Halo 2, Massively Underrated?

[SydSelf]

Okay, a possible flamewar starter here, those who just want to insult fans of different games please don't answer, also, people who hate halo as a rule and do not see a difference between games keep it to yourself, it's just a question I'd like answered about a standpoint that conflicts with everything I see. But if you browse the internet, you'll find hate aimed at Halo 2 on everywhere from TVTropes to bungie's own statements. However, I'm fairly well traveled, and among people I've met personally, Halo 2 tends to get the most praise of the series.

I'd like an answer as to why. This is the standpoint I seem to see on a personal level:

High Points:
(NOTE: Due to the hatred of ODST which I outright attribute to FanDumb, I KNOW why it's hated, I disagree, personal opinion, however, it will not be discussed here. Please.)
Halo: the Flood, rebalancing the shooter.
Halo 2: The story, character development, rebalancing yet again, introduction of internet.
Halo 3: Revision and perfection of internet, introduction of builtin community modding tools, breaking the copy-paste level design of the prior games.
Reach: Perfection of the modding tools, best cinematic(not story, but camera usage, visuals, and explosiveness) approach in single player of the series.

So I decided to go through the games and figure out why this is. I have a more specific list of high points and low points of all the games. Having not finished the Campaign on Reach, the points there will be vague and hearsay, I'm sorry, if someone else could flesh that heading out I'd be grateful.

Halo"
Singleplayer:
Story highpoints:
343 Guilty Spark: When the Flood show up.
Two Betrayals: It's alot harder to see a betrayal coming in a story when the character doing it doesn't realize you didn't know what he was working for the entire time. He wasn't trying to betray you, he honestly thought you knew the formula.
Keyes: I'm not sure if this is a highpoint, because you saw it coming a mile away, but it was dramatic nonetheless.
The Maw: Destroying the weapon and annihilating your friends and path home is easily a tense dramatic moment in shooter history, more when you think about it afterward than the actual ingame.

Gameplay highpoints:
Pillar of Autumn: THE level that introduced you to a new concept in gaming. And surprisingly intense compared to later levels.
Halo: You see the ring go up, and up, and up... also the last real variety in the game for the most part.
Silent Cartographer: The midgame breather from CutnPaste tendancy. And the best scenery porn in the game, arguably, as you aren't stuck in a natural bowl the entire time for gameplay reasons.
The Maw: A return to the most detailed level in the game, and even that is massively overhauled. And the most intense battle in the game, followed by the greatest warthog ride in the series.

Low Points:
Keyes: Again, because you saw it coming a mile away.
Cut and Paste architecture, culminating in
The Library: Seven identical corridors with identical battles. Doesn't stop them from being far too massive.

Highest point: The Maw

Multiplayer:
High:
The rebalance of gaming, again. And the inclusion of secrets in mp maps, in a trend to forget those.
Low: Some cutnpaste again, Derelict (OW), and no online.

Halo 2:
Singleplayer:
Story highpoints:
The entire Arbiter storyline(The Heretic, Oracle, Sacred Icon, Quarantine Zone, Gravemind (Arbiter viewpoint), Uprising, The Great Journey): Extremely deep character development on the new protagonist. Portrayed very well mechanically. You may have seen the story a million times, but it was very deep here. Especially as it didn't portray him being a double agent or giving leeway till the very end, where the option was forced down his bisected throat. It timed the emotional climax perfectly here. Possibly the foremost reason I'm even asking the question in the first place instead of agreeing with the mainstream.
Gravemind(shared): It may be a giant cutscene, but it breathes life into the Flood once more after their somewhat stale appearance so far. And challenges both Chief And the Arbiter. This is the beginning of Chief's emotional journey this time around. And the introduction of the coolest villain in the series, a magnificent bastard worthy of Tycho or Durandal.
Gravemind/High Charity(Chief viewpoint): Chief and Cortana's romance is fleshed out up to "Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it...", the most tearjerking line in the series so far. And this time you didn't see the separation coming until the characters do.
Gameplay highpoints:
Chiro Station: Okay, finished the game on heroic. Let's try it on legendary! (Nope. Sorry. Died, reload checkpoint.) Legendary is on a whole 'nother level than Halo 1, and is the hardest legendary in the series. And this level takes the cake for the turrets in the habitation area. No cheating AI, either, like the Jackal snipers later on. This is honest difficulty. It is the only legendary level in the original trilogy I haven't finished. So hard it's funny.
Most Other Levelsurprisingly, if they didn't avert cutnpaste, they at least managed to make the battles play out differently each time in this game. They almost completely avoided long boring segments this time throughout the game with the exception of
Low Points:
There were a few segments of boring though, the second halves of Delta Halo, The Oracle and Sacred Icon come to mind where the dev team started to fail in variety. But the quality overall of the gameplay was still improved over Halo 1.
With one glaring exception: The end of the Scarab fight. Thank you kindly, Bungie, for building us up progressively over the course of two very good levels that probably serve as another gameplay highpoint in the whole series as they manage to completely avert cutnpaste and build the tension for... a curbstomp battle against your harassing Scarab. In defense, it's the most believable way the military would take it down, but it wasn't very fun, I wanted a boss battle. It looked better than the ones in 3, but they fought better by far.
Highest point:
Gravemind
Multiplayer:
High:
The most creative maps in the original trilogy, and the successful integration of internet, without sacrificing the satisfaction of seeing your brother's face as you stabbed him from behind. The fact that the only cutnpaste level that wasn't a remake of a halo 1 map being Containment, itself a beautiful dose of scenery porn.
Low:
So far, no real bad points here. More customization would have been nice, but at this point there was nothing disappointing. Everything about it's multiplayer was better than 1. In an effort to say something bad about it I'll say they should have included all the maps in the map pack if not in release, I like Hang 'em High. If I can't download it later, I'm pissed.

