Bizarro-World
This post goes against everything I've written thus far about Halo 2. The Bungie team did learn a few things from Halo 1 and in some areas were able to help improve the gameplay through useful upgrades.
Xbox Live - The greatest improvement to the Halo gaming universe is the addition of Xbox Live. While the possibility of Live support didn't exist on the release of Halo: Combat Evolved and the internet connections to use it effectively were also lacking this is a great improvement none the less. The amount of games the average player is able to play on Xbox Live and the experience gained is incredible. The convenience and the ease of playing on Live is unparalleled. Strategies can be learned and honed, friendships cultivated, and skills perfected. Without a doubt the addition of Xbox Live to Halo 2 is the greatest possible improvement.
VOICE! Another useful and integral part of gameplay is the ability to use a mic. Voice chat allows for better teamwork with teammates, and improved gameplay overall. The usefulness of a mic when teaching someone a strategy or showing them something new is phenomenal.
The addition of customizable character symbols also helps improve gameplay and add to teamwork. The symbols and and the current state of your teammates such as red for being shot, or yellow for shooting help a player understand the dynamic of the current game.
Dead X symbols are also very useful and help alleviate the confusion that can result when you don't know the status of your teammates. Both the visual X marker and the X marker in the scoreboard (holding back) are extremely useful. The scoreboard organization is also very helpful allowing characters to stay up to date on their progress and their overall team progress towards victory.
Impovements to the HUD are also very useful. The display of team score in the bottom right corner along with the gametype and time remaining are useful on the fly. On screen display who is dying, who has the flag, and other information is great as well. A few of the problems that I have with the HUD the behavior of the shield and the radar. I don't know how Bungie was unable to find an applicable way to arrange the shield as to not require a blank radar circle to remain with radar turned off. I also like the improvements of onscreen flag status, however I don't really like the way the "no ammo" or "low ammo" looks. For some reason it just looks like Bungie was attempting to emulate some type of "Apple hipster" look with these symbols. I prefer the block font "No Ammo" in Halo 1 which appeared to be less cartoonistic and more FPS death and destruction type game.
One great improvement in gameplay resulted from the necessity to hold X to pick up both the flag and the ball. This was one of the major problems I always had with Halo 1 that I wish could have been changed. Having the ball forced into your hands when fighting was quite annoying and the Bungie team was a little shortsighted on the original behavior. Not that you could blame them they didn't have the wealth of experience and knowledge of the Halo universe when they were making the first, however they did when making the second.
While I think the increase in post-game information such as Medals, hit percentage, headshots, suicides, and person vs. person statistics are fantastic I don't exactly understand how players are sorted. In Halo 1 it was very obvious who had the highest score, and if there was a tie these two players would be sorted secondly by kills second, and by number of deaths third. In Halo 2 I have been unable to figure out how players who tie in kills are sorted. It doesn't appear to be done by deaths, assists, hit percentage, or suicides. I don't know if it has something to do with who spawned first (aka host or closer to host) or some other arbitrary fact that had nothing to do with the game. Not that this impacts the game heavily I just think it is stupid if two players both had 15 kills and one has 3 deaths and the other ranks above him with 8 deaths, odd.
That's about all that I can think of, most of these improvements don't impact the game too heavily, they just help streamline the game at times. If anybody has any ideas on things they feel have been improved between the two games I'd love to hear them in the comments.
Xbox Live - The greatest improvement to the Halo gaming universe is the addition of Xbox Live. While the possibility of Live support didn't exist on the release of Halo: Combat Evolved and the internet connections to use it effectively were also lacking this is a great improvement none the less. The amount of games the average player is able to play on Xbox Live and the experience gained is incredible. The convenience and the ease of playing on Live is unparalleled. Strategies can be learned and honed, friendships cultivated, and skills perfected. Without a doubt the addition of Xbox Live to Halo 2 is the greatest possible improvement.
VOICE! Another useful and integral part of gameplay is the ability to use a mic. Voice chat allows for better teamwork with teammates, and improved gameplay overall. The usefulness of a mic when teaching someone a strategy or showing them something new is phenomenal.
The addition of customizable character symbols also helps improve gameplay and add to teamwork. The symbols and and the current state of your teammates such as red for being shot, or yellow for shooting help a player understand the dynamic of the current game.
Dead X symbols are also very useful and help alleviate the confusion that can result when you don't know the status of your teammates. Both the visual X marker and the X marker in the scoreboard (holding back) are extremely useful. The scoreboard organization is also very helpful allowing characters to stay up to date on their progress and their overall team progress towards victory.
Impovements to the HUD are also very useful. The display of team score in the bottom right corner along with the gametype and time remaining are useful on the fly. On screen display who is dying, who has the flag, and other information is great as well. A few of the problems that I have with the HUD the behavior of the shield and the radar. I don't know how Bungie was unable to find an applicable way to arrange the shield as to not require a blank radar circle to remain with radar turned off. I also like the improvements of onscreen flag status, however I don't really like the way the "no ammo" or "low ammo" looks. For some reason it just looks like Bungie was attempting to emulate some type of "Apple hipster" look with these symbols. I prefer the block font "No Ammo" in Halo 1 which appeared to be less cartoonistic and more FPS death and destruction type game.
One great improvement in gameplay resulted from the necessity to hold X to pick up both the flag and the ball. This was one of the major problems I always had with Halo 1 that I wish could have been changed. Having the ball forced into your hands when fighting was quite annoying and the Bungie team was a little shortsighted on the original behavior. Not that you could blame them they didn't have the wealth of experience and knowledge of the Halo universe when they were making the first, however they did when making the second.
While I think the increase in post-game information such as Medals, hit percentage, headshots, suicides, and person vs. person statistics are fantastic I don't exactly understand how players are sorted. In Halo 1 it was very obvious who had the highest score, and if there was a tie these two players would be sorted secondly by kills second, and by number of deaths third. In Halo 2 I have been unable to figure out how players who tie in kills are sorted. It doesn't appear to be done by deaths, assists, hit percentage, or suicides. I don't know if it has something to do with who spawned first (aka host or closer to host) or some other arbitrary fact that had nothing to do with the game. Not that this impacts the game heavily I just think it is stupid if two players both had 15 kills and one has 3 deaths and the other ranks above him with 8 deaths, odd.
That's about all that I can think of, most of these improvements don't impact the game too heavily, they just help streamline the game at times. If anybody has any ideas on things they feel have been improved between the two games I'd love to hear them in the comments.
posted by Annihil8or at 2:00 PM
3 Comments:
I'm pretty sure in FFA if two people have the same amount of kills it sorts them based on who killed the other person more. However I don't know how it does it in team games where 2 people on the same team tie.
Medals are pretty useless
They basically tell you who the biggest faggot in the game is
There is one minor thing to consider - the smaller area of coverage of the motion tracker in Halo 2 can be argued as an improvement over Halo 1. However, I say this is minor because the motion tracker really ought to be turned off for serious games anyways. But you are right, there are no any major gameplay advantages that Halo 2 has over Halo 1.
And yes, medals are pretty useless. All they do is prove how much of a weapon whore or button glitcher you are. What I find amusing is that a Halo 2 tournament that I went to a while back used medals to determine who the best overall player was. That was a terrible tournament!
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