Hell no, it made them far more interesting. Don't blame Halo 2 for the problems Halo 3 had with them. On its own, Halo 2 was excellent (minus the cliffhanger of course).
The Flood ended up being more interesting, too, with the Gravemind.
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Halo: Master Chief Collection Master Thread | This is it, baby. Hold me.
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The Flood ended up being more interesting, too, with the Gravemind.
Poimandres
Member
Nah, I didn't like the change of tone from Halo CE at all. I want my aliens to be alien. They were way too human in Halo 2 onwards with a pretty lazy and boring motivation.
The Arbiter was pretty decent though, I'll give you that.
ArchedThunder
Banned
It changed the Covenant from random space aliens that you shoot because reasons to a fleshed out entity.
GringoSuave89
Banned
This. I will concede that having them speak English before full Sangheili like in Halo 4 was dumb, but without Keith David, I would not like Arbiter as much.
Gargoyles ftw
Photolysis
Banned
The reason it's unfinished is because of the widely known problems in production. Due to poor management, after the (awesome) E3 2003 demo, Bungie had to scrap pretty much all their work up to that point. Their campaign was an incoherent mess. The engine had to be scaled back because of limitations with the Xbox hardware.
Every time Frankie gave the illusion in his weekly updates that things were going well, it was basically panic mode behind the scenes, with Bungie being in crunch mode for a year just to get the game shipped.
That's (one reason) why so many features like Saved Films and online co-op were initially in there, but got cut before release. It's why the multiplayer balance was terrible at launch (requiring a huge rebalancing of grenades/melee damage to make them more potent). That's why there's a massive cliffhanger ending.
Yes, MS did put a lot of pressure on Bungie behind the scenes to get the game finished by Fall 2004, but it's hardly like they did not have the time in the first place. Bungie had 3 years, and threw away 2 of them. Meanwhile MS wanted that killer app that they'd been paying for (and got, despite the problems).
In some ways, the very notion of H2A is insulting to Bungie. They know they fucked up badly with H2, and H2A is parading it around (or the campaign at least) as a massive success. There was no dispute with CE, which had a very highly regarded campaign and multiplayer mode, and is widely credited with making the Xbox viable.
H2 MP's legacy is undeniable. While there are flaws in it and I seem to recall Bungie were unhappy with certain aspects of it (judging by Chris Butcher's comments a few years ago where he stated that he couldn't play the game because it was so far below his standards), it's one of the best multiplayer modes in the series and deserves celebration, for similar reasons to CEA. If 343i take various comments to heart and fix the things that let it down, it will definitely be well-received and could easily revitalise the franchise after the disaster of H4's MP.
Poimandres
Member
Don't get me wrong, fleshing them out is good... I just found the direction very lazy and boring.
GringoSuave89
Banned
I found it current. First Halo came out in 2001, and the entire series has an element of a thinly veiled
no, it's not even subtle
ArchedThunder
Banned
The books also flesh out the Covenant far beyond what the games do. Contact Harvest was super interesting for what it brought to the table with the Covenant.
Also them speaking English was more of a convenience for the player. The way I see it they aren't speaking English when it is just Covie to Covie, but they are speaking English when it is Covie to Human.
Also Halo Wars established (albeit years after the release of halo 2) that the Covenant has been teaching "All military strike teams" the "Unclean Language"(English) since the early days of the war for strategic purposes.
Also them speaking English was more of a convenience for the player. The way I see it they aren't speaking English when it is just Covie to Covie, but they are speaking English when it is Covie to Human.
Also Halo Wars established (albeit years after the release of halo 2) that the Covenant has been teaching "All military strike teams" the "Unclean Language"(English) since the early days of the war for strategic purposes.
Nirvana
Member
I remember this being the main point of contention on the Bnet forums when it came out, but I never really understood it. The Arbiter offered much more of a narrative than the Chief and it allowed us a window into an entirely new part of the story. Not to mention he had active camo, which although shit on Legendary, still made him better than Chief to play...
Well they established parts of what was expounded on in Halo 2 in Halo CE, so the 'laziness' would have begun there. In my opinion it would have been much lazier to leave the Covenant as space nazis that nobody cared about so you could feel fine in slaughtering them; this way at least they have some personality and it shapes the dynamic between the species more interestingly than simply 'good vs evil'.
