[quote=“Bluefoot”]
Not necessarily. They can’t possibly expect everyone who plays the games to read all three books as well.[/quote]
Well, considering Bungie created the storyline for the books and had an author write it eloquently. . . I’d sure as hell expect the books to link.
And it’s explained as to why Johnson is still alive in First Strike. Also, he wasn’t the sargeant that trained MC, the one that trained the SPARTAN-II’s is Chief Petty Officer Mendez.
How much of the plot for the books was created by Bungie, and how much was left up to the authors?
Actually, I bet the reason why they gave that description to the Master Chief is because the vast majority of their audience is an average, white male. And “John” is considered the defuncto name in America for a blank slate person (hence “John Doe”). Works for me.
Haven’t read the book yet, though, and just started on the campaign… I’ve heard mixed things about the story, so I’m saving my opinions until I actually finish it.
If you haven’t finished the campaign yet, watch out because this thread is for the spoilers 
Who here thinks that Bungie will turn the series into a trilogy, or will they keep on releasing Halo 4 and 5? The story has to end somewhere.
I hope they end it with 3. This doesn’t strike me as a story that can keep going and going.
i didn’t say otherwise, i just pointed out the contradiction. they could have just kept him the mysterious, anonymous, “master chief”. in being named john, we can infer that he was named by such average parents that would name him john. that coupled with any further description of his self that is not about killing “covies” gives him a history and qualia that we (the players) do not share. that is the polar opposite of what bungie claimed as one of their goals in the gameplay experience (and having seen the consequence, i’d say it would have been the right decision to adhere to it).
that’s fine, i just like a characters’s personality to either be interesting or non-existent.
to add insult to injury, the chief was chosen for being a natural leader and very intelligent (during his adolesence they were able to determine this)- yet throughout the book, the chief is dense if not braindead. furthermore, his lack of personality doesn’t even match the odd glimpse of personality we get from the game in such poetic exchanges as
“permission to leave the ship, sir.”
“what for?”
“to give the covenant back their bomb.”
One thing I’m really quite pissed at is… what happens now?
All that’s left is to stop the Prophet of Truth from activating Halo at the Ark, doing something about Audrey II (Though I’ve no idea what) and perhaps destroying the network of rings. Considering Bungie know to keep repetitiveness to a minimum it’s pretty much guarenteed that we won’t be visiting each ring seperately. I can’t really see a 15 level game being released just to stop the Prophet, and the war between the Covenant and humanity is over so we’re probably in for more Flood fighting. It’s all been a bit anti-climactical.
it is going to be revealed that the forerunners were humans, the arbiter will lead a rebellion against the brutes, the master chief will then become the covenant god, the gravemind will demand that cortana feed him, the sarge will turn out to be the master chief’s father, and truth will be thrown into a pit of horny flood mutants.
FEEED MEEEE SEY- uh, I mean, COOOOORTAAAANNNNNAAAAAA.
How awesome would it have been if they’d cast Little Richard as the Gravemind? Is he even still alive?
I wasn’t expecting much from the story and I wasn’t really dissappointed.Nor was I thrilled.I didn’t dig the fact that Master Chief was more of a secondary character than the Prophets themselves.
Cortana had a mediocre role too.The adittion of the Arbitrer was the problem in all this but I can’t say necessarilly say I didn’t like it.
The wanted to make a StarWarish-like storyline jumping from character prespective to character prespective.That made Halo 2 less envolving sometimes.
As far as the gameplay is concerned it’s awesome altho the changes they made to the camera in vehicles like the Ghost made riding it less cool than in Halo 1.
The music was either very good or out of context.Also the magic of some well known tracks dissappeared when they either made it slower or faster in terms of pace.
I finally managed to finish this game in Legendary. It’s a real challenge even for those who finished Halo 1 in Legendary. There you could still afford mistakes, but this time you have to plan every move. The Jackal snipers were by far the worst enemy, forcing you to memorize their positions and take them down before they spot you. The rest of the enemies were easier, but still a lot more difficult than in Halo 1. I guess Bungie listened to those complaining that the original Halo was too easy. This time there probably will be fewer people asking for an even higher difficulty.
I’m stuck in Halo 2 Legendary.Now I’m a guy who could (not trying to say i’m a pro here but…) easily beat Halo1 Legendary but the Cairo Station level in Halo2 Legendary is simply outstanding.
When I’m almost there…I fail…But now I got a new technique.A weapon I never use proves to be the most effecient agehnst elites - the plasma pistol.
I’m almost done. But that last 3 rooms in High Charity are proving to be a bitch.
I really hope Legendary gets harder later on =/ I’m just starting “The Arbiter”, and have had no problems so far. The Cairo was pathetically easy.
You are a great Halo master Shadow.I think it’s safe to assume you can now die happy 
Not until I’ve sodomised your very soul.
Ah, the memories… 12 years ago this week (Discourse tells me the last update in this post was 4364 days ago…)!
Also, who could forget the TWOTA Halo2 Championship!
Oh how naive I was back then.
@UrbanReflex is The Master Chief Collection the only way to play Halo 2 multiplayer now? Or is there a way to play online using the PC version? Could be a fun trip back through memory lane.
Last I checked, the PC servers were still up. There was talk of them shutting down but I don’t think it ever actually happened.
Master Chief Collection is definitely the best way to play it though… Unless you have a time machine.
The official servers are down for Halo 2 PC, but recently Project Cartographer got it back online. Just install it in your directory and you should be connected from then on. It works well enough, but chatboxes are bugged ingame. There’s still decent numbers of people playing every day.
Project Cartographer here : http://www.h2v.online/