- One One Seven
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What made Halo:CE so special, and what was that something that was lost in Halo 2? It's hard to say, but I can assure you that it wasn't because CE's gameplay had never been done before.
I'll try and give my reasoning for it. In fact, I'll try to capture CE in an example, in this case, the start of Assault on the Control Room.
You see the Pelican rise upwards, coming face to face with a Grunt, prompting a hilarious reaction. "Yipe .... Agghghhh [que panic sounds]". You hop off the Pelican and let rip into the Elite with frag grenades. BOOM. More hilarious Grunt sounds. You open fire with the wonderful sounding Assault Rifle, kill a few, and get a plasma grenade, which you immediately use "Not again! Waaaaaah". Any remaining Grunts are finished off and you move onwards, into a Blue Elite. "Wort wort wort". *Whack* *Blam* *Smack* "Ahhhghhh". And you're rewarded with a satisfying kill and a lot of covenant blood.
You pick up the needler, 7 needles later you get that fantastic explosion sound, and a wonderful looking pink explosion, and some fantastic animations and screams.
Ok, an example from Halo 2. Start of outskirts.
You walk into a grunt "Ack". Moving on "I will smite the demon". You move in to whack the offending posh Elite (which sounds stupid ... like Shakespeare, not an Alien), when suddenly you do a weird lunge into him, complete with the weak melee, and poor animation (see SMG melee attack). You pick up a fallen needler and use it. No satisfying rate of fire or sound. A muted pink explosion. No glass sound as the needles shatter.
You tag a grunt with a plasma grenade, hoping it works better. "Ack". *a muted explosion* "Ugh". A few more whacks (what the hell is this) and you're left with what looks like a small covenant nosebleed, rather than an alien that's just been beaten to death. And now you're out off SMG/BR ammo because you only carry 3 goddamn clips, and there's rarely any ammo around.
[Moving on - New Mombasa Bridge]
So after heading down an enclosed tunnel for the past 10 minutes, time to head across a bridge. You kill some Ghosts. All clear? Nope, a bunch of them just appeared from nowhere. Kill those. More. And more, and more and more. Wow, that's fun! Sadly this makes up about half of Halo 2's campaign. And it's filler.
You hijack a banshee with the fantastic boarding feature. Too bad you can't go anywhere because of the magic mysterious invisible walls that hurl you back. But strangely enough, they don't apply to the covenant.
[Moving on - Arbiter levels]
So now you're an Alien. Bang goes that immersion. And what a shame, he's in trouble for the complete ownage you inflicted upon him last game
[Moving on more]
Hey, boss battles. Kids stuff. And cool, holographic people are firing REAL plasma. Amazing. +1 for realism.
[Final battle]
Mmm, more physics breaking. Doesn't this break the immersion? Hey Sarge, can I borrow your magic sniper rifle ... mine doesn't work. Despite being exactly the same.
CE's campaign and gameplay had it's flaws, but Halo 2 is essentially a much stripped down version of that, with lots of filler, and a few good additions.
The sounds have changed (and most not for the better; needler, plasma rifle). You carry a stupidly low amount of ammo, so you're FORCED to swap every 2 seconds, even if you conserve ammo and are 100% accurate (losing a weapon due to a lack of ammo should be a punishment for wasting it). The Elites sound stupid, the Grunts have lost most of their lines.
There's so much bland filler. Sniper Jackals. Infinitely respawning vehicles. You can't clear an area and move on; you're forced to run.
Overall, the gameplay just hasn't got that 30 seconds of awesomeness that you had over and over in CE. It can be fun at times, don't get me wrong, but at other times, it's brutally rubbed in your face what this could have been, as you face sniper jackals and endless ghosts, and get killed in one hit by an Elite melee attack, and your favourite ('always there') backup weapon ran out of ammo about half an hour ago. And what's more, Marty's kickass music rarely becomes that wonderful dramatic stuff that we love, but instead a bland backing, that perfectly mirrors the gameplay.