Loading ...Ok so I just recently bought Halo 2 for the XBox 360 to see what all the insane craze over the Halo franchise has been about for all these years. I’m up to the part of the game where you are the arbitor and have fought past the flood to get to the library on Halo to get the key… you remember that part? Yea, that’s right, the exact same thing you did in Halo 1… how inventive.
This game is such a goddamn repetitive piece of junk it’s mind-numbing. I just don’t see how you add this game, with fanatical fans up and somehow get one of the most loved games on the XBox… what is fun for you? Walking into a room and getting sets of 5 enemies thrown at you, after killing each group of 5 (even though you’ve done absolutely nothing) seeing “Checkpoint” up in the right hand column? How about the awesome feature of hanging back when you enter an area and trying to clear it from a distance with a sniper rifle, but getting punished by the system by it simply never stopping respawning enemies to come at you from magical locations on the level.
Or what about the other design gem when you will be across a ravine from somewhere you are going, and you have a sniper rifle in hand so you zoom in on that area to try and clear it ahead of time… oh no, forget that, you have to walk over the bridge first to TRIGGER the magical spawn of all those enemies.
I cannot reiterate this enough… this game is punishment to play.
The only reason I can come up with people thinking this game is good is because of the incredibly high production value of the cut scenes and animations… and that’s it.
Imagine a game where you get this incredible cut scene that is chalk full of professional voice actors (some Hollywood stars) and great story line and then the dialog ends with some “Ok, now go find the key so the great journey can begin…” and then you play, I am not joking here, basically Quake 2 for about 30mins until the next cut scene. The game play is that unimaginative, cheap, irritating and loosely tied together. It’s like you get to watch a cut scene, then you have to flip over to your Super Nintendo and play some stupid old port of Doom for 30 mins, then switch back.
Hey you want a challenge in Halo so you don’t get to your next cut scene too fast? How about a room full of bad guys that you don’t really need to kill… OH and here’s the best part… we aren’t going to tell you that, we are just going to revive them after you kill them EVERY SINGLE TIME until you get the idea that you can’t kill them and try and escape the room without clearing it (e.g. as arbitor on your way to “Things appear closer than they are”).
Oh but wait… now that we’ve taught you that, let’s have you enter a room that you cannot PASS until you kill everyone in it (e.g. as arbitor when you first land in library). Do you like this game yet?
I’m baffled and befuddled… there is no value to this game. Halo 1 was more exciting and inventive than this. This feels like a 3rd party knockoff using some rediculous 1980s game tactics to increase gameplay time.
- Sound: 9/10, surprisingly great
- Graphics: 5/10, it’s a XBox game but wow… it looks like a Gamecube game (Resident Evil doesn’t count)
- Controls: 6/10, they are flaky. Not as tight as GoW or other titles. I swing my sticks around to the edge of the view a lot to turn and see my enemies faster
- Story: 7/10, seems pretty interesting but gets docked for being the same damn story from #1
- Voice Acting: 10/10, great and there are some funny lines that the soldiers say
- Gameplay: 2/10, so frustratingly cheap, repetitive and untuitive. Stuck in that room for 30mins? Oh guess what, that random texture on the wall is a trigger for the door… yea have fun with that.
- Final Score: 3/10
If I’ve offended anyone that loved Halo 2, please explain to me how this stupid game is suppose to be fun compared to the likes of something like Far Cry release around the same time? Halo has the story and voice acting, but Far Cry had the game play hands down… not to mention a slew of other games that *played* better than this… Half-Life the original comes to mind… the game play itself in this game is just such trash.
Update #1: Hey at least we are right, Bungie admits Halo 2 sucked.
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January 11th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Amen brother.
From what I’ve seen, the only reason people like Halo is it brought multiplayer FPS to the masses; I had some many thick-skulled jocks in my dorm that were obsessed with multiplayer halo. I didn’t get it because compared to the PC counterparts, the graphics were worse, the controls were clunkier, and the guns were boring.
I feel the same way about Halo 2, in spades. The singleplayer is *absolutely* uninspiring.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:52 am
You are totally right… I suppose it’s just a timing thing… god I hate that game but now I feel like I have to finish it so Halo 3 makes sense… so I just haven’t been turning my XBox on
May 31st, 2007 at 10:13 pm
I understand that this is a matter of opinion and I understand why you dont like halo 2, but why were you stuck in that roo for 30 mins? Maybe because you didnt kill the floodballs before they revived their allies?
June 1st, 2007 at 8:03 am
You are probably right… there were *so* many times in Halo 2 where I didn’t pick up on the prompts of what to do next… I see that as more a fault with the game than me (only because I had a handful of other gamer friends say the same), but I also understand some folks never skipped a beat with the game and got everything… in which case I guess they had more fun with it than me
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:12 pm
halo 2 sucked in some things, but you have to accept that it’s the best multiplayer, and the best to play LAN. expect a great game out of halo 3…
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Andres,
I will give it great multiplayer, and same goes for Halo 3… clearly they spent the mass majority of their time on developing it… but the good news for them is that will likely give it legs for years.
November 3rd, 2007 at 4:12 pm
First of all, how do you give it 3/10 when your scores add up to 6.5/10?
But then I realize, if you can’t get through an incredibly simple single-player campaign, you’re obviously not capable of that kind of thought. Just because the game isn’t totally and completely linear like the games you’re used to. It takes some imagination, some thought.
I also see you are a GoW fan. That game looks incredible, plays awful. Small maps that always bring the same thing: a race to the best weapons to win the match. And it isn’t really a race, it’s a slow waddle, with the bulky characters that move all too slow.
But back to Halo 2. Halo 2 also completely revolutionized multiplayer on the console. Tens of thousands have spent days playing Halo 2. It is a game that takes true talent to play, true talent to be successful. It is the best game on the Xbox, and one of the best of all time.
November 3rd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
E.B.,
You can’t assume even weights with all the scores I gave. For example, “Gameplay” carries more weight in the final score than “Voice Acting”.
I do appreciate that you actually added all those individual scores up and averaged them, but they aren’t all equal in importance.
I also appreciate that this game review was for Halo single player, but your arguments are made exclusively not only for Halo multiplayer but also Gears of War multiplayer.
Awesome: 1
Me: 0
November 24th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Nice math lolz according to your scores it gets a 6.5, not 3.
November 25th, 2007 at 1:03 am
The ONLY thing Halo 2 had to compare against Halo 1 was its multiplayer as pretty much everyone has said. I dont mind Halo 3’s story.
And why is there a big Halo vs GoW war on this site XD, wouldnt it be more accurate if it was Halo vs Half-Life?
November 25th, 2007 at 8:36 am
jodakilla,
If you had just read the post immediately above yours, you’d see the score aren’t all the same weight.
Your brain makes me sad