I'll be honest, enjoying Halo: Combat Evolved to the degree I did when I played it came as a huge surprise to me. I initially only bought the Master Chief Collection as a novelty, since, y'know, "how can you have an Xbox without Halo?", and I thought nothing more of the series. Whilst it didn't exactly blow me away and certainly did "feel old", Halo CE was just so thoroughly likable and well put together: A game weaving linear enemy encounters with a more expansive sandbox of options so effortlessly, with a beautiful aesthetic to boot.
If you hadn't figured it out already from that intro, Halo 2 was a massive disappointment to me and a game I pretty much had to force myself to finish after getting past the 2/3rds-mark. Even now, months after finishing the game, I'm still trying to figure out exactly why that is.
The best way I can put it is this: Halo CE was a game that benefited from feeling indecisive. It didn't latch onto one kind of level design for too long: The intro level is a series of rooms, while the second level is made up of sprawling, beautiful landscapes. Whilst you can definitely feel a sense of insecurity from the developers' parts on what exactly the game "should" be, the linear progression of mission-to-mission lets this flaw become a strength: You're never bored of the game's pace because its always subtly changing. With Halo 2, it feels as if the developers looked at the different kinds of missions in Halo CE: Linear enemy rooms, sprawling sandboxes, even more slow and atmosphere-focused levels, and decided to focus squarely on the foremost, designing the whole game around mostly linear enemy rooms. What Halo 2 ends up being is, to me, pretty clearly more comparable to a "Cover Shooter" like Gears and Killzone than what Halo CE ever was. And sure CE had an energy shield that regenerates, but its design also felt like it was blending that element with FPS design of yore.
Essentially, CE feels to me like a perfect marriage of the old and "new" of shooters, wheras 2 steps almost fully in toward the new whilst still lacking the far more satisfying mechanics and polished level design of a game like Gears. That isn't to say Halo 2 is some thoroughly unappealing mess of a game or anything, far from it: It still does the move-and-shoot gameplay dynamic well enough, there's a fun arsenal of weapons to choose from and the dual wielding is actually a lot of fun to mess around with.
Story wasn't exactly a high point for Halo 1 (even when its atmosphere was exquisite) and while I still didn't pay much attention to the story in Halo 2 I did really enjoy all of the new elements it introduced, especially getting to see more of the Covenant and their religion. I don't want to delve too deep into the story in case you haven't played it because I think the surprising twists of it are a big part of the appeal, but it was certainly enough to keep me going despite having long grown tired of the repetitive gameplay.
Additionally, the action and spectacle has absolutely ramped up in this game over the first to the point where there are a lot of really memorable setpieces in this game that were almost all expertly handled.
Halo 2 left me disappointed, yet its changes to the core design of Halo could also be seen coming from a mile away. I perfectly understand why it is the way it is, but I'll just always prefer the hodgepodge of ideas that preceded it.
Playtime: ???
Key word: Narrow-minded
If you hadn't figured it out already from that intro, Halo 2 was a massive disappointment to me and a game I pretty much had to force myself to finish after getting past the 2/3rds-mark. Even now, months after finishing the game, I'm still trying to figure out exactly why that is.
The best way I can put it is this: Halo CE was a game that benefited from feeling indecisive. It didn't latch onto one kind of level design for too long: The intro level is a series of rooms, while the second level is made up of sprawling, beautiful landscapes. Whilst you can definitely feel a sense of insecurity from the developers' parts on what exactly the game "should" be, the linear progression of mission-to-mission lets this flaw become a strength: You're never bored of the game's pace because its always subtly changing. With Halo 2, it feels as if the developers looked at the different kinds of missions in Halo CE: Linear enemy rooms, sprawling sandboxes, even more slow and atmosphere-focused levels, and decided to focus squarely on the foremost, designing the whole game around mostly linear enemy rooms. What Halo 2 ends up being is, to me, pretty clearly more comparable to a "Cover Shooter" like Gears and Killzone than what Halo CE ever was. And sure CE had an energy shield that regenerates, but its design also felt like it was blending that element with FPS design of yore.
Essentially, CE feels to me like a perfect marriage of the old and "new" of shooters, wheras 2 steps almost fully in toward the new whilst still lacking the far more satisfying mechanics and polished level design of a game like Gears. That isn't to say Halo 2 is some thoroughly unappealing mess of a game or anything, far from it: It still does the move-and-shoot gameplay dynamic well enough, there's a fun arsenal of weapons to choose from and the dual wielding is actually a lot of fun to mess around with.
Story wasn't exactly a high point for Halo 1 (even when its atmosphere was exquisite) and while I still didn't pay much attention to the story in Halo 2 I did really enjoy all of the new elements it introduced, especially getting to see more of the Covenant and their religion. I don't want to delve too deep into the story in case you haven't played it because I think the surprising twists of it are a big part of the appeal, but it was certainly enough to keep me going despite having long grown tired of the repetitive gameplay.
Additionally, the action and spectacle has absolutely ramped up in this game over the first to the point where there are a lot of really memorable setpieces in this game that were almost all expertly handled.
Halo 2 left me disappointed, yet its changes to the core design of Halo could also be seen coming from a mile away. I perfectly understand why it is the way it is, but I'll just always prefer the hodgepodge of ideas that preceded it.
Playtime: ???
Key word: Narrow-minded