Ragnarok Flames
Banned
I dont care if i get called a dick. I've apologized to Quinn on twitter for what i've said. whats done is done.
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Halo |OT19| 793 Posts, And None Worth Reading
- Thread starter Ozzy Onya A2Z
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I dont care if i get called a dick. I've apologized to Quinn on twitter for what i've said. whats done is done.
Zeouterlimits
Member
Ah, you apologised? Well that's good
.Although that seems like an odd tone to take. Humility != being nonchalant.
Ragnarok Flames
Banned
Ah, you apologised? Well that's good
yeah. like i said in one of my earlier posts, it gets annoying reading and typing all the toxic salt, so i'm trying to not be as negative.
Caayn
Member
Blast, just missed the entire Arbiter armor discussion My only "want" for the arbiter's armor in Halo 5 would be: NO CAPES.
While talking about armor for the arbiter what about the armor of Jul M'Dama and the armor of his followers. It would be awesome if the group that followed the Didact. Where to appear in armor clad with hard light. Here's a picture with a few examples made by 343i.
My only "want" for the arbiter's armor in Halo 5 would be: NO CAPES.While talking about armor for the arbiter what about the armor of Jul M'Dama and the armor of his followers. It would be awesome if the group that followed the Didact. Where to appear in armor clad with hard light. Here's a picture with a few examples made by 343i.
I love Bees 2.0? 10 year anniversary of Halo 2. Major Nelson tweeting about his love for bees. Coincidence? I think not.
User 73706
Banned
=
OddOne channeling that smooth-talking tumblr response team, goddamn.
Blast, just missed the entire Arbiter armor discussion
While talking about armor for the arbiter what about the armor of Jul M'Dama and the armor of his followers. It would be awesome if the group that followed the Didact. Where to appear in armor clad with hard light. Here's a picture with a few examples made by 343i.
I love Bees 2.0? 10 year anniversary of Halo 2. Major Nelson tweeting about his love for bees. Coincidence? I think not.
The Halo 4 artbook that came out a while back is an insanely interesting read. While I understand that people would be mad it wasn't classic Halo, they had some downright awesome concepts buried away in there. Some of the Flood (gametype) enemy designs were great, but I can understand how they wouldn't work from a gameplay perspective. The easiest way I can describe them is if a giant enemy crab found its way into Aeon Flux and then became the Lich King.
That green Elite bottom-mid with the belly hardlight shield looks like a ninja turtle, though. :lol
Ragnarok Flames
Banned
OddOne channeling that smooth-talking tumblr response team, goddamn.
The Halo 4 artbook that came out a while back is an insanely interesting read. While I understand that people would be mad it wasn't classic Halo, they had some downright awesome concepts buried away in there. Some of the Flood (gametype) enemy designs were great, but I can understand how they wouldn't work from a gameplay perspective. The easiest way I can describe them is if a giant enemy crab found its way into Aeon Flux and then became the Lich King.
That green Elite bottom-mid with the belly hardlight shield looks like a ninja turtle, though. :lol
the bottom red and Blue elites look cool.
I believe it counts down the day in 2552 Halo starts/Covenant arrive at Earth.
User 73706
Banned
Just to screw with people, whoever still owns the rights to that website should go in and decrease the countdown time every now and then.
The Henery
Member
Opinions and all that but my enjoyment of Halo 3's BTB mode vastly outstripped Reach and 4's iterations. A lot of that is because of base design choices but much of it can be attributed to the maps and their gametypes too. Halo 3 BTB:
The great:
- Avalanche two flag/neutral bomb
- Valhalla two flag/neutral bomb
The good:
- Avalanche slayer
- Valhalla slayer
- Rats Nest neutral bomb
- Various Sandbox maps that worked well enough
The shit:
-Sandtrap, heavies and the remainder
Reach BTB was a mess with labyrinthine Invasion maps/Forge World monstrosities crowbarred on at the 11th hour. 4 has some decentish BTB maps but they're not allowed to breath because of the power weapon saturation and I don't think I ever played an objective game in Halo 4 BTB, looking back. I'm aware this post doesn't just cover the quality of the maps but BTB is the sum of its parts and I still think 3's beats out reach and 4 by a great distance.
