Halo 2

Halo was a hugely original, unique game that offered an unprecedented method of playability to the gamer. Halo 2 expands in every way; graphics, narrative, character, accessories. This time it offers you the covenant perspective as you play another character, ARBITER; a disgraced covenant elite who must stop a rebellion in the galaxy; along with the consummate professional MASTER CHIEF as he vows to stop the destruction of Earth during the war. HALO 2 reeks of quality; nice fine touches of witty, purposeful additions to appeal to the hardcore, loyal players of the original; rock music used in the BUNGIE opener; Johnson and Chief at the awards ceremony; Captain Keyes daughter's introduction; the return of Blood Gulch in the multiplayer. Hell; this is so far the best sequel to a game ever. Ever!!!! Halo 2 is a sweeping; hugely epic adrenaline shot straight to the heart, with occasional cinematic breaks directed by the legendary Joseph Staten; of course the real battle begins when you clock the game on easy, normal and hard; and you find your way barely breathing through LEGENDARY mode. I can say that; as i have completed the game, it finishes comparably to the Matrix 2; you know there's going to be a third and it ends rather abruptly which is one of my main gripes; damn the excitement, this is not halo 2 but halo vanilla. A perfect consumer product that diversifies but never quite fulfills expectations as to the original. I would expect Halo 3 to ship in no more than 3 years time; rounding up the story with a thrilling climax; the end of a trilogy, the best FPS trilogy created by man...well, BUNGIE then (they're not quite human y'see) and if sales records are anything to go by it will probably be the best selling game ever. You owe your forty quid, your twenty hours time and infinite fun to BUNGIE; slaving away under fluorescent bulbs to perfect their craft! C'mon guys; the next step; TOTAL WORLD WIDE DOMINATION!!!

Halo is probably one of the hardest games in history to follow-up. But alas, after three years of waiting, the fans are finally served a huge amount of 'Flippin sweet' in this incredible masterpiece that shouldn't be even considered a game. Halo 2 creates a genre of its own. It's still a first person shooter, but there are so many things about this game that put it into this 'own genre' I like to call: Impossibly good. Its so awesome that it is nearly inevitable to play for hours on end just to beat your friend down for that one-millionth time in a multiplayer game. So what if the ending is a huge cliffhanger? The games story is so excellent and mezmorizing, its easy to forget about it. Awesome doesn't even kiss the feet of Halo 2.

Okay, points must be made. HALO 2 has disappointed many videogamers. It was "the" highly anticipated game - more so than GTA San Andreas, which has had its predecessors close behind (2001, 2002, 2004).

HALO 2 is the first bit of HALO we've had since 2001. The previews looked extraordinary. The new graphics engine was supposedly "kick-a$$," and nothing we had ever seen before.

Well, okay, it's not the masterpiece we expected. Or is it? Okay, here's a few things to consider:

1. The high expectations are what cause people to dislike this more so than the game itself. If HALO 2 had been released first, people would be saying HALO "sucked" because they changed the weapons, etc. I agree that the weapons aren't as good in HALO 2 but that's probably got to do with the fact that I enjoyed HALO so much. If I had played this first, would I feel the same?

2. The graphics ARE extraordinary. The best I've ever seen on any console. The movies are great - I don't like the new/remapped characters such as the Covenant creatures in the opening sequence...but they look amazing and character details (faces in particular, and body movements) are more realistic than anything we've ever seen before. The opening montage shows a space ship gliding through space and it's much more realistic than the original HALO in which many battleships seemed to just be still images being screened in front of a back projection.

3. The game is not as freeroam as the original (as others have pointed out). This is a plus, and a minus. The gameplay of HALO 2 reminded me of that N64 game with the female protagonist (wasn't it DARK something? I can't remember. I used to own it and play it all the time, but it's been years since I've laid eyes on it!). It's got a very dark story going on and the gameplay (including weapons, etc.) reminds me very much of the old N64 game. It's NOT very much like the original HALO when it comes to actual gameplay. It's very different.

It's the ALIENS of the ALIEN series - it's meaner, faster, and different than its predecessor - for better or worse. I'm glad Bungie went somewhere new with this. If it had been identical to the original, we'd all be complaining. I don't mind having linear gameplay, because it's still a lot of fun.

