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  • Subject: Halo 2 Conspiracy
Subject: Halo 2 Conspiracy
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Make of this what you will, but maybe I said something a little too close to the truth and someone nervous. My original post on the bungie forums got 42 replies within 50 minutes and then the topic was locked. Shortly after that I was blacklisted (banned) from the forums. Keep in mind the bungie forums are automatically censored, so curse words appear as "-blam-", so I know I wasn't banned for language. I'll try to restate this word for word as best as possible, but I can't reference my original post because it has since been removed.

The game of Halo 2 as it exists now is not what bungie initially intended for it to be, nor is this close to the final product they worked three years on to complete. Lets start with the Halo 2 cinematic trailer (released in september of 2002). MC is on a ship and you can hear random chatter over his comm as he walks down a corridor: notice you'll hear things like "that's not enough to stop an assault carrier" and "its like the god damn apocolypse". They have called for reinforcements and the reinforcements are MC alone -- one man, exciting enough that it still gives me goosebumps. So then master chief ejects from the ships air lock and makes his dive towards earth. What do you see? A whole continent saturated with fire and nuclear explosions. That does seem pretty apocolyptic.

Now lets move on to the E3 demo (released in may 2003). MC flies into New Mombasa on a pelican with the sarge and a few ODSTs. When he exits the pelican, yes, it would appear to be a full-scale invasion of earth. Wounded soldiers all around, huge covenant artillery blasting buildings, etc... exciting! He makes his run through the city and then mans the gun on the back of the gauss hog. He rolls through New Mombasa with a couple marines, you see a few other hogs rolling around, streets intersecting in and out of one another, passages that lead to other areas... its a battle on a pretty large scale. A convenant invasion of earth.

Compare these situations to the actual game of Halo 2. Where is the "god damn apocolypse"? Earth isnt even being invaded. A few small covenant platoons go to earth for one reason or another and thats it. There isnt even a hint of earth being invaded in halo 2 until the very end, then the game ends. You can see earth from space station cairo and its untouched. When it comes to all this missing storyline, what went wrong? What changed? Who intervened?

The -single- level that does take place on earth is -OBVIOUSLY- a last minute change. Notice some similarities between this earth level and the new mombasa level from the E3 demo. MC still flies in on a pelican with the sarge and some marines, not ODSTs this time. If you really pay attention you can see the marines in the pelican doing the exact same movements as the ODSTs in the E3 demo -EXACTLY-. one marine shoves a clip into his rifle while another puts on his helmet, the same as the ODSTs in the E3 demo. Sarge even says the same stuff except this time he has a little monologue about 'regret'. Also notice at the start of this level, there is no text on screen telling you where you are headed. No mention of the city name, date or location. How odd is that? When the game starts and you see the opening cinematic, you get a date and you are told exactly what you are seeing; the covenant high charity. Even in the new mombasa level on the E3 demo, you are given the same information. Strangely enough this information is missing in the actual game. Minor inconsistencies like this can only mean a handful of things. This level was added at the last minute to replace the new mombasa level because the direction of the game had taken a serious change in direction because of something or someone. Load up the outskirts level and point your view to the rooftops and tell me what you see. You might not be looking for them but you'll see power lines. You have got to be kidding me. Its the year 2552... Power lines?! Things like this, the inconsistencies and missing -important- cinematic information just do not happen when you spend three years developing a game. It simply does not happen. You do not "hype" a game up to be an awesome showdown on earth between the humans and covenant and then make the -single- earth level in the game complete garbage. My god is that level ever so linear and boring. From point A to point B. Its not the "god damn apocolypse" its a god damn conspiracy.

Simply put, Microsoft is greedy. Microsoft made bungie change the direction of the game and gave it that awful cliffhanger ending. They ran out of time because they had to take out a lot of the content that was already in the game and replace it with whatever they could. Propbably why you end up playing as the arbiter so much. Its all filler for the missing content. Watch the limited edition DVD and check out the segment on the mongoose (the human atv). They say it was buggy and didnt handle properly, watch the video and decide for yourself, it was perfectly fine. There are a few misleading statements from bungie employees in this dvd. Its not their fault, they are just covering for microsoft. Like when they say that the new mombasa E3 level was the first thing they worked on. That is utter BS. All the vehicles had their physics and mass properties already. The character models and animations were finished. There were cinematics and scripted dialogue from all the real voice actors. There was an entire level designed. Don't tell me they spent the next year and a half to design the 6 other awful levels we got. Even with all the bug testing and all that, is not reasonable. 60+ people were working on the campaign mode while 4 people worked on the multiplayer. Too many things just dont add up. Nothing about it makes any sense at all. If there is truth in the fact that the E3 new mombasa level was the first thing they worked on... which already had so many features already implemented, what in the **** did they do with all that time in between may 2003 and november 9th?

