Playing A Game Halo 2 PC

Based on my surprisingly good experience with the original Halo, giving the sequel a whirl seemed obvious enough. Of course I had my doubts even before I started - Wikipedia told me that Halo 2 rides its progenitor's coattails in a big way. So I wasn't really expecting much in the way of pleasant surprises this time around.

Something else I didn't expect was just how upsetting the humanisation of the Covenant would be. Watching the opening cinematic unfold, I felt not unlike when I first sat down to watch The Matrix Reloaded. Suddenly all the mystery of this class of people was gone; replaced by hackneyed pseudo-intellectual science fiction. I was happy enough killing mindless aliens. Giving them evidence of reasonable intelligence? What the hell.

Of course, as with the first game, I would be more than willing to forget about flimsy writing and presentation in return for a solid gameplay experience. But the "pimping out" of Halo's control scheme for the sequel is half-baked. Dual-wielding? Fine, if it can be done right - but why the hell am I throwing my spare weapons all over the place? And what happened to my grenades? Left-handing a weapon is presented as a promiment feature of the game, but implemented as an afterthought. And the effect of recoil has increased by an order of magnitude. Making a hectic firefight is one thing, but artificially increasing the intensity of battle by requiring constant aim adjustment is sloppy and annoying.

And what's with this Games for Windows Live shit? Microsoft tells me to sign up for the Vista equivalent of Xbox Live even if all I want to do is play the game offline by myself. It even has those goddamn sounds and interface effects, complete with colored Xbox button icons on the screen. And here I was, all this time, thinking that my computer wasn't an Xbox.

Sure, my list of grievances is somewhat short when itemized, and rightfully so: I only played the first half hour of the game. But when the core gameplay formula has been tampered with so seriously, I have no interest in trying to get over my other issues. No sale.

Progress: Gave Up