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This topic has moved here: Poll [25 votes]: What do you think of the Halo 2 campaign in hindsight?
  • Poll [25 votes]: What do you think of the Halo 2 campaign in hindsight?
Subject: What do you think of the Halo 2 campaign in hindsight?

Halo never gets old.

Poll: What do you think of the Halo 2 campaign in hindsight?  [closed]
The story was good, but the gameplay is terrible.:  4%
(1 Votes)
The entire campaign is terrible.:  36%
(9 Votes)
The story was bad, but the gameplay was great!:  4%
(1 Votes)
Halo 2 is an amazing campaign!:  36%
(9 Votes)
The Halo 2 campaign was better than Halo 1's.:  20%
(5 Votes)
Total Votes: 25

I just played through all of Halo 1 and 2 in one day co-op on Heroic, and I don't think I will ever be able to play halo 2 again. When I first played through the Halo 2 campaign, I was fascinated, and enjoyed myself due to my heavy interest in the plot. However, now that I know the entire Halo 2 plot, the actual campaign gameplay is torturous.

One huge issue is the fact that during the last 4 levels, parts of the screen have leftover shadow, which is extremely distracting and buggy. However, the general gameplay just isn't fun. Of course, a lot of this has been said before, but I just wanted to say my own bit about it. The Halo 2 campaign has bad gameplay.

Of course, none of this really matters, since the Halo 3 campaign was much better (except for the level Cortana, which is terrible).

What are your thoughts?

  • 08.01.2011 8:27 PM PDT

The shadows have nothing to do with how good a game is and that was your big issue? Lol, you came here just to badmouth H2 and to promote H3 and you really didn't say anything of substance about either one.
Posted by: Godblazer
I just played through all of Halo 1 and 2 in one day co-op on Heroic, and I don't think I will ever be able to play halo 2 again. When I first played through the Halo 2 campaign, I was fascinated, and enjoyed myself due to my heavy interest in the plot. However, now that I know the entire Halo 2 plot, the actual campaign gameplay is torturous.

One huge issue is the fact that during the last 4 levels, parts of the screen have leftover shadow, which is extremely distracting and buggy. However, the general gameplay just isn't fun. Of course, a lot of this has been said before, but I just wanted to say my own bit about it. The Halo 2 campaign has bad gameplay.

Of course, none of this really matters, since the Halo 3 campaign was much better (except for the level Cortana, which is terrible).

What are your thoughts?

  • 08.01.2011 9:40 PM PDT

Halo never gets old.

The shadows weren't the main issue. I didn't go into full detail, which I guess I could do. The only reason I mentioned Halo 3 is because it showed that Bungie corrected most of its mistakes.

What were my real issues? The first Arbiter mission, you spend 10 minutes on an elevator that has occasional flood and sentinel attacks that are very easy to repel. Its extremely easy to get lost. Flood with a shotgun are OP. The graphics are lackluster, even depressing (i'm talking about tones), and the combat situations uninteresting. For example, the mission where you try to get to Regret, there is a tank portion which is very boring and similar to the tank mission on earth.

Brutes are uninteresting to fight against. All the missions are linear and very directed, with no open gameplay (example of open gameplay is assault on the control room).

These are a few of my qualms. But my largest overall qualm is that I played the game, and did not have fun. Some people might have different opinions, but basically I've moved past my nostalgia for Halo 2.

Go play through the Halo 2 campaign, and tell me what your opinion is.

  • 08.01.2011 10:10 PM PDT
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Posted by: Godblazer
there is a tank portion which is very boring and similar to the tank mission on earth.
All tank missions in Halo games are boring.

  • 08.01.2011 10:29 PM PDT
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halo 2 still the best game in the series. long live halo 2.

Dam, I miss the old days playing halo 2 with my old brothers in arms. Thank you my old friends for giving me this account, I shall continue our legacy.

Campaign was much better in Halo 2 then Halo 1,3, ODST, and Reach. It had a rich storyline, great music, good easter eggs, and good AI's. Everything flowed so well and as a result it gave us a good gaming experience.

  • 08.01.2011 11:13 PM PDT

+Sarah 1.2.2010 <3

I just don't think it's that fun. The campaign was by far the worst part of Halo 2.

  • 08.02.2011 2:35 AM PDT

I run Skirmish!!!

alright, time for me to put in my two sense.

Halo 2's campaign was the only campaign to introduce the covenant side of the story which made halo 2 have a unique and fun aspect to the game. Playing as elites and fighting the brutes was fun.

The level the OP refers to with the sentinals was one 10 min section of an entire level, you cannot base your opinion off one section.
If you played through the whole campaign and did not like the "graphics" then you fail to realize that this game is 7-8 yrs old, so of course the graphics will now seem depressing...

The halo 2 campaign music was the best out of all of the halo's, matter of fact, it was the only one to bring in a popular rock group (breaking benjamin) to have them do a unique single which added an amazing ending to a level...

Halo 2 was the turning point of the halo series and bungie did a great job of showing the fight between the elites/brutes and at the last level, the elites and the humans teamed up against the brutes/prophets.. Not to put down halo 3 or ODST, but those two games did not have such an important turning point in the halo history such as the one in halo 2. This is what made the game good to me, all these aspects and more...