The Henery
Member
Definitely. The detrimental effects of a 3x scope single shot hitscan weapon grow in direct proportion to the size of the map. DMR is acceptable and works well on smaller maps (still prefer BR) but rubbishes map movement in BTB, plus allowing the DMR to destroy vehicles pretty much ruined vehicle combat.
Still, I think that Halo 3's BTB maps are leagues better than Reach's and 4's without taking everything else into account.
I mean, sure...but I also don't know that using Reach and Halo 4 Big Team as a quality bar says anything more than "This wasn't actually garbage."
My feelings on Halo 3 Big Team are pretty much summed up by your map tier: Three non-Forge maps listed as being "good" or better, and my personal opinion on Rat's Nest and Valhalla is that they've historically been vastly overrated, heavily flawed maps (especially Valhalla at that player count). Even Avalanche, which I really like, has severe problems with item placement around the middle structure, where it's a bit of a clusterfuck. Halo 3 was sort of where the weird love of making 6v6-ideal maps as a stopgap for both 4v4 and 8v8 roster counts (Valhalla, Last Resort come to mind) and that really colors my opinion of that playlist - you're really just left with Rat's Nest, Avalanche, Sandtrap, and a bunch of so-so Sandbox maps as the only maps that really feel like they were designed around the player count. It also was where Big Team Slayer really became a matchmaking staple, and that gametype could not possibly be less interesting to me.
I only really took issue with calling that lineup fantastic because if it's worthy of being called that, there are no superlatives left to describe the incredible Halo 2 BTB roster, which continues to be my gold standard. I don't know that you can go back to Waterworks, Coagulation, Terminal, or Containment with the modern Halo sandbox or how the netcode has changed, but they provided an experience that has since been unmatched.
Demoncarnotaur
Member
So, Bees?
Where is that art from? Some of those designs are pretty interesting TBH.. some would make a cool new class of Elite.
Blast, just missed the entire Arbiter armor discussion
While talking about armor for the arbiter what about the armor of Jul M'Dama and the armor of his followers. It would be awesome if the group that followed the Didact. Where to appear in armor clad with hard light. Here's a picture with a few examples made by 343i.
Where is that art from? Some of those designs are pretty interesting TBH.. some would make a cool new class of Elite.
youngin
Caayn
Member
There sure are some very interesting ideas hidden in there, that I'd like to see in the next Halo game. But also some not-so-smart ideas. Like the elite with energy swords duct taped to his legs in that picture. And of course the Ninja Turtle elite
The red elite could be used as a (for example) personal guard for Jul M'Dama while Jul wears the armor in the middle of the upper row with the giant energy sword.
Page 126 of the book: Awakening the art of Halo 4.
dat cape arbiter
[/IMG]
Can we all just agree the Arbiter needs a cape? Like seriously.
...Wait, the Arbiter isn't the Arbiter anymore is he? Didn't he get promoted (and thus the only Arbiter to not die or get demoted)?
dat cape arbiter
Wait, Arbiter meets Palmer?
Blast, just missed the entire Arbiter armor discussion
While talking about armor for the arbiter what about the armor of Jul M'Dama and the armor of his followers. It would be awesome if the group that followed the Didact. Where to appear in armor clad with hard light. Here's a picture with a few examples made by 343i.
Well, it's like this, maybe no capes in combat, but still, in ceremonial places/situations he could have a cap.
At any rate, capes are cool.
Also, this is why I'm so glad to be a part of this community finally. If I want to talk about the Arbiter (one of my favorite characters) and see what people knowledgeable about him have to say, then boom, I can. I'm definitely taking my account seriously.
I like the top left and bottom right ones.
The red one on the bottom looks like something out of transformers, except from China. The feet looks so dumb.
I've said it before, but I feel they're definitely going to make Palmer playable for Halo 5. On one hand you'll have the Rogue Chief story, on the other, you have Palmer and the Infinity working with Arbiter against Halsey/Jul M'dama.
What I just don't understand is why they're really pushing Palmer so much. No one really likes the character, whether it was poor writing etc. It's almost unheard of to have a character quite hated/disliked by the fanbase almost instantly, be a lead in comics, novels, separate games, be featured so prominently.
^ The best combination of comments I've seen in a while. lol
As much as I am opposed to killing humans in Halo...this.....this would be interesting.......
