I'm a Halo Heretic

[Paragon Fury]

So I've finally gotten around to finishing up some Master Chief Collection business, and I have to admit; I'm a Halo Heretic as far as most of the community is concerned. Even though I LOVE Halo (and was/am pretty good at it) I never fit in with anyone in it. I'm the Human Torch inside the world's largest Sacred Cow BBQ. Why?

Halo 2 is probably the worst game series in terms of story

This is probably the biggest one. When you sit down and compare the pace, overall story and the way its told for Halo CE through 4...Halo 2 is actually pretty bad. Not only does it rely on a lot of crap and completely unfair mechanics for its difficulty (Sniper Alley on Legendary anyone?), the pace is screwed up because of the Arbiter/MC switching, the flow isn't terribly good (most levels don't nicely follow each other with the pace and gameplay segments) and the story is only "Good", unlike the Great Halo: CE and Halo 3 segments. It has a few good setpieces, but nothing on the level of awesome of the Assault on the Citadel or Rescuing Commander Keys.

Halo 4's story plot is obviously much worse because its so stupid most of the time...but its much better paced, flows fairly well and is more entertaining to play the whole way through, at least for fun (ignoring the story that makes you want to scream).

Halo 2's basic gameplay is pretty bad in retrospect

This video is 8 years old; taken back from you had no choice but to play the ORIGINAL Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2.


YEAH.

Thats on a splitscreen game, not even Internet Lag.

Halo 2 you barely had to even be aiming at your target to hit them. Now, granted, in the MCC the Halo 2 Anniv. and Halo 2 game have much cleaned up hit detection and hitboxes but still...lots of us probably don't WANT to remember this...or Swipe Sniping (you know who you are). Or any of the other many problems Halo 2 had.

Not to mention there were only 3 worthwhile weapons - the BR, Sniper and Rocket Launcher. The PP was useful (only in conjunction with the BR) and Shotgun/Sword could be useful on certain maps. But other than that it was BR or go home. How balanced is a game where only 1 weapon is actually considered good or useful in any situation?

That is...kind of bad, even compared to Halo 4, where at least all 4 Precision Weapons (BR, DMR, Carbine, Lightrifle) were viable. The Halo: CE Pistol was pretty oppressive; but at least it didn't outclass the POWER weapons in most cases.

Halo, as a series, has better gameplay with Assault Rifle or SMG starts than with Battle Rifle/Precision Weapon starts*

Part of the reason people LOVED Halo in the first place is that it expertly meshes in CQC combat with Medium and Long range; something not even Unreal or Quake had been able to effectively do by that point.; and it provided a good mix of CQC/Mid-range/Long range encounters that created an interesting flow and pace of battle and let quite a few different styles of play shine.

So we throw the most effective weapon (class, in the case of Halo 4) into the hands of players from the start and what do we get?

Elimination of everything except the Rockets/Sniper and BR and just seeing who is better at shooting others in the head. It leaves very little room for improvisation, for people and player's personalities to shine through; when you give people something that invalidates like 90% of the weapons and tactics in the game by just existing, its not going to create very dynamic or interesting gameplay. Making people work for Precision Weapons and limiting the number that can be on the map at one time forces people to think, to improvise and have a skillset beyond "I'm good at shooting people in the head".

*The one exception to this is BTB maps like Containment, Relic, Timberlands, Avalanche, Sand Trap etc. where the size of the maps necessitates a long range weapon to start with.

Maps like Guardian, Lockout etc. aren't very good maps in most cases

They're decent maps for FFA and FFA Objective gametypes, but for team games there are far better maps; ESPECIALLY if we have to play BR starts.

Slayer isn't that good
Sorry guys. Play some CTF or Assault or KotH already.

Halo 3, not Halo: CE, is the best overall Halo game

Yeah, I know. But it is.

Halo 3 has the best balanced overall gameplay, the best overall map design for MP (and best maps overall), a good story and fun campaign (if a little weaker than Halo: CE's) and is the most fun overall. Its good for people who are both bad AND good at Halo, without punishing either group. Its tight enough to be highly competitive but loose and whacky enough to be silly fun. It wasn't perfect; but its as close as Halo has ever gotten.

Alright, I'm ready for my brand.

 

[Evonisia]

Honestly the Halo fanbase can't seem to make up its damn mind on what it wants to be the favourite. I mean it's always either Combat Evolved, 2 or 3, but I've never really seen any large-scale agreement. It's not like the agreement that CoD 4 or MW2 are the best CoD games no question, or Resident Evil 4 is the best of the "modern" ResiEvil games.