[Edited on 08.02.2011 4:01 AM PDT]

  • 08.02.2011 4:00 AM PDT

1.Arkham Asylum, 2.Mass Effect, 3.Halo CE, 4.Mass Effect 2, 5.Halo 2, 6.Splinter Cell Double Agent, 7.Gears of War 2, 8.Medievil, 9.Oblivion, 10.Crash Team Racing

I just wish there would have been a couple of more levels:
1. Forerunner ship. Chief alone starts with crummy plasma pistol, and element of surprise, and has to fight his way through the ship facing better armed enemies than anywhere (Drinols). Eventually the ship lands or crashes at Ark
(2. Halo. Arbiter, Johnson and the gang fight their way to the capital ships and head for Earth. Battles on ground, on ship and in space. This is unnecessary fill)
3. The Ark. The final battle on African deserttown starts with humans vs Covenant. Tons of troops and items for each side. Humans seem to be losing until Elites+some Grunts and Hunters arrive with Arbiter and the gang. Chief and Arbiter team up to fight their way through the battlezone to chase down Truth. But then High Charity with Flood on board appears and crashes, which is replied by Sentinels and Enforcers coming to stop them from getting to Ark. The end result is a huge apocalyptic battle which ends with a final battle against Gravemind at the center of the Ark/Main Halo.

Then there would have been no need for Halo3 and all the stupid changes and useless fill it had.

But as it is Halo2 is the most interesting campaign while Halo1 has just a bit better gameplay. Halo3 was just dull and never really got on. First half drags on and the last half is rushing.

  • 08.02.2011 4:11 AM PDT

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"What do you think of the Halo 2 campaign in hindsight?"

It wasn't good.
The story didn't feel right. It just feels forced, none of these parts where you find out more about the story and other things in game, not in an annoying cutscene marking the transition between two levels.
The Arbiter storyline just feels like it was slapped onto the main storyline. No real cohesion between it and the main storyline. Why did you play as Arbiter for a couple of levels? To capture Guilty Spark just to figure out that you needed an Index, while you (as the player) already know it? To get to the Index before the humans? That part actually felt like you were working against yourself, instead of preventing Halo from firing and killing everything in the universe, all of the sudden you have to do the exact opposite because of your character's religion. And when you thought you got the Index, you get thrown in a hole containing the hive mind of the galaxy-devouring parasite known as the Flood. You don't feel like you actually accomplish anything with the Arbiter. I mean, you do kill Tartarus, but not alone - making the Arbiter appear incompetent and not as a hero. After all, he is a 7-foot high alien with energy shielding and active camo, and he needed Johnson to beat Tartarus. It makes Johnson appear even more of a badass, and not Arbiter, and you're actually playing as Arbiter. I don't know anyone who wants to play a game where you are someone who doesn't actually do anything in the game, just runs around shooting other aliens in a tedious and un-fun way.

Now that I mentioned it, the game itself is annoying and frustrating (of course, I'm talking about Legendary, because who wouldn't try to play a game at it's hardest).
And I don't mean that it's too hard, I mean that it's incredibly evil and downright tedious. Getting sniped through a half-inch gap while reloading behind boxes isn't really a definition of fun or challenge. I'd rather much call it "annoying" or "bull-blam-". Same could be said for the parts where there are no snipers, just you, Grunts, Jackals and Elites. Naturally, you would always kill the laughably simple-to-kill Grunts and the slightly more challenging Jackals. You are then left with one (or more) Elite(s). What do you do then?
Do you grenade them? No, because they deal very low amounts of damage to their shields + they jump away.
Do you use the weapon that seems appropriate to the situation (eg. SMG/PR in close, BR/Carbine in mid, snipes in long range). No, their shields recharge too quickly for hit and run tactics + commonly countered lack of ammo (in the BR and Carbine's case) & head on attack is suicide (SMG/PR). The snipe from long range is the only thing that makes sense, but most of the time it's just:
PP overcharge + BR to the head, then back away to cover because your shields are already empty and 2 more hits would cause death. Rinse and repeat to win any fight.
I have no idea why would this be necessary. The first game had a nice flow to it where you could win fights by choosing the right weapon and actually being proficient with it. You could fire off a couple of AR rounds at an Elite, get behind cover, quickly pop out and fire at them while your shields are recharging to prevent theirs from doing the same, wait for your shields to fully recharge, and then finish them off with a couple more bursts to deplete their shields followed by more bullets, a pistol shot to the head or whacking them a couple of times. Every weapon served a purpose there. In Halo 2, the only weapons which could actually kill were the PP + BR/Carbine, rockets, fuel rod gun and snipes. All the other weapons are so underpowered that they seem like they are in the game simply to have more weapons so for Marines, Covies and Flood to wield (see Halo 3 for more on the topic "Weapons nobody uses"). Everything in the first game died quickly, both the enemies and you (if you weren't careful/smart/skilled), but there were multiple ways to kill them. The same happens in Halo 2, but there are a lot less ways to do so, dumbing down the ability to be creative. It also doesn't take much skill to do so, considering that the PP's overcharge follows the target like a heat-seeking rocket and that the autoaim and bullet magnetism on both weapons is immense. And don't get me started on those bullet-sponges called Brutes.

At least the skulls, easter eggs and jumping out of the level are awesome in H2.

[Edited on 08.02.2011 10:53 AM PDT]

  • 08.02.2011 7:02 AM PDT