The Importance of Being Idle

Halo, Halo, Its (Not So) Good To Be Back

I realise that this isn't by any means a timely comment, but let's talk about Halo 2. For a start I think I should point out that I absolutely LOVE the original Halo, I honestly think it is one of the best first person shooters EVER, and definitely the best such game on any console, anywhere. So Halo 2 was eagerly awaited here in the Monkey House, and I was super psyched to get my copy a day early last November, on one of my at the time rare days off. I played it pretty much the entire day too, and I wasn't a happy bunny at all. Oh I tried to like it, believe me, I really did, and for the first couple of levels (when you're the Master Chief and you're fighting the Covenenant on Earth) its great-ish. And the 'ish' is the problem. Later on, when you get to be the Arbiter you realise that you really really only ever want to be the MC, and you're spending half your game time NOT being him. To be honest though, I think the problem runs deeper. Firstly, its in the story telling, in so much as there is some, and it's not a story you want to hear. It makes the classic Star Trek mistake of 'humanising' the bad guys, and thereby making them much less interesting (and in one case it makes an absolutely appalling mistake, that is so insanely stupid I almost can't believe that they did it at all), and as I said, you're gonna spend half your time following the bad guys about, helping them out, and generally not being the Master Chief.
So far so bleh. But I said it was only great-ish at the start right? And the start is the bit that we REALLY wanted the game to be: MC vs Covenenant for the fate of the world. So what's wrong? Two things: firstly I think your 'objectives' within any given level are vague to the point of non-existence, but you can get around that by wandering about and killing everything. I'd have to say that the real problem is that in 'refining' the combat model, Bungie have kinda nerfed it. They make a big deal about duel wielding, but frankly its not something you're gonna want to do, because it reduces your combat effectiveness to such an insane degree.Want to throw a grenade? You can't. Want to use a melee attack? Tough, you can't. Want to rush in all guns blazing? No? Oh, that's a shame, cos that is the tactic that IS available to you. I also don't really think that the changes to the health and shield system are that great. I can see why they take away that level of precise knowledge away from you, I don't have a health gauge in the top left of my vision, but it also kinda reduces the tension in a tight fire fight and by simplifying health management like that, it actually takes away something for the player to do and makes things less interesting.
The upshot of all this is that the original Halo was 30 seconds of fun over and over, with wonderfully tense firefights and emergent gameplay leading to some truly memorable gaming experiences, and Halo 2 is 30 seconds of less fun over and over, and at times the 'combat bubbles' can be so bloody annoying and repetitive that you just stop playing altogether.
Which brings us back to today, and me suddenly thinking that maybe I was too harsh on the game, and that it deserved another chance. Well, it had another chance this evening, and as you can see, it didn't really endear itself to me any more than it did last year...

posted by BadMonkey @ 9:57 PM