- car15
- |
- 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.
Halo 2 had the best campaign. The level design was varied and inspired, combat was dynamic and unique each time, there was always something to do, and the pacing was excellent. My only major gripes with Halo 2's campaign lie with the texture pop-in issue and the cliffhanger ending.
Halo 1's campaign comes next, featuring the same things that made Halo 2 so great minus the varied level design. Also, backtracking sucks, and it's hard to tell where you're going sometimes when every room looks like the one behind it, but the rest of the game is so good that it makes up for these rough spots.
Halo 3: ODST had a very short campaign that was good while it lasted (except for Coastal Highway, which was disappointing but not horrible) but ended far too soon. Mombasa Streets was a novel idea that sort of worked and sort of didn't. It lent a great sense of moodiness and mystique to the game's story, but Bungie never did anything with that and the Rookie spent his entire time in New Mombasa plodding through the completely empty streets with nothing to do but collect Audio Logs, kill Engineers, and move on to the next flashback segment. If Bungie had given us more stuff to do in the city, the Rookie's level would have been much more effective, but alas, it just felt like a playable menu system until you found the weapons caches. I did enjoy searching for Audio Logs, but there's no replayability there; once you've found them all, you're done. It would have been nice to have something else to do that encouraged replays. In addition, the total absence of Covenant Elites turned things down a notch. On the plus side, the flashback levels were outstanding, and Bungie did a great job recapturing the sense of "Halo-ness" that was missing from Halo 3's campaign. Also, the writing was very well-done, with an excellent plot, a gripping sense of mystery and moodiness, and highly polished cutscenes. There were a couple of genuinely funny one-liners in there as well. I know that opinion might be unpopular with some of you since ODST's story received less-than-stellar reviews, but I'm of the opinion that Joseph Staten did a really good job with it, especially considering the time constraints he had to deal with.
Halo 3's campaign was easily the worst of the bunch. It wasn't horrible, but like westpointusma15 said, it was so generic and uninspired that it felt nothing like a Halo game. Playing it was like playing any other run-of-the-mill science fiction shooter game. Sure, it was fun, but it just didn't feel like Halo to me save for a few well-crafted vehicle sections. In fact, it felt very hollow and superficial. There was no depth to this game. Exploration was discouraged, the AI was dumbed down and lacked any sense of randomization, the weapon balance was ruined, and the whole game felt rushed and truncated, both in terms of storytelling and level design. But my biggest issue lies with the fact that the Master Chief plays like a demigod in this game. He's way too powerful, to the point that I felt like there was no real danger anywhere in the game. This was a HUGE contrast with previous Halo games where you'd constantly have to watch your shields, watch your health, or watch for cover, especially on Legendary difficulty, if you hoped to make it through to the end in one piece. Halo 3 had none of that challenge, and it really killed the game for me.
[Edited on 01.31.2010 12:11 PM PST]