Halo 2 - Are You Sure You Want It?

After all of the rumors, pushed back release dates, screenshots, movies, articles, previews and lofty expectations; it is finally here. It’s been three long years since the release of Halo: Combat Evolved, the first-person shooter that became the centerpiece of the Xbox library. It became perhaps the most anticipated game of all-time, with roughly two million copies of the game pre-ordered. It was released on November 9th, 2004 and on launch day it generated upwards of 125 million dollars worldwide. What game could I possible be talking about? Halo 2, of course. Did it live up to the hype? Is the sequel really that much better than the original? Does the inclusion of Xbox Live compatibility make this the best game of all time? Read on to find out.

I must start off this review by talking about the original Halo. The original Halo was what made the Xbox console stand out, and virtually every Xbox owner had a copy of Halo. It was a great first-person shooter with an interesting story, fast-paced action and some nice graphics. I fondly cherish my memories of going through the campaign in co-op mode with a friend, as well as owning people in four-player split-screen action. When Halo 2 was announced, legions of fans couldn’t wait. After a few years, Bungie has finally released this behemoth. I bought this game as soon as it hit store shelves, and surprisingly I have been able to beat the single-player campaign already.

The story in Halo 2 will be perhaps the most scrutinized element of this game. It all starts out with Master Chief attending a medal ceremony, were he and a few other members are to be awarded medals for their courageous efforts at the Pillar of Autumn. The Elite Supreme Commander of the Covenant is tortured in public due to his role in the first Halo. Unfortunately, the ceremony is cut short as the Covenant, a race of highly evolved aliens, ruthlessly force their way onboard and unleash a war against Earthlings. You will soon engage in battle against the Covenant and saving planet Earth will become a top priority. In the meantime, another story is going on at the same time. Beginning at Mission 3, you will control “The Arbiter” and you will have to take command of a group of Covenant during these missions. This plot twist was very surprising, as I definitely didn’t expect to control anyone except Master Chief when I bought Halo 2.

By the end of the game, there will be dozens of plot twists; the intricate story will probably leave you confused at times, yet nothing is as controversial as the ending of the campaign. I won’t give away the ending, but I will admit I am not a huge fan of it. After the last of the 15 missions, you will see a cut-scene that leaves you with many, many questions. Virtually nothing is resolved and the obvious cliffhanger ending without a doubt signifies that there will be a Halo 3. This is good news for many, although these good news come at the expense of an unsatisfying ending for Halo 2.

The gameplay in Halo 2 had undergone a facelift, although all of the features that made the original so great have been left intact more or less. Halo 2 is still a first-person shooter with linear missions. There’s plenty of combat, massive battles and the controls are still extremely responsive. Once again, you will be guiding Master Chief (most of the time). Master Chief ‘s abilities have been altered a bit. First of all, his jump is a lot higher. Secondly, he no longer has a health bar. His only defense is his rechargeable energy shield. Thankfully, it recharges a bit faster than it did in the original Halo, yet not having a health bar is a little unnerving when you are entering a major battle. The lack of a health bar has eliminated health packs in this game.

The Arbiter, who you will be controlling in some missions, not only looks different than Master Chief; his armor is completely different as well. He has a recharging energy shield, however, his main upside is that he has a temporary cloaking ability. By rendering himself invisible, sneaking up on enemies is possible and it is very advantageous. The only other different between him and Master Chief is that Master Chief is backed up by Marines, while The Arbiter has a bunch of Covenant forces fighting alongside him. The downside to this is when you are fighting rival Covenant forces, as they all look the same and you must pay careful attention to your targeting cursor to make sure that you are killing your enemies instead of accidentally firing at your own troops.

Weapons, in my opinion, are what make a first-person shooter extremely good or average. I believe that every shooter game should have a nice range of weapons, each with its pros and cons. Halo 2 delivers, as the assortment of weapons is mind-boggling. A lot of the weapons from the original return, yet the inclusion of a few new weapons is the icing on the cake. The human sniper rifle, rocket launcher, magnum, shotgun, as well as the Covenant plasma pistol, Needler and plasma rifle make a return. Needlers are a bit stronger, sniper rifles are improved, rocket launchers actually lock-on to vehicles now and the magnum has lost its 2x zoom. Unfortunately, the assault rifle, one of my favorites, has been lifted and a flame-thrower was not included. The submachine gun and Covenant carbine replace the assault rifle, a Covenant beam rifle (the Covenant version of the sniper rifle) has been added. Another new addition is the Brute Shot, which is similar to a rocket launcher, although instead of rockets it fires grenades and is very effective is handled properly. Fuel-rod cannons (the weapon possessed by Hunters) can also be used, although the addition of the Energy Sword as a viable option for Master Chief is the largest significant addition to the arsenal. If you are wielding this weapon and anyone is fairly close to you, Master Chief will nearly always kill them automatically with one quick press of the R trigger. Not only does it look cool, it is also very fun to use.

