They had some kind of midnight madness nonsense going on where I pre-ordered mine. I generally skip out on that kind of gig.

Like when San Andreas was released, there was this HUGE line to pick it up. My friend and I drove out there, saw the line, and immediately turned the car around.

Don't get me wrong, I pre-ordered all these "hot new releases..." I love them, like I love any of my other creepy obsessions. I'm just not extremely excited to play them every time. Halo 2 will be fun, I'm sure, but it's not worth waiting in a long 45 minute line with a bunch of smelly people. I prefer to just pick the game up the next day on my lunch break, or after work.

PS:

I still haven't played San Andreas for more than the 20 minutes that it took me to get bored and stop playing.

I just have it for my "collection."

I picked up Halo 2 today at my local Microcenter. They even had it on sale. No lines, no weeping. My friend and I played Halo co-op and enjoyed it, but didn't find it all that memorable, really. Lack of mid-level saves for the co-op version hurt, as did the never-ending corridors. But it was fun enough. I doubt H2 will go much beyond that.

Halo 2 is Halo 1 with normal mapping and a lot of cutscenes.  The levels, while grand in concept, aren't presented to the player - usually - with any information as to what they are.  If you don't pay careful attention for several levels, and for some even if you have your eyes and ears glued to the screen and every word, you still won't know exactly where you are supposed to be.

If you liked Halo, you'll like Halo 2, just be prepared for a short game with a really, really abrupt ending that entirely leaves off the climax and resolution of the story.

Bah... I don't even have an XBox... I will probably get a second hand one for cheap just to play Psychonauts (which I will get second hand too: how could they ignore my beloved Cube?). At the moment I'm too nuts over Alien Hominid ( http://www.alienhominid.com/ ) but I'll have to wait for the PAL version (or maybe I'll get one of those Freeloader "Import Game Enabler" thingies).

I think more eleven year-olds should be beat up by veteran game designers in front of EB Games in the dead of the night. So much tasty symbolism.

I was going to make a smartass Warholian remark about how in the future marketing hype will be the entertainment, and everything else (including the actual games) will just be merchandise... but I guess I'm too late...

I can't believe everyone is overlooking the atrocious popup's in both the cinematics and gameplay.

It's terrible. Killzone got blasted for the same thing but I guess since this is Halo 2 all of the hype makers have to overlook it so they can give it a tasty 9 or 10 score.

The game looks good no doubt, but I think the scores, hype, and hoopla are a bit unfounded.

I think this is the official Massive-Boners-for-Dorks month, starting with San Andreas, then Halo 2, then possibly Half-Life 2, and finally World of Warcraft.

I haven't even beaten the first Halo. It got too DOOM-like with throwing like a zillion zombies at you later in the game. How original! Hey, I just remembered I have an XBOX. Huh. What do you know. Hmm.

I may get stoned for this, but I have never played Halo.  I saw it for the first time on the weekend: a tournament being played at ACMI (http://www.acmi.net.au) and I couldn't shake the feeling that the levels looked, well, boring.  As in the architecture.  It looked dull, mundane, a little too functional and utilitarian.  A bit "been there done that" with Quake and Unreal.

But still yet to play it...

If you're going to stone SME, you might as well stone me, too--I've never played Halo. And I don't plan to, since I'm not an FPS fan.

That said, the hype around here has been equally insane--my roommate's french horn rehearsal was moved up two hours because two of the other horn players had to get down to the store for the "midnight madness" line party. And the campus gaming club had a Halo 2 tournament, with people lined up hours ahead of time for that. Good lord, people! It's Halo, not the next Harry Potter!

One of THE most overrated games and game series in a long time.  I chalk most of it up to console-only players first exposure to a competent shooter.

You all don't get it! Halo is as much about the game, as Star Wars is about kinky yoda plush toys, or baseball is about those hot, hot, ARod blowup dolls. No, while those things might provide some fun during long and lonely nights, what really matters is the experience.

The experience of going to the old ball game, on a cool october evening, cheering for the home team, and then getting completely smashed before you start rioting in the streets. The experience of watching leia for the first time, in that perfect bikini, choking Jabba the Hut, harder, and harder... oh ... baby...

Halo is not the game, Halo is the experience! Halo is the hype! the Bees! the lineups! the kid getting shit kicked! Halo is the midnight madness. The game is just what you're left with in the morning.

What's Halo 2 ?

:-)

Oded.

really count care a flip about halo 2.

give a sidescroller maniac mansion 2 .. and tell ask me if im excited?

