During the development of Halo 2, Bungie wanted to experiment with a new type of lighting system called Stencil Lighting and it would've revolutionized the FPS world even more than Halo 2 already did. However sometime during halo 2s development, the idea was scraped due to resource costs and the Xbox not being able to run it so the stencil lighting had to be replaced with "Baked Lighting" which was the lighting system that Halo CE ran on. By this time though all the Halo 2 models were already modeled for stencil lighting and with not enough time to remodel them to a baked lighting source. We ended up with this weird concoction of two systems that shouldn't have anything to do with each other. That's why Halo 2 sometimes looks worse than Halo CE. If you want more information on this topic a channel called "Late Night Gaming" made a really good video on this topic called "Why does Halo 2 look worse than Halo 1?" I highly recommend you check it out. Also 343 specifically lowered the soundtrack of the original graphics because I'm pretty sure its copy written, on the anniversary graphics the music is normal.
Good shout, I will be checking that video out soon. When I'm making videos I try to avoid videos about the same topic, but with Halo I also want to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so I'm not watching much. But this one has been recommended to me enough that I think I have to give it a watch sooner rather than later! Thank you!
Since finishing this video I've gone back and looked at reviews from 2004, and the campaign does seem to have been more divisive that I expected. Then again I do remember the reviews for the 2007 Windows release were not favourable towards the campaign pretty unanimously. It's interesting to look at what details get blurry with history.
The music is due to the MCC. The original music was very noticeable and enhanced the action. Even on the highest volume the new system doesn't come close.
The reason for Halo 2's seemingly "muddy" graphics is because the models were all designed around being lit up by dynamic lighting, which unfortunately had to be cut. I suggest watching Late Night Gaming's video "Why does Halo 2 Look Worse Than Halo 1?" It goes into detail about the dynamic lighting system that was cut and even shows what the game would have looked like if it wasn't. It's pretty amazing.
Found this video fascinating, Halo 2 is weird - best storytelling in the franchise but easily the worst actual campaign, especially on the original graphics (and sound). As a standalone movie the Blur cinematics offer everything Halo 2 was worth. Great video.
Speaking as a console pauper - you made a very important point at the end there in that the Halo games were the first time us non-master racers had experienced anything like this and that's why they're so beloved.
It's interesting because it's an element of a game that could have only been appreciated at a specific point in time, and everyone else just has to be told about how revolutionary it was.
One thing worth noting about the graphics (and probably the sound but im not gonna dig out vista again) is that mcc uses the infamously shit vista port of the game and as far as i know none if the legacy graphical issues were fixed like in ce. I do love halo 2 but the brutes are complete bs lol. I think if they waited to put it on the 360 it wouldve been a better game but ultimately wouldve had a much lesser legacy having missed out on trailblazing the console online scene. 22:52 its actually because there was a cut level where you would like use a warthog to fling the bomb into the ship but they still needed the ship to blow up in a cool way.
Anniversary Campaign > OG Version I got Halo 2 on launch btw I've also started with CE on Christmas 2001. Unlike CEA, H2A is pretty much a direct upgrade outside the multiplayer. Also in Halo 2 Classic the graphics are bugged and unfinished on all versions since the game was made for stencil lighting that never made it into the game in time... Should have been a 360 launch title. There is a video made by late night gaming that shows a comparison of all this too.
Thanks, good review! I honestly couldn't stand Halo 2 for long when I recently tried it as part of the Anniversary collection. In terms of tone and writing, in regards to combat pacing and not least of all because I did not understand how someone ended up thinking the weird dual wield implementation was somehow good enough. It was infuriating because throwing away one of my two guns was very clearly not what I was trying to do when using grenades or melee attacks. Maybe it was meant to be a tradeoff, but it ends up just feeling bad.