Oh, and here's one more thing: The whole FPS snobbery thing is getting old. I've played tons of FPS games over the years - Doom, Unreal Tournament, AvP, Unreal, Goldeneye, etc. being my favorite. (I guess Max Payne is a 3rd-person. Bummer.) Admitting to loving HALO does not mean I have "not played" any other FPS'es. Frankly, I loved the endless abilities HALO provided - the intense gameplay, the freeroam, etc. I thought it had a solid lead character, good graphics, fairly good villains, and overall excellent gameplay. It was a unique experience and blew everyone away - myself included.

If you thought HALO was overrated, please don't blame your disappointment on those of us who enjoyed the game - it does not mean we don't know anything about FPS games. It simply means we have different taste.

Overall there are different things about this game I consider pros and cons, and to put them into words would take too long. Suffice to say it's both disappointing and extraordinary in various measures.

Gameplay: 8/10 Graphics: 10/10 Plot: 8/10 (it has much more actual story than many other games, even if it's a bit silly at times) Weapons: 7/10 (I'll admit it, I miss the other weapons but maybe these will grow on me) Vehicles: N/A (I haven't played enough with them yet - I am disappointed, however, that many of what Bungie promised is not here)

Overall: 9/10

I know this may seem a bit odd. I sound a bit disappointed in this game. Not really. Maybe a bit underwhelmed at times. But overall it's just very DIFFERENT from its predecessor, and this is the reason it's causing so much distress - it's very multiplayer-oriented so the first-player campaign won't take long to complete, but it's still a lot of fun and very different from the original HALO which is more than can be said for many games. (Unreal Tournament 2003 was an enormous disappoint - the characters were awful, the gameplay was boring.)

HALO 2 might disappoint some die-hard HALO fans, but they need to recognize that sometimes being different is better than just copying - we can accuse Bungie of many things but we can never say that they were content to merely rip off the original!

A very fun game that I'm sure will grow on me more with time.

Every new console launches with at least one killer title, but in Halo Microsoft had found one that would not only ensure the future of its fledgling machine, but raise the bar for games on every platform. This now-legendary first-person shooter even converted people who wouldn't normally look at a gamepad, winning them over with accessible gameplay, an involving story and the xenocidal charms of its protagonist, the enigmatic Master Chief.

Halo 2, then, is a sequel with no small amount of hype to live up to. Picking up very soon after the events in its predecessor, the game begins with humanity's worst case scenario: religious fanatic alien alliance The Covenant invades Earth. Reprising your role as the bio-engineered supersoldier, you begin by repelling boarders on a planetary defence frigate but soon find yourself on terra firma, skirmishing with invaders amid the ruined cities then pursuing a key Covenant figure back to their neck of the galaxy. Far more polished than the original story, Halo 2's plot line drives the action well and, thanks to the judicious use of cut-scenes, gives a deeper insight into the Covenant, evolving them beyond faceless cannon fodder and probing the reasons for their galactic jingoistic instincts.

Which brings us to the most significant change in Halo 2. After wading through the first few levels as the Master Chief, the viewpoint switches to that of The Arbiter, a disgraced Covenant Elite. Apart from coming as something of a surprise, playing as The Arbiter is a subtly different experience. Equipping you with the Elite's deadly force blade and Predator-like cloaking field, the Covenant perspective provides an interesting counterpoint to the human levels — though remembering that the aliens are now your friends and shouldn't be gutted on sight takes some getting used to. The continuing narrative doesn't abandon the Master Chief, though, and you'll alternate from one side to the other as the story progresses, until the two come together in a final, satisfying synthesis.

The graphics, while not leagues ahead, have certainly been given a boost this time around, and the fiendishly addictive multiplayer mode now comes with added bells and whistles in addition to being Xbox Live enabled. Gameplay changes include the ability to wield two weapons simultaneously — a welcome addition that rules out the need to retreat and reload, markedly changing the strategies you'll employ in the many ranging firefights. New foes, vehicles and weapons have likewise been added to the roster. Halo 2 isn't revolutionary by any means, but as the follow-up to such a sublime experience as Halo, it really didn't need to be. The sequel's achievement is to give a second helping of the most accomplished title on the Xbox, with just enough tweaks and polishes to make this experience as fresh and enjoyable as the original.

