Halo 2 for Xbox

Bungie wowed the world with Halo on Xbox. Released in 2001, Halo was the first console FPS to feature vehicle support. 3 years later, Halo 2 was released. Despite its enhanced graphics and wider array of vehicles and weapons, it takes a step backwards from the original in many ways.

First, let's get acquainted with a very familiar story. Master Chief (the protagonist) returns from having destroyed the original Halo. Halo is a holy place for the Covenant (aka: antagonists of the original Halo) and also a super weapon. In retaliation for the destruction of the original Halo, the Covenant attack Earth. So, once again, Master Chief is deployed to take on the alien forces. Now, the twist to the plot is that within the Covenant is unrest. The Brutes (a new and more powerful troop) are replacing the Elites (the usual soldiers).With this changing of the guard, an ambitious Brute begins to use the Profits (spiritual, governing leaders of the Covenant) to take hold and work toward achieving power. The unlikely protagonist added is a fallen Covenant Elite who is referred to as the Arbiter. The Profits save him from death, only to command him to do their dirty work. The Arbiter was held responsible for the loss of the original Halo, so his life is expendable. So, with two protagonists who have conflicting goals (at first), you think the story would be interesting. To be honest, the plot unfolds too quickly, and Audrey's (man eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors) big cousin makes an appearance and reveals a little more about why Master Chief and the Arbiter should work together. Oh, and, let me take a second to mention Cortana. Cortana was the AI from a military vessel that Master Chief stored in his helmet to protect her from being captured. The problem is that after he returns to the military to start Halo 2, Cortana stays in his helmet. It becomes more like a marriage, with wife (Cortana) bossing Master Chief around and incessantly pointing out the obvious.

The play is my largest source of disappointment. To be honest, I wasn't a fan of Halo because I've seen all they offer already done in PC titles. Because of this, Halo failed to impress. Halo 2 destroyed the original mechanics to be in favor of the hardcore fans and not Joe-FPS gamer. The original Halo had a nice balance of weapons. Every weapon worked the first time and in a manner as you would expect it to work. As such, you could shoot someone in the face with a pistol and were guaranteed a headshot 100% of the time. This time, the pistol has been weakened and no longer provides the headshot that players originally loved. To make matters worse, there's the shotgun. This is the most inconsistent weapon of all time in any video game, and I've determined this through a series of tests. I placed two Spartans (the Master Chief Style models) in a room facing each other. I pulled the trigger on one player and then the other. With out any consistency, one player would always die and the other would walk away with low energy. Compared to titles like Unreal Championship and TimeSplitters 2, I hoped that stuff like this would have been more refined.

Another weapon I find disagreeable are the Energy Sword. This is the key weapon to winning online. It has the ability to kill any enemy in 1 hit and lasts forever (unlike in story mode, where you only get so many uses). So, while playing online (which is the main attraction) you will find a battle for the sword. During this time, players will fight over the fabled weapon and turn it on the unsuspecting masses. I've seen players rack up a killing spree in less than 30 seconds while wielding the sword. It's that powerful.

Another source of play that I find annoying is the limitations to the characters. If you choose a Spartan model, you will be built like a tank and able to maneuver as you would in any FPS title. The same rules apply for headshots, body shots, and any other normally damaging attacks. Now, in their infinite wisdom (note: sarcasm), Bungie decided it would be a novel idea to allow players to play as the Covenant Elites. Here's where that idea goes horribly wrong. Sure you can play, but the Covenant is the most awkward and misshapen avatar to have in Halo 2. First, your head is low and jutted forward. As such, the player's view won't be able to see around a corner before other players can see their avatar. As such, sneaking will get you shot roughly 90% of the time before you round a bend. Since the Elite's head is jutted forward and slightly lower on the body, body shots also count (to a certain degree) as headshots. It's much easier to get a headshot on an Elite than it is on a Spartan because of this. The Elite is also bigger in terms of overall size. Now, buy bigger, I don't mean taller, but rather longer. An easy way to illustrate this is if the normal Spartan is 1 unit wide by 1 unit long, then the Elite is 1 unit wide by 2 units long. Again, this makes ducking for cover and ambushes nearly impossible. I was honestly hoping that Bungie would've considered doing something to balance this out like making the Elites move faster or jump higher. Alas, if you play as an Elite, you'll have a cool looking character, but you're doomed to be an easier target.