Halo 3:
Singleplayer:
Story highpoints:
There were several very moving points, and the brutes were integrated very well. I'll cite
The Covenant, Cortana, and Halo in particular, as they closed off the loose ends of the storyline. Cortana was also heartwarming after the ending of 2. Halo because you finally get to pwn that jerkass 343 with a Spartan Laser. Who had his best lines in the series.
Gravemind and Cortana's characters in particular throughout the entire game had the best lines easily.
Gameplay highpoints:
Tsavo Highway: Long, fierce, and desolately beautiful.
Cortana: An amazing transformation to High Charity. I do wish the Flood had stayed green, however, as this game had far too much brown in it already.
Halo: The callback warthog chase.
The whole campaign succeeded in averting copypaste, but...
Low Points:
It sapped the believability of some of the levels, Crow's Nest comes to mind. An example of going overboard on abstraction in a realistic level design theme. There's no way any installation is built that haphazardly.
The dialogue for every character besides Gravemind and Cortana. It went from deep storytelling to action movie. "More brutes" "Worse."
That line and Crow's Nest were such glaring failures on the final product that I died a bit inside. Also, you think Johnson would have put a bit more effort into something awesome to say as he died. "Send me out with a bang", indeed? From the man who brought you "Two sticks and a rock! For the whole platoon! And we had to share the rock!"? I don't care if you're dying, I wanted an epic rant.
Highest point: Either Cortana or Halo. Both good, I'm leaning towards Cortana for the Gravemind/Cortana banter. But the brown change hurt that level, too. I'm just not sure if it hurt anywhere near as much as the shoddy end dialogue for a beloved character in Halo.
Multiplayer:
High: The mechanics. Customization. It may have taken until CoD4 for the style to catch on, but it started in 3, and now everyone uses it. Also, forge was a great blow for consoles over pc in the war. I'm a PC gamer, and the forge won my heart a little bit.
Low:
The stock maps fell into the same hell as Crow's Nest for the most part this time. Rat Trap comes to mind. Valhalla was also like a slap in the face to the Blood Gulch community, though admittedly it was well meant, just overdone.

Reach:
Singleplayer:
Story highpoints:
Unlike Halo 3, you didn't slaughter character development this time, which is good. Also, the portrayal of the war in the first level, as far as I ever got around to playing, was quite good. People have told me the death scenes were friggan epic.
Gameplay highpoints:
The enemies were much more believable AI wise, and the score system was cool.
Low Points:
From what I've heard, again, there was disappointment over the lack of real character development and how they went out of their way for over-the-top epicness rather that good storytelling.
Highest point: Lone Wolf
Multiplayer:
High:
Had the system created in 3. While the online had minimal improvements at launch, it's hard to go up from the top. Forge's revisions, however, caused a major increase in replay value in Multiplayer. This gave Reach the best multiplayer in console gaming, arguably. Also they fixed the over-abstraction from 3.
Low:
From what I've heard from longtime fans, 343 mismanaged the multiplayer badly. While the maps continued to get better, the servers became glitchridden, and each patch, again hearsay, seemed to create more bugs than it fixed. I know at one point about six months from launch I got kicked from my own Forge game, which we were hosting, because someone accidentally TK'd a connected player while manipulating a piece of scenery. This was annoying. Jetpacks are NOT a low point, cuz from what I've seen, you people who fail to get good results aren't using them right! They're a speed booster, not a elevator!


