Pardon me for overreacting but Halo 2 campaign is a disaster. You can see how much of it was cobbled together by overworked devs trying to salvage a project that clearly went way too out of scale for an underpowered original xbox. It was the most frustrating and underwhelming game on my Halo campaign binge.
The first level is the last good level, this is when the game doesn't show its flaws as intensity of encounters is still low and pacing is tight. The second level where the game establishes its worst trope is when it all falls apart. Let's lock the player in an arena and dripfeed 7-10 scarce enemy waves while they die of boredom. Let's do it again! And again! Bungie clearly didn't have enough levels and layouts for a substantial campaign in time, but this desperate attempt to pad out the play time is even worse than copy paste rooms in original Halo as the encounter pacing is totally out of player's control and it's frustratingly, ABYSMALLY slow. I'm baffled how they thought it's a good idea
On the other hand, the balance was hastily retouched to be all around wack: health is no more, hitscan is way overtuned and so is enemy melee which renders close quarters combat ineffective and makes attempts at weaving around enemy positions easily punished. Thus the best tactic is taking a mid-range to high-range hitscan weapons (of which there are quite a few new types in Halo 2) and trying to take out enemies from safe distance and cover. It's boring, and it's a preferable way to do things every time and you'll be in for a bad time if you're intent to do things differently on a heroic-legendary difficulty. These issues are exacerbated with introduction of brutes who are an awful damage sponges and have absolutely no good counter-approach except blowing them off with well aimed plasma grenade or 3 beam rifle headshots from a kilometer away.
The campaign itself is a hot mess with uninspired and constrained level layouts and slow uneventful venicle sections taking up way too much time. There's no Keyes, no The Covenant, I struggle to come up with any level that genuinely stood out. Nothing as dreary as the Library this time, but flood exclusive levels take up one too many spots on mission select screen yet again.
Is it all so bad? No. Arbiter is a good addition and his cloak ability adds some strategic opportunities in combat the game so desperately lacks. The plot is kinda trashy but I definitely appreciated how the story enriches the universe by adding some lacking nuance to covenant and flood. And there are plenty of situations in the back half of the campaign when it pits two hostile opposing forces against each other and lets you use an on-going conflict to your advantage, which is when the game shines the most. Oh and Anniversary visuals are just beautiful, one of the better realized visual remakes I've seen that genuinely enhances the game with some subtle touches original lacked.
But all in all, incredibly frustrating balance and sloppy encounter design makes it the worst Halo campaign in my eyes. It aged way worse than Combat Evolved which was a rough game with genius DNA and it doesn't hold a candle to Halo 3 which made away with almost every issue listed in this review. It presents an interesting case study of what can go wrong during game development when you have a remarkable framework but make unfortunately bad decisions to sink it down. Kind of a bummer.
The first level is the last good level, this is when the game doesn't show its flaws as intensity of encounters is still low and pacing is tight. The second level where the game establishes its worst trope is when it all falls apart. Let's lock the player in an arena and dripfeed 7-10 scarce enemy waves while they die of boredom. Let's do it again! And again! Bungie clearly didn't have enough levels and layouts for a substantial campaign in time, but this desperate attempt to pad out the play time is even worse than copy paste rooms in original Halo as the encounter pacing is totally out of player's control and it's frustratingly, ABYSMALLY slow. I'm baffled how they thought it's a good idea
On the other hand, the balance was hastily retouched to be all around wack: health is no more, hitscan is way overtuned and so is enemy melee which renders close quarters combat ineffective and makes attempts at weaving around enemy positions easily punished. Thus the best tactic is taking a mid-range to high-range hitscan weapons (of which there are quite a few new types in Halo 2) and trying to take out enemies from safe distance and cover. It's boring, and it's a preferable way to do things every time and you'll be in for a bad time if you're intent to do things differently on a heroic-legendary difficulty. These issues are exacerbated with introduction of brutes who are an awful damage sponges and have absolutely no good counter-approach except blowing them off with well aimed plasma grenade or 3 beam rifle headshots from a kilometer away.
The campaign itself is a hot mess with uninspired and constrained level layouts and slow uneventful venicle sections taking up way too much time. There's no Keyes, no The Covenant, I struggle to come up with any level that genuinely stood out. Nothing as dreary as the Library this time, but flood exclusive levels take up one too many spots on mission select screen yet again.
Is it all so bad? No. Arbiter is a good addition and his cloak ability adds some strategic opportunities in combat the game so desperately lacks. The plot is kinda trashy but I definitely appreciated how the story enriches the universe by adding some lacking nuance to covenant and flood. And there are plenty of situations in the back half of the campaign when it pits two hostile opposing forces against each other and lets you use an on-going conflict to your advantage, which is when the game shines the most. Oh and Anniversary visuals are just beautiful, one of the better realized visual remakes I've seen that genuinely enhances the game with some subtle touches original lacked.
But all in all, incredibly frustrating balance and sloppy encounter design makes it the worst Halo campaign in my eyes. It aged way worse than Combat Evolved which was a rough game with genius DNA and it doesn't hold a candle to Halo 3 which made away with almost every issue listed in this review. It presents an interesting case study of what can go wrong during game development when you have a remarkable framework but make unfortunately bad decisions to sink it down. Kind of a bummer.