I will completely grant that Halo 2 has crap multiplayer. I've never seen the appeal of it, the few attempts I tried on the original and the few attempts I've tried on the MCC have left me irritated.

I honestly only ever felt like the pacing in Halo 2 was weird in those last few missions. There's something very off about how they handle Tartarus' travels between the two, but before then I thought it worked well.

I shan't brand you like Tartarus did Thel 'Vadam, I'm sure any fan of Halo 4 loves laughing or groaning at the seventeen billion posts (and counting) I have where I shit on that piece of putrid acidic drivel.

 

[mrbonzai211]

Xbox live, and online console gaming in general, is only what it is now because of Halo 2.... I used to be Beast, but now I am Lorde, Yah Yah Yah.

I played all the way until they shut down the last server. If you were under age 11 when Halo 2 came out, then I understand why you didn't like it.

I've logged thousands of hours on Halo and I never once completed any of the campaigns. Halo was not about the campaign. It had a good campaign, but it was all about Red vs Blue.... and the bass... the bass.... the bass...

edit: shotty/snipers is the best game mode ever... and if you ever heard someone blindly saying "position one to position 2, what's your position?" That was me.

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

Halo has never played well with auto weapon starts. All it ends up doing is force respawning players to go look for a more versatile/long range capable weapon, before they can even attempt to fight back against a team with map control.

Most Halo players have always gravitated towards versatile weapon spawns. Using default plasma pistol starts were unheard of in CE. When Halo 2 launched players begged for BR starts, hell Bungie even admitted SMG starts were a bad idea in Halo 2. Same story with Halo 3. In Reach DMR starts were still the most common. Even when players were given a choice of spawning weapon in Halo 4 most players still chose a BR/Carbine/DMR/Light Rifle simply because they filled the same role in the sandbox.

I always find claims like "people only use BR, sniper, rockets" amusing because it is clearly not the case, rather it is only a couple weapons that go unused in Halo 2 those weapons being the SMG, Pistol, Plasma Rifle, Needler. Compare that to the useful weapon being the BR, Carbine, Sniper, Beam Rifle, Rockets, Shotgun, sword, plasma pistol(low killing potential but the overcharge was absurdly powerful), brute shot, sentinel beam. Those four weapons went unused because they were bad weapons, I tend to blame dual wielding for this

I have no idea how you can claim Halo 3 has better balanced sandbox as they are virtually identical and for every good new weapon that was added in Halo 3 a redundant clone was also added. The BR was just as powerful except instead of having an accurate starting weapon, the BR spread turned any slightly long ranged gunfight into a lottery.

Both CE and Halo 2 had better designed maps as a whole and were both more competitive titles and as far as core gameplay goes were just as casual friendly. The only thing Halo 3 has going for it is a great feature set, forge, theater, 4 player co-op(plus scoring), improved custom options are what made Halo 3 a great title. That and I will always maintain that Halo 3 had the best vehicle combat in the series.

It might sound like I am really down on Halo 3, but despite its issues I still loved that game. Halo 3 ultimately trades some of Halo 2s problems for entirely different ones. Halo 2 had high auto-aim and magnetism. Halo 3 had a narrow fov, and was very sluggish when it came to aiming and strafing. Meanwhile CE has neither of those issues having the lowest auto-aim magnetism in the series while also being very responsive, which is why it tends to be the favorite of most older fans when it comes to core gameplay.

 

[Neverhoodian]

The OP brings up some good points, though my opinion differs in a few areas:

-You think you don't fit in? I don't care about the multiplayer at all aside from co-op. I played the series for the campaign and story only. That makes me a veritable freak of nature when it comes to Halo fans. It's probably why I like Halo: CE, Reach and ODST so much. Multiplayer for those games were more of an afterthought rather than the main focus.

-Halo 3's pacing suffered thanks to all those moments where Cortana and/or the Gravemind would butt in. I don't mind scripted dialogue during gameplay, but stopping the game and covering the screen with bright lights and shaky-cam was aggravating, particularly since you had to sit through them every time. Killed the replay value for me.

-I've always found weapons like the Assault Rifle and SMG to be lackluster with regards to performance. Halo: CE's Assault Rifle in particular sucked ass, only good for killing Grunts and Flood infection forms.

-Halo 4? There is no Halo 4. The series was over when Bungie was no longer behind it. They ended the series with dignity, providing proper closure and tying off loose ends. I "Finished the Fight," thank you very much.