Read any publication online or in real life dealing with halo 2 before its release. Whenever someone from bungie spoke about the game, the focus was earth. The cinematic trailer, focus: earth. The E3 demo, focus: earth. It was all supposed to be about earth. Would bungie intentionally mislead us to think that is was going to be all about earth and then smack us in the face with an awful game like this? I dont think so. You cant say that what i expected halo 2 to be was just what i had in my head. It is what we were -lead- to believe and what we were told it would be. This isnt me being disappointed because I believed too much hype -- this is me being disappointed because for one reason or another, "we" didnt the the game of halo 2 that was "promised" to us.

Think about it... the E3 gameplay demo was released in may of 2003, almost a full year a half before the release of the game. The new mombasa level was brilliant. They didnt have to keep the scripting for the level, just the level itself. Why take it out? Why not put as much as you can into halo 2 including that level, because it definitely had a place in the game. Oh, im sorry. It had a place in the game as it was originally conceived, but not the greedy stripped down micro$oft half-assed version that we got.

In conclusion... what do you think went wrong? You're a fool if you think they just couldnt fit one more level into the game, they could have put the game on two discs and added 20 (we wish) more levels very easily, and microsoft has the money for that. Don't tell me it was because of hardware issues, because its only a map. And dont tell me that you cant include a rocket hog or a personnel transport hog in the game because of hardware issues either, if you can support one vehicle, you can support another. You're being mislead in a number of ways to hide the fact that you've been shafted out of $55 for a game that is shorter than the original and far less enjoyable (aside form the multiplayer which is spectacular). Bungie wanted to give us everything we had hoped for, its just a shame we'll never get to see the godliness of what they had in store for us.

Go to www.bungie.net and look at the title for the halo 2 forums. They are called new mombasa. A level that doesnt even exist in the game (now). What kind of reasoning is there for that? Should that be reserved for halo 3 *cough* when you -might- actually get a chance to catch a glimpse of the city. Rubbish. Bungie said many times halo 2 would bringe closure and there would be no halo 3. Bungie also said they would "never specify a release date for halo 2 until we are certain we could release a finished product." That statement was on their main website the day that the release date was accounced. So why would they set a date for themselves where they knew they wouldnt finish in time and be forced to take out all kinds of content? They wouldn't.

  • 11.16.2004 6:48 PM PDT
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all true... i believe every word of that becasue i had been thinking the exact same thing since the day after (when i figured out how bad halo 2 is) halo 2 came out. -blam!- man... i wanted the real "god damn apocolypse"

halo 2 (that was released) made last minute?

the real halo 2 (now to be halo 3) was what they have been working on for all this time?

giving us a -blam!- campaign because microsoft wanted more money?

i think so also...

  • 11.16.2004 6:58 PM PDT
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Hmmmm... Very interesting point. I think I agree with EVERYTHING you just said with one exception. I still think the game is wonderful, only not as wonderful as it could have been. But still this has got me thinking about one more possiblility.

EDIT: What really makes me believe this is the total absence of all the earth levels. I was so hyped up to defend my home planet. Iv destroyed halo before, been there done that, but now after I have just been out saving humanity and come back home to find my home planet under attack... thats a UBER storyline right there. Dont get me wrong I did like the whole cival war thing but I was really looking forward to fighting on earth... of being under a direct seige of earth. That was really sweet! After that E3 demo being earth, and all of the bungie talk being about earth, earth, earth earth, I was ready... and very excited about earth. Never did they say anything about another ring. Maybe they didnt want to tell us all about the story line but I dont really care, it should have been earth.

[Edited on 11/16/2004 7:13:19 PM]

  • 11.16.2004 7:06 PM PDT
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Amen. The time differences truly threw me. A disappointment, yes, although it was an amazing game, it was quite clear that it lacked the heart and character of the original Halo, a concpt and storyline concieved before the purchase of Bungie.

