Last Updated: Mar 15th, 2006 - 17:20:44
Review: Halo 2
By Nenjin Darkeyes
Nov 13, 2004, 01:48
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Title: Halo 2(no link because the Halo2.com flash site is teh major suck)
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Microsoft
Genre: FPS
Release: Nov 2004
Platforms: Xbox, PC(2005)
For many console gamers out there, the original Halo brought us into a genre of games that was typically dominated by PC gamers. Halo proved to be a smash hit with most Xbox gamers everywhere, and the masses eagerly awaited the second installment of Bungie's universe on the brink of oblivion. After nearly 2 years of waiting, Bungie didn't want to disappoint, nor did they...totally.
So what's different about Halo 2 from the original?
Mostly gameplay mechanics. The classic format of Halo gameplay is still the same. Large levels, tons of enemies. More on that in a bit. The majority of differences are additions to the familiar combat style of Halo, new weapons, and vehicles.
GUNS
All the weapons except for 2 make a return in Halo 2, plus quite a few new ones. Essentially, Bungie balanced the weapon sets by race, so that now the Covenant and the USMC all have comprable weapons.
Particle Beam Rifle-
The Covenant equivalent of the Sniper Rifle. Works on plasma technology, where more than 2 or 3 rapid shots cause the weapon to over heat. 5x and 10x zoom, with minimum recoil. A very nice weapon.
Covenant Carbine-
A single shot, decent ROF weapon with a 2x zoom. The basic equivalent of the USMC Battle Rifle
Fuel Rod Gun-
Different from the one that appeared in Halo for the PC, the Fuel Rod Cannon fires a large mortar-type radioactive burst. It has a high rate of fire, and works on plasma technology, overheating if fired too much. The rounds it fires are far less explosive than they were in original Halo. It serves as the Covenant equivalent to the rocket launcher.
Brute Plasma Rifle-
An exact duplicate of the Elite Plasma Rifle, except that it's red. To date I can't really tell if it's "better" than the Elite Plasma Rifle or not.
Brute Shot-
A single shot grenade launcher, which while having very little splash damage, deals a large amount of focused damage to whatever it directly impacts. Ricochetes off of walls. Unfortunately, the small 12 round max ammo capacity makes this weapon only very effective in the hands of the enemy AI.
Covenant Energy Sword-
By far my most favorite new weapon. It is a meele weapon, which will cut down most enemies in one to two hits. What makes the Sword so spectacular is, when you are within a certain distance of your opponent(approxiamately 10 to 15 feet), and your targeting reticle is resting over your enemy, your next attack will cause you to leap them, delivering a powerful killing blow. This makes the energy sword ideal for leaping/diving attacks, as you can cover the ground between you and your opponent in a flash, cutting them down before they can fire on you. The energy sword is truely a pleasure to wield.
USMC Battle Rifle
The half succesor to the standard Assault Rifle from Halo 1, the Battle Rifle fires a 3 shot burst(and only a 3 shot burst) with incredible accuracy and very respectable damage. Supports a 2x scope for precision aiming and limited sniping. This is one of the standard marine issue weapons.
USMC Submachine Gun
The other half succesor the Assault Rifle(which is not included in Halo 2), the SMG is fully automatic, emptying it's 60 round clip in just a few seconds. Good for spraying an opponent with ridiculous amounts of fire. Can be dual wielded. Unfortunately, the SMG has an atrocious amount of recoil; when you are wielding two at the same time, your aim will shoot straight towards the ceiling when firing full auto.
USMC Magnum
The succesor to the Sniper Pistol(which also doesn't not make an appearance in Halo 2). I rarely use this weapon. It has an extremely high ROF, as fast as you can pull the trigger, decent accuracy, good damage. but, the 12 round clip is severly limiting, and the pistol has no zoom feature. A weapon of last resort in my opinion.
VEHICLES
A few new pilotable vehicles make an appearance in Halo 2, including a new variant type Warthog. More importantly, all vehicles have had updated controls and physics which are slightly different from the orignal Halo.
Physics-
All Covenant vehicles now have a boost feature. Using the left trigger, Covenant vcehicles will give an extra burst of speed. Some vehicles this is a momentary burst of thrust, like the Wraith Tank and the Spectre. Others like the Ghost and Banshee can maintain this thrust as a constant cruising speed. Warthogs handle differently now as well. Previously, you could fishtail the warthog simply by turning sharply while accelrating. Now, the left trigger works as an emergency brake, which will cause the Warthog to fishtail on command.
