TL;DR version at the end.
INTRODUCTION
After being a member of the Halo community for over a decade now (since 2004), I’ve been around to witness the reaction to when a new title is released. I’ll immediately go ahead and say this, for everyone who says the Halo community is awful now, it has always been this way. Halo is probably considered to have one of the most intense fan bases of any franchise, second behind Star Wars I’d say. If there is the slightest thing wrong with the series, we will notice, we will complain.
However, with that said, I do not agree with most of the way people come off with their complaints. Most either sound uneducated, immature, or haven’t even been around long enough to know half of what they talk about. This point of this thread is to shed light on the fast that people have been complaining about Halo since just about the beginning. Now, I know that complaining is normal and for the most part a good thing. However, the way that the community has been going is almost beating a dead horse. I hope this post shows the irony of this infamous community.
The way this thread will flow is I will start with Halo 2 and then move forward. Halo CE will be excluded as nothing was to be comparable as it’s the first of the series. Thank you for taking the time and reading this.
HALO 2
Halo 2 as a lot of us know is considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest halo title if all time. Halo 2 sold upward to 6.5 million copies and is still one of the most played games on Xbox Live. Thing is, when Halo 2 was released it stirred a massive storm on the Halo forums. People ranted and complained how awful the game was. How the game changed everything good about Halo CE. This game was such an atrocity to people a website was made in dedication to how bad it was.
The main issue with Halo 2 was the fact that the game was an early release of what it should have been. Bungie is quoted with saying this. If anyone is to blame for Halo titles lacking content or being short ended, it’s Microsoft. Halo 2 was pushed to release when it was in 2004 due to Microsoft pressuring Bungie. This shows with how the campaign ended, it was a letdown. Things that people complained about in Halo 2 ranged from campaign being a let down from what was shown in advertisement to multiplayer imbalances.
Bungie engineer Chris Butcher is quoted saying “Even the multiplayer experience for Halo 2 is a pale shadow of what it could and should have been if we had gotten the timing of our schedule right.”
A number of things that people had issues with in the Halo 2 multiplayer included significant weapon imbalance. Some highlights would be how the needler has little range and the needles hardly tracked. The carbine was awful for long distance shooting and was inaccurate for a precision based rifle. The brute shot was barely usable, the projectiles bounced off almost everything. SMGs were the primary starting weapon for most gametypes. The sniper rifle on maps did not respawn if it was being used, this was a problem with maps such as Burial Grounds. Halo 2 was very buggy and many people used the exploits of maps and weapons to their advantage. The magnum was significantly different from the Halo CE magnum, it was weaker. The AR was removed and BR added. Halo 2’s Legendary mode reset you if one person died on the team. The gap between the worst possible player and the best possible player in Halo 2 has been dramatically foreshortened. Only two missions in campaign took place on Earth…the list could go on. The point is, Halo 2 had its major and minor issues and that people took in and spited.
HALO 3
Halo 3 had its fair share of hate and things that players thought were wrong. Players from back in the day were quoted as saying things such as “How does Halo 3 go from the best game around to the worst in such a short period of time? What did Bungie do (or didn’t Bungie do) to make Halo 3 so painfully frustrating? It’s simple, really. They made it for players with no skill.”
One of the biggest issues I remember seeing people complain about in 2007 in regards to Halo 3 was maps. People thought the maps were designed around casual play, they were too small or too big, they lacked cover, they hated the false doorways on Epitaph and Snowbound, etc. Guardian was a big issue to competitive players. In comparison to Lockout, which is what Guardian plays on, it lacked a few things. To some people, Guardian lacked the cover Lockout had. It lacked the “base” like play, and the weapon balance. People hated having the Gravity Hammer on the map. Another map I remember seeing a lot of hate towards was Isolation. The whole point of most people’s arguments were that the Halo 3 maps lacked significant “base Vs base” combat.
Another big issue for some people was the introduction of equipment in Halo. The back lash the Bungie received for introducing items such as the Bubble Shield, Power Drain, and Regenerator was tremendous. Like equipment, the Overshield and Active Camo were a problem to people also. People made the argument that the Overshields in Halo 3 were weaker than the Halo 2 shields and the Active Camo was too strong and hard to see.
Players also complained about the spawns in Halo 3. The argument ended in that the game was won by luck and not skill due to spawns. You would spawn across the map as opposed to in Halo 2 how you would spawn near your team. Maps that saw some of the biggest lashed towards spawns were Narrows and Guardians. Some other things that people complained and ranted about in Halo 3 was how movement was slower, melees were different and how objective items such as the flag and oddball were weapons, and the removal of recognized online clans.
HALO: REACH
Halo: Reach I will keep short as most people remember the complaints. Halo: Reach received huge back lash at Bungie. At the time, Reach was the furthest from the traditional Halo game. It was the first time a Halo title did not have a 1-50 ranking system since Halo 2. It introduced Spartan Abilities. The color pallets were different. The competitive scene was declining, etc.
HALO 4
Halo 4 I will also keep short as it’s recent. Halo 4 was and still is, in my opinion and a lot of veteran players, the furthest from a Halo game. Halo 4 kept hold of the hated Spartan Abilities and added new ones, such as Promethean Vision which allowed you to see through walls. Halo 4 introduced Loadouts and Ordinance Drops. The maps were ridiculous to a lot of people. The ranking system was a huge complaint to people as it was too easy, you had no reward practically or feeling of accomplishment. Halo 4 was the cut off from competitive gaming, it ceased to exist in reality.
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS
