Why is Halo 2 considered to be so good?

[dancinginfernal]

I loved the Arbiter, and he remains my favorite part of the series. The Covenant inter-workings were only properly explored in 2, and in 3 they were just sort of glazed over. The Arbiter was so down-played in 3 it was pitiful. I will never understand why people hate him so much, as he always seemed to be more well-done than the stoic "bad-ass" that is Master Chief. I believe Bungie made the hero they wanted to with the Arbiter, over Master Chief whose character development consisted of sassing Cortana, among other people.

The Multiplayer was my entry to console multiplayer entirely. While others may have been playing other shooters and other multiplayer games long before that, this was my first real experience with it. Playing with real people. On a console. I mean, I had played computer games online before, but to be doing it on a console was revolutionary to me. I truly enjoyed the game, in spite of its shortcomings. The campaign was fun, with a co-operative feature that I enjoyed with my friends at least twice a week for months on end.

Regardless of how people pick apart the Halo series, it has supplied a lot of happiness and joy for both my friends and I.

To return to the original post, Halo 2 is considered to be so good because it's so much damn fun.

 

[Therumancer]

Not like the game was BAD, but it seems that when I see a Halo discussion, I always find someone who says the series was best at 2.

Imho, I didn't enjoy 2 at all. The game had some interesting parts and was definitely neat, but I just couldn't get over the number of times you got sent to Doom-esque corridors (the same corridors that the first game was famous for not having) to fight off endless Flood. The Flood-centered levels really represent to me what FPSs are at their lowest: mindlessly gunning down identical enemies in a dark, confusing, corridor.

The only way I could see it being as revered as it is is because of the multiplayer (which I'm too young to have played at its glory days), but the other games were pretty solid on both sp and mp.

So, why is it considered by some to be the best.

EDIT: Yes, you have the right to your opinion, I'm just curious of why. I hope this doesn't sound like one of those "WHY DO PEOPLE LIEK COD HUR DUR" threads.

There is actually a very straightforward answer.

Halo as a series was the first decent, if un-exceptional, first person shooter to appear on consoles. As such it's the first shooter a lot of casual and mainstream gamers were exposed to, and gets the benefits of sticking in their minds sort of like how "Wolfenstein 3D" might in the name of a long term PC-gamer. To many gamers the shooter might as well have started with Halo, because that is when the shooter first became really availible to them.

The big barrier to a lot of gamers, preventing casuals for getting involved, was the relative difficulty of getting things to work on the PC, especially when Halo first appeared back on the X-box you were still have a lot of issues with people having to tinker with systems to get games to run, update drivers, and deal with a lot of other problems, that a simple "plug and play" format got away from.

Halo, the original, was a learning experience, once they got the basics down they did Halo 2 which was improving on what they learned. Halo 3 was pretty much them dialing it in, as a lot of critics will say, and gameplay wise it was more or less "as expected" for the system it was on, and didn't really have the same level of improvements that you saw with say "Halo 2" not to mention a half hearted storyline trying to wrap things up, which arguably ended with a final confrontation a lot of people felt was rather... lacking. Hence saying Halo peaked with "Halo 2".

 

[xgeua]

This is why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsQceUnrulw#t=1m15s

 

[jensenthejman]

I personally find Halo 2 to be the worst game in the series. Dual wielding was just an excuse to not balance the weapons properly. I just could not get into it.

 

[Jingle Fett]

I played a lot of Halo 2 multiplayer splitscreen with friends (best shit ever) and I also played Halo 1...but for some reason, Halo 3 is my favorite, I never quite got why a lot of people prefer Halo 2. Of all the Halo games I like Halo 3 the best, it felt like the final definitive version of Halo in terms of gameplay.

Halo Reach on the other hand to me feels like the worse of the lot. It was well made and it's fun and all but...well, to me it felt too Call of Dutified :s I liked the other Halo games specifically because they were completely different from CoD.
That said, though I dislike Halo Reach (compared to Halo 3) I still respect it because it was trying new things and changing up the formula, unlike certain other games...