All vehicles now have "health", and can be destroyed. However, vehicles can take an insane amount of damage from small arms fire, and a healthy amount of damage from large ordinances. One of the best parts about the new vehicle damage is the way your vehicles visually reflect the damage. When you are shooting at a Banshee and hit it's wing, the wing is actually blown off. When your Warthog gets hit with a missle, fires break out all over the vehicle. When your Ghost takes a direct front impact, the front armor plating gets blasted off. And every vehicles goes "boom" when it dies, leaving a charred husk behind. I found this new aspect of vehicles to be a welcomed addition to Halo, compared to the previous lack of visual damage, and the indestructable player vehicles like tanks and Warthogs.
Covenant Wraith Tank-
Players can now pilot the Wraith Tanks. They fire large, explosive plasma mortars, which has a (in my opinion ridiculously) high rate of fire. It supports one pilot and no passengers, and makes use of a single, 4 second delay burst of speed. I don't think I need to tell you experienced Halo players how much destruction you can cause with this bad boy.
Covenant Spectre Transport-
A wholly new vehicle to Halo, this vehicle supports one pilot, one gunner manning the Plasma Turret on back(basically a plasma machine gun), and 2 passengers on the wing. Has the same thruster make up as the Wraith Tank. While not of much use in the single player/coop campaign, this is a great vehicle for multiplayer. Between the Plasma Cannon, and your two wing passengers, this thing can decimate an unprepared enemy.
Covenant Banshee-
While not wholly new to Halo, it has been(again in my opinon) significantly revamped from Halo 1. It is now both playable in the campaign, and in multiplayer maps. The big changes to the Banshee are in handling. First off, the Banshee has a constant thrust available on the left trigger, so you can cruise at high speed indefinetly. Secondly, by using the A Button in conjuction with the left thumbstick, the Banshee will preform aerial tricks like loop-dee-loops, and sideways barrel rolls. But I think the biggest changes comes in how you manuever the Banshee in regular flight. Previously in Halo, the Banshee could be made to hover virtually motionless by holding back on the left thumbstick. This made it ideal for hovering over people or vehicles and annihilating them with impunity. This isn't really possible anymore. When operating the Banshee, it will hover, just by simply not touching the thumb sticks. But the Banshee will slowly lose altitude while you do this, meaning you cannot hang in the air anymore, and must constantly reposition yourself for attack. Holding back on the left thumbstick will(much to my irratation) cause the Banshee to rapidly lose altitude. Lastly, the Banshee no longer cuts the tight turns it used to. Anyone that has played Multi-player on Halo PC with Banshees will tell you, Banshee combat wasn't that much fun. Previously, because Banshees could fly in a tight spiral, dog fights consisted of 2 players flying circles around each other and hitting virtually nothing. Now, the Banshee turns in a much wider arc, so it's much harder to fly around and around and around each other. Dog fights now have much more to do with evasive manuevers, using the A Button, or strafing the Banshee. Lastly, while the Banshee still has the Fuel Rod Gun attached to it, it is no longer usable in multi-player, only in the Campaign mode. All in all, I was pleased with the changes made to the Banshee. They are even more fun to fly than they were in Halo 1.
USMC Gauss Rifle Warthog-
While the vehicle is just a standard Warthog, there is nothing standard about the weapon. The Gauss Rifle is, argueably, one of the best weapons in the game. It has a 100% effective range, meaning it does as much damage at max range as it does at point blank. It fires an instantaenous electro-magnetically propelled bullet, which explodes on impact. The Gauss Rifle makes short work of infantry and armor alike, killing most people in two shots, and most vehicles in 3 to 4. The decent single shot ROF and instant delivery of the ordinance makes this a powerful, powerful weapon in the hands of a skilled gunner.
AI
I can defintely say the AI is more challegning in Halo 2 than before. Probably because the enemy has more options that it used to. Previously, enemies usually funneled towards your position in a big pack, making them easy targets for grenades. They wouldn't back each other up, fighting like individuals, and didn't position themselves to any advantage. Most of that is different now. Enemies on all AI settings have the tendency to spread out and flank your position, so while you are playing with one elite, 2 more are coming up behind you. Enemies love cover, and they all use it constantly. Most of all, they know how to focus their fire. Pop your head up at the wrong time, and the combined fire power of your enemies will leave you dead, wondering what just happened. The flood especially benefited from this upgraded AI. Typically the flood appear from vents, grates, and any dark hole out there. So it's common to expect the flood to try to surround you based on how they spawn. Now, the flood purposefully move around your positon to get you from behind, which on heroic means one hit, one kill from their meele. Now that the flood come armed with energy swords, shields(yes, shields) as well as all the weapons you can use, they are probably one of the more challenging parts of the game. Thankfully, the Shotguns and Energy Swords are not far away, and they make short work of the flood.