AKA:
You could really make parallels to any religious extremist, I don't necessarily think of the Middle East when I think of the Covenant. I don't think it's always necessary to politicise every piece of pop culture we see, and I doubt Bungie were trying to make any sort of statement on world events.
I think the level Gravemind really solidified my love of Halo 2. It's the best level across the series in my opinion. The vast variety of enemies, the infighting factions -which was something I loved in Doom and have missed since then- the music throughout the level, including BB, and my favourite part of all, Truth talking over the intercom. That's why it was such a major blow when they changed his voice, because Truth's voice over the intercom in that level was one of my favourite parts of the game.
ArchedThunder
Banned
While I would have like them to keep the original Truth voice I do think the actor in 3 did an amazing job making Truth sound like a crazy old religious zealot who has come to believe his own lies.
And then Halo 3 switched everything back to random space aliens that you shoot. Woo!
Notwoo. Having the curtain tossed back across the stage, like H2's excellent story wasn't a thing irritated me endlessly.
ArchedThunder
Banned
Continuation being politics being frozen utterly, no more looks behind the curtain, and a return to the Covenant as a monolithic entity (minus the Elites). Yes really.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
I'm... I'm not sure how one could draw any parallel there, outside religion being involved in some way. If anything, the Crusades would be closer, and not by much.
The Real Napsta
Member
Until they can make a Halo game that's as good as the first 3, I'm all for keeping "good Halo" alive.
Black Mantis
Member
Totally agree. As soon as H2 was announced, I wished that we'd be able to see things from a Covenant point of view. Majority may disagree, but, abrupt ending aside, H2 delivered on all accounts for me.
GringoSuave89
Banned
True, I'm probably just letting the reader's tone choice in the Kilo-Five audio books shape my perception (he chooses, or was told to, use a Middle Eastern voice for the Elites)
For real? I mean, not what I had in mind, but interesting nonetheless.
What else am I missing out on by not jumping onboard the audiobook boat?
GringoSuave89
Banned
Serin Osman has an Australian accent, probably based on the fact that ONI HQ is in Sydney. Again, I don't know if it was his preference or if he was asked to, but in the Halo 4 Spartan Ops cutscene with Serin she sounds "normal" (from an American standard). Black Box (BB) has a slight British accent as well.
I just do the audiobooks when I'm at work, so I can keep up. They're pretty well done.
Ajemsuhgao
Member
Halo 4. It took 2 companies, and 11 years for multiplayer Halo to reach perfection, but we finally got it.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but if you're not HaloGAF would have your head for this lol.
Edit: looking forward to two and three honestly. Shame Reach isn't in there, it would look glorious at 1080p/60fps.
Nirvana
Member
Been seeing so much love for Reach lately, I'm astounded. The Bnet/Waypoint/Gaf forums when Reach were out were nothing but negativity, and now all of a sudden it's beloved.
I loved the campaign personally but I can see the hate for the MP with the bloom, armor lock and what not.
As a mainly BTB player, I had a lot of enjoyment with Reach. Invasion was great also (they really left it out of 4? One of Reach's best additions).
Ajemsuhgao
Member
This always happens when the latest game comes out. When Halo 5 comes out, there will be the initial wave of "Halo 5 is...different, but great!" then a couple months down the line the new game rose tinted goggles will fall off, and then they'll say "THIS GAME IS AWFUL" and start praising Halo 4.
Twin Tails
Member
2
Reach is my favorite Halo game. im still surprised at myself, i liked it a ton
Emperor Bohe
Member
Halo 2,did indeed have the radio click. I've asked Frankie about proximity chat, he says they're currently unsure if its returning
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
LinkToTheFuture
Member
Was it ever explained why proximity wasn't in Halo 4 at all? It was always hilarious out br'ing someone and hearing that "AW" of some kind like they were about to make up some excuse or call me cheap but the voice always cuts out 0.5 seconds into their sentence XD It was always so funny.
Voice chat takes up bandwidth, especially when other people can hear it. I'm assuming they assumed everyone was in parties anyway, so they made it so you can only hear your team. Part of the reason Push To Talk existed in Halo 3 was due to bandwidth concerns
There was also a bug/feature where if you enabled party chat in Halo 3 and Reach, you could still hear the other team's proxy chat while they couldn't hear you talking, which gave you a tactical advantage. Maybe they made that change to equalize that?