Halo: Combat Evolved was famous for its control scheme that allowed players to fire their weapons via the right trigger, and throw either plasma or fragmentation grenades via their left trigger. In Halo 2, you have more options, as you are now allowed to dual-wield light weapons. This means that Master Chief can come in blazing with two Needlers or two submachine guns or a magnum pistol and a plasma pistol or with any other combination of light weapons. The downside to this is that you can’t throw grenades, yet those of us who simply love to fire away will definitely enjoy the extra firepower. The ability to dual-wield weapons is one of the largest changes to the gameplay, and it is a fine one indeed. Also, each weapon now has its very own melee combat animation, and sometimes I ended up hitting B just to see what the animation for the specific weapon that I was wielding would look like.

The enemies in Halo 2 have been graphically altered to make them look even better, and a few new species will get blown to pieces. Master Chief will still have his hands full with not only the Covenant forces, but the pesky Flood forces as well. The Covenant will be your main opposition, and the Grunts, Elites, Jackals and Hunters all make a return. This time around, you will have to face off against three new types of Covenant as well, known as the Brutes, Prophets and Drones. Brutes are my new favorite enemy, as they are extremely tough to handle. They look like a mix between huge apes and Ewoks, and they are considerable stronger and tougher to handle than Hunters. Drones are fairly weak creatures, although the fact that they fly and are usually found in large packs make them tough to handle at times. Prophets, on the other hand, are also flying creatures, although they seem to act like they are the generals of the Covenant forces. They give out commands most of the time, yet they won’t hesitate to enter combat.

Speaking of enemies, their artificial intelligence has been upgraded a bit. They use the terrain to their advantage as much as possible; they avoid grenades, rollout, attack in groups and are tougher to handle. Fortunately, your Marines that are there to aid you are also smarter this go around. You can actually exchange weapons with them, they'll follow you instead of aimlessly standing around at times and will even drive vehicles (more on that later). Halo 2 still features four difficulty modes: Easy, Normal, Heroic and Legendary. The difference in difficulty is easy to feel, as each one is considerably harder than the previous. You should start out on Normal if you are comfortable with the game, while the cocky ones might decide to begin on Heroic. Legendary is nearly impossible, and only the best will succeed.

What set Halo apart from other FPS games was the use of vehicles. There were four different vehicles that you could use in the original, and they were all very unique and well developed. This time around, Bungie has included the Wraith, and all of the vehicles have been altered quite a bit. The humans still have the Warthog, which is a Jeep with a large machine gun or rocket launcher in the back. Three people can sit in a Warthog, one is a driver, another sits in the front seat and shoots his own weapon, and a third person sits in the back and fires the machine gun or rocket launcher. What’s so great about Halo 2 is that finally, if you hop into the back of the Warthog, Marines will hop in and they will drive the vehicle to the desired destination. Although their navigating skills aren’t perfect, this certainly adds a lot to the gameplay. The second human vehicle is the Scorpion, which is a massive tank. One person climbs inside and controls the movement, can fire a machine gun or the very high-damage torpedo/missile every few seconds, which can blow up anything and anybody. Up to four marines can sit on the side of the Scorpion and shoot nearby enemies.

The Covenants now have three vehicles that you will be able to use, called the Banshee, the Wraith and the Ghost. The Ghost is a very fast vehicle that shoots lasers, and it has been remodeled as it now features an afterburner that greatly increases its speed (although the lasers are disabled once you activate the afterburner). The Banshee now has not only plasma guns, but a main cannon as well along with a slight afterburner as well. The new vehicle is the Wraith, which is the answer to the human Scorpion. A Wraith is a large tank-like vehicle that is extremely slow yet powerful. I personally prefer the Scorpion, yet I surely don’t regret having a Wraith as an option.

Vehicles now have their own health meter and their damage if visible. If you keep firing at a Ghost with a machine gun, the holes in the outer hull will become visible. As the vehicles' damage increases, it becomes more like than it will blow up in the near future. Therefore, you must now track not only your own health, but the damage dealt to your vehicle as well. Another addiction is the fact that it is now possible to hijack vehicles. If a vehicle is approaching you, by positioning yourself properly and by getting the timing right, you can jump onto a vehicle. As soon as you have done so, you have the option of grabbing the pilot, throwing them out of the vehicle and boarding it yourself or throwing a grenade inside and then taking command of the vehicle. Hijacking a vehicle is a very self-satisfying, entertaining and fun maneuver that was well-implemented and makes the action in Halo 2 even more exciting.