GAME MECHANICS
Bungie has added here and there to the mechanics of Halo, not only to provide a new "cool factor" to the game, but also to increase your tactical options in game.
Dual Wielding-
Touted as one of the "big" features of Halo 2, it's pretty self explanatory, at least on paper. While you can still only really carry 2 different weapons, if one of those weapons is one handed, you can dual wield a "third" weapon. I quoted it because it really doesn't count towards your total supply of weapons. You can wield that third weapon up until the point you meele something or switch weapons. While dual wielding does allow you to either double your fire power, or use two different kinds of weapons at the same time, it does have significant draw backs. Firstly, you can't throw grenades while dual wielding. It may not seem big at first, but most veteran players know that grenades are the life blood of good Halo games. Secondly, your reload times(if you need to reload your particular weapon) are doubled when you dual wield, which can be a serious problem when someone has a gun pointed at you. And lastly, when firing both weapons at the same time, weapon recoil increases. While you don't notice it with most weapons, it's painfully obvious with dual SMGs.
At first, dualwielding seems a little confusing as you get used to using the Y Button to switch weapons AND dual wield them. But once you pick it up, you'll come to love this feature, as you run in two guns blazing, throw one down, lob a grenade right at your opponents, scoop up your other gun and keep blazing away. I was pleased with how smartly balanced dual wielding is against using a single weapon. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and the victor is still usually the one with more skill.
Vehicle Pirating(Yar)-
Another one of those features that I couldn't have been happier about. Previously, you had to outright kill someone in Halo to get their vehicle, or in the case of Ghosts and Warthogs, they had to roll it. Now, when you are a next to a vehicle that is moving at other than full speed, you will be prompted to hold the x button. The screen will pan away to show you your character, as you climb over the front, back, or side of the vehicle and smack your opponent from the seat. In the case of the Wraith and Scorpion tanks, you will see your character climb onto the hatch of the vehicle. Then you'll be prompted to mash the meele button, which causes your character to beat away at the hatch(and eventually at the juicy, exposed cranium of your opponent). Once the hatch is gone, you can either keep smashing, or you can chuck a grenade down the hatch, killing the driver and(if you want) disabling the vehicle very quickly. Just so you know, the AI opponents can do the same to you, ripping you from your vehicle if you don't keep moving. I think this is a great feature. It really adds to the whole "sensation" of the fight, and it's a great tactical option. Now, you can snipe your opponent from his vehicle, blow the whole thing to kingdom-come, or climb over the front up close and personal, all gung ho style.
Player Life and Shields-
Shields remain the same as they did in Halo 1. However, players no longer have a "life". Once your shields are depleted, you can take a few hits, but not many, before you die. Once your shields are back up, you can take the same "amount" of damage again when your shields are down again. This really forces you to take cover when your shields are down, as you don't really know how close you are to death. The days of charging a group of enemies and laying waste to all of them with a sliver of life left are over. Once your shields are gone, if you aren't in cover, you are pretty much already dead. I'm not sure how I feel about this quite yet. On one hand, I like how it encourages people to not run out there guns blazing, and use a little cover and some tactics. On the other hand, I like knowing how close I really am to death. Still on the fence about this feature.
Player Respawning(co-op)-
The co-op respawning rules have changed for the better in Halo 2. Previously, if an enemy broke wind within 5 miles of your position, the game would not allow your dead partner to respawn. The restrictions on respawning are much less stringent now(well, sorta, more on this later). No more backtracking through 1/2 the level trying to get your friend back. The criteria for respawn are these. 1) No one can be actively firing on you. If you are crouching behind a wall, and someone is shooting the front of it, no respawn. 2) Your shields must be charged. If you're sitting in a corner trying to get your team mate to respawn, and your shields are damaged, your partner will respawn the moment your shield's hit full. As a general rule, the closer an enemy blip is on your radar, the less chance there is your player will respawn. This is not set in stone however. Multiple times playing one of us would die, and the other would retreat hoping for respawn, thinking we were screwed, only to leave the other standing in a room full of enemies taking fire. If you can manage to find a quiet place for at least 5 to 6 seconds, you can usually get the other player to respawn.
Active Camoflague-
When playing as the covenant, your flashlight button turns on "active camoflague", which gives you Predator like invisibility. It lasts for about 8 seconds, until you are damaged or you attack. It then has a 15 second cool down. This little bonus is GREAT for the campaign play. When combined with the power sword, you can litterally kill a whole room full of enemies before they even know what hit them. It's just the little edge that make the Covenant cool, without being ridiculously over powered.
