Archived from groups: alt.games.halo,microsoft.public.xbox.halo,microsoft.public.xbox,alt.games.video.xbox,uk.games.video.xbox (More info?)
FYI I didn't write this, it was someone at bungie.net who got banned
shortly afterwards. It's and interesting read though.
quote:
"Make of this what you will, but maybe I said something a little too
close to the truth and someone nervous. My original post on the bungie
forums got 42 replies within 50 minutes and then the topic was locked.
Shortly after that I was blacklisted (banned) from the forums. Keep in
mind the bungie forums are automatically censored, so curse words
appear as "-blam-", so I know I wasn't banned for language. I'll try
to restate this word for word as best as possible, but I can't
reference my original post because it has since been removed.
The game of Halo 2 as it exists now is not what bungie initially
intended for it to be, nor is this close to the final product they
worked three years on to complete. Lets start with the Halo 2
cinematic trailer (released in september of 2002). MC is on a ship and
you can hear random chatter over his comm as he walks down a corridor:
notice you'll hear things like "that's not enough to stop an assault
carrier" and "its like the god damn apocolypse". They have called for
reinforcements and the reinforcements are MC alone -- one man,
exciting enough that it still gives me goosebumps. So then master
chief ejects from the ships air lock and makes his dive towards earth.
What do you see? A whole continent saturated with fire and nuclear
explosions. That does seem pretty apocolyptic.
Now lets move on to the E3 demo (released in may 2003). MC flies into
New Mombasa on a pelican with the sarge and a few ODSTs. When he exits
the pelican, yes, it would appear to be a full-scale invasion of
earth. Wounded soldiers all around, huge covenant artillery blasting
buildings, etc... exciting! He makes his run through the city and then
mans the gun on the back of the gauss hog. He rolls through New
Mombasa with a couple marines, you see a few other hogs rolling
around, streets intersecting in and out of one another, passages that
lead to other areas... its a battle on a pretty large scale. A
convenant invasion of earth.
Compare these situations to the actual game of Halo 2. Where is the
"god damn apocolypse"? Earth isnt even being invaded. A few small
covenant platoons go to earth for one reason or another and thats it.
There isnt even a hint of earth being invaded in halo 2 until the very
end, then the game ends. You can see earth from space station cairo
and its untouched. When it comes to all this missing storyline, what
went wrong? What changed? Who intervened?
The -single- level that does take place on earth is -OBVIOUSLY- a last
minute change. Notice some similarities between this earth level and
the new mombasa level from the E3 demo. MC still flies in on a pelican
with the sarge and some marines, not ODSTs this time. If you really
pay attention you can see the marines in the pelican doing the exact
same movements as the ODSTs in the E3 demo -EXACTLY-. one marine
shoves a clip into his rifle while another puts on his helmet, the
same as the ODSTs in the E3 demo. Sarge even says the same stuff
except this time he has a little monologue about 'regret'. Also notice
at the start of this level, there is no text on screen telling you
where you are headed. No mention of the city name, date or location.
How odd is that? When the game starts and you see the opening
cinematic, you get a date and you are told exactly what you are
seeing; the covenant high charity. Even in the new mombasa level on
the E3 demo, you are given the same information. Strangely enough this
information is missing in the actual game. Minor inconsistencies like
this can only mean a handful of things. This level was added at the
last minute to replace the new mombasa level because the direction of
the game had taken a serious change in direction because of something
or someone. Load up the outskirts level and point your view to the
rooftops and tell me what you see. You might not be looking for them
but you'll see power lines. You have got to be kidding me. Its the
year 2552... Power lines?! Things like this, the inconsistencies and
missing -important- cinematic information just do not happen when you
spend three years developing a game. It simply does not happen. You do
not "hype" a game up to be an awesome showdown on earth between the
humans and covenant and then make the -single- earth level in the game
complete garbage. My god is that level ever so linear and boring. From
point A to point B. Its not the "god damn apocolypse" its a god damn
conspiracy.
Simply put, Microsoft is greedy. Microsoft made bungie change the
direction of the game and gave it that awful cliffhanger ending. They
ran out of time because they had to take out a lot of the content that
was already in the game and replace it with whatever they could.
Propbably why you end up playing as the arbiter so much. Its all
filler for the missing content. Watch the limited edition DVD and
check out the segment on the mongoose (the human atv). They say it was
buggy and didnt handle properly, watch the video and decide for
yourself, it was perfectly fine. There are a few misleading statements
from bungie employees in this dvd. Its not their fault, they are just
covering for microsoft. Like when they say that the new mombasa E3
level was the first thing they worked on. That is utter BS. All the
vehicles had their physics and mass properties already. The character
models and animations were finished. There were cinematics and
scripted dialogue from all the real voice actors. There was an entire
level designed. Don't tell me they spent the next year and a half to
design the 6 other awful levels we got. Even with all the bug testing
and all that, is not reasonable. 60+ people were working on the
campaign mode while 4 people worked on the multiplayer. Too many
things just dont add up. Nothing about it makes any sense at all. If
there is truth in the fact that the E3 new mombasa level was the first
thing they worked on... which already had so many features already
implemented, what in the **** did they do with all that time in
between may 2003 and november 9th?