Only played halo 2 splitscreen deathmatch at my cousins since i didnt own an xbox. Never really played the campaigns. I was never big on halo. But i cant deny the impact it has had on gaming. Especially for console players getting a taste of the style of fps pc had. Which reminds me i remember when inreal tournament three came out on the og xbox god it was awful on xbox lol
The problem with Halo 2 in MCC is that it's based on the old PC port, which was a big downgrade compared to the Xbox Halo 2. CE somewhat has that problem too, but there the difference is not even nearly as bad as it is in 2. Also, the multiplayer and massive amount of mods kept that one alive until today. While Halo 2's PC port died out pretty quick. Since you seem to enjoy CE's gameplay more, you're probably going to like Halo 3 more, since those two are way closer together than Halo 2 for the gameplay at least. Halo 2 definitely has the best story telling, but the gameplay really took a hit and that it looks worse than CE is cause of the dev hell they went through, if the game had been made for PC or the Xbox 360, then we would have got a way better looking game and most likely a way longer game too. (long story to tell for the dev hell, maybe someone else already talked some more about it)
Yeah, Halo 2 while still a good game suffers from the scars of its develpment, and the MCC version actually has a bunch of music snafus for all Halos starting there, with 2 being the most blatant, and 3 and onwards don't have it nearly as bad, if anything is just a few seconds of delay but that's coming from me who played these back in the day. Tthe spongy enemies are actualy a result of a mishap with the weapon balancing, since the weapons were balanced only for multiplayer but that carried over to the campaign and with very little time to do things it was never addressed. As for the visual aspect of H2 its a funny story: the idea Bungie had was to use stencil shadows to create hard contrasts similarly to comicbooks or manga where highlights made things pop against the pitch dark, but due to the very low amount of VRAM of the original Xbox this idea was scrapped. You can see a "sketch" of this idea in footage of the E3 2003 demo (which btw has been recently digged out and ported to the MCC). And the thing about reclaimers is addressed in 3 since Halo 2 was so ambitious it was actually split into two stories. The thing about the Flood and vehicles is never properly explained, but the Gravemind *sort* of exists in Combat Evolved, its basically what captain Keyes was becoming before John Chief took his brain chips and was meant to directly drive the Covenant vessel. There's extra lore and information released in the Collectors editions of Halo 2 and 3 as well as a few books directly supervised or produced by Joe Staten (one of Halo's og story writters) but this comment is already long as is, and thankfully is not required to enjoy the games or understand the story (I'm looking at Halo 4, 5, and Infinite). That last thing being said, and at the risk of spoiling the rest, you'll have to remember later that Bungie's canon is not 343i's canon, nor does the former exist in the later As someone else stated previously, I'm sure you'll like Halo 3 a little more than 2. Whatever you complaints were with it, Halo 3 makes the effort to fix as many as it can
Also Breaking Benjamin did the song "Blow Me Away" royalty free for the halo 2 soundtrack because they just wanted to be apart of the game, all the members bonded playing Halo 1 on LAN
Tbf Bungie did have issues with lighting for Halo 2. What they wanted to do was too much for the original Xbox, so they had to settle with an inferior version, which... os what we see.
Yes, only humans can control the halos, it’s called the “Mantle of Responsibility” and only a few humans can, you have to be a direct decision of the first humans on earth
All humans have the mantle of responsibility and all humans are reclaimers. 343 hinted at some humans not being reclaimers in Spartan Ops but seemingly have abandoned that. The TV show made only some people reclaimers to complicate things further but it's still dumb
A great video, AS always. I hope that you could review AC shadows, and explain the controversy surrounding it. Especially, the anti-woke account, that spreading misinformation, lies, to raise their engagement. Thanks for the video
Thank you! I most likely will cover Shadows to add to my existing AC ranking list, but not on release. Even then I doubt I'd spend much time even acknowledging the "controversy" surrounding it. There's too much toxicity around it that I don't want to get involved in. I'd prefer to focus on the game itself and how it plays.
@borangedunn very good. I'll support you on that. Just be yourself and dont involve to that, whatever they call grifter or something. Thank you so much
I’m not sure about halo 3, but reach and odst are really good on mcc imo, I know that reach got bumped up to 60 fps on mcc, it was 30 on original console
So im subscribed have the bell icon on and am a channel member but im not getting notifications for your videos i have to maunally search them out. So weird
That is weird. I'll make sure I haven't accidentally changed some settings or something. I'm guessing that means you didn't get a notification for the Members post either?
I'll fill in some lore gaps for you that the games don't really explain very well. Humans are the direct descendants of the forerunner. Therefore, they are the only ones that can activate the rings. The covenant wants to wipe out humanity because their religion would be completely undermined by this fact. The flood didn't just "appear" in Halo 2. The forerunners, before resorting to building the rings and nuking the universe, had research facilities that housed the flood. The point of these research facilities was to find a cure for the flood. In Halo 1: the Covenant accidentally breach one of these facilities and let the flood loose by accident. In Halo 2: The heretic leader intentionally lets them loose, with the idea being Arbiter wouldn't survive them. A lot of your issues with Halo 2 were due to an extremely rushed development. Specifically the rooms where you are locked in while you defeat waves of enemies. Halo 2 had something like 3 levels cut entirely, and a forced cliff hanger. Halo 3 was never planned to happen.
More like, they share the same gene. Still, different species since the beginning, 343 just made it a bit more complex (subjective if good or not, I don't mind it).
