Halo 2 - Bungie's Shining Glory

I didn't get an Xbox when it first came out, as I had no interest in it whatsoever. It was new, I didn't really like Microsoft in the first place, and I was much more interested in Nintendo's Gamecube. The Xbox had one killer app that the Gamecube (and PS2 as well) didn't have, which was Halo: Combat Evolved. While others were playing and enjoying the monster of a game that single-handedly moved Xbox's off store shelves, I was stuck playing with my vacuum cleaner in Luigi's Mansion and shooting down tie fighters in Star Wars: Rogue Leader. Gamecube is not a bad system, but Halo was so refreshing, so addicting, so exciting, that it was only a matter of time before I finally bought myself an Xbox, which was about a year after it first came out. Halo 2's slogan, "Earth Will Never Be the Same," couldn't be anymore true and like Halo took over Multiplayer frag fests, Halo 2 has turned Xbox Live (XBL) upside down and all around with its awesomeness.

Halo 2's story starts up after the Master Chief has destroyed the Halo, and he's being honored at a ceremony for his good deed to the human race. Meanwhile, in another part of the universe, the Elite that was in charge of protecting Halo from the Master Chief is being publicly shamed for his screw up, and is turned into an Arbiter that marks the huge change up in Halo 2's gameplay. Just as Master Chief is being awarded though, the Covenant attack the space station he was on, and now it's up to the Master Chief to protect Earth. "Earth will never be the same." The story is good, but the Arbiter missions were kind of boring, even with the limited cloaking ability you have, nothing can compete being Master Chief.

While multiplayer in Halo was a huge hit (I've been to more Halo LAN parties than my mother has cleaned the house), the single player was also really good. With Halo 2, the single player is more of a little blurb for the future story of Halo 3 I think, as the ending in Halo 2 left more questions unanswered than answered. There was also a huge gameplay change, which happens near the beginning of the game. I'll sound like a broken record saying this, but I didn't expect to control any other character than Master Chief himself. The gameplay change cam totally out of left field. Albeit the change up in characters every few levels, Halo 2 delivered everything else that it was expected to. Bigger, Better, Bolder.

Once again, you can choose to play on one of four difficulties in single player, Easy being, well, the easiest, and Legendary being next to impossible without the help of a friend in cooperative play. The difficulty levels in most other games have very few differences between them, maybe less health in higher difficulty and highly intelligent enemy AI, but otherwise it's pretty much the same as the normal difficulty. Halo on the other hand, has leaps and bounds between each of the difficulty levels, with Legendary being damn near impossible. The single player is a lot of fun, especially on higher difficulty levels (or frustrating on Legendary), where the enemy AI on Heroic and Legendary can prove more difficult than playing against one of the best players in the world on Xbox Live. The enemy AI are unusually smart in Halo 2, possibly smarter than Halo's. The little Grunts, the weakest of the Halo 2 aliens still run away from the face of danger, but once you turn your back, they're dirty little buggers. They're not the smartest AI in the game though, stick a plasma grenade to one and watch him run back to his homies. The Elites and the Brutes though are some of the smartest enemy AI I've ever seen in a game. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater tries to do it, but the enemies are still pretty dumb, and Halo 2 puts Snake Eater's AI to shame. Elites will hide behind crates and corners until you're looking another way, and they'll even jump on top of crates and other objects that you hide behind.

There are a lot of new things in Halo 2, the most important being the weapons, as well as the ability to dual wield light weapons. First-person shooters are pretty much all about the kind of weapons they have and the entertainment with these weapons, and Halo 2 does a pretty damn good job of giving gamers what they want. Gone is the machine gun from the first Halo, as well as the 2X zoom of the pistol, which was the obvious weapon of choice by most in the original game. Didn't matter what weapon you had, if you had a good trigger finger and could use the scope well, the pistol pretty much ruled all in the original Halo. If a player got a hold of a shotgun or sniper rifle and the pistol, then that player pretty much had a monopoly over the other weapons and players (unless they really sucked at the game, but even someone with not much skill could pick someone off with the pistol's scope). Some of the new weapons include the SMG which in terms of power most closely resembles the Klobb from Goldeneye 64, the 3-round burst Battle Rifle (this thing is deadly in the hands of a good marksman), as well as some new covenant weapons, like the weak carbine, sniper rifle, the grenade launching Brute Shot, and the deadly one hit-one kill plasma sword (I hate using it, but it saved my butt on legendary a couple times).

Aside from new weapons, a whole new level of play has opened up with the ability to dual wield certain light weight weapons. You can't hold a shotgun in one hand and a rocket launcher in the other, but dual wield opens up numerous weapon combinations to use, some good, and some not so good. With the inclusion of dual wielding in Halo 2, at least in multiplayer, if you stuck with one weapon, you're most likely going to be killed by someone who is dual wielding two weapons. If you remember dual wielding RCP-90's in Goldeneye, you can dual wield two SMG's and aim and spray hoping that you pump more bullets into your opponent than they do to you, or you can mix and match the different weapons and covenant weapons for different strategies with each combination. The down fall with dual wielding is that you can't throw grenades, as you use the L and R triggers to shoot each corresponding weapon (unless you want to pull the grenade from your belt and toss it with your teeth...).

