE lot of "stand here and hold position" sections. Outskirts would actually be an S-tier level if not for the opening area where you just fend off wave after wave. The Brutes are awful to fight, the Grunts actually got nerfed from CE, the Elite melee one-hitting you is stupid, and the swarms of Flood got replaced with bullet sponges (to this day CE is the only Halo game where the Flood were fun to fight). And I really don't like any of Halo 2's vehicle sections except for strolling along the beach in Outskirts. Not to mention the actual weapon sandbox isn't as interesting as Halo 1's; all the dual-wield weapons suck (especially when single-wielded), the Shotgun is atrocious, and basically everything is built around using a Battle Rifle/Carbine over and over and over. It's tiresome.
>>12132402I can't give it a perfect score because the campaign was rushed and unfinished. But definitely one of the best multiplayer experiences in 2004-2006. Halo 2 established the combat triangle (after some patches) and every Halo game after, good and bad, copied that formula for a reason. Definitely responsible for normalizing paid DLC maps and "skill" based matchmaking but it was inevitable.
based halo spammer
>>12132407Dual wielding was mind blowing when the game released. It took a while to realize how shitty everything was except dual wielding pistols which was then nerfed. Dual wielding is a cool idea but cutting down the power of weapons to make it happen fucks the weapon balance up. A few dual wielding combos remained useful like plasma rifle+pistol/smg but it was still weaker than just using the noob combo. Needing to throw your weapon away to melee or nade is also retarded when dual wielding wasn't even stronger to begin with
>>12132402Based fuck anti-halo dweebs>it’s le dudebro Ok fag, then go play kingdom sharts to unwind after a long day of getting beat up and disappointing your parents
>>12132452>Based fuck anti-halo dweebsdudebros schizo is literally just one guy. Nerds and dweebs loved Halo
>>12132402>Personally I consider this the best FPS of all time. It even manages to top the original and remains a classic to this day. An 11/10 game, you could even say.
I found the repeated king of the hill segments to be much worse than the backwards level reuse people needle CE for.
>/vr/ - Halo & sequels
>>12132474Those were obviously designed as filler inserted when they couldn't finish the campaign in time
>>12132470Best ever
>>12132474>repeated king of the hill segmentsHoly shit that's a brilliant way of looking at this. I'm gonna refer to Halo 2's campaign as a king of the hill simulator from now on lol
>>12132407Halo CE is just huge areas copy-pasted over and over, then even retreading these same areas again in later missions. There were almost zero interesting or unique encounters/set pieces
>>12132537I disagree
>>12132542You need to play past the first few levels again because half the firefights in that game take place in 1 of 5 different endlessly copy pasted forerunner prefabs, and then they fucking mirror the whole ass game in the 2nd half and make you play those copy pasted levels in reverse
>>12132641Not that anon but I also disagree. I know they're copy pasted and repeated but it's done in a way that I find fun. The combat also helps to make up for any repetitiveness, especially once the Flood show up and you get cool 3 way fights.
>>12132641The encounters are done differently each time. Try going stealthy in Assault on the Control Room and you'll see there's a different strategy to each room, it's awesome stuff.
>>12132402the campaign was a massive downgrade. no one wanted to go to another halo. no one wanted to play as the covenant. and then the story ended on a cliffhanger being in the exact same place as the beginning.multiplayer was obviously a massive step up. improvement in every way. they kinda went overkill with the correction on the pistol, but using it + plasma pistol was an underrated and nasty combo. multiplayer didn't peak until 3 though
>>12132434bungie ultimately considered dual wielding a mistake because it not only fucked with the balance but everyone just dual'd SMGs which resulted in them bring the AR back in 3 so you didn't start with a dual wieldable weapon.when ODST & reach rolled around they just decided to nix it entirely while the holdouts that jumped to 343 when the split happened kept it out pretty much the same reasons.
>instantly kills you with one hitNothing personal
>>12132836>no one wanted to go to another haloWhy the fuck not? Guilty spark tells you in Halo 1 that there are other rings. Why wouldn't the Covenant search for them?
>>12132976fucking gay alien shit is gay bro let me put my big marine boots on and kill aliens in a dirty slum on earth brohoorah bro
>>12132402its up there, the xbl multiplayer was peak gaming
>>12132470This but unironically
The fact that this game is the best-selling game on the Xbox (yes, an FPS is the best-selling game on a console) just shows how soulless the console is and how much of a slop its praised games are.Shameless.
>>12133124Shooters are bad because.....uhh....