Read any publication online or in real life dealing with halo 2 before
its release. Whenever someone from bungie spoke about the game, the
focus was earth. The cinematic trailer, focus: earth. The E3 demo,
focus: earth. It was all supposed to be about earth. Would bungie
intentionally mislead us to think that is was going to be all about
earth and then smack us in the face with an awful game like this? I
dont think so. You cant say that what i expected halo 2 to be was just
what i had in my head. It is what we were -lead- to believe and what
we were told it would be. This isnt me being disappointed because I
believed too much hype -- this is me being disappointed because for
one reason or another, "we" didnt the the game of halo 2 that was
"promised" to us.
Think about it... the E3 gameplay demo was released in may of 2003,
almost a full year a half before the release of the game. The new
mombasa level was brilliant. They didnt have to keep the scripting for
the level, just the level itself. Why take it out? Why not put as much
as you can into halo 2 including that level, because it definitely had
a place in the game. Oh, im sorry. It had a place in the game as it
was originally conceived, but not the greedy stripped down micro$oft
half-assed version that we got.
In conclusion... what do you think went wrong? You're a fool if you
think they just couldnt fit one more level into the game, they could
have put the game on two discs and added 20 (we wish) more levels very
easily, and microsoft has the money for that. Don't tell me it was
because of hardware issues, because its only a map. And dont tell me
that you cant include a rocket hog or a personnel transport hog in the
game because of hardware issues either, if you can support one
vehicle, you can support another. You're being mislead in a number of
ways to hide the fact that you've been shafted out of $55 for a game
that is shorter than the original and far less enjoyable (aside form
the multiplayer which is spectacular). Bungie wanted to give us
everything we had hoped for, its just a shame we'll never get to see
the godliness of what they had in store for us.
Go to www.bungie.net and look at the title for the halo 2 forums. They
are called new mombasa. A level that doesnt even exist in the game
(now). What kind of reasoning is there for that? Should that be
reserved for halo 3 *cough* when you -might- actually get a chance to
catch a glimpse of the city. Rubbish. Bungie said many times halo 2
would bringe closure and there would be no halo 3. Bungie also said
they would "never specify a release date for halo 2 until we are
certain we could release a finished product." That statement was on
their main website the day that the release date was accounced. So why
would they set a date for themselves where they knew they wouldnt
finish in time and be forced to take out all kinds of content? They
wouldn't."
welp, that's it, I'm not getting Halo 2
maybe I'll wait for the deluxe Xbox 2 version.
FYI I didn't write this, it was someone at bungie.net who got banned
shortly afterwards. It's and interesting read though.
quote:
"Make of this what you will, but maybe I said something a little too
close to the truth and someone nervous. My original post on the bungie
forums got 42 replies within 50 minutes and then the topic was locked.
Shortly after that I was blacklisted (banned) from the forums. Keep in
mind the bungie forums are automatically censored, so curse words
appear as "-blam-", so I know I wasn't banned for language. I'll try
to restate this word for word as best as possible, but I can't
reference my original post because it has since been removed.
The game of Halo 2 as it exists now is not what bungie initially
intended for it to be, nor is this close to the final product they
worked three years on to complete. Lets start with the Halo 2
cinematic trailer (released in september of 2002). MC is on a ship and
you can hear random chatter over his comm as he walks down a corridor:
notice you'll hear things like "that's not enough to stop an assault
carrier" and "its like the god damn apocolypse". They have called for
reinforcements and the reinforcements are MC alone -- one man,
exciting enough that it still gives me goosebumps. So then master
chief ejects from the ships air lock and makes his dive towards earth.
What do you see? A whole continent saturated with fire and nuclear
explosions. That does seem pretty apocolyptic.
Now lets move on to the E3 demo (released in may 2003). MC flies into
New Mombasa on a pelican with the sarge and a few ODSTs. When he exits
the pelican, yes, it would appear to be a full-scale invasion of
earth. Wounded soldiers all around, huge covenant artillery blasting
buildings, etc... exciting! He makes his run through the city and then
mans the gun on the back of the gauss hog. He rolls through New
Mombasa with a couple marines, you see a few other hogs rolling
around, streets intersecting in and out of one another, passages that
lead to other areas... its a battle on a pretty large scale. A
convenant invasion of earth.
Compare these situations to the actual game of Halo 2. Where is the
"god damn apocolypse"? Earth isnt even being invaded. A few small
covenant platoons go to earth for one reason or another and thats it.
There isnt even a hint of earth being invaded in halo 2 until the very
end, then the game ends. You can see earth from space station cairo
and its untouched. When it comes to all this missing storyline, what
went wrong? What changed? Who intervened?