Single player is a little bit longer than in Halo, coming in at 15 missions, but it still doesn't hold a torch to Halo 2's multiplayer. Whether it be with 3 other people next to you, through LAN with 15 other people, or on XBL against millions of other people, Halo 2's multiplayer is steps and bounds above other First-Person Shooters out at the moment (some Counter-Strike: Source players might disagree, but the difficulties with Valve's Steam service itself is negative enough). Having a frag fest with three of your friends is cool, as you have all the multiplayer options available whether it be Team Slayer, a complete death match, or any other game you decide to play. Even playing with 15 other people is really fun through LAN, but nothing really beats the competition that you find while playing online. You're no longer the neighborhood balla with all your offline friends, but you're the punk that's being kicked around once you hook up with some of the better players from around the world.

Sadly, there are only 11 or so multiplayer maps to play, 2 of which are remakes of old favorites like Coagulation and Beaver Creek. Both of them have returned from the first Halo, and have received a face lift for Halo 2. Among the new maps includes the small ones like Lockout and Ascension (the Lockout map reminds me of the Cradle level from Goldeneye 64, and my favorite CTF map Zanzibar (the demo showed at E3). The way Bungie had created the online set-up, the layout takes a bit getting use to in order to understand how to use it right. The manual doesn't really give you much detail on it, so it's more of a trial and error. There are 7 different modes with ranked games, with 2 more training modes that you and up to three guests can play in that are unranked (unfortunately, you cannot play ranked games with a guest, so you've got to join custom games), and then there are unranked custom games you can create that are open for people on your friends list to join (and so on), or make it invite only and invite some people you know for a nice closed game. With the different modes, the more you win, or better yet, the better you do continuously, you'll move up in rank. The 7 modes are Rumble Pit (straight out deathmatch), Team Skirmish (up to 8 players, 4vs4), Head to Head, Big Team Battle, Minor Clan Match, Major Clan Match, and Team Slayer (up to 8 players, 4vs4, only instead of random games like in Team Skirmish, it's first team to a certain amount of kills). Each one has a separate rank, and depending on what your highest rank is will determine the rank next to your name when you're on people's friends list.

I could go into so much more detail, but then that would take forever. When you go into matchmaking or optimatch, you'll be automatically sent to a game along with other people who are searching for the same criteria according to your rank. While the system is nice, getting into a game can sometimes take up to a couple of minutes. When Halo 2 first came out, I waited as long as 10 minutes to get put into a game, though that was ironed out once Bungie's servers weren't being bombarded with millions of eager fans. Right now I've got no complaints with the servers anymore, and the competition and fun you can find online is astounding. The last game to have multiplayer that would keep me up all night was Halo, and even then I have put more hours into Goldeneye's multiplayer than any other games out.

The graphics in Halo 2 certainly aren't just an upgrade, they're very beautiful and full of detail. Some of the single player levels are kind of bland, and running around inside the Halo Library look alike was very dull. The levels on Earth with the wide open areas and attention to detail in the plants and buildings were very nice though. The environment and character models have been cleaned up so much, it's like getting your nice black shoes shined and being able to see yourself in them when you bend over. The frame rate stays even more constant than in Halo, which is very nice considering how many bullets and grenades are flying across the screen exploding.

I'm not special enough to have been blessed with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, yet, but Halo 2 sounds very nice on my little 36" TV, no matter how small the speakers are. The voice acting isn't as bad as it is in some games, but it's not exactly Oscar winning either, of course. There are a few unpublicized voice-overs from some celebrities, including Michelle Rodriguez's intimidating, yet relaxing voice as one of the female marines. Not the best voice acting, but Halo 2 definitely has some of the funniest one-liners, both by your fellow marines and the covenant aliens (such as the Grunts when they yell "Not again!"), and I was laughing so much you would think that they just told a joke. Well, the sound definitely is not a joke, and if you've got a tight sound system set up, you are going to get excited whenever you pop the game in.

Halo 2 has certainly delivered with pretty much everything that was ever promised. More Master Chief, a new story line, and online play. With Xbox Live play alone, Halo 2 is definitely the game of the year. Halo 2 was pretty much at the end of my list of most wanted games, but after being sucked in by the single player and then spending more hours than I care to remember online, it has moved its way up the list pretty quickly. Even if you don't have Xbox Live, the multiplayer is still some of the best that the Xbox has to offer, and I have a feeling that it's going to stay that way un up until Halo 3 is released, maybe...

happy gaming