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
Reach has the worst BTB of any Halo game IMO; the maps are terrible, the vehicles get destroyed easily by bullets, they removed the Chopper, etc. etc.
Halo 4 includes some questionable decisions (ie: PP's in loadouts), but Heavies and restricted loadouts in BTB playlists played much better than Reach.
Description
Member
I always felt like the vehicles were weak in Reach, which was probably my issue with BTB as well.
I'm looking forward to the return of BTB on Sandtrap in Halo 3 more than anything else.
link1201
Member
On dedicated servers...I am still in shock about how cool that is going to be. I can't wait!!
I liked it. the armor abilities messed up the game imo (armor lock ugh).
stangend77
Member
Totally agree that the Reach vehicles took away from the glroy that is BTB.
I love BTB/Vehciles again in 4 minus one thing: Everyone being able to start with plasma grenades and pistols.
You can still go on great runs with the warthog, but it can feel like a sticky grenade minefield at times.Lol
I love BTB/Vehciles again in 4 minus one thing: Everyone being able to start with plasma grenades and pistols.
You can still go on great runs with the warthog, but it can feel like a sticky grenade minefield at times.Lol
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
So right mate, they should auto suspend party chat during the actual game and auto-rejoin when searching again
It's hard to get away from, our parties use it to arrange games or play other games until a spot for 8 in BTB opens up etc.
I hate to add to the issue but it seems weird you can't chat between X1 and 360 friends either.
No BR. No Master Chief. SHITTY SHITTY MAPS.
Heavies has been garbage in every iteration. Reach's BTB when they added in Assault and made the entire voting setup primarily flag and bomb is when it was fairly decent to play. Certainly no Halo 2 caliber maps but Halo 4 lacked in that department as well. So did Halo 3 for me.
They turned Team Objective into CTF Slayer (actually had nine CTF variants in there at the latest update, I believe) and basically made all Assault and basic 2 flag games a rarity.
link1201
Member
I really hope we get a new MP map revealed.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
Objectives in general went downhill after Halo 2.
I mean...sure, yes. That is an accurate statement.
However, Reach's gametype suite was actually a pretty serious step up from Halo 3 - reintroduction of a good (non-instant arm) Assault variant, 3 Plots returned, strong potential in Stockpile (never realized) - and as of June-ish of 2011, Team Objective was a really strong playlist. It wasn't Halo 2 Skirmish, but it was good. Assault and CTF were weighted highly, and most of the crap had been removed at that point. Then, with the July update, quality took a nosedive as Flag Slayer and Speedflag were introduced. I mean...the playlist is called Team Objective and once they introduced the "Flag Always in Top Slot" rule, the gametype that dominated the voting lobby literally had Slayer in the title. Since Slot 1 was always CTF, Slot 2 was always KOTH or Oddball, and Slot 3 was Whatever Crap We Have Left Laying Around, you could end up with full voting round of 2 Flag Slayer + Hot Potato + Headhunter. Once they upped the player count to 5v5 depite there being obvious issues at that player count with map size + spawns + grenade spam directed toward objective point, they lost me. There's only so much one man can endure!
With that, they had more or less broken what I thought was easily the best playlist in the game. Their handling of both that and Big Team (which was also in a really good, objective-centric place before they introduced heavies at practically 100% weighting and forced developer maps into the top voting slots) was just absolutely atrocious, to the point where I just don't know if they understand what people like about those playlists. Slayer is different - it's just kind of whatever, you can't really screw it up too much because at the end of the day it's just deathmatch. Halo 4 basically confirmed that for me - the worst objective gametype suite in the series and the most pathetic Big Team offering to boot (I know you like Halo 4 Heavies, but at the end of the day it is still Slayer, and Big Team Slayer is a snoozefest).
I don't have a point, I just wanted to stick up for what Reach Objective should have (could have) been before it was taken out back.
Lies. Flag and assault on the pit forever.
Consoles need some sort of PPT button that broadcasts the chat to the people in the game even when you're in a party. Everyone on PC (Dota, csgo, etc) is on Mumble with their mates yet there's a ton of ingame chatter because people just press a button to talk about specific things to the randoms in the game .
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