Halo: Anniversary - The Halo 1 remake (fuck anyone who calls it "halo ce" remake)

[Warsaw]

Only Lockout was good, to be honest. The other Halo 2 maps that were good were all remakes of Combat Evolved maps.

Now, at least 50% of my time in Halo has been spent playing co-op. When you consider the number of hours (think 7 hours a day average between 2001 and 2006), that's a lot of time. I have never, EVER had as much fun in Halo 2 screwing around as I have in Halo 1. It's. Just. Not. Amusing. Easter eggs are all fine and dandy, but that doesn't make the game better for screwing around; the physics in Combat Evolved alone were enough to make me want to screw around because of the hilarity that ensued every time. And if Halo 2 has the best campaign just because of exploring, that says to me that it's already broken; the game played normally is supposed to be fun and make you want to play again and again. Halo 2 does not do this. As a campaign, it's a massive failure. I will grant you the merit of exploration, though.

That said, I don't know why you even included that last video. Combat Evolved's opening did the same thing. Johnson always has a line in every Halo game that changes with difficulty. Halo 1 also had a "ride the pelican" moment. It has segments where you can get vehicles into places they aren't supposed to be, generally with more hilarious results. Brute pimp is just...wat. Not much funnier than Flood pets from the first game, though.

[Amit]

Zanzibar was awesome, Turf was intense, Burial Mounds was invigorating, and Ivory Tower was a definite favourite by most people. None of those are Halo 1 remakes.

[Higuy]

Halo 2 was my by far, my favorite Halo game. I hate how people dis it, especially its campaign. Its campaign was brilliant, lots of very memorable levels (most notable Delta Halo and Regret), and the soundtrack was simply awe-inspiring too. Like Pooky said, it had a great co-op too, and the levels were full of replayability. There is alot to do and explore in all of them, even if its an exploit of the game or a simple easter-egg.

[Warsaw]

Zanzibar was awesome, Turf was intense, Burial Mounds was invigorating, and Ivory Tower was a definite favourite by most people. None of those are Halo 1 remakes.

Burial Grounds was a carbine/BR wankfest.
Zanzibar was a BR wankfest, with everyone else resorting to splattering or glitching out of the map with a sniper rifle; H2CE played much better.
Ivory Tower was soiled with all of the sword whoring. Though this map was good in the sense that it was the only one that managed to take advantage of Dual Wielding...and Needlers...lots and lots of Needlers.
Turf, I can't comment on. I never really played Turf.

Now, let's look at the list of generally accepted Combat Evolved favourites (* means it has a remake):
Bloodgulch*
Battle Creek*
Sidewinder*
Hang 'Em High*
Prisoner
Timberland
Wizard*
Boarding Action
Damnation
Rat Race
Danger Canyon

Here's the list of generally disliked maps that are frequently and openly poo-poo'd:
Chiron TL34
Longest*
Derelict
Infinity
Chill Out*

What does that say about the rest of Halo 2's maps?

@Higuy: The campaign was one huge bottleneck with low replayability due to bad AI (especially on the Elites, resulting in Bungie making the hugest damage/RoF modifiers known to man to make them threatening), overly choreographed combat set-pieces, and small encounters. It's only redeeming quality is the cut-scenes, which are the best in the series. I cannot, however, play a cut-scene.

As for the music...Halo 2 was good, but to me it lacked the "Halo" tone. Halo 1 and 3 much better capture what I consider the "atmosphere" of Halo. I also really liked ODST for its unique sound out of all of the games.

I don't know, maybe I'm just overly critical of the games I play. I seem to be part of a handful of players that though Halo 2 was inferior to its predecessor. I just didn't have as much fun with that game as I did with the first. I tried, I honestly did. It just didn't happen.

[Amit]

You're spreading your personal opinion as though it is fact. Everything you have said so far is debatable. I'm not going to waste my time explaining why you are incorrect in many ways just for you to respond with more

I'll say this, though. While you have low replayability I must have played through the H2 campaign at least 5 times. It's fun.

[Higuy]

@Higuy: The campaign was one huge bottleneck with low replayability due to bad AI (especially on the Elites, resulting in Bungie making the hugest damage/RoF modifiers known to man to make them threatening), overly choreographed combat set-pieces, and small encounters. It's only redeeming quality is the cut-scenes, which are the best in the series. I cannot, however, play a cut-scene.

As for the music...Halo 2 was good, but to me it lacked the "Halo" tone. Halo 1 and 3 much better capture what I consider the "atmosphere" of Halo. I also really liked ODST for its unique sound out of all of the games.

I don't know, maybe I'm just overly critical of the games I play. I seem to be part of a handful of players that though Halo 2 was inferior to its predecessor. I just didn't have as much fun with that game as I did with the first. I tried, I honestly did. It just didn't happen.

How could you not love levels like Quarantine Zone (wasteland), Old Mombasa, Delta Halo, Uprising?!!?!?!? The game had some of the most inspiration levels ever in my opinion. The only thing I didn't like was the whole Chief switching to Arbiter thing, then again, it is vital to the universe and the story being told.