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
I could never look past how inconsistent and sluggish Halo 3's base gameplay was combined with that terrible netcode. The damn BR was a chore to use..
CE and to some extent H2 LAN gameplay, even H4 gameplay sans perks/CoD nonsense, on Halo 3's maps (granted minor adjustments would be made to accommodate) would've made that game way better.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
It's weird to think any big time Halo fans don't know about I Love Bees, but I guess it was ten years ago. Speedy wasn't even born yet.
I still enjoyed it much better than the DMR on Reach. I felt like I actually could so something with it.
Still, Halo 3, as somebody said a while back, makes you feel like your gun has a cinder block on the end.
They need Halo 2/3 multiplayer that has the feel of gunplay in Halo 4 (with art style from Reach and CE [mostly CE], SMG from ODST, DMR from 4, Sniper from CE, ok, I could go on for a while). I haven't played a lot of Halo 4, but despite it's faults the game felt soooo good. Very satisfying gunplay.
Why has Halo always seemed to have such bad net code?
Here's to the next Halo having netcode that feels like Killer Instinct (for Xbone)
squidhands
Member
Palmer is going to the be next Cortana. Shitty, unlikable character will go on to win our hearts with unrivaled heroism and sacrifice, worthy of a holographic nude version of her to be implanted in Chief's skull.
Caayn
Member
Agree to disagree?
If that happens I'll have so much fun killing myself and finding the most painful ways to do so.
drool.jpg
Anyways Frank just posted this in the ILoveBees 2.0 thread.
So no relation to Halo? Major just talking about his random love for bees?
Sup. So Halo 2 campaign on Legendary is pretty much a bitch. Halo 2's campaign is great on Easy through Heroic. Legendary is a completely different beast though. It makes level design seem worthless, since the enemies are overpowered in every situation. I also tend to give Halo 2 more credit than it probably deserves for mission design. Its missions are pretty linear, but it does disguise the linearity fairly well... through glitches. When utilizing all of the campaign space available Halo 2 starts to rival those of CE or Halo 3. That extra space also allows for missions where the player doesn't have to fire a shot. In addition to the out of map sections, Halo 2 also has a lot of loading glitches that honestly give the game a bit more replay-ability.
So my Legendary run spans a time frame of October 2012 to January 2014. I used to own a 2007 MacBook, but it crashed while I was in the middle of coding for my Com S class. Being a computer engineering student at the time, I needed a laptop so I could program and Windows 7 was preferred. So I got a new laptop that was decent(mind you it's hard buying a computer when you are on a tight budget with rent and shit). I installed my Halo 2 Vista copy on it and started the campaign on Legendary that weekend. I'd get frustrated on a level and I wouldn't play it for a couple of months. Up until about a month ago, I was only at Sacred Icon. Then I decided to buckle down and plow though the remainder of the missions. I used to say the Library was both the hardest and worst mission in a Halo game. I think that's because the invisibility glitch worked a lot better on the Xbox, and I could go through Gravemind cloaked the whole time. Now my answer has changed. Library is still the worst mission, but Gravemind is clearly the hardest mission.
Here is the story of my Legendary runthrough with some helpful advice on every mission. Sadly, I didn't think of taking any screenshots until I started writing this tonight after I finished, so there aren't any screenshots.
So if you're doing a Legendary run through, do you want to pick up the skull(Whuppopotamus or something like that) on this mission? No. It generally makes it harder and Arbiter's cloak becomes worthless.
The rooms that give people the most trouble are the hangar rooms. My solution to these was to come into battle with like 10 or 12 PPs and a fully loaded BR. There will usually be a BR that is placed on the ground for more ammo when necessary. Only use the BR on the Grunts and the noob combo'd Elites. Try and stay on the second floor as much as possible and get the crate routes to the top nailed down when going to the ground floor.
Another hard section is the lift room with the drones. I simply stayed along the left wall and BR'd the Drones. It's also good to bounce a grenade off the ground into the air to knock out a bunch before they get to you. The lift with the enemies can be very challenging if you let it get to the top. If at all possible, ignore the last two or three Drones to jump to the lift and send it back down as soon as possible. If the lift hasn't reached the top, the enemies tend to stay on the bottom level of the lift, making that fight a bit easier.
