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I've gotten into the habbit of throwing Halo on Xbox LAN parties every few weeks at my apartment. Last weekend, I threw a Halo 2 party, and my apartment was packed. 4 TVs with 4 Xboxes, and about 11-16 people playing at any given time that night.

What are your opinions on Halo 2 as compared to Halo 1?

I think I still prefer Halo 1 to be honest. Halo 2 has a lot of neat new stuff, but just felt un-polished with the numerous texture mapping glitches in game, and in cinematic sequences. The new features are very cool, but there is one significant change between the two that kills H2 for me. That is, the reduction of the player view area. (You see less now, it's like a horse with blinders on compared to H1). When you combine this new limited view with these new enormous maps, and the fact that your weapon takes up most of the screen (especially when you hold two!) it's like a step back 10 years to Wolfenstien 3D.

I realize why this was done, it's a code issue, but I'd rather of had same sized maps and kept my view area! I hate the fact that I'm constantlyl backing up to see what I'm looking at. It's frustratingly annoying, and for me makes the game less enjoyable.

I was very upset to learn that the mission from the promo's doesn't even exist on this edition of the game! :GROWL:

In my firm opinion, Bungie should have made Halo 1.5, not Halo 2.0.0.0.1 alpha (which this feels like). I'd rathar of had the exact same game, just with different missions on earth (yeah an expansion pack), maybe with some new added features (but not necessary in my opinion), instead of this whole new game. H 1.5 could have been built with a skeleton crew at Bungie, while the main host of game developers spent perhaps another year on H2's development and refinement.

3 out of 4 stars for Halo 2 (I gave Halo 1 4 stars)

Damn, I've only had 8 player LAN parties, 16 would be sick. Anyways...

I think the multiplayer is more balanced and more "realistic". Being able to destroy vehicles like Ghosts make it easier to kill vehicle whores. Being able to board vehicles and mount vehicles is also very helpful. I'm glad they removed that stupid 2 to 3-shot pistol kill crap too. Yea, the darkness on almost every map and small viewing range does suck, but I kinda got use to it already on my 36-inch. I even play on a 26-inch with 4 people and we all do fine. Bungie gave us binoculars so that isn't bad.

My favorite addition is the radar nerf. I hated how people could see you from so far away. Now you can at least sneak up on people.

The most unbalanced part about Halo2 is dual-wielding imho. Being able to dual a pistol and an automatic makes it very easy to kill people now. Give me two-three seconds and I can take out anyone w/ overshield.

i go to halo lan parties about once every 2 weeks or so... we constantly have 13 + players there... last time we had 5 Xbox's floating around and each of them had 4 people on them constantly. as far as halo 1 vs halo 2. i think halo one has a better sinlge player campeign but halo 2 for multi player rawks. the view constraintsdo get annoying though.

At first, I was pretty upset about the pistol losing its zoom, but I then realized that it was pretty cheesy in the first place. As far as the limited viewing, I don't mind that at all. I'm so used to playing rainbow six:3 that it didn't change anything for me at all. Being able to hijack vehicles is the best thing I think they've done to the game. Dual wielding is also great because you can't throw granades quite as easily and it takes longer to reload. Very balanced. The shotgun, however, seems to have lost its magic. You have to be even closer now and sometimes a point blank shot doesn't kill, which kinda annoys me that it isn't as reliable. Another thing I dislike is that plasma granades wont flip or destroy a warthog in one shot anymore. This means that you either have to be excellent at hijacking, or have a rocket launcher to really do much against a good driver.

The single player is great, but I did enjoy halo 1 single player better. The multiplayer is much better imo, and on xbox live, there is no game that compares...it's like having halo lan parties whenever you want them without inviting messy slobs to your house.

P.s. Arilin, you got so owned :)

Kifle wrote:P.s. Arilin, you got so owned :)

You're damn right I did. I'm so not used to the Xbox controller yet, or playing FPS on a console sans keyboard/mouse. :P I'm gonna get owned till I get used to that type of control.