>>12132470This. Quake is good too. Halo's controls and combat just felt loose and sloppy.
>>12133124maybe it's because it's one of the best games?
>>12133124This but unironically.
>>12132402As someone who couldnt care less about the novels, the alien segments were a mistake in every way imaginable. I havent finished it yet, but the cliffhanger is also a pretty gay way to end the game with.
>>12132434>except dual wielding pistols which was then nerfed.Based Halo 2 pistol appreciator. Those things fucking wrecked and were the ONLY fun weapon to dual wield.Shittiest aspect of dual wielding is the inability to melee.
>>12132402OF YOU TIME BEFORE ALL DIE :OOF YOU TIME BEFORE ALL DIE :OOF YOU TIME BEFORE ALL DIE :OOF YOU TIME BEFORE ALL DIE :O
>>12132402I don't like how you have to stop and keep waiting for the enemies to come. Sometimes for multiple waves in the same small, enclosed area. A huge downgrade from Halo 1.
>>12132434yeah I don't think dual wielding was worth losing awesome pistol from Halo 1
>>12133124>soul is when the most popular game on the console does not have guns!
>>12134086At launch dual wielding the halo 2 pistols was an even faster kill than the CE pistol. But less range with no zoom. Then they nerfed them and there was no reason to touch anything but BR and snipe for a precision weapon.
>>12134081Yup. It's like they just gave up on actual level design. Nothing but arenas.
>>12132402A downgrade from 1 in every way.
>>12134258The story is better and the energy sword is great. But you're mostly right. The visuals are so much worse but still lightyears better than 7th gen Halo.
>>12132402Halo 2 is my favorite but I'm waiting for the Halo 2 rebalance mod to replay it. The mod looks pretty good so farhttps://nitter.net/RubyofBlue/status/1830419455475589333#m
>>12134441I don't like the way they've implemented the Engineers, and they made the HUD look stupid; it's objectively bad graphic design. Pic related is more what the health meter should look like.
>>12132402for me Halo 3 multiplayer mogs Halo 2 multiplayer. Halo 2 you can get instant killed with no warning at all, Halo 3 is more fair and balanced. 2's single player is better though
halo 2 sucks. halo 1 is the only one that matters
there's a youtube video about how maybe halo 2 was supposed to have shadows in itit makes a lot of sense
>>12134647Halo 2 used normal mapping to give more depth but the texture resolution was low giving things a muddy look. They also had to rip out the stencil lighting engine they planned to use because it ran like crap on the OG Xbox which made things look flatter.
>Marty O’DonnellThey had taken a gamble on what I think was called a stencil lighting model. And they thought they could do the whole engine this way, that they could do all the lighting this way, and it was going to be revolutionary.Then we had the famous Halo 2 demo at E3 2003. The lighting model was just beautiful. But when we came back we realized: we can’t ship this. It wouldn’t run. There was no way we could do the whole game this way. It was a huge, horrible realization that the entire plan that had been worked on for two years was basically going to be thrown out.>Paul BertoneI became mission design lead. We basically started a complete redesign of the campaign about a year and a half in, a very silly Herculean effort. A lot of people sacrificed themselves in ways that you should never have to for your job.>Jaime GriesemerI focused on what I really knew best, the combat and weapons and vehicles sandbox. So, I only did one mission on Halo 2. I still wanted to do the tutorial, because I was very involved in playtesting. But we rewrote the AI for Halo 2, and all this stuff worked fine, but apparently it wasn’t good enough for us. So I went from having my hands in almost all the pies on the first Halo to being much more focused on the combat and the moment-to-moment gameplay in the sequel, which would continue.>Max HobermanWe went another year-plus without the campaign being playable. Meanwhile, we’re playing multiplayer every single day for two years while the campaign was in development. And the quality of the work was a direct result of just that constant hands-on playtesting and iteration.>Paul BertoneLooking back, was our retooling necessary? I don’t know if it was or wasn’t. It was definitely not well thought-out, not well planned and not well executed. I would never do the same things again, so late in a project
>>12132402Music added electric guitar that made it worse than 1
>>12134301>halo 2 looks better than halo 3sorry to hear about your macular degeneration
>>12135039Halo 3 is too brown and has a ton of visual clutter
>>12135093oh, you're trolling, and poorly at that. ok. here's one last (You)
>>12135184Why do you think he's trolling? Halo 3 is all brown and bloom. I thought it was noticeably uglier than 2 when it came out.
>>12135184Halo is brown as hell and you're blind or mentally retarded if you can't see that.