Despite the fact that there are very few tactical weapons, players will find a wide array of useful and useless guns. Again, Bungie should've taken the cue from Epic to add multiple functions or more tact in usage of weapons. Now, by tactical weaponry, I mean weapons that can be used by applying physics to your shooting solutions. These make for excellent traps and can often lead to interesting play. Lets start with my personal favorite (and the only tactical weapon in the game), the Brute Shot. This is a grenade launcher that shoots a grenade capable of bouncing off walls. After the initial bounce, you have 3 seconds before it detonates. This is nice for snagging enemies as they round a corner. This weapon also gives an added melee bonus because of its huge blade. A blade to the face is guaranteed to do a serious amount of damage to the enemy. There is a beam cannon (Sentinel Beam) that acts like the Ghost Buster's guns. Unfortunately, this weapon is rather weak even during prolonged fire upon the same target. Most of the human weapons are bullet projectiles that pretty much work the same, with the exception of the battle rifle. The battle rifle and the sniper rifle are the only two human weapons that can provide a headshot (1 hit kill). With the Covenant, you have assorted energy weapons. Most notable are the Plasma Pistol and the Needler. The Needler is a gun that shoots energy based needles that explode shortly after sticking to an opponent. The problem here is that although they added the ability of needles to stick, you need to cover the enemy in needles and wait for them to explode before you see any real damage. The Plasma Pistol is the weakest weapon in the game, but has the ability to seriously remove an enemy's shield. If charged, you can almost always (again… inconsistent weapon reactions in the same settings) take out an enemy's defenses so you can hit them with a few shots from another weapon for the kill.

Speaking of other weapons, Halo 2 offers the ability to dual wield. This means you can carry two guns at the same time. While only certain weapons can be dual wielded, players must choose the combination they want to take into battle that will be the most effective for the situation at hand. The most common combination seen is dual submachine guns. This is mainly because Halo 2 uses the submachine gun as the fallback weapon. Although dual wielding works nicely for some, I find that the lack of grenades makes it a liability.

The vehicles are somewhat improved and somewhat lessened from Halo. First off, shame on Bungie for removing the troop carrying ability of the Scorpion (resident Tank). In Halo (1), the Scorpion could carry teammates on either side. They could simply hop up and take a seat while a player drives them across the battle field. Although this was kept in the story mode, I would have liked to see it in multiplayer. The Warthog (jeep) now comes in two flavors. There is the original with mounted machine gun and the second has higher impact rounds. Although the impact rounds do more damage, they fire much slower. The Ghost (hovering craft) returns, but not much I can say here. Wraith is a Covenant style tank that shoots a very powerful plasma cannon. This has a nice arc to it and is great for shooting in some bases with open tops. The problem with this is that although it packs a punch like a semi truck (when you hit someone), it moves too slow and can be easily destroyed or boarded. The highlight (for me) was getting to fly the friendly skies in the Banshee. The Banshee is a Covenant vehicle capable of flight and various feats of aerial acrobatics. Although the fastest moving vehicle in the game, this can be taken out with a homing shot from a player held rocket launcher. A nice addition to vehicle support is that vehicles are now destructible and can be hijacked. Although, I wish for customer matches you could turn both of these off, it does work to make some aspects of the game more interesting. Although, I would prefer the ability to fight back while your vehicle is being hijacked.