 

[StreamerDarkly]

Halo is better with SMG / Assault Rifle starts than Battle Rifle starts? That's just a straight fucked up statement to make by anyone claiming to be a serious fan of the series.

Rather than emphasizing variety in combat as you say, SMG/AR starts turn the game into a repetitive close range spray+charge+beatdown festival that merely serves to allow terrible players to earn a few kills. When you do manage to get one of the few BR or Carbines on the map, it becomes all too easy to sit back and punish people with near impunity. The whole point of BR starts is that it gives the player a weapon off spawn that is functional (but not optimal) at close/mid/long range, so you can actually defend yourself.

I also object to your characterization of rifle starts as "just seeing who is better at shooting others in the head". While that's a big part of it, grenades and CQC remain tremendously important, especially in objective gametypes (such as Ball and Flag) where you must absolutely push the other team for map / objective control.

No offence, but the type of player who thinks the way you do is typically just bad with the utility weapon. If you get destroyed regularly, ask yourself honestly whether it's because of a lack of awareness / shooting skill or a legitimate weapon balance problem. There is a reason why professional Halo was always DMR/BR/pistol starts, and why the higher in rank you go the more likely it is for AR starts to be vetoed.

 

[Vigormortis]

You're a 'Halo heretic'?

Please. The only Halo games I've ever thoroughly enjoyed (and continue to ocassionally play to this day) are Halo: CE, ODST, and Halo Wars. The rest just simply don't exist to me.

Now there's your heretical stance on the series.

There is a reason why professional Halo was always DMR/BR/pistol starts, and why the higher in rank you go the more likely it is for AR starts to be vetoed.

Yeah. Because the battlerifle is OP as hell.

Seriously, are people even still debating this? The BR was always woefully unbalanced and remains as much to this day.

I don't see how there's even an argument to make on this. It's even more OP than the original pistol from CE. :/

snip

Let's not forget, after CE, that Bungie has had a tendency to repeatedly, and bafflingly, move the aiming reticule lower and lower on the screen.

Honestly, I suspect that by the time Bungie makes Destiny 2 the crosshair will be so far south it'll be off the screen.

Spoiler: I mean, really....why?

 

[StreamerDarkly]

Yeah. Because the battlerifle is OP as hell.

Seriously, are people even still debating this? The BR was always woefully unbalanced and remains as much to this day.

I don't see how there's even an argument to make on this. It's even more OP than the original pistol from CE. :/

In a game where the other player doesn't also have a rifle? Sure.

But the whole point of BR starts is that everyone has one. You can actually fight off spawn instead of getting molested, keep a sniper out of scope, even take down the guy with rockets if you catch him out at distance.

And it definitely wasn't overpowered in the 'insta-kill' sense. It took a minimum of 1.5 seconds to kill with the H2 and H3 BR, and without a perfect 4-shot it becomes 2 seconds or more (much more common). For a competent player that's often enough time to take evasive measures or gain the upper hand.

When the utility weapon is weak, it allows players to retreat from bad decisions far too easily in a system with recharging shields.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Pfft. You call yourself a heretic for just that?

Dude, I'm the guy who stands back and says, "You know that Halo 3? Worst fucking game of the series. It did so little right. But that Halo Reach...? The fucking best."

Ugh, so many halo nerds hate reach for reasons I just don't get, apparently. Unfortunately for them, it's still the best.

Geez, I like Halo 4 more then Halo 3, and Halo 4 is a disaster for the storyline, which is my primary point of playing Halo. (Single/Co-Op all day baby. Weekends maybe multi.)

 

[Roboshi]

Pfft. You call yourself a heretic for just that?

Dude, I'm the guy who stands back and says, "You know that Halo 3? Worst fucking game of the series. It did so little right. But that Halo Reach...? The fucking best."

Ugh, so many halo nerds hate reach for reasons I just don't get, apparently. Unfortunately for them, it's still the best.

Geez, I like Halo 4 more then Halo 3, and Halo 4 is a disaster for the storyline, which is my primary point of playing Halo. (Single/Co-Op all day baby. Weekends maybe multi.)

You wanna see the real heretic?

The whole series is just average at best. Only becoming popular because it was the first game on the Xbox that wasn't Blinx timesweeper or a dreamcast port.

Bungie has always been the Emperor with no clothes and now Destiny has been the little boy pointing and laughing at the emperor's "little emperor".

 

[A_Parked_Car]

Halo 2 was always my favourite. CE was really good too for its day. Halo 3 was good, but not great and Halo 4 was a bit stronger than 3 I feel. Reach was pretty good for a spin-off, but they could have gone with a much darker tone overall and it would have helped hit the whole point of the game home a bit better.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Pfft. You call yourself a heretic for just that?