The -single- level that does take place on earth is -OBVIOUSLY- a last
minute change. Notice some similarities between this earth level and
the new mombasa level from the E3 demo. MC still flies in on a pelican
with the sarge and some marines, not ODSTs this time. If you really
pay attention you can see the marines in the pelican doing the exact
same movements as the ODSTs in the E3 demo -EXACTLY-. one marine
shoves a clip into his rifle while another puts on his helmet, the
same as the ODSTs in the E3 demo. Sarge even says the same stuff
except this time he has a little monologue about 'regret'. Also notice
at the start of this level, there is no text on screen telling you
where you are headed. No mention of the city name, date or location.
How odd is that? When the game starts and you see the opening
cinematic, you get a date and you are told exactly what you are
seeing; the covenant high charity. Even in the new mombasa level on
the E3 demo, you are given the same information. Strangely enough this
information is missing in the actual game. Minor inconsistencies like
this can only mean a handful of things. This level was added at the
last minute to replace the new mombasa level because the direction of
the game had taken a serious change in direction because of something
or someone. Load up the outskirts level and point your view to the
rooftops and tell me what you see. You might not be looking for them
but you'll see power lines. You have got to be kidding me. Its the
year 2552... Power lines?! Things like this, the inconsistencies and
missing -important- cinematic information just do not happen when you
spend three years developing a game. It simply does not happen. You do
not "hype" a game up to be an awesome showdown on earth between the
humans and covenant and then make the -single- earth level in the game
complete garbage. My god is that level ever so linear and boring. From
point A to point B. Its not the "god damn apocolypse" its a god damn
conspiracy.
Simply put, Microsoft is greedy. Microsoft made bungie change the
direction of the game and gave it that awful cliffhanger ending. They
ran out of time because they had to take out a lot of the content that
was already in the game and replace it with whatever they could.
Propbably why you end up playing as the arbiter so much. Its all
filler for the missing content. Watch the limited edition DVD and
check out the segment on the mongoose (the human atv). They say it was
buggy and didnt handle properly, watch the video and decide for
yourself, it was perfectly fine. There are a few misleading statements
from bungie employees in this dvd. Its not their fault, they are just
covering for microsoft. Like when they say that the new mombasa E3
level was the first thing they worked on. That is utter BS. All the
vehicles had their physics and mass properties already. The character
models and animations were finished. There were cinematics and
scripted dialogue from all the real voice actors. There was an entire
level designed. Don't tell me they spent the next year and a half to
design the 6 other awful levels we got. Even with all the bug testing
and all that, is not reasonable. 60+ people were working on the
campaign mode while 4 people worked on the multiplayer. Too many
things just dont add up. Nothing about it makes any sense at all. If
there is truth in the fact that the E3 new mombasa level was the first
thing they worked on... which already had so many features already
implemented, what in the **** did they do with all that time in
between may 2003 and november 9th?
Read any publication online or in real life dealing with halo 2 before
its release. Whenever someone from bungie spoke about the game, the
focus was earth. The cinematic trailer, focus: earth. The E3 demo,
focus: earth. It was all supposed to be about earth. Would bungie
intentionally mislead us to think that is was going to be all about
earth and then smack us in the face with an awful game like this? I
dont think so. You cant say that what i expected halo 2 to be was just
what i had in my head. It is what we were -lead- to believe and what
we were told it would be. This isnt me being disappointed because I
believed too much hype -- this is me being disappointed because for
one reason or another, "we" didnt the the game of halo 2 that was
"promised" to us.
Think about it... the E3 gameplay demo was released in may of 2003,
almost a full year a half before the release of the game. The new
mombasa level was brilliant. They didnt have to keep the scripting for
the level, just the level itself. Why take it out? Why not put as much
as you can into halo 2 including that level, because it definitely had
a place in the game. Oh, im sorry. It had a place in the game as it
was originally conceived, but not the greedy stripped down micro$oft
half-assed version that we got.
In conclusion... what do you think went wrong? You're a fool if you
think they just couldnt fit one more level into the game, they could
have put the game on two discs and added 20 (we wish) more levels very
easily, and microsoft has the money for that. Don't tell me it was
because of hardware issues, because its only a map. And dont tell me
that you cant include a rocket hog or a personnel transport hog in the
game because of hardware issues either, if you can support one
vehicle, you can support another. You're being mislead in a number of
ways to hide the fact that you've been shafted out of $55 for a game
that is shorter than the original and far less enjoyable (aside form
the multiplayer which is spectacular). Bungie wanted to give us
everything we had hoped for, its just a shame we'll never get to see
the godliness of what they had in store for us.
Go to www.bungie.net and look at the title for the halo 2 forums. They
are called new mombasa. A level that doesnt even exist in the game
(now). What kind of reasoning is there for that? Should that be
reserved for halo 3 *cough* when you -might- actually get a chance to
catch a glimpse of the city. Rubbish. Bungie said many times halo 2
would bringe closure and there would be no halo 3. Bungie also said
they would "never specify a release date for halo 2 until we are
certain we could release a finished product." That statement was on
their main website the day that the release date was accounced. So why
would they set a date for themselves where they knew they wouldnt
finish in time and be forced to take out all kinds of content? They
wouldn't."
welp, that's it, I'm not getting Halo 2
maybe I'll wait for the deluxe Xbox 2 version.
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