- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Allow me to educate you guys.
H1 pistol =/= H2 BR
H1 AR =/= H2 SMG
Now, before we get our panties in a twist, let's actually read what I have to say, eh? The BR is not a direct mirror of the H1 pistol. The BR has a different clip size, fires in three bursts, reloads slower, kills in four shots, and melees quicker. As far as the role the BR plays, then yes, it serves the same purpose as the H1 pistol.
Bungie designed the H1 pistol to be the "equalizer" weapon; a weapon that, after you were good enough at the game, you would generally lead to the most, as with the mastering of its use would prove very useful in PvP. While every other weapon can be harnessed in the same way, the H1 pistol could, in fact, render the other weapons useless. The pistol had more ups than downs than any other weapon in Halo 1. As such, it is believed that if everyone spawns with a pistol, then it's balanced play. Except that I'm sure Bungie wasn't exactly happy with the fact that there were generally three weapons people used the most; the rocket launcher, the sniper rifles, and the pistol, and then ignored pretty much everything else (except the shotty every once in a while). What they were looking to do in Halo 2 was to bring the same sort of formula over to their sequel, except not making it so everyone would resort to one weapon in the end.
The end result wasn't that bad, except just about everything else in the sequel was, thus bringing down their attempt to fix the game mechanics into a living nightmare. Where as they could've simply made the AR more accurate, they decided to implement dual wielding, and boy, did the implementation suck. We were given SMGs; we are fooled to believe that their rate of fire is, well, fast, except that it really isn't all that different from the AR after the trigger has been held down for long enough. Where as you could burst fire the AR with more accurate shots, you could do no such thing with the SMG. I don't think it really mattered anyways, especially with the ridiculous kick back. The weapon is generally useless without dual wielding it with something else anyways.
So, as you can see, the weapons are not the same at all. The BR might play the same role as the H1 pistol did, but the SMG does not for the AR. The SMG was generally more of a weapon that you frowned upon when you spawned with it, knowing you stood about as much chance as a snowman in hell did against those wielding anything else but the SMG or dual wielding something. At least if you knew how to use the AR you could stand a chance, but, then again, it really didn't matter, because, in most game settings in Halo 1, a normal spawn would detail with AR+Pistol, thus giving you an edge on those already around you.
Now, the question really is what will happen in Halo 3.