Dude, I'm the guy who stands back and says, "You know that Halo 3? Worst fucking game of the series. It did so little right. But that Halo Reach...? The fucking best."

Ugh, so many halo nerds hate reach for reasons I just don't get, apparently. Unfortunately for them, it's still the best.

Geez, I like Halo 4 more then Halo 3, and Halo 4 is a disaster for the storyline, which is my primary point of playing Halo. (Single/Co-Op all day baby. Weekends maybe multi.)

Hear Hear, Reach was the best overall Halo game. Story guys dont like it because it contradicts a few of the details in the Fall of Reach book, but I dont really mind since IMO, Bungie has the final say on the story of Halo

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Halo was solid.

Halo 2 was more interesting in terms of story, but the multiplayer was a huge mess. Yes, the cliffhanger at the end of the campaign is annoying, but the Arbiter is awesome and seeing his side of the story made the Covenant a BILLION times more interesting than "kill they aliens cause they bad, yar!" which is what the first game gave us.

Halo 3 was much better for multiplayer, but somewhat weaker in story. The Arbiter was sidelined (LAME move Bungie!), it was a bit too short, and there were so many interesting plot threads that they didn't develop nearly as interesting as they could have been. It did, however, give a satisfying conclusion to the Master Chief story.

Never played Reach, but I want to. Now that I no longer own a 360, it'll probably never happen.

Even if I get a XB360 or an XBone (99.9% certain that will never happen), I will never play Halo 4, Halo Wars, or any other game that comes out of the series. If Bungie doesn't make it, it doesn't exist to me. The series ended with Reach.

Not sure if I'm a heretic or not, and I don't care. I'm a bit tipsy after midnight and I like that this thread gives a nice avenue for reminiscing about Halo memories and overall opinions on the series.

 

[Vigormortis]

snip

Mmm, that doesn't really balance the overpowered nature of the BR. It just means everyone starts with the most OP weapon.

It'd be like if a round of Counter-Strike saw every member of each team starting with an AWP. Sure, everyone's on an equal footing, but the weapon itself is in an entire other league of power-level compared to the other options for starting arsenal.

I mean, I never said players must never start with the weapon. I was simply stating that it is, indeed, the most unbalanced weapon in the series.

 

[The Bucket]

Pfft. You call yourself a heretic for just that?

Dude, I'm the guy who stands back and says, "You know that Halo 3? Worst fucking game of the series. It did so little right. But that Halo Reach...? The fucking best."

Ugh, so many halo nerds hate reach for reasons I just don't get, apparently. Unfortunately for them, it's still the best.

Geez, I like Halo 4 more then Halo 3, and Halo 4 is a disaster for the storyline, which is my primary point of playing Halo. (Single/Co-Op all day baby. Weekends maybe multi.)

You wanna see the real heretic?

The whole series is just average at best. Only becoming popular because it was the first game on the Xbox that wasn't Blinx timesweeper or a dreamcast port.

Bungie has always been the Emperor with no clothes and now Destiny has been the little boy pointing and laughing at the emperor's "little emperor".

Its pretty much fact that Halo was massively influential, its objective quality is a matter for debate but it brought many concepts that would define many shooters for the next decade to mainstream audiences. I dont think you can put down all of its success to simple console loyalty to a system most people didnt own before it came out.

 

[Strazdas]

You wanna see the real heretic?

The whole series is just average at best. Only becoming popular because it was the first game on the Xbox that wasn't Blinx timesweeper or a dreamcast port.

Bungie has always been the Emperor with no clothes and now Destiny has been the little boy pointing and laughing at the emperor's "little emperor".

I would not say that Halo is popular. not compared to other shoots and especially not on competetive level. when you try to compare halo tournaments to something like CS tournaments halo looks like some kids in the backyard playing cowboys and indians.

 

[Skin]

I have said from the start, if it was not for Xbox live, Halo 2 would be dead in the water. The multiplayer was terrible, the story went from "cheesy but fun popcorn shooter" to "srs bzness but giant talking poo" and everything else in between was complete shit.

The level design from Halo:CE is still amazing in my eyes. Moving from corridor shooter to vast open areas in which positioning actually REALLY mattesr when you play legendary, because you can't really stand toe to toe with enemies anymore. Halo 2 was linear, from start to finish. Even the open areas were small and there was little strategic value other than avoid fights completely. These retards at Bungie got this "30 seconds of fun" idea in their head and went rampant with it, translating 30 seconds of fun into linear set pieces with vehicles. Halo 3 rectified this. The open space combat was back, probably not as good as CE, but it was still back.

