So a couple quick questions:
1. 343 has mentioned that the delay from switching between graphical engines in Halo 2 is essentially gone. Has the same improvement been made to Halo: CE?
2. Will Halo: CE Anniversary still be playable in 3D? (I'm guessing no.) And will it include the Kinect functionality?
3. Have we gotten any word on how skulls will work in Halo 2? I'd love if they actually had a menu this time and you only had to unlock them once, but I also want the procedure to get the I Would Have Been Your Daddy skull to be the same (or at least similar).
4. Any word on how the progression systems will work in 3 and 4? Will they be done away with? Or will progress carry over from the originals?
5. This is gravely important: will the updated Blur cinematics include a remastered, amazingly rendered shirtless Jason Jones sprite on Legendary? It was in the original game!
What is everyone most excited about? Reliving the Glory days of Halo 2 online, or getting to play OG Halo: CE over the internet on proper servers?
I'll probably go through all 4 campaigns first, but I'm most excited about 3 and 4. They both looked great when they released, and they'll only look better know. Halo 3 is probably my favorite game of all time, but Halo 4 is probably the most consistent campaign. After that it's right into multiplayer in 3 and 4. I don't plan on ever touching the MP in Halo: CE and only rarely ever playing MP in 2. Just the occasional quick jaunt into Big Team Battle.
halo 4 running a steady 60fps. i will be in heaven. best campaign i ever played in the series. of course that's my opinion. but i'm not wrong.
It's definitely underrated. The most consistent in the series. No poor levels, a great story, looks great. It's true that it doesn't feature any huge open areas like 1 and 3, but there are several large areas that still convey a similar sense of fun. And the Prometheans get a bad rap. They do feel somewhat undercooked, but they're still fun to fight. The Knights are a little "bullet-spongey," but not too much (and nothing like the Brutes in Halo 2 who are the ultimate Halo example of "taking a licking and keeping on ticking"). I had a blast fighting them on Legendary (pro-tip: they're weak to Promethean weapons, and the trusty old noob combo does decently against them as well.) And the Watchers and Crawlers offered some neat new behaviors to account for.
I think I'm actually gonna hop on Halo 3's Heroic campaign first. And then watch that shit in Theater mode...I remember when you could watch it together with friends, forgot why they took that out.
is Halo 2 gonna have theather mode? that'd be sweet
Multi-person Theater mode was crazy glitchy. That was the official explanation for why it was dropped. And my own experience definitely backed that up. My friends and I could never get it to work correctly.
The encounters could only be solve one way, kill the Watchers, then kill the Crawlers and as last duke it out against the Prometheans. That isnt fun, because there is no variety compared to how you go up against the Covenant; who are not as dependent to each other, so you can pick and chose how you approach each encounter.
The (former) design director of Halo 4 acknowledged that
during his GDC talk.
That's not really true. There are some encounters where there will only be Watchers if you don't kill the Knights quick enough, so prioritizing the Knights make sense. If it's an encounter where all three types are already spawned, then you can go for the Crawlers first since the Watchers (of which there are rarely that many) will prioritize protecting Knights. You could even go for the Knights first when there are Watchers if you can get close enough because they can be juked out just like Hunters in Halo 1. They'll lunge at you and if you can dodge out of the way, you'll have a free shot at their back. I got a number of assassinations on Knights doing that on my Legendary run.