That's my review, my apologies about failure of research on Reach, I'd like that corrected, and I still would like to have said question answered. Is Halo 2 therefore massively underrated by the mainstream? I'm curious why my favorite installment takes so much hate.

Please help!
And no flamewars or ODST discussion, please. Everyone can keep their own opinion on that particular controversy.

[Pickles]

You obviously made an effort at this, so I'll contain my sony fanboyness.

I'm gonna keep my post short because I've never been passionate about the games at all (due to never owning an xbox or 360) I have played them though, and most of my friends are all big fans of the series, and I've yet to meet anyone of them who doesn't love the second game.

So all I can really contribute from my own experience that the game isn't under rated at all, hell a group of gamers broke their consoles just keeping the online for 2 going after the servers were taken down, but hostility towards it came from gamers who are just anti xbox. So yeah, that.

Hope you get the debate you want mate.

[curryking3]

I think it's great you took time to talk about what you thought here. It looks like it took a lot of effort

I do think Halo 2 is a solid game. The only reason I do not play it very much, or even at all, is just because I have an obscene love for the original Halo. It's a game I play to this day, because I really loved the mechanics. I really thought they were a perfect blend of playground and heterogeneity. Not many guns, but they all felt different. A lot of vehicles, and they definitely felt all different. Everything seemed to play to a nice, balanced rule book except for the essential pistol everyone loves or loves to hate from Halo 1.

Unfortunately, I love Halo 1's mechanics so much that even the most miniscule changes, let alone major gameplay changes, are things I just didn't take a liking to. On the other hand, I think Halo 2's mechanics stand well on their own, and I think the game has great production values. I really loved the graphics fidelity at the time too, it was somehow even more stunning than the original Halo.

I'm not sure if Halo 2 is underrated or overrated. I'm sure it has a solid following. Maybe it is a little less appreciated for it's strengths than other Halo games are.

I haven't yet played Halo 3, ODST, or Reach enough to make great opinions about them. I think they are all pretty sweet games, especially Reach.

[Gypsy]

http://www.gamespot.com/halo-2/platform/xbox/

So really, it's hard to be underrated with a 9.1 userscore and over 50,000 votes. The main issue people have with it seems to be the plot.

[SydSelf]

"Despite a rather short campaign and disappointing storyline..." Short campaign? From a game that was twice as long as Halo 3, and half again as 1 and Reach? Is this article valid? I'm sorry... but that opening claim hurt. Especially when every shooter on the market has 6-12 missions these days usually.

[Gypsy]

I was really just linking to that for the user score as that is an indicator of what the masses think.

Most shooters are really short, it comes with the territory.

[Aeolus Aeneas]

>Halo
>underrated

My brain just died.

[Gypsy]

>Halo
>underrated

My brain just died.

More or less what I was trying to say.

[Slacker Magician]

Not possible.

[SydSelf]

Halo 2 in particular. I tend to find pages when I search that criticize 2 for storyline, as mentioned, again, and I was wondering if the masses agreed with the critical response.

[Slacker Magician]

Halo 2 in particular. I tend to find pages when I search that criticize 2 for storyline, as mentioned, again, and I was wondering if the masses agreed with the critical response.

It takes a bit to get going, and ends on a pretty big cliffhanger, that's probably why. While I think it helps flesh out the setting, the Arbiter bits are kinda slow.

I just hope that Halo 4 won't be a turn away from the feel of the previous games.
Spoilarzz ahead

Spoiler warning:

I think it would have been a fantastic end to the series if Chief made it back to Earth. On the other hand, I'm interested to see how they flesh out the Forerunners.

I played the beginning of ODST in chunks because it starts off slow. Once the plot got rolling along I blasted through it, the voicing is top notch. Plus... Nathan Fillion ! I have yet to play Reach so I can't comment on it, I plan on picking it up soonish.

[SydSelf]

Well, personally, the failure on the arbiter parts is that they focused primarily on the character, and forgot the gameplay, the chief levels were reversed up until gravemind, in my biased opinion.