Halo 3 ODST is where its at tho, idk how legal it is in 🇬🇧 but if you ever get around to playing it, get stoned off some half decent weed, turn off all the lights, get comfy, Snack & drink, Headphones, and just soak up that sweet sweet jazzy somber soundtrack. Halo 3 ODST for me has the best soundtrack but they're all a symphony, the music sways with the battles progression and makes your chest feel heavy. God the fuckin score of all the halos even the bad ones like 4-5 have some half decent bits, Marty O'Donnell puts on a masterclass in battle hymm, Halo 3 has war drums & bone maracas 🪇 🥁 + other african inspired instruments especially on the african missions like Voi & Floodgate Halo 3 ODST focuses on a more human aspect of the conflict so the music is sullen & heavy to reflect how much this fight has cost humanity already, like Reach the scores aren't grandious and thrilling like say Halo 2 with its electric guitar or Halo 3 with its war drums but instead the saxophone invokes a deeper feeling of somberness and mortality. What im trying to say is that each Halo games soundtrack is unique much like the games especially the bungie era and its an often overlooked aspect to the games because music is humanity. Halos soundtrack captures the essense of the indomitable human spirit and its badass nature to rage against the dying of the light better than any game I've ever played. sorry if this was long winded
The medal is posthumously awarded to Captain Keyes. His daughter accepted the award on his behalf, because he was dead
In the real world, medals given to the fallen are presented to their family. Shame that the video creator didn't know that.
During the development of Halo 2, Bungie wanted to experiment with a new type of lighting system called Stencil Lighting and it would've revolutionized the FPS world even more than Halo 2 already did. However sometime during halo 2s development, the idea was scraped due to resource costs and the Xbox not being able to run it so the stencil lighting had to be replaced with "Baked Lighting" which was the lighting system that Halo CE ran on.
By this time though all the Halo 2 models were already modeled for stencil lighting and with not enough time to remodel them to a baked lighting source. We ended up with this weird concoction of two systems that shouldn't have anything to do with each other. That's why Halo 2 sometimes looks worse than Halo CE.
If you want more information on this topic a channel called "Late Night Gaming" made a really good video on this topic called "Why does Halo 2 look worse than Halo 1?" I highly recommend you check it out.
Also 343 specifically lowered the soundtrack of the original graphics because I'm pretty sure its copy written, on the anniversary graphics the music is normal.
Good shout, I will be checking that video out soon. When I'm making videos I try to avoid videos about the same topic, but with Halo I also want to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so I'm not watching much. But this one has been recommended to me enough that I think I have to give it a watch sooner rather than later! Thank you!
Funnily enough people really didn’t like halo 2s campaign at the time. But halo 2s multiplayer was so good that the game cemented itself as a success
Since finishing this video I've gone back and looked at reviews from 2004, and the campaign does seem to have been more divisive that I expected. Then again I do remember the reviews for the 2007 Windows release were not favourable towards the campaign pretty unanimously. It's interesting to look at what details get blurry with history.
The music is due to the MCC. The original music was very noticeable and enhanced the action. Even on the highest volume the new system doesn't come close.
The reason for Halo 2's seemingly "muddy" graphics is because the models were all designed around being lit up by dynamic lighting, which unfortunately had to be cut. I suggest watching Late Night Gaming's video "Why does Halo 2 Look Worse Than Halo 1?" It goes into detail about the dynamic lighting system that was cut and even shows what the game would have looked like if it wasn't. It's pretty amazing.
Found this video fascinating, Halo 2 is weird - best storytelling in the franchise but easily the worst actual campaign, especially on the original graphics (and sound). As a standalone movie the Blur cinematics offer everything Halo 2 was worth. Great video.
The canon reason for more lines on chief’s armor is that it’s a newer generation of Mjolnir armor
THUG2 Mentioned, Like Given
So did you actually play halo 2? It sure don't seem like it😂
Speaking as a console pauper - you made a very important point at the end there in that the Halo games were the first time us non-master racers had experienced anything like this and that's why they're so beloved.
It's interesting because it's an element of a game that could have only been appreciated at a specific point in time, and everyone else just has to be told about how revolutionary it was.
I think the music being almost absent is a bug from MCC. Pretty sure even the old Vista version had them sounding correctly.
