Posted by: Sliding Ghost
1. Convincing enemies. Their eyes followed thrown grenades, they were often found patrolling or in a relaxed state (i.e. sleeping) instead of always expecting your arrival, they would have a distinct response to being stuck by a grenade or by the needler. When they went into cover, they crouched instead of standing behind the wall staring blankly.
Oh and Hog gunners would throw their fists into the air and let out a war cry when the Hog got enough air.
Lastly, Zealots and Hunters were just pure aggression. They were pushovers, susceptible to most things like every other enemy but they were persistent and could become freeroaming. And let's not forget about the suicidal rocket launcher Flood spam on Two Betrayals and the massive number of Carrier Forms on The Library. That makes Shootout in Valhalla look easy.
2. Level design. AotCR reused a lot of locations and there were 3 backtrack missions. But they were almost always engaging because of the massive AI battles and often refreshing change of pace. And the music. And the ambiance when the music died out (nowadays, you have to play our own music to stop the looping music).
3. Vehicles. Back when Hogs wouldn't blandly crash into walls. They would bounce off of them, which made them more fun to pilot. Try skipping Metropolis' tunnel in a Hog on Legendary. It's freaking frustrating. Purely luck IMO. Now try skipping Silent Cartographer using the nearby window. When you finally pull it off and you plummet several feet only to land on an overshield, you know you just did something incredibly stylish.
4. Weapons. Enough said. CE was the last time you could get an overkill on Grunts on Legendary. Nowadays, you have to be playing on Easy for that to happen.
5. No ranged combat, no severe difficulty = coming up with your own challenges. If you wanted to prove yourself a man, you'd avoid picking up the power weapons and you'd limit yourself to an AR or meleeing. Hell you'd even make up rules like never flipping in a Hog or never getting in a vehicle or keeping all your marines alive. I've seen people do the Hog run with 1 bar of health, beat down the bridge Zealot on AotCR with an AR, and fight an entire army by themselves. What I'd try to do is get an assassination on every Elite on Silent Cartographer. I managed to -blam!- 10-15 of those badasses.
Nowadays, the only challenge involving fighting you can limit yourself to is Zero Shot afaik. The last great Zero Shot run was in Halo 3, done by Nak3d Eli.
I understand, but don't you think if every halo game was exactly like CE it would be a boring saga?
I like how the AI change over time, it keeps the saga fresh, that's all.