- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjcwAwZu_XY
I'm sure you've seen it before. The wild claim that Halo 2 is "noobified." Deliberately made easier to appeal to the mainstream and therefore take away what people loved about Halo CE. This will be the first part of a larger debate I will tackle, that being which requires more "skill." Halo or Halo 2? I You see, I feel that many people have made opinions on Halo 2 based on wild and inaccurate assumptions. I'll attempt to clear them up in this 2 part article. This first part will be tackling one of the main weapons of the "Halo > Halo 2" fanatic, The "Halo 2 is noobified" video. The video itself does try to make some points, but in the end it just ends up exaggerating certain truths.
First things first. To demonstrate hit boxes he used the pistol in Halo. Fair enough. But for Halo 2 he used the Battle Rifle. Does anyone else see where this is flawed? Those three round bursts scatter by quite a bit at long ranges. Of course you're going to hit him with a couple of the bullets at a decent range. If you look at Player 2's screen, you even see a couple shots travel past him. Using the battle rifle was a very bad choice because of the scattering effect of the 3 bullets. He should have used the pistol if he used the pistol in Halo CE.
Next point. Yes, the homing capabilities of plasma was increased. You see, the Plasma Rifles and Pistols were hardly used in Hal CE. Well, the Plasma Rifle was used, but that was because of it's freezing side effect (which I'm still not even sure if that was intentional or not.) However that freezing effect was taken out, whether it be because of duel wielding concerns, of if the original side effect was a glitch, the freezing was taken out. Plasma was then given new gameplay elements that actually coincided with the fluff in the books. Plasma homes in, and quite efficiently too. Even the plasma fired from Plasma rifles had a slight homing effect, which was demonstrated in Halo 2. If you look when he's firing the Plasma Rifle, the shots aren't hitting the box off to the side, they are hitting the player himself. This is to show that plasma homes in on targets. That being said, it isn't too noticeable. If he backed up a little more, it wouldn't have homed in as much as it did standing that close. Again, this was Bungie balancing the game and actually making the Plasma Pistols and Rifles useful in certain circumstances.
The rocket launcher. I'll admit, I did not know this until I originally saw this video. But something seemed odd to me. The corsair on the Halo version wasn't red, so it wasn't actually touching the player, when in Halo 2 it was. A bad test imo. If he wanted to show that, he should have been aiming off to the side until it was blue. Or, have the corsair turn red in Halo CE. I mean, there's no arguement here. The corsair in Halo wasn't touching any part of the body, while in Halo 2, the corsair was still touching the arm Badly done.
That being said, what I see going on here is that the Rocket Launcher has a pre-locked one feature not really mentioned. To where if the cursor is red, you aren't necessarily shooting where you're aiming, but to what is making the cursor red. I have a feeling the same exact thing would happen in Halo as well, but sadly I can't test it right now. If someone else can, I'd be thankful as I am curious about this. Too bad the creator of that video didn't do the experiment right. In the end though, that "feature" is nearly null. Seriously, even if that was in Halo 2 and not in Halo, it would only be useful if who you're shooting is standing still. If they are moving around, which is the case what, 95% of the time? Then that would be stupid who shoots the target directly if they are moving around? No, you lead and aim for the ground.
Melees. This just made me laugh. First of all, melee attacks in general were weakened from Halo. And they added in the lunge instead of the magical reach you had in Halo, which this video just happens to ignore. Sure, aiming off to the side will still get you that lunge, but if he's talking about "how can you do that in real life" ... It's called side stepping... It isn't that difficult to lunge at someone who is off to the side. So I feel his arguement here is null. First, he didn't show the reach you had in Halo, which was just plain ridiculous. Second, although you can lunge off to the side like that, melee attacks were weakened significantly and it takes much more hits to get that kill.
Swipe Sniping. Are you serious? That was most certainly in Halo. I remember seeing a video even before Halo 2 came out of someone swipe sniping. Not to mention his "swipes" in Halo were much larger than the ones he did in Halo 2. This was just his failure to show that you can swipe snipe in Halo. Deliberate or not, I can't say, but you can swipe snipe in Halo.
There is a difference here though that I'd like to address. As I stated earlier, the hit boxes have increased slightly. Again, over all I don't believe it breaks the game, however it does place a part here. Because the hit boxes were increased in Halo 2, the corsair will remain red for an extended amount of time. Even though it's only for a fraction of a second longer, when we're talking about reflexes, it very well could allow more people to succesfully pull it off. So, I will admit, swipe sniping is a bit easier in Halo 2. However, this video made it seem like swipe sniping in Halo CE didn't exist at all.
The TSK-PP/BR arguement. Ugh. This was just pure propaganda here. First of all, he was not firing off the pistol as fast as it could be fired. Second of all, that "moving" test was horrible. Absolutely horrible. If that was him really trying to TSK the guy strafing, then he sucks. Yes, the plasma pistol and battle rifle is a devastating combo. But again, if your opponent is using this combo and abusing it, there are several things you can do to stop them. Not only that, but the radiating light of the plasma pistol and humming noise it makes was increased in Halo 2 so you could hear/see the person coming before they even get that shot off. While it may be true that once that plasma shot hits you're pretty much dead, there are still many things you can do to avoid that original shot to being with. But, this all goes back to my original arguement that how good you are in Halo does not mean how good you are at shooting someone.
So, final verdict on TSKvsPP/BR: That test was duped. He was not firing as fast the pistol at it's peak rate of fire and was horrible inaccurate. While PP/BR may be a horrible combo for someone to use, in the end, you don't start with a plasma pistol, you need to go get it yourself. On top of that, your weapon slots are fully used, stopping you from using anything else (besides grenades.) With the pistol you'd be able to carry a power weapon with you. PP/BR, that's it. That's your choice. It really is hard to compare th two, but in the end, I'd say the pistol is a more unbalanced weapon. To start, it's a SINGLE weapon. Not a combo. To me, this test should NOT have been TSK vs PP/BR but PP/Pistol vs PP/BR. This part was just propaganda to show Halo required more skill, but to me, just seemed like a set up.
Fall damage. Yes. They took that out. Again, they were looking to re-balance the game. On top of that, it makes sense a Spartan/Elite could survive a fall like that. If anything I thought fall damage was a bit exaggerated in Halo. In the end, I think this is the only arguement the guy truly has. But even then, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
So there you have it. My analysis of that stupid propaganda film.