Just started the game H2 for the first time.... So far very impressed
One thing worth noting about the graphics (and probably the sound but im not gonna dig out vista again) is that mcc uses the infamously shit vista port of the game and as far as i know none if the legacy graphical issues were fixed like in ce. I do love halo 2 but the brutes are complete bs lol. I think if they waited to put it on the 360 it wouldve been a better game but ultimately wouldve had a much lesser legacy having missed out on trailblazing the console online scene. 22:52 its actually because there was a cut level where you would like use a warthog to fling the bomb into the ship but they still needed the ship to blow up in a cool way.
How much for pretending to be my mom tho?
@@thathorridthing not cheap. That's a full time job...
@@borangedunn three fiddy?
Anniversary Campaign > OG Version
I got Halo 2 on launch btw I've also started with CE on Christmas 2001. Unlike CEA, H2A is pretty much a direct upgrade outside the multiplayer.
Also in Halo 2 Classic the graphics are bugged and unfinished on all versions since the game was made for stencil lighting that never made it into the game in time... Should have been a 360 launch title. There is a video made by late night gaming that shows a comparison of all this too.
Wow 2004 was an epic gamer year
Thanks, good review!
I honestly couldn't stand Halo 2 for long when I recently tried it as part of the Anniversary collection. In terms of tone and writing, in regards to combat pacing and not least of all because I did not understand how someone ended up thinking the weird dual wield implementation was somehow good enough. It was infuriating because throwing away one of my two guns was very clearly not what I was trying to do when using grenades or melee attacks. Maybe it was meant to be a tradeoff, but it ends up just feeling bad.
Halo ship names were awesome
Only played halo 2 splitscreen deathmatch at my cousins since i didnt own an xbox. Never really played the campaigns. I was never big on halo. But i cant deny the impact it has had on gaming. Especially for console players getting a taste of the style of fps pc had. Which reminds me i remember when inreal tournament three came out on the og xbox god it was awful on xbox lol
The problem with Halo 2 in MCC is that it's based on the old PC port, which was a big downgrade compared to the Xbox Halo 2. CE somewhat has that problem too, but there the difference is not even nearly as bad as it is in 2. Also, the multiplayer and massive amount of mods kept that one alive until today. While Halo 2's PC port died out pretty quick.
Since you seem to enjoy CE's gameplay more, you're probably going to like Halo 3 more, since those two are way closer together than Halo 2 for the gameplay at least.
Halo 2 definitely has the best story telling, but the gameplay really took a hit and that it looks worse than CE is cause of the dev hell they went through, if the game had been made for PC or the Xbox 360, then we would have got a way better looking game and most likely a way longer game too. (long story to tell for the dev hell, maybe someone else already talked some more about it)
Yeah, Halo 2 while still a good game suffers from the scars of its develpment, and the MCC version actually has a bunch of music snafus for all Halos starting there, with 2 being the most blatant, and 3 and onwards don't have it nearly as bad, if anything is just a few seconds of delay but that's coming from me who played these back in the day. Tthe spongy enemies are actualy a result of a mishap with the weapon balancing, since the weapons were balanced only for multiplayer but that carried over to the campaign and with very little time to do things it was never addressed. As for the visual aspect of H2 its a funny story: the idea Bungie had was to use stencil shadows to create hard contrasts similarly to comicbooks or manga where highlights made things pop against the pitch dark, but due to the very low amount of VRAM of the original Xbox this idea was scrapped. You can see a "sketch" of this idea in footage of the E3 2003 demo (which btw has been recently digged out and ported to the MCC). And the thing about reclaimers is addressed in 3 since Halo 2 was so ambitious it was actually split into two stories. The thing about the Flood and vehicles is never properly explained, but the Gravemind *sort* of exists in Combat Evolved, its basically what captain Keyes was becoming before John Chief took his brain chips and was meant to directly drive the Covenant vessel. There's extra lore and information released in the Collectors editions of Halo 2 and 3 as well as a few books directly supervised or produced by Joe Staten (one of Halo's og story writters) but this comment is already long as is, and thankfully is not required to enjoy the games or understand the story (I'm looking at Halo 4, 5, and Infinite). That last thing being said, and at the risk of spoiling the rest, you'll have to remember later that Bungie's canon is not 343i's canon, nor does the former exist in the later
As someone else stated previously, I'm sure you'll like Halo 3 a little more than 2. Whatever you complaints were with it, Halo 3 makes the effort to fix as many as it can
Also Breaking Benjamin did the song "Blow Me Away" royalty free for the halo 2 soundtrack because they just wanted to be apart of the game, all the members bonded playing Halo 1 on LAN
Tbf Bungie did have issues with lighting for Halo 2. What they wanted to do was too much for the original Xbox, so they had to settle with an inferior version, which... os what we see.
