This post is addressed to those who, like me, were hardcore Halo 2 fans and players, some years ago. I was really thrilled when the announcement of Halo 2 Anniversary was made, especially with a remastered multiplayer. But after playing it a lot these last days (at least as much as the nearly broken state of the game allowed me to), I must say I am kind of disappointed, as I feel this Anniversary multiplayer has very few to do with Halo 2 in terms of core gameplay mechanics. Here is why :
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Melee is messed up. Almost no lock, slow beatdown animation, no BxR, no BxB.
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Extremely slow reload animation, and no YY or BxR fast reload. This has sometimes led me to not reload when my clip was half empty, in case I need to shoot, because reloading basicaly paralyses you for several precious seconds, which is a shame in a gameplay as nervous and fast as competitive Halo 2.
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Grenades damage radius way wider than in Halo 2 Classic, which usually leads to huge reckless bombing fests.
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Grenades physics, bouncing feel much less smooth and light.
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No doubleshots. Which means less skill, less show and less ways to comeback in a BR duel. Now unless a player completely misses one or two shots (which rarely happens at high level) the first one to see the other necesarily wins the BR duel.
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Graphics, even though really good looking, don’t seem to me suitable for competitive play. The extremely detailed environment, along with neither antialiasing nor anisotropic filtering, too flashy grenades explosions and most importantly the crazily strong light reflections (especially on Lockdown) make the game look somewhat blurry.
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Sniper feels much harder to aim with. Although I would be tempted to say it is a good thing, it means that in some of cases, it is actually wiser and more efficient to 4-shot your enemy with zoomed BR than taking the risk to miss a headshot with the sniper, and get 4-shotted by a BR.
Overall, I think these little things are drastically reducing the skillgap between players (I have played lots of Anniversary Rumble since the playlist is back, and pretty much every player ends up with almost the same number of kills, the luckiest getting the mighty 25th frag). One may or may not agree with this, but what is absolutely sure is that this Anniversary multiplayer lost everything that made Halo 2 Halo 2.
So I guess I will just play Halo 2 Classic then, I’m glad I can still do this on the MCC but sadly I won’t enjoy Halo 2 Anniversary (which definitely should not be named this way). it is a pity that this new remade multiplayer will most likely not revive the good old Halo 2 competitive MLG era.
Do you guys feel the same ? Or not ? If so, why ?