As I’ve stated previously, the campaign consists of 15 missions (the original had only 10). However, I was very surprised to find out that it took me only 16 hours to beat the entire campaign on Normal difficulty. And to those of you that are wondering, I didn’t rush through the campaign. Au contraire, I actually went fairly slowly to capture the most fun possible out of Halo 2. This means that Halo enthusiasts could probably finish the entire campaign in no more than 12 hours, which is very short in my opinion for a game of this stature. The co-op mode will certainly extend the replay value of the campaign, as going through all of the missions with a friend is a must, although thus far I haven’t had the time to do so. Due to the brevity and surprising ending, to a large amount of gamers this game could be rated as about 7 out of 10 stars. Those of you that don’t have Xbox Live might have to consider simply renting Halo 2. Yet fortunately, over a million of us Xbox owners have Xbox Live, which makes Halo 2 a lot sweeter.

There are numerous multi-player options in Halo 2. You can have the traditional four-player split-screen option or a 16 Xbox, 16 TV, 16 copies of Halo 2 system-link extravaganza. However, if you have invested in Xbox Live, you are in for a ride. Unfortunately, you cannot use computer bots at all. If you are playing on Xbox Live, each map supports up to 16 players. There are 14 maps in total (including two maps from the original Halo), and you can fine-tune your preferences. You can select which weapon sets you’d like to use, whether you will have vehicles, how long each game lasts, which mode you want to play, etc. Speaking of modes, most of the modes from Halo: Combat Evolved make a return. There’s the ever-popular Slayer, which is your standard death-match. There’s Oddball, where the objective is to hold onto a large skull as long as possible while everyone else is after you, and Juggernaut, where one player becomes extremely strong and everyone else must gang up on him. There’s Capture the Flag as King of the Hill, and the Assault and Territories modes have also been thrown in. Assault is similar to Capture the Flag while territories is a variant of King of the Hill.

While you playing online, you can join various clans. You can only be in one clan at a time and each clan supports up to 100 players. You can have clans square off against each other to increase their ranking, and a bunch of stats for each clan are available online. If you don’t want to participate in a clan just yet, you can simply join games and fire away. For newer players, they can participate in Arranged Games while Halo 2 veterans usually square off in Matchmade games. The main difference is that Matchmade games are ranked, while Arranged aren’t. The action on Xbox Live is very smooth and without a hitch. If the main server loses its connection, it automatically switches to another server. This means that you will never lose you game. There’s nothing for satisfying than choosing whether you want to be Master Chief or an Elite, customizing their appearance and joining an online match. The online portion of Halo 2 is the most addicting thing that Xbox owners can experience.

Graphically, Halo 2 is a remarkable feat. Everything is just so polished that you know that Bungie did their absolute best. The cut-scenes in the campaign mode very impressive and did a terrific job of carrying the story forward. All of the characters and their animations are smooth and fluid. Master Chief looks cooler than ever, and I believe that soon enough he will be one of the most recognized characters in video game history. The maps and missions in Halo 2 are absolutely huge, and they are great visual feats. All of the objects in the environment, such as rocks, hills, ice and trees are well placed and are very detailed. Even the minor touches, such as the visible vehicle deterioration and different melee attack moves add a lot. The framerate does not even seem to during online play.

The audio made everything come together and insured that Halo 2 would be considered one of the all-time greats. The music in Halo 2 is great, ranging once again from the eerie and mystifying chants to some stirring eclectic guitar pieces. The audio effects are terrific, as all of the guns produce distinctive noises when fired and the vehicles emit realistic noises. The voice work in Halo 2 is also worth praise, as thousands upon thousands of lines were recorded in order to make sure that you virtually never heard the same line twice. Marines will now say things that are relevant and it won’t be the same line over and over. Master Chief’s voice is very fitting for him, and a few actors, notably Orlando Jones and David Cross, lend their voices to some of the characters in the game.

Overall, Halo 2 is a remarkable feat. It has all the makings of a classic: an intricate plot, amazing visuals and great audio, engaging campaign and the best multi-player experience ever offered. If only the campaign was about 5 missions longer, then it would be the best game of all-time. However, the fact that it is Xbox Live enabled more than makes up for that loss, and I believe that if Halo 2 were simply the Xbox Live experience without a campaign, it would still be worth the cash. Those of you that do not have Xbox Live, then Halo 2 isn’t as appetizing and I recommend to wait for a price drop, to simply rent or to get Xbox Live with it. Otherwise, don’t hesitate and get Halo 2 right away!