I can't think of a single thing that's wrong with this game. Even Half-Life (both 1 & 2) can't achieve this level of absolute perfection. While the gameplay mechanics have mostly been recycled from the original Halo (and that's a good thing -- after all, it's not a very good choice to try to fix something that isn't broken, only to break it anyways, like many developers have done in the past with sequels), Halo 2 does add some new tricks to the already excellent formula to create perfect gameplay. You are a cyborg named Spartan 117 (AKA The Master Chief) that was one of many Spartan cyborgs that were built by Humanity in an attempt to win a losing battle against an evil alien race known as the Covenant. And I mean "evil" -- these aliens just started a war against the humans because they thought that humanity was an affront to their gods. All the other Spartan cyborgs were blown up by the Covenant while they were being cryogenically frozen. In fact, you are the only Spartan cyborg left, and Humanity's only hope. People who have played first-person shooters for a long time may not notice anything new in Halo 2's storyline, but who cares? There's probably no other storyline to use for a futuristic, sci-fi themed game that takes place in deep space.

Gamers have been sick of always playing as some kind of "tough guy" who can take 40 bullets to the head before dying. Yet, when games like Splinter Cell incorporate a "one-shot, one-kill" rule into the gameplay, they become frustrating for unexperienced players. While Spartan 117 can only take a shot or two before dying, he has shields that protect his body from damage. So, technically, you are another "tough guy" in Halo 2, but there's a realistic-enough excuse for it. Since your shields recharge to 100% a few seconds after you've stopped taking damage, there are no "med-kits" in the game, and there doesn't need to be any med-kits, either, since your shields recharge like that. This is a superb gameplay mechanic -- I haven't been sick of playing as a tough guy, but I've been sick of when you waste a med-kit or other object because, let's say, you had 99% of health and the medkit only restored 1% of health because it didn't want your health to go over 100, but you couldn't use the medkit again to restore 24% more health. What annoys me just as much is when you make a little mistake (like taking damage from a fall) and have to backtrack to find a medkit to restore your health. With the shields system, restoring your shields is as easy as them automatically recharging to 100% a few seconds after you made that mistake, and you also don't have to worry about wasting a medikit just to restore 1% of health.

Adding to the realism, Spartan 117 can only carry two guns at once. They don't have to be a specific kind of gun, they can both be anything you want to carry. If you want to carry another gun and already have two other guns, you must discard one of your weapons to make room for that weapon. I mean, Gordon Freeman from Half-Life can carry over 20 guns at once, a cliché carried over from the earliest days of first-person gaming, and that's just unrealistic. Another cliché that was carried over from the earliest days of first-person gaming concerned melee fighting. You could only use one weapon for melee fighting, which was usually a knife or brass knuckles or a sword, and they packed much less of a punch than in gun-based combat. Did someone not realize that you could swing the guns themselves at opponents, which packs MORE of a punch than in gun-based combat? Apparently, the people at Bungie realize that very well, because that's what you do in Halo 2 for melee combat. And that's realistic. Spartan 117 can't sprint, but since he moves at a fast-enough pace just walking, you don't need to sprint. Grenades are not handled as a separate weapon in Halo 2 -- rather, you store them in your left pocket to throw simply by pressing the left trigger, which is realistic, as opposed to having to switch to a separate weapon to throw grenades (as in Doom 3).

You simply pick objects up by walking over them. While this may be the only thing that's not realistic, it is appropriate for the fast pace of the game, where it would be somewhat frustrating to have to manually pick an object up in the heat of battle. The only exception to this is when you swap one of your weapons for another weapon. After all, nothing is more annoying than having the game automatically swap a weapon when you didn't want to swap it, or if it swapped the weapon you wanted to keep. In Halo 2, you press the action button to swap weapons. This allows you to switch to the weapon you want to swap, and decide if you want to swap that weapon for the new weapon you'll get. The game will tell you via a message at the top of the screen if an object can be used with the action button, so that you know what you're doing.

Such excellent attention to realism means that you will be immersed into Halo 2 for a long, long time. Other excellent features include some of the best graphics, audio, physics, and AI ever in a video game (The graphics are so good, I almost threw up when I started riding an elevator in the game). Only one thing is certain: If you don't play Halo 2, or if you don't like it, then there is something wrong with you. A definite 10 / 10 to this one!