And alot of its Multiplayer levels were remade. Sanctuary, Relic (sorta), Zanzibar... To be honest, Halo 2 was what souly made me get xbox live and and a xbox as a whole. It really was just a great game from what I played and experienced.

Halo 1 and 3 too were both great too, especially 1. Halo 2 had a far deeper story though, and some more interesting level design. Halo 1's encounters were good in the iconic encounters - alot of other ones were fairly linear in some cases.

[Donut]

Bloom is stupid because

a. it adds an element of randomness (randomness being the opposite of skill) that allows people to get lucky kills at close range by spamming, and

b. the DMR is so RIDICULOUSLY accurate when slow fired that there's absolutely no way to avoid or escape it if you get caught in the open (read: 99% of all forgeworld maps). At least in Halo PC we had the shitty netcode and in Halo 2 and 3 the BR required leading across long distance (plus none of them were HITSCAN with almost INFINITE RANGE), which somewhat compensated for the power of those weapons.

how does b make bloom bad? if youre slow firing, then bloom doesnt really effect anything, and if youre slow firing, the other guy has a better chance to get away.

E: also, halo 2's sp was fun, dont get me wrong, there was plenty of awesome shit in there. im just saying that the city levels didnt have the level of epic i was expecting from the E3 trailer. running through the field hospital set up, seeing all the marines holding that high ground trying to take out the stationary gun, the witty dialog about the coast being clear ("you tell me"), and then gunning on the back of a gauss hog through a city with what seemed to be multiple roads you could take, all of which i assume were full of covenant. to an extent i assume this didnt happen because of technical limitations, but thats the sort of thing i was expecting. we got a similar feeling with the scarab battle and the bridge scorpion tank rape, but it just didnt seem as robust as the E3 trailer made it seem.

my issue mainly lies in the weapons though. i feel like i have to micro manage so much more in halo 2 and on then i do in halo 1. like i said before, no headshot weapon = problem, whereas in halo 1, assault rifle and shotgun was a perfectly viable strategy. really, bringing back the halo 1 shotgun would fix quite a bit of my griping, but at this point they wont because they have 2 other close range weapons now (sword and hammer).

E2: halo 2's music was fucking awesome, and fit just fine, idfk what youre talking about warlord. parts of halo 2's sound track were redone for halo 3, and if im not mistaken, "re-interpreted" so to speak for reach. songs that come to mind are the battle theme for the gondolas, that theme that plays when youre at the top of the water fall in this jungle-ey area sniping covenant, and the theme from outskirts and newmombasa.
and the battle theme from the gondolas was an interpretation of the "upon a pale horse" or whatever from halo 1.

[Arteen]

Halo 2 has fantastic music, captivating environments, creative encounters, fun exploration,varied enemies, an extensive sandbox of weapons and vehicles, and god-awful gameplay.

[Pooky]

Only Lockout was good, to be honest. The other Halo 2 maps that were good were all remakes of Combat Evolved maps.

Now, at least 50% of my time in Halo has been spent playing co-op. When you consider the number of hours (think 7 hours a day average between 2001 and 2006), that's a lot of time. I have never, EVER had as much fun in Halo 2 screwing around as I have in Halo 1. It's. Just. Not. Amusing. Easter eggs are all fine and dandy, but that doesn't make the game better for screwing around; the physics in Combat Evolved alone were enough to make me want to screw around because of the hilarity that ensued every time. And if Halo 2 has the best campaign just because of exploring, that says to me that it's already broken; the game played normally is supposed to be fun and make you want to play again and again. Halo 2 does not do this. As a campaign, it's a massive failure. I will grant you the merit of exploration, though.

You don't seem to be understanding at all that what I posted is my opinion and what you posted is your opinion and no opinion can ever be right or wrong. I enjoy co-op on Halo 2 more than Halo 1. You don't. Fine. That doesn't make my opinion wrong.

Also though it's not really relevant to the discussion, I should add that any time someone uses 'linear' as a gameplay criticism, their opinion instantly loses all credibility.

There's nothing wrong with linear gameplay. For that matter, non linear gameplay has been the source of some of my most boring and frustrating experiences in gaming.

how does b make bloom bad? if youre slow firing, then bloom doesnt really effect anything, and if youre slow firing, the other guy has a better chance to get away.

It's the fact that before mid range weapons had bloom, they all had consistent accuracy that was never too good and never too bad. That meant that neither random close range spraying nor retardedly long range spamming would work.

Here's the list of generally disliked maps that are frequently and openly poo-poo'd:
Chiron TL34
Longest*
Derelict
Infinity
Chill Out*

I don't know anybody who hates or ridicules those maps. Chillout is awesome. The only one on there I could maybe agree with is Longest, but even that map is fun under the right circumstances.

[Amit]

^In my top ten fav vids of all time. Swear I posted that in youtube thread in March or April too.