Arilin Nydelahar wrote:

Kifle wrote:P.s. Arilin, you got so owned :)

You're damn right I did. I'm so not used to the Xbox controller yet, or playing FPS on a console sans keyboard/mouse. :P I'm gonna get owned till I get used to that type of control.

he likes to be controlled ..........

Arilin Nydelahar wrote:

Kifle wrote:P.s. Arilin, you got so owned :)

You're damn right I did. I'm so not used to the Xbox controller yet, or playing FPS on a console sans keyboard/mouse. :P I'm gonna get owned till I get used to that type of control.

It'd be better if you played more, though. They actually have a mouse/keyboard thingy for xbox...dunno if it's that important for you to buy it or not, though. What I'd really like to see is dartan on live. That would be entertaining.

Dalar wrote:
The most unbalanced part about Halo2 is dual-wielding imho. Being able to dual a pistol and an automatic makes it very easy to kill people now. Give me two-three seconds and I can take out anyone w/ overshield.

SMG + Plasma Rifle = OWNage


Oh and a couple other things:
I also don't know why they removed the health bars from the game. Even in single player you can't get health packs anymore. I always liked that aspect, in H1 multiplayer you can jack up your health to 400% and make it really hard to drop eachother (this was great for pistols only wars :)), and in single player if you were at one bar your heart beated really loudly and added tension to the game.

Now it's like. Ok my shields are gone, hide for 3 seconds, blam they are back. Or Loose your shields, one more shot and you're dead. Bleh. I like the old slow to recharge shields more since I had health bars.


Grenades: I'm glad they toned down the damage, but is it me, or are the sticky's harder to stick? *scratch*

Sesexe wrote:

Dalar wrote:
The most unbalanced part about Halo2 is dual-wielding imho. Being able to dual a pistol and an automatic makes it very easy to kill people now. Give me two-three seconds and I can take out anyone w/ overshield.

SMG + Plasma Rifle = OWNage


Oh and a couple other things:
I also don't know why they removed the health bars from the game. Even in single player you can't get health packs anymore. I always liked that aspect, in H1 multiplayer you can jack up your health to 400% and make it really hard to drop eachother (this was great for pistols only wars :)), and in single player if you were at one bar your heart beated really loudly and added tension to the game.

Now it's like. Ok my shields are gone, hide for 3 seconds, blam they are back. Or Loose your shields, one more shot and you're dead. Bleh. I like the old slow to recharge shields more since I had health bars.


Grenades: I'm glad they toned down the damage, but is it me, or are the sticky's harder to stick? *scratch*

Nah, stickies are just as hard/easy to stick, but they just don't do much damage when stuck to vehicles. You can still kill a man with 1 stuck plasma granade, but the frags seem rather weak too. Don't know if I like that. Guess I loved getting death kills (kill them with last granade after they kill you) I'm too used to rainbow tactics. I also have to agree with the !health bar.

Another change I do like, though, is the locking upgrade to the rocket launcher. Makes taking those banshees and ghosts out a bit easier, but not a sure thing every time. (banshee's can easily dodge those rockets if they see them comming).

Brute shot has to be the worst gun ever...such a useless weapon it is.

Dual Magnums will beat any other dual wield except if you come across somebody that is extremely good at aiming a charged up alien pistol while dual wielding. That combo is deadly...only when that charge hits though.

Yea i've been thinknig about getting an Xbox and halo2 to play w/ some of my friends in the area. Playing against Kifle would be fun.