The turret and Jetpack Elites aren't too bad; the PP locks on from a fairly decent range. The trick is staying behind cover once they start blitzing you with PR shots. The final room on the other hand is hell. You will want the dual PPs to take down all of the Elites safely. If possible, target the Needler ones, because they have hyper tracking on Legendary. Stay in the middle section with the random Marine. The Elites will continue to shot the area which you were just at, so use that to your advantage by swapping sides and noob comboing.
Do you want to pick up the skull(Thunderstorm) on this mission for your legendary run through? Maybe. If you plan on doing a lot of sword flying and don't want to go out of your way, then I'd say yes. I'm also going to say that there are better and safer options to get swords on many levels.
But back to the Legendary run. Stay on the rooftops by the Rex sword, and jump down right in front of Hotel Zanzibar. Once you've gone through Hotel Zanzibar, instead of waiting for the Phantom to drop off enemies, jump down to the right and follow the road to the end. Jump up on the dumpster, and you'll have to do a grenade jump to get on the top of the garage looking thing. Then follow the roofs close to where you were. Now jump off and go in the water. Don't get too close to the action or you'll get shot,but don't get too far or you'l get lost. When approaching the final area with the watchtower, snipe the Jackal. Then in order to get back in, you have to go in by the wall. Avoid getting shot(lol) and grab the Ghost in the entrace to the tunnel. Boost intelligently to the end of the mission.
Do I want to grab the skulls(Blind and IWHBYD) on this mission? No. No no no. Blind makes shit hard. Too hard. IWHBYD is hard to get and it requires more fighting than you need to do. The effect is neat, but it's not worth it.
To take out the next section, snipe the Ghosts again and snipe the Jackals. The Wraiths are going to be a pain. There's a rocket in the previous section that you can pick up and bring along, and if I remember correctly, there's some ammo on the back alley. If you can approach a Wraith from behind, do it.
The Scarab is an easy fight. Kill enemies as the exit the bay or jump onto the Scarab and go up near the gun. Fall down into it and kill the two Red Elite pilots and the White Elite. Otherwise just keep running along the top sniping and rocketing enemies. When you reach the end, grab a PP of the top of the Scarab and the BR ammo when the Scarab gets stuck. Then hop on and kill everyone else with the noob combo.
Do I want to pick up the skull(Catch) on this mission? Nah. Grenades are going to be plentiful even without the skull.
I let my allies kill everyone here, except the Fuel Rod Grunts (because sometimes the allies will attack them, sometimes they won't). When going down the corridors, I've done two options: Kill everyone with the noob combo, and run past everyone. The former is the safest way, while the latter is riskier and quicker. For all of the rooms along the way until the last one, I find it easier to kill the Grunts and Sentinels and hide from the Elites. For the final room, the big thing is getting lucky with the doors. I like to park by one of the doors and melee them as they come in the room, and then cloak past the Elites. If they go to the other door, you can either sword fly to the other side or hide behind the pillar thingy in the room and fight from there.
From here you can fly directly to the end of the level by going right and landing on top and jumping down. Alternatively, you can fly to the skull and grab it. This will allow you to play from a distance a bit better, but it makes close encounters much more dangerous. It's really up to you if you grab it.
So do you want to grab the skull(Grunt Birthday Party)? My playstyle leans towards yes, but it made a few encounters really tough when I did use it. To those that haven't played Halo 2 or never got the GBP skull, it isn't just Grunts exploding with confetti. It's any headshot explodes with a plasma grenade explosion.
For the hologram room, just kill everything. And when the Heretics come out of the door bee line to it and kill them when they are clustered together. Go outside and only cloak when the Heretics come down. Run past them and cloak before you enter the door to avoid the last group of Heretics. Approach everything else like it was on an easier difficulty until the end boss. If you're good at sword flying, do the speedrun trick of sword flying up to the Heretic Leader and slice him. If not, you can use the pillars on the bottom floor for cover and slice whatever comes near you. Eventually, you'll get it.
Should I grab the skull(Famine) here? No. That shit makes it harder than it needs to be.
