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Replayed #Halo 2 this weekend, and my (very timely) review is a solid "meh". It's not bad, just kinda boring and doesn't hold up to it's prequel. It's a pretty generic shooter TBH. Let's see what I can identify that made this game regress so much...Permalink On twitter.com
Mood +3 🙂
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To start, the aesthetic is bland. Earth looks awful and everything is so dark, I could barely see (original graphics). Hunters and flood are so easy as to be uninteresting and boring. Drones OTOH have *way* too much health for being so small and numerous.Permalink On twitter.com
Mood -5 🙁
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Brutes are just Elites except tougher and dumber. That's fine as an enemy type, but later levels use Brutes as the primary antagonists. Brutes *should* work as a tough addition to a Covenant squad, but instead they just serve as a less interesting replacement to the Elites.On twitter.com
Mood +2 🙂
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Banshees can evade now, but handle way worse and are so much less fun to fly and dogfight with as a result. Guns are more varied, but several levels force you into Covenant weapons; human firearms are surprisingly scarce in this game.Permalink On twitter.com
Mood +1 🙂
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Speaking of guns, the Battle Rifle and Carbine are infinitely better than any other weapons in the game. I honestly think the game would benefit from having *less* ammo and incentivizing players to change weapons frequently to encourage more variety. Just a thought.Permalink On twitter.com
Mood +5 🙂
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On the positive side, the game now has characters beyond a green brick! I only wish they had personalities beyond "gruff military vet". We do see more of the Covenant, which is cool. Though the Great Schism has pretty weak motivations behind it despite being a major plot point.Permalink On twitter.com
Mood +6 🙂
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I did really like High Charity's design. Lots of cool environments and external-ish spaces. It manages to feel like an alien space ship and a giant city at the same time. Fighting through a civil war was also a cool change of pace. Halo is always best when alone and outnumbered.Permalink On twitter.com
Mood +1 🙂
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Hijacking vehicles is a pretty cool mechanic that gives you a strategy for fighting vehicles when you lack power weapons. There were a few times in Halo 1 where I had to deal with a Wraith but had no heavy weapons. Hijacking is a great answer to that problem.Permalink On twitter.com
Mood -2 🙁
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That's about everything that comes to mind. Again, Halo 2 is not a bad game, but compared to it's predecessor, it just doesn't stand up. I guess I'll have to move on to Halo 3 and see how well that game actually aged.Permalink On twitter.com
Mood -3 🙁
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Almost forgot, Halo 2 also made huge improvements to the music! Halo 1 had the tone down, but Halo 2 introduced some really intense and action-packed music. Definitely adds a lot to the bigger combat encounters.Permalink On twitter.com
Mood 0