- car15
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- Veteran Heroic Member
A 3 Legged Goat
Nobody cares about anyone else's opinion - be it mine, yours, or a cult of angry star wars nerds - when they are enjoying what they enjoy.
Zombine
Everyone cares about opinions, that's why we socialize on a forum with strangers.
Better campaign. The story was excellent, the enemies were more challenging than those in Halo 3, and the level design was fresh and varied. I liked the boss battles, which were entirely absent from Halo 3 with the exception of the 343 Guilty Spark battle at the end of the game, and I liked all the different environments you got to explore. Halo 2 never stayed in the same place for too long. You were constantly jumping to new locations, from a UNSC space station to the streets of New Mombasa, from the Forerunner gas mine hovering over Threshold to the ruins of Delta Halo, etc... Every environment felt fresh and exciting, unlike in Halo 3 where the entire first half of the campaign takes place in the same location (Africa).
Better multiplayer. Although Halo 1 still holds the "best map of all time" award for Sidewinder, Halo 2 boasts the majority of the series' better maps, from Lockout to Relic to Zanzibar, and who could forget all the excellent Halo 1 re-makes, including Coagulation, Beaver Creek, and Tombstone? Matchmaking felt more competitive and I felt like all those fun little glitches added more excitement to the game. Also, it's nice to play a Halo game that doesn't make you worry about Equipment. Because, damn. Don't get me started on how badly Equipment ruined Halo 3's multiplayer.
Better music. The Halo 2 soundtrack stands as one of my favorite albums of all time even to this day. Marty really shines on tracks like "Earth City", "In Amber Clad", and my personal favorite, "The Last Spartan", and it was nice to have the soundtrack balanced out with excellent songs from Breaking Benjamin and Incubus. (But I could have done without the Hoobastank track. Bleh.)
Most of all, the game just feels more complete. Halo 2 had an insane amount of replay value that you scarcely find in most other AAA games, with a rock-solid multiplayer community that emphasized skill and experience rather than "social gaming". The campaign had enough variety to warrant several replays, unlike Halo 3's repetitive six-hour affair, and while the game may not have featured Theater and Forge modes, it didn't feel like it needed them. Surprise cliffhanger endings notwithstanding, Halo 2 was probably the most complete-feeling game in the entire trilogy.
And that's why Halo 2 is a better game than Halo 3.
[Edited on 10.04.2009 12:06 PM PDT]