Now you play the sniping game, by sniping all of the Ghost drivers and turret peeps. Save the Rockets for a white Elite that gets in a Ghost. Once everyone is dead, I like to go on top of the structure and rain plasma grenades into the bridge control room. Then jump in and kill everyone. Take the tank through the level until you're near the skull. Make sure all of the Ghosts are dead and jump up to the skull by jumping onto the mountain and hopping down on top of it. Then continue through until there's nothing but Jackal. First and foremost, kill as many of the Snipers as you can. Then grenade jump to the ledge on the left so you don't land in the bottom. This spot will trigger the Drones, and quite frankly we don't want to fight them.
Now that you have the Envy skull, you can cloak past the last group of enemies. Go through the ravine and snipe the two Jackals. Kill the drones out here and pick up a PP. Use that to kill the Honor Guards in the room.
So do I pick up the skull(Envy) here? Yes. This is the most definitive yes ever. If you can, create a profile that has the last checkpoint right next to the skull.
IMO the hardest section isn't the Regret section, but the hologram room. There are waves of Jackal Snipers. And depending on what side you pop out on, it will change what side they pop out on too. As you move through this room, if you hear a door open, go back to the start of the room, and go out the other door. The Jackals won't know which side you're actually on, so you can then get the snipes on them. As for the Huntes, I found that using the M/K was easier than the sticks, but it might be different for everyone. When fighting Regret, I like to hold the top center with PP/BR. When Regret teleports near you, jump off and punch him until he teleports again. If you hit X to board and B when the Chief is completing his boarding animation you can actually get one more hit off on Regret before he teleports. It still will require 5 boards, but it is slightly faster.
Do I pick up the Assassins skull here? Negative. That makes the game infinitely harder.
Do I pick up the skull here? Mythic makes things harder, so no.
Eventually, you're going to reach a point where you can grab a Ghost and the goal is to boost past every enemy, avoiding Gauss shots and Wraith blasts. The last outdoor section is where the last bit of luck occurs. Hopefully the turret isn't right in front of the door or you're going to have a bad time. If it's not, then you'll have to trial and error the boosting path to get in. Once you'e in, boost to the gondola.
When on the gondola hide in the bottom tube until it stops. Plasma grenade the cluster of Flood and Sword the others. Run to the end and prepare for the hell that is the next mission.
Skull(Sputnik)? Maybe. It can help or it can cause boxes to splatter you. It's one of the easiest skulls in the game, so if you want it later, it's not much of a big deal.
If you're on the Xbox, do the infinite camo glitch. If not, get to know as many glitches like sword flying and spawn positioning as you can. When I did this on the OG Xbox, I used the camo glitch. For this run, I pretty much followed the Halo 2 done segmented route with a few exceptions. For the hallways, I just fight through them. And I don't have a Sword for the Marine segment. Otherwise, I practiced sword flying and plasma grenade jumps to get past enemies. Instead of describing it in detail, I'm just going to link to the Gravemind portion of H2DS.
http://youtu.be/hyfZnmDhCvk?t=1h7m45s
Do I pick up the skull(Anger)? Lord no.
Skull(Ghost)? Nope.
I'm playing solo. Should I pick up the skull? Sure. It makes zero difference if you do or don't.
I'm playing co-op on the Xbox. Should I pick up the skull? Jesus no.
The prison room has a few enemies, but if you can destroy the door controls on the Hunter cells, they will wreck the enemies for you. In addition to the Hunters, you can save an Elite councilor, but he doesn't do jack for you. I'd also recommend sticking one of the Brutes to make it a bit easier. You'll exit out at the top and just backsmack the Brutes up here. Once the cutscene rolls, go back the way you came until the "Loading... done" pops up. Then go back outside and grab a Banshee. That despawns the Wraith drivers in the next section. Fly the Banshee to the parked Spectre. Take that and go through the water to the structure just outside of where the next cutscene would normally start.
After the cutscene, your Spectre should be in the hallway. Get in the driver's seat and pick up Johnson. Another Johnson will spawn and he'll get in the passenger seat. Repeat this until your vehicle is full of Johnson. Now boost across and get the Spectre to flip. All of the Johnson's will pile out and shoot Tartarus. All you have to do is fire at Tartarus when the shields are down. And just like that he's toast.
Should I grab Black Eye? Nah. It's cool to get 4x Overshields, but meleeing to get shields back at all is trashamundo.
I have a bit more, but I went over the character limit...
RoyalLaFlame
Banned
I refuse to believe that.