Difficulty Settings-
Halo 2 still makes use of the familiar Easy, Standard, Heroic, Legendary difficulties. My friend and I started the game on normal, and restarted a few levels later on Heroic seeking a greater challenge. We were not disappointed. A little history first. In Halo, Legendary was where the AI got sneaky, flanked you, was dead accurate with it's grenades, and had higher than normal shield capacity, and life. Well, that's heroic in Halo 2. While not impossible, it requires you to be on your game. Your enemies are as ruthless as they are tough. Covenant Snipers will pin you behind cover, and due to the extra damage they recieve(or the weaker shields you have), one direct hit from them will usually kill you. The little bastard grunts are a real nightmare on heroic, because while you are busy dealing with the elites and all the difficult enemies, there is a grunt, somewhere, lining up a plasma grenade directly on you. Most of the time you won't even see it til it's too late. It's not uncommon to poke your head around a corner, or a box, and see three grunts launching plasma grenades straight at you with unnerving accuracy. And this is just heroic.
Legendary is truely for the hardcore in Halo 2. In Halo 1, you could slowly win legendary as a war of attrition on co-op, having one player die while the other holds back, killing an enemy or two at a time. No more. Now when one of you dies in legendary co-op, it's back to the check point.
I can't describe how hard the AI is in Legendary, it surpasses reasonable descriptions. It throws grenades at near impossible trajectories, elites take entire clips of ammo just to drain their shields, and there are more enemies than in Heroic. The AI is so astute, it will shoot you throw a mere spec of gap in cover, pinning you down under a barrage of laser fire. Sound easy? It would be, if it weren't also for the fact that your shields are also reduced in effectiveness, where 4, count them 4, individual plasma rifle round will elimnate them completely. My friend and I, with litterally hundreds of hours played in Halo, couldn't even get past the first level after 45 minutes of trying. It was just simply impossible to stay alive. Truely, utterly hardcore.
Multi-player-
I haven't played much multiplayer as of right now, I was more focused on beating the campaign. I have previewed all the maps though, and I can tell you they are twice as complex as your standard Halo multiplayer level. There are a few of them that are HUGE, big enough to comfortably house 16 players. Your Multiplayer profile is highly customizable, with multiple color settings for your Master Chief or Covenant Elite, and banners which you can arrange and color how you want. I haven't played any of the game types yet either except slayer, but they seem to be the standard run of types from Halo 1, like Phantom, Juggernaut, Oddball, CTF, Assault, and on. Anyways, just based on the Campaign, I can tell you Multiplayer is going to rock just as hard, if not harder, than Halo 1. (Update: And is does. Even though I no longer play on Xbox live, Multi-player Halo is awesome. Even more so now that they've fixed a lot of the incredibly devious cheat bugs.)
THE NITTY GRITTY
Gameplay-
I thoroughly enjoyed Halo 2's gameplay. It is essentially Halo v2.0. This is both a good, and a bad thing. Halo 1's big problem was that levels, while big, were extremely repetitive, almost insultingly so. Sure, there were litterally hundreds of enemies to kill, but levels all blended into a haze of tunnles, rooms, bridges, with the occasional handcrafted scene here and there. It's obvious that Bungie was aware of this. The levels are in Halo 2 are less monotonous(notice I said less, instead of not). Here's how it works. You enter a room, a valley, whatever. You fight multiple "waves" of enemies, where there is usually the first wave standing around, then the second, third, and other waves will run in from other passage ways, from behind you, above you, ect.. Rinse, repeat this recipe about 10 or 15 times and you have a level. To Bungie's credit, this time around they took to the time to actually design their enviroments instead of stamp them from a mold, so the monotony is less apparent than it was in Halo by a long shot. But, after a few levels, you start to pick up on the pattern, and the "sneak attacks" stop having so much impact, and you just settle down to kill the next wave. The levels aren't all exactly like this though. Bungie added some thematic and epic elements to some of the levels, like chasing down the massive Covenant Scarab Walker and boarding it, or cutting the heretic covenant's station lose and riding it as it plummets down through the sky at 1000 miles per hour(damn that was a cool level). Add in some Banshee flying sporadically throughout the levels, and there is definetly more to pay attention to in Halo 2 than in Halo 1. The underlying design still pretty much remains the same though.
Being able to play both the Covenant and the USMC turned out to be pretty cool. Differences in abilties, and what kind of weapons you used throughout the level helped keep the gameplay moving along. Every level you alternate between playing the Master Chief, and seeing his story, and playing the failed Covenant General of the original Halo, seeing his story. While the missions of the two don't really weave together, the stories eventually do(if poorly...).