Yea, dual magnums is good especially w/ the explosions u can get with it. My personal favorite is plasma pistol plus a smg. Shotgun is still a good weapon imho. I never used it much in Halo1 unless we were playing rat race, but now I tend to use it any time I can get it. Since people can't really see you on radar as well, u can defintely sneak up and 1-hit kill people. Also, camo doesn't appear on radar either. In Zanzibar I'd say 25% of my kills come from just shotgun/camo

I feel that Halo2 should have been a little bit longer for all of its hype. i beat it pretty quick, along with a lot of other people. I wasn't pleased with the ending. I liked that there were more cinematics, but i just wish it was longer ya know. i like both halo and halo2 a lot. I think it's pretty sweet that you can play 4 ppl co-op with 2 xboxs (in halo2). tho i haven't done that yet. i'm PRETTY sure that it's possible tho.


LOVE TO HALO. that is all.

it is of my opinion that the sword is like the best weapon. well, one of the best weapons.

FAV. guns:

beam rifle, sniper rifle
rocket launcher, fuel cannon
shotgun, carbine
sentinel beam
ENERGY SWORD OH YEAH ( i hope you know the trick w/it where, once you're targeted you just hold down left trigger or click it twice and you go straight to target no matter where it is... .just saying cause not everyone knew)

dual wielding is pretty sweet, i like duel SMGS, i s'pose

OK this is my last post in here, i swear.

have you got nicknames for halo and halo2?

starting from halo, my bro. and i have a lot of silly nicknames for everything.

ok, the elites we call: no scobu.

the little flood things that fly around and turn things to zombies: babies

a combination of babies in a cluster, those things are: big-fats, or "the police"

halo2...

brutes are: brute squats or monkies (brute squats was derived from princess bride's "brute squad")
we also call their guns brute squats. like, "Hey i got a brute squat"
"oh i'm fighting the monkey"

kill that brute squat
hmm, i thought i had more, but i guess not.

muma wrote:it is of my opinion that the sword is like the best weapon. well, one of the best weapons.

FAV. guns:

beam rifle, sniper rifle
rocket launcher, fuel cannon
shotgun, carbine
sentinel beam
ENERGY SWORD OH YEAH ( i hope you know the trick w/it where, once you're targeted you just hold down left trigger or click it twice and you go straight to target no matter where it is... .just saying cause not everyone knew)

dual wielding is pretty sweet, i like duel SMGS, i s'pose

When the aiming circle on the sword turns read that's when you hit your shoot button and it will rush at'em and 1hit kill'em. Shit's cheesy online.

imho dualing 2 smgs isn't smart. your damage output isn't that good and u can be easily ganked by someone w/ one smg. the only thing good about it is u have a crapload of bullets. you're better off with dual plasma rifles or any pistol and a smg.

Dalar wrote:imho dualing 2 smgs isn't smart. your damage output isn't that good and u can be easily ganked by someone w/ one smg. the only thing good about it is u have a crapload of bullets. you're better off with dual plasma rifles or any pistol and a smg.

Eh, plasma rifles don't hit very well becuase the bullets move slower which makes you have to lead your shots. I hate using alien weapons because of that.

Kifle wrote:

Dalar wrote:imho dualing 2 smgs isn't smart. your damage output isn't that good and u can be easily ganked by someone w/ one smg. the only thing good about it is u have a crapload of bullets. you're better off with dual plasma rifles or any pistol and a smg.

Eh, plasma rifles don't hit very well becuase the bullets move slower which makes you have to lead your shots. I hate using alien weapons because of that.

Plasma rifle sucks at long distances, but when you are up close and personal, the SMG + Plasma combo owns. Hands Down. At this point you don't have to aim so much, a little leading does it all. Plus since the plasma shots move slower, a player who decides to strafe back the opposite way can be caught in the plasma shots still catching up to them, while using your SMG to keep a constant streem on them the whole time. Plus don't forget, you don't have to reload the plasma rifle. So when your SMG runs out, you can still shoot plasma blasts and keep someone off you if need be. Plus as it was mentioned, having 1 SMG means you won't chew thru your 360 rounds nearly as fast as when dualing 2.