I played Halo. Wasn't impressed.
I guess for those who never played Quake it might have been great, but Quake had mouse look, and I just couldn't get into an FPS with a controller. My least favourite parts of San Andreas are the ones in first person, for shooting. It just doesn't work. It was fine in VC on the PC, but not on console for me.
So, I played a little Halo, somewhat enjoyed mulitplayer with friends, as they were at least constrained to the controller too, and was singularly unimpressed by it when I tried the PC demo. I felt I was supposed to like the game...
So, I'm just going to spend the money on HL2 and Vampire: Bloodlines, both of which have - mouse look! Fanboys keep taking shots at me for dissing Halo. I'm not, I just don't like it.

3D shooters - with a few exceptions - generally bore me to tears. On the other hand, I thought Bungie did a pretty good job on Myth and Myth 2, so who knows? (Or, in my case, "who cares?" since my computer doesn't even come close to fulfilling the minimum hardware requirements. :-)

I don't like Bees as much as I like Beasts.

.. Never mind.

huh?

I personally think that the big reason for Halo's success was that it was the first (or second, since Goldeneye was quite good in the respect as well) console FPS that solved the control issues with a gamepad. I know I tried the Cube port of Medal of Honor (or atleast some WW2 FPS) and the biggest challenge in the game was to actually hit anything.

I might be wrong though, but since Halo wasn't anything special on the PC, I think this could be it.

I gotcha, mike d.

I guess I just let that whole part of the "experience" slip by me.

HALO on the Xbox was underwhelming - all I could think while I played it was, "GOD, I wish I had a mouse and keyboard!"  I tried the HALO PC demo and liked it.  It did some things I thought were very effective, like limiting the number of weapons you can carry and giving you the shield, which effectively splits the game up into "encounters" and only requires you to survive the current encounter before getting all your health back.  The voice acting was good and the story seemed interesting.  But in the end, I just don't think the game lived up to the promises Bungie made at that MacWorld all those years ago.

You're missing the fact that Halo on Xbox is a LAN-party in a box. If you've got an Xbox and 4 controllers you've got a 4-player experience for under $200. The setup scales well as it only takes 4 Xboxen to get 16 folks rocking and rolling (vs. the nightmare of 16 PCs). Playing Halo 2 last night at work with 13 co-workers reminded me just how much fun and social the LAN-party experience is. Fourteen people having a rocking good time in the same physical space is a social dynamic that shouldn't be undervalued. Only doing this once or twice is easily worth the price of the game (and probably even the Xbox). All the fun online gameplay is gravy after that.

Halo like HYPE and SHIT is a four letter words best left alone.

Had Halo been released on PC and/or PS2 the numbers would have dwarfed anything the Xbox is going to generate in three lifetimes besides four players to one screen is the absolute shittiest way to play a FPS. I don't care how much of a social creature you are its just not that much fun. Like showering in public eh!

FPS... single player starts and ends with Quake(s) and Unreal
(Doom III has TOO much chrome and TOO little originality, especially for being more then half a decade in the making!)
Coop... starts and ends with Counter-Strike.

Any questions kids!

A glimpse, albeit a somewhat whiny one:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/

Oh, and that's completely non-Halo related.  I felt like a little hijacking.

Wow Mike, you're right, I totally missed the point.

I never even got involved in the whole Bees thing...

This is amazing stuff. I've always complained that games are consistently worrying about being creative but we're never doing anything to evolve marketing...

I guess I can just shutup now.

The game is the hype... incredible.

webzombie - indeed, I have comments. FPS single player started with Wolf3D and peaked at Doom. Started at Quake? Learn some history!

Ok, name the first true-3d game with mouselook.

"Ok, name the first true-3d game with mouselook."

Terminator: Future Shock.

Ahem.  As woodcuts were to the printing press, these titles were just steps to the Gutenburg of First Person Shooters: Half-Life.
(I'll let eveyone else flesh out the nuances of that analogy.)

Incidently, for an interesting discussion on making a mod for Unreal that involves more character development and story than the usual "shoot stuff, move to the next room, repeat."  Have a look at Fools Rush In at http://www.alwaysblack.com

SME

Steve wins today's gold star!  I assure you, it's very shiny with high resolution specular highlights and realtime reflection maps!

I always love relaying the following whenever the topic of EA rears its head...

...there's a good reason why the blackrock generators in Ultima VII were in the shape of the cube, the sphere, and the tetrahedron.

I can't believe I never made that connection before.  If I could build a time machine, one of my first stops would be the day before EA consumed Origin.  I often wonder what the state of the industry would be if that deal had never been made.

whats a halo?
if you want a great fun game, then check out our game.  it has pirates, monkeys and aliens
http://www.dimsdale-kreozot.com/SuperTito/

>Doom III has TOO much chrome

What?! There's chrome?

Gawd damnedit! Someone turn on the lights, I want to see the chrome!

Yup, you're much closer to understanding Alan. The hype is the entertainment. I mean, who can resist the ups and downs of the hype? Every new game is like a new baseball season. Maybe this time, my team will win it all. Maybe this game, will be the one.