 

[Ace2401]

As much as I enjoyed the game, I consider it the lower half of the series. And while its campaign was decent and the story was good, it was rather forgettable. It was really its revolutionary (at the time) multiplayer that made it great.

Anyhow, here's how I'd rank the series against itself:

Halo Combat Evolved: The original, the best, and one of my favorite games of all time, because it was such an excellently executed and elegant design to bring shooters to consoles, a unique (still even today, though ODST and Reach imitate it to different degrees)and also elegant health system, and some of the most memorable level design in an FPS.

Halo Reach: This is the game that plays most like Halo 1, making it IMO better than the others, and the design also feels more solid here than in the other games. Its campaign also had some fairly creative and fun set-pieces without sacrificing the core of the gameplay. I also enjoy the multiplayer in Reach more than the others by a fair amount. The whole experience as a whole feels more polished and balenced in this game compared to every other game in the series.

Halo 2: While it is a great game as mentioned above, it just lacks a certain level of polish and the level design lost a lot of its charm compared to the first game. However, the spectacular multiplayer was tons of fun, and what the level design lost in the campaign it made up for in the multiplayer maps. I still find Halo 2's maps the best in the series, and only Halo Reach comes close in that regard.

Halo ODST: They tried to experiment a bit here, and I can respect that, though I wish they had taken it farther, because as it works out the ODSTs you play as somehow end up with more health than the Chief, at least on Legendary. However, Firefight was a blast, the campaign was fun, and the game came off as pretty polished. I had a lot of fun with this game.

Halo 3: Halo 3 was at its best competent and at its worst pretty bad. The campaign, while being objectively competent, was rather boring during subsequent playthoughs, and the whole thing felt too scripted. And the Brutes just weren't that great as the rival species this game. And as for the multiplayer, I could not have any fun with it whatsoever. The maps were for the most part mediocre, the balance was lacking, and the netcode was terrible. It was nigh unplayable a large portion of the time for me.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

The Arbiter was pretty much my favorite character in the game. I don't really understand why so many people disliked him as well.

I will never understand why people hate him so much

Because he was the Raiden of the Halo series. People were expecting to play as Master Chief, not as the Arbiter. Pretty much all of the promotional material released before the game's launch focused on Master Chief, so when you were dropped into the Arbiter for a pretty significant chunk of the game... people flipped their shit. Then there's the fact that Arbiter has very little access to human weaponry, which a ridiculously large number of people complained about back in the day. Some people will also complain that the level design for the Arbiter's section happened to be lazy... but that always seemed like par for the course to me (anyone remember The Library?).

Even if Arbiter had been the best video game character of all time, people still would have hated him, because he wasn't what they wanted or expected from the game.

I don't really hate Arbiter, I mostly just feel neutral toward him. At the very least he isn't a whiney little ***** like Raiden. /eyeroll

 

[Triangulon]

I may be wrong as I'm not a huge fan of the series, although I enjoyed the first immensely. I never played Halo 2 as they made the brilliant decision not to release it on PC (until relatively recently) so feel free to take what I say with the necessary pinch of salt.

However, I understood that Halo 2 was generally considered to be the lowest point in the series, with poor weapons and terrible level design. As I said, I may be totally wrong but this is the impression given to me by the reviews/forum threads I have seen. In fact this is the first I've ever seen of it being considered the best.

 

[scorptatious]

The Arbiter was pretty much my favorite character in the game. I don't really understand why so many people disliked him as well.

I will never understand why people hate him so much

Because he was the Raiden of the Halo series. People were expecting to play as Master Chief, not as the Arbiter. Pretty much all of the promotional material released before the game's launch focused on Master Chief, so when you were dropped into the Arbiter for a pretty significant chunk of the game... people flipped their shit. Then there's the fact that Arbiter has very little access to human weaponry, which a ridiculously large number of people complained about back in the day. Some people will also complain that the level design for the Arbiter's section happened to be lazy... but that always seemed like par for the course to me (anyone remember The Library?).