I've always said I would never buy a Halo 3 if one came out, because it would be tangible proof that Microsoft was using the Halo series as a cash cow. Some may cite the Marathon series as a couter to my argument, but all three of them were well scripted, gifted games, not the seemingly rushed entity that is Halo 2, and god forbid, Halo 3.

I believe that this is a sentiment shared by many fans, and should be worth listening to for Microsoft.

  • 11.16.2004 7:16 PM PDT
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i understand exactly what you mean dude , exactly . that mombasa level at the e3 was just too awesome , it blowed my mind. In fact my theory is that they '' matrixed '' the game. what i mean by that is that they develped and realised the full game but split it in half. those microsoft bastards always want more money , always. Meanwhile , at the end of legendary, i saw a message saying : ''Until february 9th'' . What i think is that maybe , just maybe, the initial and final game will be released on february 9th. I also think that halo 2 was actually Halo: combat online . And that the final one should be something like Halo : combat earth.

  • 11.16.2004 7:16 PM PDT
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i think your right it was the best and halo 2 is ok but that demo was what got people to buy it and the game was a rip on that level but the rest i think is good.

  • 11.16.2004 7:24 PM PDT
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conspiracy? since when are normal operating procedures a conspiricy. HELLO!? thats just the nature of the gaming industry. there are DEADLINES and such. nothing sinister about it.

Everyone is just pissed cuz their halo fantasy didn't go as expected, and didn't really act conclusive. get over it... i have.

  • 11.16.2004 7:29 PM PDT
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i think all the "game testing" that bungie was doing on halo 2 (now 3) they were really using as work time on the disapointing campaign that they released to us. they just left the multiplayer in the "new" halo 2 so that we wont feel so that the hardcore halo fans (i being one... the first one that is) wont jump off a bridge or something from depression.

  • 11.16.2004 7:33 PM PDT
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if it took them that long for halo 2 how are they going to get halo 3 done that fast... becasue it is already done (bungie said that they will only give release dates if they're SURE they can make the deadline) if they give it the matrix syndrom then thats too bad

  • 11.16.2004 7:42 PM PDT
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C'mon, it's Micro$oft.
Of course they would do something like this to make even more money.

Why do you think they make us buy a new Windows every 3 years?

But if we blame bungie its like blaming your communist friend because Stalin was an -blam!-hole. What were they going to do, Micro$oft owns their asses and they cant do anything about it, unless they just wanted to not have Halo 2 published after years of hard work.

  • 11.16.2004 7:42 PM PDT
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I think your on to something. But it is obvios that the schedule for the next generation of consoles has been accelerated. and MS would love a HALO 3 launch title. software develop ment times being as they are (LONG) it makes sense.

However that being said, do you really feel ripped off? the game is FAR from a dissapointment. time will tell if it replaces HALO, but for now i will continue to enjoy it.

and as for MS trying to get your $50 bucks, thats a bit of a stretch if they released a halo 1.5 with new multiplayer maps and live enabled on the same engine as halo,no campain whatsoever it would sell millions of copies at a fraction of the development cost.

  • 11.16.2004 7:44 PM PDT
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very interesting comments... i have to agree too... the ending was just not right... it wasnt a cliff-hanger, it was INCOMPLETE.
otherwise its still a brilliant game, which i thoroughly enjoyed.

THOM JOLLY: most of us cant get over it because we loved the original so much, and expectations were ridiculously high. We don't need any obnoxious remarks on what is a very well-thought out post (by the original poster), so go somewhere else plz :)

  • 11.16.2004 7:44 PM PDT
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can we get somebody inside bungie to confirm this?

  • 11.16.2004 7:45 PM PDT
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if they are going to, do you think that they would tell the truth if it was? this is a pretty damn big secret if it is the truth...

  • 11.16.2004 7:53 PM PDT
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I ARGEE !Iwas to thinking that it was going to be mainly on earth and what do we get 1 boring level and this eltie crap too!Halo was a lot better length wise than halo 2. you go man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I'm behind 120% man.

[Edited on 11/16/2004 8:10:42 PM]

  • 11.16.2004 8:06 PM PDT
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finish the game the full invasion most likely will come! but the story is much more complex than halo to earth end of world. and hey I was looking forward to some large scale engagements but since the story is still unravelling im eager to learn the rest. hey bungie have a holiday take some R&R cause my expectations for H3 are going to be high.

  • 11.16.2004 8:14 PM PDT