The much-anticipated release of Halo 3 brings with it a bit of closure for gamers: after the original Halo became one of the most successful first-person shooters in history, the franchise's sophomore release was, well, sophomoric. Generally a disappointment to all of mankind forever and ever, Halo 2 was guilty of two cardinal sins. I'm reminded of an old joke where two elderly women returned from a cruise and were asked about the food. "Awful", they said, "and there wasn't nearly enough of it". No, I'm not expecting you to laugh, jerkstore.
Halo 2 was far too short for such a hotly anticipated game. When I got my hands on my reserved Special Fake Metal Case Edition With The Special Features Disk I Never Watched Special, it only took a couple nights of casual gaming to complete it. There I sat, befuddled, mouth agape in protest, expecting to see Master Chief appear on screen after the credits, sitting in a leather chair by a fire, holding a brandy snifter, chortling to himself good-naturedly. "Oh Matthew", he would say, "I could never betray you, my boy. Here are the other eight levels of the game. They are quite good, and I'm sure you'll like them. And here's twenty dollars. Cheers!".
But there was no Master Chief. No snifter. No twenty dollars. Just me and my crushed dreams, like a delicious Triscuit at the bottom of the box, the Triscuit being my dreams, not me...and the box was my heart. What were we talking about?
Despite the wounds we received from Halo 2, we're all just Tinas to Halo's Ike Turner; no one is ready to dismiss the entire franchise yet. But the game's creators should take note of several things that worked in the first and several things that either fizzled or died in the second. First, which we've already mentioned, is the length of the campaign. Halo was a good length, the story was meaty and well-paced, and the addition of the Flood was a great way to punch up the game and refresh the gamer. On the other end of the spectrum, the decision to force the gamer to play as an elite in H2 is downright insulting to his sensibilities. Why would we enthusiastically kill elites in the first Halo, knowing that they are our sworn enemy, and then turn around and feel sorry for the leader of the campaign against the Chief? I picture a group of designers and executives sitting around a table, chirping, "Well, as long as they're shooting something, they won't care", to which I reply, "Erroneous!!".
The weaponry in the first Halo had balls aplenty. The arsenal in H2 was just this side of BB guns and water balloons, although the Needler (or as I like to call it, the Pink Death), regardless of which Halo it's in, has to go. And dual-wielding? A gimmick, a compensation, completely unnecessary to the game, and in cases, distracting.
And what happened to combat on Earth? If you will remember the numerous ads building up to H2, Earth was never going to be the same, insinuating the Covenant were coming to our home, engaging the Master Chief in an all-out-continent-hopping-knock-down-drag-out. All we got was one level that may as well have been Tattooine (it certainly looked like it), and the world seems pretty much the same way we left it: governments are intact, cities in order, American Idol every Tuesday and Wednesday, etc. What happened to the destruction of the world by alien onslaught, dammit?
H2 is obviously a bit of a sore spot. I think the designers could tell that I was upset, because watching interviews and documentaries on H3's production, there seems to be a general pointing-of-the-finger at someone for tripping up the creative line of thinking at Halo HQ, as though some cigar-chomping executive came by and tore a perfect game asunder.
Shortcomings aside, watching the trailers and teasers for H3 gives me that old tingly feeling. The music, the Chief, the melodrama, takes me back to the excitement of the first Halo. Granted, we all felt that way when we saw the trailer for H2. Remember that seven minute movie of the guy playing at E3? I must have burned a hole in my hard drive watching that so many times. But, I suppose that's the thing about the Halo series that shows it's one of the greats: no matter how bad the food is, there'll never be enough of it.
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