Even if Arbiter had been the best video game character of all time, people still would have hated him, because he wasn't what they wanted or expected from the game.

I don't really hate Arbiter, I mostly just feel neutral toward him. At the very least he isn't a whiney little ***** like Raiden. /eyeroll

Funny thing, I actually didn't mind Raiden. (Of course I came into the game knowing quite well what I was getting into. So I guess that's a plus.)

At first I found it kinda strange how people would complain about how The Arbiter didn't have very much access to human weapons. Considering that most of the levels he went to involved fighting heretic aliens, it makes sense. Although then again, human weapons are far more effective when it comes to killings stuff then the covenant weapons for the most part. So they have a reason to complain I guess.

 

[Satin6T]

Cairo Station on Legendary <------------

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

(Of course I came into the game knowing quite well what I was getting into. So I guess that's a plus.)

Definitely a plus. When Metal Gear Solid 2 was being marketed pre-release, nearly all of the content being shown was either from the tanker level where you (briefly) play as Snake, or from the cutscenes later in the game that featured Snake. A lot of people felt like they'd been deceived by the advertising, and looking back, it's pretty hard to fault them for feeling that way.

Although then again, human weapons are far more effective when it comes to killings stuff then the covenant weapons. So they have a reason to complain I guess.

Bingo.

 

[Stoink]

the soundtrack, no game has beaten it yet

 

[rapidoud]

1. Didn't have retarded BR warz that wrecked halo 3 mp.
2. Dual Wielding was still useful
3. Revolutionised the series the most (by far), introducing boarding, vehicle damage, DW, regen shield only, etc.
4. Had stellar maps to boot with the best combat of the 5 (or 6 counting anniversary)
5. Had the best glitches (superjumping, skip the metro level, etc)
6. Somehow blended great infantry gunplay with vehicles on maps (the street one... can't remember its name for the life of me), zanzibar, coagulation, instead of solely infantry or solely vehicles which the series has turned to.

Better than Half-Life 2 and did more for gaming as a genre (unprecedented map detail and size, Hl2 had 'PYZIX PUZZLEZ!', long sections of gameplay with no story, forgettable soundtrack, and ravenholm was not scary.

 

[J Tyran]

The Flood-centered levels really represent to me what FPSs are at their lowest: mindlessly gunning down identical enemies in a dark, confusing, corridor.

Halo 2 was a while ago, those kinds of encounters in FPS where not quite as annoying then. Eight more years of it since has really gotten old.

 

[MercurySteam]

For me, it was the height of the series. Johnson was properly black, Cortana was normal (well, as normal as a Smart AI can be) and it featured a great Space station level. Everything after that just felt..... unrefined. Took me awhile to notice it but from Halo 3 onwards the series was never the same.

 

[superspartan004]

High Strafe Speed, a BR without spread, button glitches that increased the skill gap, less auto-aim than the others (except CE) helped make Halo 2 one of the best competitive console shooters, and helped make MLG into what it is today, even if Reach almost killed it, watching Final Boss vs Carbon in almost every Halo 2 Finals was amazing, Halo 3 and Reach had/have such a smaller skill gap it's not even funny.

 

[CaptainOctopus]

I never considered to be any good, then again I had played a lot of other fps than just Halo CE and Golden Eye before I played Halo 2 so my standards might been a bit different, aka much better than yours biaches .

 

[Drop_D-Bombshell]

I think it's because of the first impression you get of it. I loved it because of the first three missions. The rest was meh but overall it was good, not as good as CE but still a pretty good experience. Though i think the biggest fall was when they elaborated on the Covenant, they felt mysterious and dangerous in CE but not in Halo 2.

 

[Terminate421]

I loved it:

A. It was another addition to one of my favorite franchises
B. Its weapons and play style felt smooth, sometimes glitchy but overall fair
C. It was one of the few shooters that really understood what a shooter should be about, being consistently inconsistant.

The only thing I don't like about it was that it was the birthplace of the "MLG playuh", thank god Halo: Reach put a stop to that.