Magnum + Magnum can drop someone fast yes, but I find you run out of bullets too quickly and get stuck reloading, and with the reduced reload time when dualing weapons.. it can be a real pain in big chaotic fights.

Sesexe wrote:

Kifle wrote:

Dalar wrote:imho dualing 2 smgs isn't smart. your damage output isn't that good and u can be easily ganked by someone w/ one smg. the only thing good about it is u have a crapload of bullets. you're better off with dual plasma rifles or any pistol and a smg.

Eh, plasma rifles don't hit very well becuase the bullets move slower which makes you have to lead your shots. I hate using alien weapons because of that.

Plasma rifle sucks at long distances, but when you are up close and personal, the SMG + Plasma combo owns. Hands Down. At this point you don't have to aim so much, a little leading does it all. Plus since the plasma shots move slower, a player who decides to strafe back the opposite way can be caught in the plasma shots still catching up to them, while using your SMG to keep a constant streem on them the whole time. Plus don't forget, you don't have to reload the plasma rifle. So when your SMG runs out, you can still shoot plasma blasts and keep someone off you if need be. Plus as it was mentioned, having 1 SMG means you won't chew thru your 360 rounds nearly as fast as when dualing 2.

Magnum + Magnum can drop someone fast yes, but I find you run out of bullets too quickly and get stuck reloading, and with the reduced reload time when dualing weapons.. it can be a real pain in big chaotic fights.

That's the thing...you usually wont get within close range unless your opponent is battling another person or just got out of one...or your in a very small map. More than half the time, you are at mid distance, and that's where the magnum shines. You are right, though, the dual magnum's run out of shots fast, heh. If you don't hit with 1/2 of them, you gonna die! You guys need to play online bad. Its a whole other ballpark.

I don't think dual SMGs are powerful at all, but i still think they're cool for some reason. cause they go upwards when you shoot, that's just cool..

the needlers are much more powerful in halo2. i think they're good dual wieldage. magnums yeah. i noticed that too. anyway, happy hunting.

i still don't have xbox live. how lame is that.

Not that this adds anything, but I thought it was funny

I played about halfway through the singleplayer game before I got bored and returned it. I found it incredibly similar to the first game and am frankly at a loss as to why it took such a long time to develop. Repetitive level design (like the first one), lack of any significant new gameplay, and the same old half-dozen enemies over and over again...

Though admittedly, I didn't get a chance to try out the multiplayer, which I'm sure is fun.

Shevarash wrote:I played about halfway through the singleplayer game before I got bored and returned it. I found it incredibly similar to the first game and am frankly at a loss as to why it took such a long time to develop. Repetitive level design (like the first one), lack of any significant new gameplay, and the same old half-dozen enemies over and over again...

Though admittedly, I didn't get a chance to try out the multiplayer, which I'm sure is fun.

It's always been about the multiplayer, shev...I got bored with it too, so I'm playing ghost recon 2 now...thats a bad ass game.

Maybe for you.

I loved Halo 1 single player. I'd play co-op with friends whenever I could. I liked the story a lot. I beat it on the top 3 levels of difficulty. I don't play on easy or wutever it's called. I found that the game becames a different kind of game when you play legendary. On Normal and Heroic it's an In You Face shooter, but when on legendary it's all about sniping and figuring out what the sequence of events is on a board to pass it. Legendary wasn't really that hard.. when you compare it to Halo 2 legendary.

JEez... H2 legendary is just plane suicide, but I've still been going thru it. Now legendary to me is a game of finding and abusing the bugs in the game, as well as sniping when you can. Did you know the jackal snipers can one shot kill you on legendary? Perfect head shot aim, even when they are recovering from a shot. It's brutal on stages that are packed with them, like sniper alley on earth. That hurt. 4 jackal snipers mixed with flying buy aliens and invisible sword wielding aliens.. yeesh.