While fans of Halo may find Halo 2 intuitive, I found it to have a higher learning curve than other FPS titles. The initial play is very much so like any FPS, but the game moves on the slow end. As such, combat seems to be drug out. Moving from place to place in large areas requires vehicles or a good 2-5 minutes (at times). As for my comment of the unintuitive nature, consider that the inconsistency of the weapons (most notably the shotgun) as well as the aiming and usage just feels foreign compared to the point and shoot nature of other FPS titles. I know this may sound odd to some, but I've played every Unreal (Epic), TimeSplitters 2 & Future Perfect (Free Radical), Doom 1-3 (ID), Golden Eye (Rare), Turok 1-Evolution (Acclaim), Quake 1-3 (ID), Tribes 1-Vengeance (VUG), and Half-Life & Counter Strike (Valve). Despite having played a variety of FPS titles, the way Halo integrates the control into play just feels very foreign to the genre. It's not something I can put my finger on (per say), but it is very annoying to play an FPS title that just feels off. I've even had friends confirm this about Halo, so I know I'm not crazy. The game just doesn't feel like other FPS titles.

Well, enough about the play, let me tell you about the presentation. You have stunning cinemas that push the story forward. Once you leave the cinematic realm, the game is very inconsistent. On an Xbox (not 360) you will get frequent mip-mapping errors. As you get closer and further from objects, sometimes they remove the decals and in very rare occasions, you get wire frame models. This becomes a source of annoyance that you must learn to ignore to appreciate the game. The voice acting is very good. Bungie still refuses to give players a look at the guy that plays Master Chief, but this keeps the mystery behind the man. Other than that, recognizable names such as Orlando Jones join the cast to add richness to the experience. As for the sound effects, I can't write home about any of that because they're all about what you'd expect from the average FPS title of the time.

A beautiful innovation from Bungie is the online party system. You set up a party of friends and whoever the leader is can choose where you go. You can make an open or close (invite only) party. If open, anyone on your friends list can pop in. In the lobby, you have the ability to alter quite a bit regarding the play and game types as well as taking your friends into custom or optimatch games. In optimatch, you can have a max of 8 friends in your party then play against other teams which may or may not be consisted of random players. The freedom to alter so much on the fly from the lobby is something I haven't seen in any other Xbox title.

Okay, I've been as factual as I could, but here's where I unleash the wraith of any non-specific deity. It's time for random complaints. First, despite the fact that Bungie has patched Halo 2 several times since its release, the game still has all the original inconsistencies and has found some newer ones because of the problems. The online community is the WORST I have ever played with. Not only will you have to put up with frequent profanity and sexual harassment (including but not limited to comments questioning your sexual orientation and whether you fornicate with animals), but if you're a novice FPS player, there is NO WAY you can expect to win online unless you practice, practice, practice. Bungie claims they match you up with the best possible players (meaning, people with your rank), but after they've resetted the servers and rankings a number of times, you'll find yourself getting dominated by high level players that are trying to regain their original place. Online, the play may not have much lag, but if a player drops, the entire game is stopped. This happens quite frequently in some matches and is another source of annoyance. Modem glitching is still a problem. Bungie has taken the time to adjust their servers to recognize modem glitchers, but this still happens to a high frequency. Basically, modem glitching is where a player will put their modem on standby for a few seconds. The main server will interpret this as momentary lag. While they're on standby, then cannot be hurt or killed, but they can kill you. It's cheating. You can report them, but Bungie doesn't seem to care about reported players unless you have video of them cheating. Bungie has also provided download content in the form of new maps. Although they have some good new maps, they remade a few maps from Halo (1). Yet the maps that they offer from Halo (1) weren't the most interesting. Out of the new maps, I only found a couple interesting.

Bottom line here is that I am NOT RECOMMENDING Halo 2. The story is uninteresting and feels cliche among the other games I've played. The online play is horrendous. When I go online, I prefer other titles where players have casual conversations as opposed to having my mother insulted by someone somewhere in the world that I've never met (and this is a very frequent occurrence). The inconsistent nature of the game's mechanics only adds to my frustration. I honestly wouldn't have purchased this title if it wasn't for my wife as an anniversary gift. I seriously hope Bungie (or whoever) does Halo 3 really steps up and makes a worth while game.

By the way, I do recognize there are millions of Halo players out there that disagree with my opinion. But remember, this is MY OPINION and not yours. Profanity and threats won't make me change my mind about Halo 2, but rather confirm some of my complaints I have based on my experiences.