PA forums are down - saving Halo 2 post I wrote

FyreWulff

Addendum:

I like Halo 2 over Halo 1's multiplayer for one reason alone, if I could only choose one:

the pistol in Halo 1 was way too powerful. I hated the "spot other guy first, pop pop pop, add one point to score" gameplay. Once we figured out how to do it, the pistol disappeared from any of our LAN gametypes forever, unless of course we had the "MLG 4 life" types come over, then it was put in.

The weapon balance is near perfect in Halo 2. The pistol could have been slightly more powerful, like 1 1/2 clips of headshots to kill instead of like the current 3. The battle rifle should not have been made so accurate at infinite distances (I liked the original spread and damage it had before the Big Patch), because that really screwed over the Elite-model players. Also, I think I probably stand for most Halo 2 players when I say (even I was in denial on this for a few months) that the Scorpion was made too powerful. Not really because you can't snipe the driver (in Halo 1 you just learned to drive backwards anyway), but because the minigun shoots way too fast and no longer slows your turret turning speed if you have it on, so you just hold down the L and R buttons and cause havoc on levels like Coagulation where it's mostly flat. It's very telling when the Scorpion only shows up on one map in Matchmaking, and that's Containment. Know why? because the level is hilly and "balances" the Scorpion out.

Also, I think they actually made the sniper rifle better. Although they did take the recoil out of it at the last second (you used to have to re-aim after your shots in early Halo 2 versions), it's still less "cheap" than the Halo 1 sniperrifle because a) it actually has true bullet travel and drop and b) the contrail is really made visible, so you can see where the hell people are sniping from.