I know, I’m only a little behind, but I finally got around to playing Halo 2. And I don’t mean the PC version. I mean the X-Box version. I saw it at the pawn shop (the best place to buy movies, in my opinion!) and bought it.
I wasn’t that big of a fan of the first Halo. I thought it was incredibly average and I really really hated the handling of the vehicles. So what do I think of Halo 2? It seems incredibly average and I really really hate the handling of the vehicles.
The mythology of the Halo universe is interesting enough. It is also interesting that they don’t really try to remind you of what is going on with the Flood and stuff. It has been three or four years since I’ve played the original Halo and I didn’t really remember what the Flood was about and stuff.
On the other hand, I am struck by how primitive the gameplay of Halo 2 is. There’s no physics. There’s no real interaction with the environment. I hadn’t noticed how common or expected those things had become in the FPS world until I played a game that didn’t have them. I’ve been playing some pretty obscure pc fps games lately like Chaser, Alpha Prime, and Red Ocean and they seemed more advanced than the evolved combat of Halo 2.
That doesn’t mean it is a bad game. However, what it does mean is that Halo 3 is going to have to be quite a bit different to be any good. It will have to include some of the features that have become commonplace since Half-Life 2 introduced us to the gravity gun. Whether or not Halo 3 actually includes things like the ability to pick up things and interact with the environment, it will be a success because of the number of people that will buy it as soon as it comes out. It doesn’t matter much to me personally though. I don’t have a 360. But it is only a matter of time before I see Halo 3 at the pawn shop. All games end up there eventually…