I know there's a new Halo coming Frank... I'll bet my finger on it!
I'm sorry, I feel bad now
All in all, Halo 2 is a fairly good campaign on difficulties other than Legendary.
What did Halo 2 do right? If you're going through the game without getting out the levels or glitching, I'd say it was good at placing ammo in intelligent places around the campaign. There weren't any areas where I felt I needed more ammo, but at the same time, I knew I had to be smart about how much I used. If we include the glitches, it made the world feel so much bigger. Being able to explore the side alleys of Mombasa is great and although there aren't any enemies, I felt like I was moving around an abandoned area. With glitches like sword flying as well as these unintentional areas there feels like there is a way to go through an encounter without needing combat. This is something I applaud ODST for including it in the base design(as far as I know there are only a few battles in ODST where you are forced to fight).
Halo 2 also started to give alternative routes into linear combat situations based on baked in geometry alone. What I mean by this is that certain encounters are linear in design. A majority of CE's encounters were open field encounters or corridors, and the corridors were simply cover behind pillars. Halo 2 improved upon those, by limiting the amount corridors or expanding them to include different paths. Halo 3 took this a step further and actually gave different routes that each require a different style of combat to do the same encounter. It was neat approaching a situation and seeing it start to develop in Halo 2 though.
What did Halo 2 do wrong? The way the enemies scale on difficulty is the biggest one that comes to mind. Multiple plasma pistols to take down an Elite sucks. Multiple sniper headshots to strip shields on an enemy sucks. Essentially things that feel like they should be guaranteed kills, but for the reason of difficulty, they aren't. The next big thing is the regression from CE on open encounters. CE did open encounters beautifully. Halo 2 tried to take these open encounters that were typically larger and focused on vehicle play into foot only encounters. It doesn't work to say the least. The opening fight on Gravemind is the biggest example of this. That fight in all honesty isn't fun, and it makes the spawn glitch feel required.
Halo 2 also had poor enemy design. CE had the simplicity of 4 enemies each with their own weaknesses and strengths. Halo 2 introduced the Brute, while it's weakness was the head, it simply absorbed other damage. There wasn't a clear strength to the Brute when it wasn't berserking. Halo 3 tried to shoehorn the Brute into the Elite's role, but it devolved unless it was a pack of Brutes. Reach definitely improved the Brutes to a point where they were fairly fun to fight and were fair. Drones in Halo 2 weren't fun to fight, because typically enemies that can fight on 3 axis aren't fun, but when you combine that with the lack of a distinct headshot and no vertical sensitivity adjustment it makes it even worse.
And that's that. I'm ready for a Halo 2 Vista play date.
What did Halo 2 do right? If you're going through the game without getting out the levels or glitching, I'd say it was good at placing ammo in intelligent places around the campaign. There weren't any areas where I felt I needed more ammo, but at the same time, I knew I had to be smart about how much I used. If we include the glitches, it made the world feel so much bigger. Being able to explore the side alleys of Mombasa is great and although there aren't any enemies, I felt like I was moving around an abandoned area. With glitches like sword flying as well as these unintentional areas there feels like there is a way to go through an encounter without needing combat. This is something I applaud ODST for including it in the base design(as far as I know there are only a few battles in ODST where you are forced to fight).
Halo 2 also started to give alternative routes into linear combat situations based on baked in geometry alone. What I mean by this is that certain encounters are linear in design. A majority of CE's encounters were open field encounters or corridors, and the corridors were simply cover behind pillars. Halo 2 improved upon those, by limiting the amount corridors or expanding them to include different paths. Halo 3 took this a step further and actually gave different routes that each require a different style of combat to do the same encounter. It was neat approaching a situation and seeing it start to develop in Halo 2 though.
What did Halo 2 do wrong? The way the enemies scale on difficulty is the biggest one that comes to mind. Multiple plasma pistols to take down an Elite sucks. Multiple sniper headshots to strip shields on an enemy sucks. Essentially things that feel like they should be guaranteed kills, but for the reason of difficulty, they aren't. The next big thing is the regression from CE on open encounters. CE did open encounters beautifully. Halo 2 tried to take these open encounters that were typically larger and focused on vehicle play into foot only encounters. It doesn't work to say the least. The opening fight on Gravemind is the biggest example of this. That fight in all honesty isn't fun, and it makes the spawn glitch feel required.
