Many unanswered questions
DMZ · November 15, 2004 at 3:40 am · Filed Under Off-topic ranting
Despite being sick as a dog this last week, I beat Halo 2 before the release of Halflife 2.
As much as I enjoyed Halo, and I like that Bungie creates huge, rich story lines, Halo 2 didn’t answer any of my questions about what’s going on from that game, and managed to confuse me even more. There’s a certain amount of mystery I appreciate, but at this point in the series, I feel like I should know much more about the fictional world and what’s going on than I do.
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33 Responses to “Many unanswered questions”
I would think that if you got in THAT much gaming, it would be BECAUSE you were sick as a dog.
I haven’t had the time to play it much at all. actually, I think I may feel a sniffle coming on?!
I agree completely. I know there are a lot of people who probably haven’t completed the game as of yet so I will spare you the details, but to say that I am severely disappointed with the outcome of Halo 2 might be an understatement. For all the delays and release date changes, you would have thought that the Bungie folks could have actually found time to write in a legitimate ending, not gone the Planet of The Apes (2001) route.
I haven’t had a chance to play Halo 2 yet — I’m currently working on GTA: San Andreas and I’m picking up Metroid Prime 2 this afternoon — but there are two things I’m curious about from following the ilovebees.com ARG; are Spartan 1.1’s and/or an AI named Melissa included in the Halo 2 story? If those of you that have finished Halo 2 don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, I suppose that answers my question. ;D
GTA:SA has started to freeze on me every time I walk into the Ammunation in San Fiero. Which, I have to say, is *awesome*. Can’t get enough of that. And if I had a Gamecube, and I wish I did, I’d probably be all over that, too.
Halo 2 does sort of have a new Spartan. No Melissa, though.
Halo2 feels an awful lot like Quake. OK. The dual weapons attack is cool but the single-gadget thing can only take you so far. It’s kinda boring. My friends and I were playing it this weekend and we have already started asking each other as we set down the consoles, “So, when is Halflife2 coming out?” Halo2 is a real disappointment.
Halo was enough of a disappointment that I have no interest in Halo 2.
That said, I’m strictly a PC gamer, so I played Halo with higher resolution graphics and more precise controls (keyboard & mouse) – which made the game really quite easy.
Since this is so off topic for the M’s list I can’t risk making it further off topic…..
Any recommendations for games for the Xbox for a family of girls aged 12,11,6 & 4? I’m more interested in the 12 & 11 year olds. We just picked up an Xbox yesterday (yes I’m playing Halo 2, but looking more forward to Half Life 2, I’m a pc gamer also).
I have a piece of advice.
If you have any obsessive personality traits don’t try the open beta of World of Warcraft. I’m not even sure if being flat out broke will be able to prevent me from buying it. I just have to nuke one more zombie before going to bed…ok, I can do another one. “Hey, I’m only a couple hundred exp from levelling, why don’t I just finish that and call it a night. Oh, that’s where those quest items are, guess I should gather them while I’m here.”
But hey, on a site where people know that WARP and VORP aren’t science fiction terms there shouldn’t be anyone with unhealthy addiction problems…right?
I have yet to play Halo 2 on single-player, but then again, I didn’t really play Halo single-player either. The beauty of the game is its multiplayer capabilities, particularly linking 4 systems for a sweet 16 person game. My friends and I spent 4 or 5 hours playing multiplayer saturday night, which was sweet.
Who cares about campaign. The real fun with Halo2 is online multiplayer. Very fun, and very smooth. No lag whatsoever.
Um, I care about campaign.
I care about campaign. I do not care about mulit-player.
You’re missing out big-time if you don’t care to even TRY the Xbox Live portion of the game. Finding cool people to play the game with extends the life of the game immensely.
I’ll agree that the campaign left out a lot of details that would have been nice to have. But I must say that I enjoyed it a lot more than most people whose comments I read. I played through on Heroic and I found it challenging, beautiful, and fun. I guess when you build up anything for 3 years though; it’s hard to meet everyone’s expectations. Say, like, oh I don’t know, the Mariners signing a big name free agent.
Not that we’ll get it anytime soon, but I’ll bet that Bungie will add a level or two later (made available for download off of X-Box live, ala Splinter Cell). They will most definitely put out additional multiplayer maps. It’s smart marketing in that it locks a lot of people in to sticking with Live so you can get the new stuff.
I enjoyed it a lot, and it’s the most gorgeous game I’ve ever played… and yet, I feel like the story’s let me down. Or maybe that I care more about the story line/what’s happening in the Halo universe than they do, which seems unlikely. But given all the work they put into, say, ilovebees, I wonder why the Halo 2 story was so fractured and uninforming.
The problem I have with Xbox Live (and yes, I realize there’s an offer for two months free with the game) is that it’s a subscription thing. Can’t I buy a game system and a game and fully enjoy it? Why on earth would I want to continue to pay more and more for the pleasure of enjoying it? There’s enough things in life that require me to open my checkbook on a monthly basis; I don’t want my Xbox to force me to do it again.
servers and bandwidth are pretty expensive. add that on to the cost of developing a game to begin with, it’s pretty generous for a game to include free servers. they should stick with just the matchmaking. question: do xbox or ps2 consoles have such games, ones that allow you to use a non-microsoft or sony server?
obviously the way to do it is the counter-strike/ pc model — (originally) free game, fan-hosted servers, free maps. no wonder cs is the most popular multiplayer game ever.
