Halo 2 Review

On Monday, November 8, at around 11 pm, a million people, myself included, gathered across the country to wait in line for Halo 2. There were posters, there were t-shirts, and there were many ugly people. After waiting in line for nearly three hours, I finally got home, threw it in my Xbox and waited for a new high.

I guess I should make it clear that Halo remains one of the only reasons to own an Xbox to this day, and one of the only great console shooters (I think that Metroid Prime is the only other one, and incidentally, Metroid Prime 2 comes out only a week after Halo 2). I've played Halo constantly over the past few years. Even before I had an Xbox, it was one of my favorite games. I played it on PC, I played it online, and I've gone to parties where we played Halo exclusively until the wee hours of the morning. In short, I love Halo. (Let me just say here that this does not make our reviewer AT ALL biased. Nope. - Ed.)

Weeee!! I'm flying!!

That's the last time you've taken a breath on this earth, you bastard.

Halo 2 takes off right after Halo, the Master Chief has gotten back to Earth, and that's where it starts. Sgt. Johnson (The black dude) is back for the ride (somehow), Cortana has received a make over, and Captain Keyes' daughter has decided to follow in her daddy's footsteps. The same crew is around, just a bit easier on the eyes (although I like the old character designs for the Chief and Cortana a bit better). For the Humans, not a lot has changed.

The Covenant though, are in a bit of a mess. The Elite in charge of defending the first Halo is knee-deep in ... trouble. Everyone is a little pissed about how he let "the Demon" destroy the holy ring. The Covenant also have a few new faces, the apelike Brutes, and there's some tension between the Brutes and the Elites. You do play as the ex-general on a number of occasions, so the story is a bit more branched than before. It doesn't really hinder the story any more than it just fleshes it out, makes the Covenant a bit more 'human', and explains much of their political structure.

As many people have said, the game does end on a cliffhanger, a cliffhanger that has a lot of people pissed off. It leaves many questions unanswered, and it leaves you really on edge. It's set up in such a fashion that you can see it coming though, so at least I wasn't surprised when it suddenly ended. Be forewarned that the game does sort of just stop though, with a number of questions waiting to be answered, the story in a bit of disarray, and right now, there's about a billion fans exhausting their brains over what happens next. As we likely won't see Halo 3 until Xbox Next, Bungie will have all of us begging to know what happens next.

And let me state right here that for the record, the game is in many ways the same as Halo. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. There are many advancements though, so there's certainly something to play for. If you hated Halo, you'll probably hate Halo 2 and if you loved it, the same should hold true.

The interface is a little different, it's much quicker, much more streamlined, and instead of resuming progress on an individual mission, you just resume from wherever you were. There's no loading between levels this time around, so everything just blends seamlessly. This causes you to get even more lost in the game, so expect to wind up playing this one a bit more instead of just level by level.

As far as character customization, you get to choose two colors, and only the primary changes to your multiplayer team in the classic Red Vs. Blue matches. You can be both a Spartan and an Elite, and you get to choose a little insignia as well. It's a lot more than just one color or the other this time around.

When it boils down to graphics though, the game is a bit more detailed, there's more going on, and the draw distance has the illusion of being huge. The character design is a bit more polished as well, the effects are more varied and better looking, and the levels look better (not as bland as before). The whole game just looks a lot better than its predecessor does. There are a few places where it will kill your Xbox - such as the opening cut-scenes - but apart from that, the whole thing is stable and solid.

Speaking of cut-scenes, there's a lot of them this time around, they do provide more of a story, and expect to watch a lot of them at the beginning and the end. They're right to the point though, there's never a boring minute, and I'm looking forward to watching them again in order to get a better idea of everything that is going on. The cut-scenes look better, they're very well done, and you won't get sick or bored of them, they push the deep story forward, and are generally just great.

Sound really stands as my only complaint, or rather, the music stands as my only complaint, the new songs aren't nearly as good as the old ones. The sound effects are better, but the songs aren't as good as they used to be. I don't know if there are some songs by some of the rock people on there, I only ever noticed one, and it started playing at a fight that Cortana suggested that I just sit out of, so I listened to bad rock music while my enemies killed each other. They took that awesome song out that plays when you're leaving the Silent Cartographer though (I think the most memorable song from Halo apart from the chant), and that was a disappointment. A lot of the others are back though, so it isn't all bad. It is just not as grand and epic as the first Halo.

And finally getting into gameplay, the place with the most changes, some of which are subtle, others are more significant. First off, there are some new weapons. Anything that an enemy drops can be used as a weapon, from the Fuel Rod Gun to the Sentinel's lasers. You can even use the sword and lay a complete and total smack down on anything that comes near. The new weapons are great (and more than what I've just listed above). They changed some of the old ones though, and for instance, the assault rifle and pistol have been massively altered. The assault rifle is now two guns. A sub machine gun that functions much like the original assault rifle did, and the battle rifle, a rifle with a 2x zoom and a three round burst. The pistol isn't such a bad-ass weapon anymore, although you can dual wield. This brings me to the next advancement, dual wielding.

Dual wielding is both limiting and a great save at the same time. When you dual wield you can't throw grenades or hit people (although if you want to swing at someone you will instantly drop your other weapon). Many people might not like this about dual wielding, but it also allows you to have two guns that you get to fire independently of each other or at the same time. You can put twice as much ammo in the air, or use the recommended tactic of firing one weapon until ammo is depleted, and then while you're reloading, you switch to the other. You'll be able to always keep firing with a little practice, and it comes in handy, especially against the flood, or swarms of enemies that tend to rush you when you stop firing.

And on another side note, I guess that we called it right, one of the major changes is that the Master Chief can jump really, really high. You can jump over ghosts, tanks, people, potentially the moon if you timed it right. The Master Chief's new armor has some moon shoes in it or something. At least Bungie listens to its fans.

Each and every one of the vehicles is now destroyable too. Warthogs come apart, ghosts come apart and the plasma engines explode; even the tanks just fall apart under enough fire. Even the dropships can be blasted (at least their weapons, I never put enough ammo into one to destroy it completely). The Banshees are very impressive when they come crashing down as well. And speaking of which, all of the vehicles can now be hijacked as well. The tanks you get to jump on the back and stick a grenade in, the warthogs can be dethroned and even a low flying banshee is in danger. You can do the old GTA to any vehicle you want.