Halo 2 also had poor enemy design. CE had the simplicity of 4 enemies each with their own weaknesses and strengths. Halo 2 introduced the Brute, while it's weakness was the head, it simply absorbed other damage. There wasn't a clear strength to the Brute when it wasn't berserking. Halo 3 tried to shoehorn the Brute into the Elite's role, but it devolved unless it was a pack of Brutes. Reach definitely improved the Brutes to a point where they were fairly fun to fight and were fair. Drones in Halo 2 weren't fun to fight, because typically enemies that can fight on 3 axis aren't fun, but when you combine that with the lack of a distinct headshot and no vertical sensitivity adjustment it makes it even worse.
And that's that. I'm ready for a Halo 2 Vista play date.
Perhaps. Are you saying you don't want to see capes ever at all? Why?
Great post.
But reading all of this only makes me wish 343 goes back to the two-sided story. Using the Arbiter, of course, and not that [STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER] they've ben trying to push since Spartan Ops.
By the way, the super sentinels are called Enforcers. And I miss them. For real. They were unique enough to make them interesting to me. Also, I just need enemy variety.
But reading all of this only makes me wish 343 goes back to the two-sided story. Using the Arbiter, of course, and not that [STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER] they've ben trying to push since Spartan Ops.
By the way, the super sentinels are called Enforcers. And I miss them. For real. They were unique enough to make them interesting to me. Also, I just need enemy variety.
Agreed.
Good stuff Karl! Now I want to do the same and replay it.
Though whoever quotes the whole post should get his hands cut off.
Awesome posts Karl! Once I can finally get Halo 2 Vista working on my Windows 8 PC, I'll definitely be referring to your posts. I really want to play it, especially since everybody all raves about how amazing the multiplayer is.
I have a question about the skulls in Halo 2, if you could help me out though. You say whether we should pick up skulls or not in the campaign, but...well, can't we pick them up while playing on Easy-Heroic first? Is Halo 2 different in that you must pick up the skull every time you play the level? Basically how do skulls in Halo 2 work? Because it doesn't sound quite like they do in Halo 3.
I have a question about the skulls in Halo 2, if you could help me out though. You say whether we should pick up skulls or not in the campaign, but...well, can't we pick them up while playing on Easy-Heroic first? Is Halo 2 different in that you must pick up the skull every time you play the level? Basically how do skulls in Halo 2 work? Because it doesn't sound quite like they do in Halo 3.
Orochinagis
Member
Somebody posted this in another thread.
So that Tom, is that actually Tom B292? The Spartan-III Tom that was pretty much a badass?
And is that supposed to be Hood there in the middle? Obviously the next one is Palmer. That isn't Lucy behind her, is it? And that isn't Fred in the background, too right?
Fuck. These comics seem to have lots of important characters popping in and out but I don't want to support that horrible art selection. Shit's gotta be improved for the next round of comics, 343.
Yup, Dark Horse is keeping females spartan shorter than anyone also Palmer have another lower armor redesign.
I can understand why they are doing it but the characters and writing 343 are pushing are awful. Halo has gone from somewhat cool and mysterious to a cliched Saturday morning cartoon. The Infinity is like that cartoon scene change home base they fly around in Agents of Shield. It could be any mind numbing cookie cutter sci fi at the moment. The anybody can be a Spartan thing makes the world instantly boring as do the empty skulls they introduce us to. I couldn't tell you any of their names or what they even look like.
I think one of the great successes of the Halo 2 campaign is the solid sense of place that so many of the locations had. Cairo Station melded the military-industrial feel that you would expect from a giant space gun, with a few amenities scattered around for the troops stationed there like the plants and stuff like that. Outskirts feels like an old-world slum would, cramped and messy. High Charity mixes a deeply ceremonial feel in the council chamber of Gravemind (which I think in large part is due to the really great echo that the room has) with evidence like the garden areas that things actually live in this giant dome. More than most of the games in the series, the locations in the game feel like they might exist outside of this ridiculous power fantasy that we're engaging with.
I'm curious why the multiple sniper headshots to down an Elite negative is attributed primarily to Halo 2, though - I've seen it mentioned elsewhere, not just here. The sniper took multiple headshots to kill an Elite depending on rank in Halo CE Legendary, and that trend has continued in the series to this day. That's not to say enemies weren't tankier than they should have been, because that's definitely true, but that example in particular is everywhere in the series.