Haven’t played Halo 2 multiplayer yet, but I’m looking forward to it. I agree with #16 furgig–games and consoles are expensive enough, paying more to get the most out of a $50 game which costs a tiny fraction of that to manufacture is a little infuriating. The big letdowns for me have been the cut scenes. I haven’t seen enough of the storyline yet to be disappointed, but some of the cg rendering has been subpar. It’s pretty lame to have pre-loaded graphics and textures drawing themselves in while you’re watching when everything else is so gorgeous and smooth. I also don’t like the fact that when you transition from dual-wielding to single you chuck your weapon away. Sometimes I’ll want to throw a grenade but then I’ll want to go back to double-wielding which means trying to find that other weapon I just got rid of–it’s even worse if you’re looking over a balcony, cause that sucker’s gone. Couldn’t he put it on a sling or in a holster? I know when I was a breach guy back in Ranger Battalion, I used to sling my M4 to use the breach shotgun and then transition back. Certainly some futuristic cyborg could do better than my human ass. I also dislike the move away from dual energy/health readouts. Those have been a staple since the original Marathon.
If you think having a cold turns you into a video game junkie, try a broken neck/spinal fusion on for size. . .
Bungie’s method, going back to its days as a small studio in Chicago, is to nail the multiplayer and then try to build a good single-player campaign on top of it. Halo 2 turned out to be something of a bitch, and as recently as last summer there were rumors coming out of Bungie’s office in Redmond that the single-player campaign was seriously screwed. I think they just ran out of time, and MS wouldn’t let them delay the launch past the holiday window.
So, for Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo XTreme! (or whatever comes after it), expect the multiplayer always to be better than the single-player. That’s where they focus their energies.
Agreed with the posters on Halo 2’s multiplayer. The beauty of the game, and where the developers obviously spent the most time, is in the multiplayer aspect. It’s hands down the best multiplayer game I have ever experienced, better than Goldeney for the 64.
“The problem I have with Xbox Live (and yes, I realize there’s an offer for two months free with the game) is that it’s a subscription thing.”
AMEN! Which is why I am exclusively a PC gamer. When Halo 2 comes out for PC, I will buy it. Until then, no, because I live for the multiplayer aspect. Once I beat the campaign (and since I have no life, I can usually beat the campaign on the hardest difficulty level in 1.5-2 weeks), I live off the multiplayer.
This is going to sound weird, but — I’ve really started to play console games more because the cost of PC gaming is so high. For a graphics card upgrade, that’s six games. Or I can buy a new console and a couple new games. And then after that, each game upgrade is =. So I tend to only seriously play PC games after I’ve upgraded the whole box for normal performance/cost reasons…
…and yet I only play multiplayer stuff on the PC. Keyboard-mouse controls, comfortable chair, higher-resolutions… mmmmm. Also, no ethernet hookup near the TV.
We should start a USSM clan of Mariner fans who aren’t that good at multiplayer games. Use classic M’s players as our nyms (I’ll be Scott Bradley!) and then, uh… get our ass kicked like the 80s Mariners.
Ah, I remember when I time to play video games. I also had time to post to this very blog then, too. Sigh.
jason
Hey, anyone interested in forming our own Halo 2 clan? We can all get trident emblems and blast stuff for fun!
Sorry, DMZ didn’t read that one, I’ll be HaroldReynolds 🙂
I get to be Jack Perconte. I once used that as an off-the-top-of-my-head non de plume when forced into an awkward social situation at a party.
If I had Live and was in the M’s clan, I’d want to be Rich Amaral…
I guess I’d probably go with Greg Pirkl then. Unfortunately I wouldnt have the time for anything like that.
I get to be John Mabry!
Quote: “There’s a certain amount of mystery I appreciate, but at this point in the series, I feel like I should know much more about the fictional world and what’s going on than I do.”
It almost sounds like you’re talking about the Mariners front office. :-)))
Maybe that will be the next big fantasy game?… “Mariners Front Office 2005”. It’ll be a huge, sprawling maze, impenetrable and incomprehensible… filled with shadowy creatures, some mysterious and possibly dangerous, some just weird and apparently harmless, but each with a unique personality and an unknown agenda.
It’ll be one of those games where you almost give up trying to discover what the objective is, because you have to spend the entire time just learning to understand the environment and the characters. And by the time you finally start figuring it all out, it will already be too late – “MFO 2006” will be ready for release. Which will seem completely different, and yet disturbingly similar… “deja vu” all over again. Year after year after year.
Sighhhhhhh. 😐 Go Sox! Just kidding… but at least they’re easier to understand.
Can I be Howard Lincoln? Man, I’d kick ass. Indestructible, you know.
I’d be Julio Cruz.
BUT, I’ve avoided more digital crack.
These games are fun and addictive, but in the end I just notice that a lot of time went by……
I tend to steer clear. Consequently, I am the worst Halo player. But it’s still so much fun to have beer and snacks, two tvs in two separate rooms, and 8 friends all shooting each other.
“God damn it! Who’s shooting me?!?”
I’ll be Bobby Ayala or Pee Wee Briley