Yes, only humans can control the halos, it’s called the “Mantle of Responsibility” and only a few humans can, you have to be a direct decision of the first humans on earth
I thought ALL humans could interface with the Halos?
@@Arander92they can. The whole “mantle of responsibility” is some 343 nonsense.
All humans have the mantle of responsibility and all humans are reclaimers. 343 hinted at some humans not being reclaimers in Spartan Ops but seemingly have abandoned that. The TV show made only some people reclaimers to complicate things further but it's still dumb
@thunderslug1066 why is it dumb for the tv show? It was its own universe, so there's no reason it will be the same exact thing for the games
A great video, AS always. I hope that you could review AC shadows, and explain the controversy surrounding it. Especially, the anti-woke account, that spreading misinformation, lies, to raise their engagement. Thanks for the video
Thank you!
I most likely will cover Shadows to add to my existing AC ranking list, but not on release. Even then I doubt I'd spend much time even acknowledging the "controversy" surrounding it. There's too much toxicity around it that I don't want to get involved in. I'd prefer to focus on the game itself and how it plays.
@borangedunn very good. I'll support you on that. Just be yourself and dont involve to that, whatever they call grifter or something. Thank you so much
I’m not sure about halo 3, but reach and odst are really good on mcc imo, I know that reach got bumped up to 60 fps on mcc, it was 30 on original console
That's good to hear. With no alternative versions for them yet I'd be very disappointed to find similar sound issues.
So im subscribed have the bell icon on and am a channel member but im not getting notifications for your videos i have to maunally search them out. So weird
That is weird. I'll make sure I haven't accidentally changed some settings or something. I'm guessing that means you didn't get a notification for the Members post either?
@borangedunn nope i found it in the recommended section of this video actually but no notifications
Finished the video, it was pretty good. I think you are going to enjoy Halo 3 way more than 2, since is return to the arena design of Combat Evolved.
@@LV-42679 ah good to hear! I'm looking forward to it either way!
Guys I am in the process of playing out the halo campaign. Should I just play the bungie titles or are the 343 campaigns aight/do they add anything?
I personally don’t like the 343 titles, but you might enjoy them. They basically turn Halo into Call of Duty: Space Wars
Buggers?
My brother in Christ they are called drones
Sgt Johnson calls them Buggers. Far be it for me to disagree with that man.
@@borangedunnthank you! My brother and I have called them buggers since the game came out.
Valid
I'll fill in some lore gaps for you that the games don't really explain very well.
Humans are the direct descendants of the forerunner. Therefore, they are the only ones that can activate the rings.
The covenant wants to wipe out humanity because their religion would be completely undermined by this fact.
The flood didn't just "appear" in Halo 2. The forerunners, before resorting to building the rings and nuking the universe, had research facilities that housed the flood. The point of these research facilities was to find a cure for the flood.
In Halo 1: the Covenant accidentally breach one of these facilities and let the flood loose by accident.
In Halo 2: The heretic leader intentionally lets them loose, with the idea being Arbiter wouldn't survive them.
A lot of your issues with Halo 2 were due to an extremely rushed development. Specifically the rooms where you are locked in while you defeat waves of enemies. Halo 2 had something like 3 levels cut entirely, and a forced cliff hanger. Halo 3 was never planned to happen.
More like, they share the same gene. Still, different species since the beginning, 343 just made it a bit more complex (subjective if good or not, I don't mind it).
Halo 3 ODST is where its at tho, idk how legal it is in 🇬🇧 but if you ever get around to playing it, get stoned off some half decent weed, turn off all the lights,
get comfy,
Snack & drink,
Headphones, and just soak up that sweet sweet jazzy somber soundtrack. Halo 3 ODST for me has the best soundtrack but they're all a symphony, the music sways with the battles progression and makes your chest feel heavy.
God the fuckin score of all the halos even the bad ones like 4-5 have some half decent bits, Marty O'Donnell puts on a masterclass in battle hymm, Halo 3 has war drums & bone maracas 🪇 🥁 + other african inspired instruments especially on the african missions like Voi & Floodgate
Halo 3 ODST focuses on a more human aspect of the conflict so the music is sullen & heavy to reflect how much this fight has cost humanity already,
like Reach the scores aren't grandious and thrilling like say Halo 2 with its electric guitar or Halo 3 with its war drums but instead the saxophone invokes a deeper feeling of somberness and mortality.
What im trying to say is that each Halo games soundtrack is unique much like the games especially the bungie era and its an often overlooked aspect to the games because music is humanity.
Halos soundtrack captures the essense of the indomitable human spirit and its badass nature to rage against the dying of the light better than any game I've ever played.
sorry if this was long winded