As for 4, as well as advertising "a more adult", they claimed "Master Chief has changed character in cryosleep". As the CoD writer is on board, this feels like a deliberate attempt to make a darker game in the wrong way. Take, for instance, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Where TP was darker lit, realistically graphicked, and had more violent visuals, WW proved the darker game by far, belying the kiddy visuals with a post apocalyptic world, a tragic and intelligent (that second in particular) villain, and a slight morality challenge with Link's brutality in his victory against a sympathetic villain.
Back on track, it would appeal to me if they changed Chief in-story rather than prior, seems like a cheap dodge and character retcon handwaved for the setting. They could make a more adult story, but they need to focus on moral choices without outright stating them, and forcing the player to make them. Portal proved a good example. But the "Morality" of CoD seemed almost a trivial part of the story in my playthroughs, and I'm scared that the same will happen to my favorite shooter series.

[Slacker Magician]

Well, personally, the failure on the arbiter parts is that they focused primarily on the character, and forgot the gameplay, the chief levels were reversed up until gravemind, in my biased opinion.

As for 4, as well as advertising "a more adult", they claimed "Master Chief has changed character in cryosleep". As the CoD writer is on board, this feels like a deliberate attempt to make a darker game in the wrong way. Take, for instance, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Where TP was darker lit, realistically graphicked, and had more violent visuals, WW proved the darker game by far, belying the kiddy visuals with a post apocalyptic world, a tragic and intelligent (that second in particular) villain, and a slight morality challenge with Link's brutality in his victory against a sympathetic villain.
Back on track, it would appeal to me if they changed Chief in-story rather than prior, seems like a cheap dodge and character retcon handwaved for the setting. They could make a more adult story, but they need to focus on moral choices without outright stating them, and forcing the player to make them. Portal proved a good example. But the "Morality" of CoD seemed almost a trivial part of the story in my playthroughs, and I'm scared that the same will happen to my favorite shooter series.

If MW is what they call mature plot, I'd rather stick with whatever they want to call the plot of previous Halo games. ODST and Reach were good opportunities to branch out and change up the gameplay and flow of the story; changing the way it's delivered in the main series seems haphazard. Even though he's not driven by orders, given the situation, I still think he shouldn't see drastic changes in character. The plot in Halo is very driven, and morality toss-ins are better left for games where you're playing a role with more choices.

[SydSelf]

Agreed. With the lack of Bungie's involvement in 4, I'm going to wait for Tyger.

[badog1000]

A response to the title of your thread is "Halo 2, Massively Underrated?"
No. And I disagree with you saying it was, because the "mainstream" says otherwise. Halo 2 was a magnificent game, and as far as I know, it's widely regarded as thus. Gamespot gave it a 9.4 of 10, and it got a 95 Metacritic score. (the highest of ALL the Halo games) As far as I know, my friends, fellow gamers I've talked to about it, and I adore it. Halo 2 REVOLUTIONIZED graphics for the original Xbox system, and they were at the top of the list for best console graphics of the time. Online multiplayer was a kick in the pants- and tons of people bought an Xbox Live subscription to get in on the action. Not to mention; LAN-PARTIES. Nuff-said. I get all nostalgic just thinking about them...
The only gaming subculture that didn't praise Halo 2, as far as I can tell, was the PC Gamer. You said you are a PC gamer yourself, SydSelf, and so probably got that viewpoint of the game as it was released. The reviews I have read, such as that on Eurogamer whose review is geared towards PC gamers, dissed on Halo 2 because the graphics weren't the BEST around like they experienced on their PCs, they did not see any novelty in playing online with thousands of other people because, well, they had been doing it for a time before consoles became fluent in online gaming.

The story-line IS a bit repetitive, but so were the flood levels in the first Halo, and I think it really shows just what inconceivable odds the chief was up against. Having the co-op split between one Spartan and one Arbiter was a tasteful gameplay choice, and made more sense than two John-117's running about. I think you forgot to mention the great musical score that accompanied the game throughout that delivered the great orchestral scores we were used to from Halo games, but also more contemporary music. (I still get chills when I think about the first time heavy metal riffs started to play as I punched a Brute in the back of the head) (I think it's Breaking Benjamin)

Now if we are comparing Halo games (like you did) I didn't enjoy Halo 3's story quite as much as Halo 2's for some reason, but Halo 3's multiplayer cannot be trumped. The introduction of Forge made for: again, some great LAN-Parties, but also some really fun online variants that are still played in Halo 3 and into Reach today. Also, I remember people buying ODST just for the extra maps disc. (I agree that game got bad rap even if it wasn't the best Halo game...) Although the addition of armor abilities is a lot of fun and taking Halo in a new direction- I miss it when the playing field was more level. Halo 3 was a very competitively skill based game, and in my opinion was in turn the most rewarding online multiplayer experience I have ever had to date.

Halo 2 was a great game, and as far as I know, has been and is still widely regarded as thus.

Also, go play Reach. It's pretty fun.