And before anyone brings it up, yes, the corridors were repetitive. I know how frustrating it was in single player, especially on legendary. But with couch co-op, I am glad the levels were as long as they were, even if they were repetitive.

CE's multiplayer was amazing, and surprisingly well balanced. People cry about the pistol being OP, but it wasn't, it was the best (arguably only viable) mid ranged weapon in the game. And with proper movement, guess where you would be mostly fighting from? That's right, mid range. Not only that, but mastering the pistol took alot of skill, since you had to place your shots and this is where the Halo "dance" originated from. So you have a single weapon with a super high skill ceiling, and we haven't even discussed the other weapons, the power ups, vantage points, grenades, etc.

To their credit, Halo 2 and 3 did have some good maps, but my all time favorite map to this day, in any multiplayer game, is Hang em high.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Meh cant speak for the fanbase only for me personally and thats I found Halos story in all games very dull and unengaging I did have a lot of fun in MP with Halo 1 and 2 with 2 being my favourite but Halo 3 actually put me off the franchise I found it that bad I just dont have anything nice to say about that game.

Reach was ok but didnt hold my interest and I have never played 4 so yeah for me 3 pretty much killed the interest I had in this series which storywise was very little I only bothered to complete 2 and the story was pretty bad, I was just glad I didnt have to play as the chief all the time never did like that character much.

 

[laggyteabag]

Halo 2 is probably the worst game series in terms of story

I agree.

During my series replay a few months ago, I found it to be the most boring of the series. Sure, it had some great moments that were essential to the Halo plot, like the killing of Regret and Mercy, the invasion of Earth, the infestation of High Charity and the Great Schism, but the game was very uneven, I felt; especially with the inclusion of the Arbiter missions.

Halo 2's basic gameplay is pretty bad in retrospect

Dual-Wielding was cool in concept, and it looked cool on the box art, but it was pretty impractical in reality. I'll cover the rest below.

Halo, as a series, has better gameplay with Assault Rifle or SMG starts than with Battle Rifle/Precision Weapon starts*

I have to disagree. AR/SMG starts were horrible because the weapons were useless. They took what seemed like forever to drop someone, and they took no skill to use. Sure, the BR might have been a little too good at its job, but at least it took some degree of effort to use instead of "aim in their general direction and wait. Maybe throw in a punch.".

I would have liked to have seen the AR/SMG have more of a presence, but I can certainly see why they made these weapons suck compared to a skill-based weapon like the BR.

Maps like Guardian, Lockout etc. aren't very good maps in most cases

Well, yeah, these maps were pretty much made for FFA or small team games. Some maps are made for some modes, this is why you would never see Waterworks FFA or Lockout BTB, at least outside of custom games.

Slayer isn't that good

Well, thats like, your opinion, man.

People are free to choose their poison. I find that CTF sucks if you are in a pug team, and objective games are usually one-sided, or they drag on forever.

Halo 3, not Halo: CE, is the best overall Halo game

I agree.

It had the best balance of a great campaign and great multiplayer. The missions were memorable, and the maps were fun to play on. It is certainly the one that I look back on the most favourably.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I liked Halo 2's campaign... but I suppose that's why your a heretic.

Other than that, as far as the noobified thing goes, I've always figured it doesn't really matter if everyone has the same advantage. It really just makes fights shorter as those few bullets that would have missed will make contact, which then means map awareness and ensuring you get the first shot matters more.

As for the BR being the only viable weapon... that's simply not true in my experience. The carbine saw plenty of pro use, and the major reason the BR was was used so much was because they were always available and therefore what they most often practiced with. There were several weapons they took out from MLG games because they were overpowered however, such as the needler.

Guardian is possibly the best map in any game ever for team slayer, FFA, oddball and KOTH. And maybe juggernaut. Its pretty much only CTF or Assault that can't be played well on it. I don't much care for lockout but with the exception of Avalanche the best maps are always the small ones.

Team slayer is great. Its far more intense and way better to play if you are solo. CTF is just painful and boring unless you have at least three people you know to play with.

I prefer to rank the MP and SP seperately, but if I had to choose one game I guess it would be Halo 3 just for the custom games.
Campaign power rankings are : ODST>2>1>Reach=4>3
Multiplayer: 3>2>Reach>1>ODST>Halo Of Duty 4

Seriously, the loadout thing killed it. It was stupid but minor in reach, then they go and change the entire way the game works in 4. In a bad way.