I didn't get the shiny tin...
But no matter. Halo 2 rules. Since I felt like sharing my thoughts, here they are.
Halo 2 online is just awesome. Let's not beat around the bush: it's damn near perfect. No more worrying about get removed from your friends with the new party system - or for that matter, none of this "Pop into a single match and be done with it" crap that I've seen in some Live games. The lobby is great - the essentials are listed in a way that makes sense, with half the screen showing all playing party members, and the other half showing useful information about the match in one corner ("Team Slayer on Zanzibar", "Five Kill Limit", etc.) and useful information about the players in the other corner ("Waiting for Dreammastah to start the match", "Press X to delay the countdown"). The list of members is perfect with everyone's team color being the background color behind their name and a little symbol lighting up besides whoever's talking. I'm sure you really don't care about all this.
And then there are icons. What a simple but incredibly effective addition to the game. Everyone gets to create an icon of their own, with their own color choices and a symbol to their liking and so forth. This is pretty much displayed on every Friends list and so forth (and the fact that you can look at your Friends/Clan list ANY TIME while you are playing Halo 2 rocks) but is more useful than just that. During gameplay all of your teammates have their icons above their heads, which makes for easy recognition of enemies or friends from a distance, as well as simply knowing who is where. And since you can see icons even if you can't see the actual player, you can gain a lot of info without a lot of needless explanation. For example, if someone's shooting at them, their icon is highlighted red - leaving only "GUYS HELP!" from the previous "It's me, DX, I'm getting shot at and I'm in the sniping tower, GUYS HELP!" statement. It really just makes things flow a lot more smoothly.
Oh, and did I mention there's no lag AT ALL? Seriously, I haven't run into even a hint of it. It feels like an offline game, even with sixteen people from all over the world on a huge map. And I am not exaggerating even a little.
The only slight nag I have with the online mode is the proximity voice chat. It's a cool idea but it feels a bit too limiting; basically, you can only hear other people if you are within a certain distance from them. This does help alleviate confusing messages like "Go left, go left!" from your buddy who may be on the other side of the map entirely, but it also makes things a little more solitary on larger maps. By pressing the white button you CAN talk to your entire team from anywhere, but you can only talk to your team. If they would have included the option to talk to everyone, as well, or toggle off proximity talking, I would be a happy man. Alas, it's hardly a diminishing feature, and if it would mean sacrificing the incredible lag-free experience, then I would just say screw it.
Yeah, the offline mode is nice, too.
Halo 2 online is just awesome. Let's not beat around the bush: it's damn near perfect. No more worrying about get removed from your friends with the new party system - or for that matter, none of this "Pop into a single match and be done with it" crap that I've seen in some Live games. The lobby is great - the essentials are listed in a way that makes sense, with half the screen showing all playing party members, and the other half showing useful information about the match in one corner ("Team Slayer on Zanzibar", "Five Kill Limit", etc.) and useful information about the players in the other corner ("Waiting for Dreammastah to start the match", "Press X to delay the countdown"). The list of members is perfect with everyone's team color being the background color behind their name and a little symbol lighting up besides whoever's talking. I'm sure you really don't care about all this.
And then there are icons. What a simple but incredibly effective addition to the game. Everyone gets to create an icon of their own, with their own color choices and a symbol to their liking and so forth. This is pretty much displayed on every Friends list and so forth (and the fact that you can look at your Friends/Clan list ANY TIME while you are playing Halo 2 rocks) but is more useful than just that. During gameplay all of your teammates have their icons above their heads, which makes for easy recognition of enemies or friends from a distance, as well as simply knowing who is where. And since you can see icons even if you can't see the actual player, you can gain a lot of info without a lot of needless explanation. For example, if someone's shooting at them, their icon is highlighted red - leaving only "GUYS HELP!" from the previous "It's me, DX, I'm getting shot at and I'm in the sniping tower, GUYS HELP!" statement. It really just makes things flow a lot more smoothly.
Oh, and did I mention there's no lag AT ALL? Seriously, I haven't run into even a hint of it. It feels like an offline game, even with sixteen people from all over the world on a huge map. And I am not exaggerating even a little.
The only slight nag I have with the online mode is the proximity voice chat. It's a cool idea but it feels a bit too limiting; basically, you can only hear other people if you are within a certain distance from them. This does help alleviate confusing messages like "Go left, go left!" from your buddy who may be on the other side of the map entirely, but it also makes things a little more solitary on larger maps. By pressing the white button you CAN talk to your entire team from anywhere, but you can only talk to your team. If they would have included the option to talk to everyone, as well, or toggle off proximity talking, I would be a happy man. Alas, it's hardly a diminishing feature, and if it would mean sacrificing the incredible lag-free experience, then I would just say screw it.
Yeah, the offline mode is nice, too.
posted by Toupee @ 6:02 PM
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