On some level I really appreciate what Halo 2 Legendary is. Since they didn't really have the fully-featured skull system to rely on, I think Legendary ended up giving that game a lot of longevity it wouldn't have otherwise had just because of how infamously punishing it was.
I'm curious why the multiple sniper headshots to down an Elite negative is attributed primarily to Halo 2, though - I've seen it mentioned elsewhere, not just here. The sniper took multiple headshots to kill an Elite depending on rank in Halo CE Legendary, and that trend has continued in the series to this day. That's not to say enemies weren't tankier than they should have been, because that's definitely true, but that example in particular is everywhere in the series.
On some level I really appreciate what Halo 2 Legendary is. Since they didn't really have the fully-featured skull system to rely on, I think Legendary ended up giving that game a lot of longevity it wouldn't have otherwise had just because of how infamously punishing it was.
There's no menu for skulls in Halo 2 since they weren't an actual fleshed-out feature, just fun easter eggs. You have to pick each of them up in the level to activate them and that lasts until you turn your Xbox off or eject the disc. So what people like me did was make separate Halo 2 profiles that were at the checkpoint right before the skull they wanted so they could easily pick them up, switch profiles, and continue.
Thanks everyone! <3
So Halo 2's skulls are only active from the time you pick them up until you shut your Xbox off or quit Halo 2. Also, they are only available on Legendary(except for Blind and Assassins--which is there on every difficulty but only activates on Legendary). There isn't a menu to activate them like the later games.
So Halo 2's skulls are only active from the time you pick them up until you shut your Xbox off or quit Halo 2. Also, they are only available on Legendary(except for Blind and Assassins--which is there on every difficulty but only activates on Legendary). There isn't a menu to activate them like the later games.
RoyalLaFlame
Banned
Great post Karl2177.
Didn''t you find Delta Halo boring?
Didn''t you find Delta Halo boring?
Caayn
Member
O_O Holy halo rings! Karl, nice job.
Capes look strange and out of place in Halo, imo. Not even the prophets wore capes.
You've never played Halo 2(online)? Don't expect to much, last time I checked there were only a handful of people online.
It's strange that they give her a pose that resembles a model instead of how she normally stands in the game. Outside of the armor changes.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I generally find capes silly and pointless, but I like Arbiter's cape. It goes along with the ceremonial and somewhat theatrical nature of Elites. And it just looks cool.
It's probably my favorite mission, and it's because there are so many ways to approach it. When I just play through a mission I do it on Heroic, because it's hard enough that you can go in a bit over your head and succeed, or you can get punished for making a mistake. With that said, the first encounter is a joy, because I can clear it all out in about a minute and a half if I play perfectly. Or I can clear it out slow and steady. Or I can get wrecked.
When going through the rest of the mission, I don't have to take the tank or even take a Ghost. I guess for me, the fun in campaign and PvE modes in general comes in thinking up a new strategy, perfecting it, and executing it. If it doesn't work I try again slightly differently. The missions I find boring are the ones where there are only one way to do it, and it becomes a snoozefest on repeat playthroughs.
I should clarify this: Multiple sniper shots to take down shields. IIRC, CE and Halo 3's sniper headshots would take down shields on everything but Gold Elites/Chieftains. In Halo 2, only Blue Elites would die and Red Elites would either lose their shields or take 2 shots to remove shields.
squidhands
Member
Delta Halo is easily my favorite mission in Halo 2. I've replayed it way more than the rest of the missions.
RoyalLaFlame
Banned
Well, I find it pretty boring. But you can't expect much from a guy that loves The Library from the first Halo.
Gameplay has long been in decline for a long while anniversary matchmaking was an improvement, but it's a shame mistakes are never corrected throughout the franchise.
Halo 3 had a several good maps for BTB, with tweaks remakes shouldn't be an issue for them.
Yes please!
I thought that might be the case in your post (it's more of a general attribution question for the internet at large than aimed directly at you since it's a really prevalent criticism), but I think that gold Captains in Halo 3 take two headshots to break armor on Legendary. I'm not 100% sure on that one, it's been a little while.
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