Halo (Series) | Halo 2 E3 2003 Demo Recreated

[WR91]

Here's where we can all chat and talk about anything and everything that has to deal with Halo!

Got a favorite game in the series? Favorite moment? Talk about it all here!

[WR91]

Has anyone played Halo Infinite yet?

[Moonface]

Has anyone played Halo Infinite yet?

I haven't but I still need to play Halo at all. I did download the multiplayer but I haven't booted it up yet because I was a little unsure about whether to wait for some of the issues to be resolved before jumping in.

[Cory]

Has anyone played Halo Infinite yet?

Although it still lets me play the game, it says I don't have a powerful enough graphics card.

I don't even understand how to join matches in Halo Infinite. I didn't really do any investigating, just dove right into the game and tried starting a match myself to no avail.

I'd like to buy the campaign mode if it ever goes on sell and my graphics card will allow me to.

[Moonface]

Have you ever played any of the other Halo games @Cory?

[Cory]

Have you ever played any of the other Halo games @Cory?

Most, if not all of them. I have Halo: The Masterchief Collection on my Steam library.

[ShiraNoMai]

I'm about ~60% of the way through Halo: Combat Evolved. It's very fun! Reminds me of my days in middle school playing Quake 3, but with story!

I intend to play through the trilogy, and if I feel up to it, play through 4 and 5.

[WR91]

While I've only completed the first Halo game it's one of my favorite series of all time.

I have all the main games from the series except Halo 5 and Infinite.

So I still plan to playthrough them at some point.

[Moonface]

I started Halo Reach last night and decided to just jump right into Legendary difficulty despite having never played a Halo game before. So far it isn't as painful as I expected it to be; I've actually been having more trouble trying to figure out how the gun mechanics work. I have the impression that if my aim reticule isn't red, then it means the enemy is out of the effective range of my weapon and so it's far less likely for me to be able to hit them, which seems especially noticeable on weapons that shoot very visible bullets where I can see them missing my target.

Driving a vehicle also seems like a death sentence unless you know beforehand where enemies are so you can stop and get out of the vehicle before you run into them. They're useful for traversing large areas quickly (obviously) but when it comes to combat they seem completely worthless.

Also the only reason I chose to start with Reach instead of 1/CE is because the game list in the Master Chief Collection launcher puts Reach at the top so I figured it wants me to play the games in chronological story order rather than release order.

[Dragon Lord]

I'd probably say play them in release order instead. While Reach is a prequel to the main Halo games, playing Reach and then going back to Halo 1/Halo 2 might feel a bit painful gameplay wise, since Reach is more like Halo 3 in that regard.

Also if you ever want to play some co-op, let me know. I'll throw down some money to buy the collection on Steam as well. Halo is one of those game series that's pretty trash on your own, but man, you get together with a buddy and do some co-op, you're having some good times despite the game being mediocre. Kind of like Resident Evil 5, solo the game is butts, but co-op is just stupid fun for some reason.

[Moonface]

Eh, I'm far enough into the Reach campaign now that I may as well finish it before moving on to Halo 1. I'm currently on the mission that involves a space battle and getting my arse handed to me because there's no way to avoid fire and I'm playing on Legendary.

I'm also hoping that Halo 1 is a lot better than Reach. So far I find it almost boring to play yet it isn't the first game in the series.

As for playing in co-op, I'd be down with anyone who's interested. Especially if it makes the game more fun similar to how it is to play co-op in RE5. I only ever played that with @Karo but it was stupidly fun back at the time.

[Moonface]

So I'm at the missions in Reach where you're doing the space battles and I've been struggling so hard with it for a week now because not once did the game inform me there was an actual dodge button. I just hit Space on my keyboard by accident and watched my ship do an evasive maneuver and my face just went "  ?!?!?!" at discovering that. Until now I'd been jerking my mouse upwards repeatedly performing stupid loop the loops to cheese healing while the AI is trying to shoot me down!

[calamarik]

Nah, even all this time, after all this patches, the UI is horrible. Microsoft destroyed another franchise for me.

[Moonface]

Nah, even all this time, after all this patches, the UI is horrible. Microsoft destroyed another franchise for me.

I'm guessing you're referring to Halo: Infinite here? If so, I'm curious what changes were made to the UI that are a step backwards, since I've not really seen the UI of that game myself and I've also only played through Halo: Reach fully so far and only got a little bit into Halo 1, so I'm not well versed in the UI of all the games before Infinite to trust myself in making a comparison myself.


As for the reputation of Halo, I'd argue that what hurt it was the lack of oversight by Microsoft on 343i. Apparently Microsoft likes to be rather hands-off with their developers but if so then 343i are an example of Microsoft being too hands-off.

[Moonface]

Halo 2 E3 2003 Demo Recreation Released on Steam
Digsite, a team who collaborates with 343i to unearth and release cutting room floor content, have released a full recreation/restoration of the Halo 2 E3 2003 demo on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/file...3360515088

This is the first campaign collaboration between Digsite and Halo Studios, and requires a copy of Halo: The Master Chief Collection in order to play it.

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I know nothing of the original demo, but apparently what was shown wasn't actually from a build of Halo 2 and was made solely for this presentation with the intent of showing how Halo 2 would be, only for Bungie to realise after that what they had shown wasn't going to be possible, resulting in the final game containing little of what this demo contained. Judging by reactions to it I guess anyone into Halo at the time who saw this demo has always wished to experience what that demo showed, and with this being the first time that's been made possible this is a really big deal within that respective community.

I personally just think it's cool that Halo Studios are officially supporting efforts to uncover and restore cut content from the Halo series. I still need to get back to playing and beating Halo 1 - 3 so I doubt I'll play this for a long time, assuming I remember to come back to this.