OK, I have something I'd like to get off my chest. It may be unqualified ranting and raving from a lunatic, but if I wasn't having so much fun with the game I wouldn't be so passionate about it, right? Here we go:
Halo 2 sucks ass.
It makes me insane, and I know I'm not alone in this. Compared to other futuristic FPS games (Let's ignore realistic games for now) Halo 2 has fewer maps, more restrictive matchmaking options, and crappier weapons.
Now I ask you, what the hell is wrong with Bungie? Are they one-hit wonders? The game itself was short and there's only twelve lousy multiplayer maps? I've heard stories about Bungie trying to stay a small developer but I gots ta wonder why they didn't spend a few dollars for one lousy map guy who could crank out maybe one map ever two months in his spare time over the last three years to give the game some selection? It's preposterous! Even when a map might be suitable for a certain gametype (Say, Coagulation with vehicular CTF or Assault) the game is so broken (vehicles take minutes to respawn!) it's entirely un-fun playing it.
So there's not enough maps.
Most of the maps suck, and the matchmaking won't let you choose what gametype you play nor which map to play it on. Sure you can play a custom game and invite your friends, but what if we want to play CTF with strangers? No go, says Bungie!
So we can't play the way we want.
It's buggy and inconsistant in the UI. Half the time someone dies it says "A killed B!" but the other half reports "B was killed by A!" so you can't tell at a glance who killed who. And that's if it deigns to report at all who was killed. It's not at all uncommon for the game to completely forget to tell you someone died.
So it's kinda buggy.
The weapons are hugely inconsistant. Never mind half of them cover a quarter (or more!) of the screen, they suck. There's not enough of them, unlike (say) UT where there's some ten weapons, each with an alternate firing mode (or two).
So there's not many weapons.
It's ugly. It's very ugly. Heaven forbid you check out the screenshots from Unreal Championship 2 (coming in Feb) and you realize Halo 2's disgustingly ugly! The levels are all more or less monochromatic.
And yet we're still playing it every night, often for hours, but at the end of every session we're complaining more and louder than the night before. No maps, unsuitable gametypes, ridiculous weapons (All sword-matches) made unplayable 'cause of lag. No choices, bugs, bad maps!
It's a great game made irritating 'cause of mediocrity on all sides. One guy - one stinkin' guy! - could have doubled the map count in a few months. Grr, etc!
Bah to Bungie! Bah, I say!!