As the season progresses, and the previews come in, we dream and discuss the possibilities. The new rookies are promising, the screenshots look good. Might this really be our year?

But then, oh no! Our star pitcher is injured! The Triple-gun feature has been cut! Damn that Molyneux! Fire that coach!

Then, finally, the x-mas playoff season comes around, and the real hype begins. But... you already know the rest of that story. Suffice it to say, most of the time we don't win. But we'll still buy the gear, and support the team. Personally, I've just received my very own collectible Curt Shilling Suture with Halo Delux Gold pack. I probably won't play with it for more then 20 minutes, but at least I have it for my "collection."

Here's to next year! :)

actually, I don't think anyone can understand Alan... godamn comma...

Well, I am a very mysterious and complicated man, Mike. ;)

At least, you people have a good dub. We, spanish people (europe) have the same dub than the latin american version and it really sux, it´s like if u were playing a fucking serial. Thats the reason we have just beaten up our record cancelling preorders, running away from that dub, and ordering it to online stores from UK

@sme: Half-Life was shoot things for thirty seconds then sit back and watch a cut scene. Fun the first time through. When was the last time you played it? No, not a Half-Life mod, the actual game. I played it once, thoroughly enjoyed it, and haven't done since.  The actual game parts of it just aren't particularly interesting, and all the story stuff just gets in the way when you play it again. No, it's a great "experience", but it's not really a great "game". Doom is an absolutely pure gaming experience - incredibly simple, nothing to get between you and the game, but it's never the same two games in a row...Half-Life is too cinematic to match that, Quake and Quake 2 were too slow and cludgey (for 'simple' play).

To AdamW:  Naturally I wrote that about HalfLife to stir up some passions and discussion, but you've brought up a couple of interesting points about "game" and "experience."

Like my dad says, "Movies are individual."  He was referring to the fact that he might like one movie while I hated it, and vice versa.  Games, likewise, are individual.  

So where you found Doom an absolute pure gaming experience, I found it bored me to tears.  On the other hand, I found myself so involved with HalfLife that I actually, yes, played it three more times after that.

Reason being is that for me Doom wasn't a very engaging game for me.  Consider my favorite games while growing up: Zork, Fahrenheit 451, Secret of Monkey Island, Countdown.  Essentially adventure games.  HalfLife got me involved in a story, so much so that I would go to huge lengths to protect the odd Barney the security guard or scientist.  So for me HalfLife was a greater gaming experience because it had all of the things I looked for in a game.

Oh, and don't get me wrong.  Like I say, games are individual; I'm not writing this from some heavenly platform, espousing how Doom players are some lowly scumm.  You like Doom, and I didn't.  I loved HalfLife, you didn't.  Cool bananas.

Half-Life had no cutscenes.

I hadn't heard of Halo at all until a couple of weeks ago when there was a news item on television about the entire economy of the world collapsing overnight because so many people wanted to play something called a Halo 2 on something called an Xbox.

I'm kind of out of touch.

I think most people would have queued for hours or whatever so that they could be the first to say in their livejournal that they had played the game and found the hype to be over-rated.

I'll pay more attention to the computer gaming world when they turn a Jane Austen novel into a computer game.

Heh...the Jane Austen Text Adventure Game...

> take tea in the parlour
The tea is most splendid.
> promenade in the park
> You find the sunshine most agreeable, but are a little taken with the heat.
> return home
You are in the hall.
> ravish chambermaid

;)

one of the sessions in the 2005 gdc will be a competition to make a game based on emily dickinson poetry.  Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, and Richard Garfield are competing. id love to see it, but won't. i started imagining a game where an avatar of emily dickinson is a part of the interface, commenting on everything you do, slagging you off, etc.

Wow, I just noticed my non-existent game has a bug in it; it displayed the prompt in front of some world-description. Please remind me never to criticise a real game with actual code for having bugs, ever again. :)

Halo 2 - big disappointment. Didn't live up to it's hype.

Halo 2 was never going to be brilliant, it adds nothing new to a genre that really is over flowing with the same ideas, the single player is your standard one man against the entire frigging galaxy of aliens romp that gets boring after five minutes, and the multiplayer is terribly unbalanced. I love the friends list and everything, but I think I'm going to stick to Half Life 2 for my single player and Multiplayer kicks, it's far better...

A friend of miune bought an X-box just to play Halo 2, it's the only decent game for the console and he can't be bothered to buy anything else for it, he just keeps replaying Halo 2.

We've played split screen loads of time, mostly four people playing at once and he always wins, he's a complete Halo freak.

I tired playing single player once, got pretty far, but then it just got boring and plus, I didn't know the story to the first one, so it didn't engage me as much.

I felt like beating someone up after the ending :(