I also found that a lot of the boards have what I like to call, unintential routes. By jumping up and manipulating the world geometry by confusing it with your player movement, you are able to get yourself to places you weren't necessarily supposed to. You know you've gotten to a place they didn't intend when you can shoot/snipe with impunity at aliens/flood and they don't even notice it or you from up on top of say a mountain ridge or such.

I guess I'm just playing it thru again cuz I'm bored tho. Halo 1 had the best ending to a FPS I've ever seen. The Maw just ruled! Wish they had done something like that again, maybe in a banshee instead or something. Wutever. What they ended it with this time sucked. Sucked hard.

Btw, you can bunnyhop in Halo 2 up steep inclines, and if you crouch/stand/crouch/stand/etc while jumping you can project yourself up higher into the air and get up to some of those places you're not supposed to. Goodluck. :)


But I agree Shev, I don't know why it took them so long ot come out with this one. It's not that impressive. Out of the people I know in RL who bought the game the day it came out, only one finished it so far. Everyone else is like.. Ho hum.. when playing it. Save when I throw a LAN party.

Ressing an old thread here, but hey, it's related.

Do normal network routers/hubs work with linking up Xboxes?

oh yeah, and anyone every try linking up multiple Xbox LAN hubs?

Sesexe wrote:Ressing an old thread here, but hey, it's related.

Do normal network routers/hubs work with linking up Xboxes?

oh yeah, and anyone every try linking up multiple Xbox LAN hubs?

I'm kinda doubting that, but I'm not 100% sure. We tried using regular Ethernet cable to link up two boxes about 2 months ago, and they didn't register. We used the xbox cable and it worked fine. I'm not sure what this indicates, but I wouldn't waste my money if you where going to buy the stuff.

Normal ethernet hubs/routers should work fine. I've used a regular 4-port hub before to get 16 player matches going.

If you're going to only hook up two xboxes with a single cable, it needs to be a crossover cable. Otherwise you'll have to run it through a hub or something.

Derek got an Xbox for Christmas, but we decided to buy Fable instead of either of the Halo games because we only have one controller and no one to play with. Who wants to buy Derek the Halo games and connection cables for the gathering? :P

Fable sucks horribly by the way. So not worth the 52 dollars I spent buying it for him for Christmas.

I've got both halo games and an xbox with 2-3 controllers I could bring if needed. I think I also have a crossover cable and a hub kicking around someplace as well.

Jenera wrote:Derek got an Xbox for Christmas, but we decided to buy Fable instead of either of the Halo games because we only have one controller and no one to play with. Who wants to buy Derek the Halo games and connection cables for the gathering? :P

Fable sucks horribly by the way. So not worth the 52 dollars I spent buying it for him for Christmas.

Return it to Electronic Boutique. You'll get enough store credit to buy a used copy of Halo 1 for sure, maybe even a new Halo 1.

Yes, get Halo 1. You said you only have one controller, and it's a far better single player game. Might even be able to get a controller with a used Halo 1 actually. There are controllers you can get that are like 20 bucks.

Yeah, my Halo 1 is used.

Nekler BlazingWolf wrote:I've got both halo games and an xbox with 2-3 controllers I could bring if needed. I think I also have a crossover cable and a hub kicking around someplace as well.

Well I'm not thinking of just two linked together. I'm trying to figure out how I can link up more then 4 Xboxes at a time. That's why I want to know if I can chain the Xbox 4 port LAN hubs or just get a computer hub that has more then 4 ports. (We have one at work that has 16 ports, but it's not something I can unbolt and borrow). Plus, I'm guessing this is how that guy who works for Bungie has those huge LAN parties at his place up in New Hampshire?

I don't know why you couldn't use more then four xboxes linked together on one computer hub. I've never used the xbox hubs, but I wouldn't think they would differ from normal computer hubs.
Most games only support 16 players or less though, so unless you're doing it to get rid of the four people per tv crap or something, I wouldn't know why you would want to.