Another key difference in Halo 2 as compared to Halo 1 is the use of weapons. In Halo, playing only as the Master Chief, you tened to use most of the Covenant weapons only as fall back weapons. Marines obviously had the advantage in the weapon department, so the Covenant got the advantage in the vehicle department. In Halo 2, you will find yourself using just about every weapon in the game at some point. Not only because you will need different weapons for different opponents and situations, but because it is nigh impossible to keep finding ammo for the same weapon in a level. The only 2 weapons you will ever be guarenteed to find all the time are the plasma pistol and the plasma rifle. The max ammo capacity of ALL weapons has been toned down from Halo 1, and many weapons you find are 1/2 empty already. All this results in "rummaging" after most fights looking for your ideal weapon, or at least a new one. It's not uncommon to find yourself near empty in the middle of a fight, and grabbing ANYTHING off the floor to finish off your opponent. This isn't to say you will have a problem finding a gun. There are always weapons laying around. It's more a matter of WHAT weapons are lying around. That being said, if you really hate everything but your Battle Rifle and your SMG, you can always(in a non-legendary co-op game), kill each other to build up your supply of ammo. Not that it will do you much good, as a full SMG is going to last you about 1 minute into the first fire fight. On the plus side, the game almost always spawns you with grenades, so you don't have to go into fights completely out gunned.
There are also boss fights in Halo 2(yea?). Unfortunately, these aren't very cool in my opinion. Without spoiling too much of the story, I'll just say the last boss doesn't seem like a final boss in the slightest. He's not all that powerful when you get down to it, and basically just needs to be shot about 1000 times. He doesn't shoot anything, doesn't do a good job of chasing you, and his leaping meele attack is laughably easy to avoid. Once you defeat him and find out the game(for now) is over, you definetly feel like you didn't get your money's worth out of the climatic final fight. The boss prior to the final one is more challenging(and much more satisfying to kill), but resembles a "really hard normal guy" more than he does a full fledged mega boss.
All told, I think it took me and my friend about 12 to 13 hours to beat it on Heroic, with many a reloaded game. All in all(story aside), I loved playing the game. It's Halo goodness all over again at it's core, with well planned and well executed newer features as a bonus. About the only thing the game play fell flat for me was in SOME of the level designs, like "The Library v2.0", which were reminiscent of the same montonous killing and lack of real effort in level design that people associated with the first Halo.
Theme-
Ok. It's that section of the review again where I start complaining. Thankfully, it's only about the story this time. I'll be frank, I play Halo for the gameplay, not the story. The story has always been, to me, a generic ass sci-fi story(that does a great job of ripping off Warhammer 40K and getting away with it), with some smarmy comments thrown in to keep it funny, and a faceless badass to please your sense of machismo. In Halo 1, there was a consistent(if somewhat bland and overly dramatic) storyline that drove the game play. You knew why you were in the level you were in, why you were doing what you were doing, and who the major players were. The story was, more or less, solid.
God I wish that were the case with Halo 2. The first cutscene is nice. It artistically constrasts the USMC celebrating their hero's
(Master Chief)
vicotry over Halo, with the Covenant branding their failed general with the mark of shame for losing Halo. And from there, the story goes down hill. To their credit, Bungie did a good thing letting you see what "the enemy" is like. They humanized the Covenant with articulated voice actors, explain their purpose to seeking Halo, and introduces you to "The Prophets" who are the driving force behind the Covenant. But then things get all screwy. The story constantly jumps around from what the Master Chief is doing, to what the Covenant General is doing. While the Covenant are attacking earth(Halo 2 pretty much starts an hour after Halo 1 ended), they are also engaged in a bloody civil war within their own ranks, between those that follow the Prophets, and those that know Halo will destroy everyone near it.....on top of the invasion of the Flood. On top of that, there is the struggle to get the Index(key to activating Halo), and the battles involved in that. This all rolls together into a murky, quickly sketched, unexplained snarl of a story, where major plot points come and go in the blink of an eye, and you're often left going "ok so....what am I doing again?".
But that's not my biggest gripe. No, my biggest gripe are the FMV cutscenes. First I want to say, yes, they are pretty. Master Chief sure does look all shiny. But that's it. Technicially, the quality of the FMVs is very inconsistent, where a big, specular lighted Master Chief will be standing next to a hardly textured lump of something. And my real, true gripe.....the FMV cutscenes are pure fluff. Things like, Master Chief riding a bomb out of a spaceship ala Dr. Strangelove, then miraculously leaping off the bomb back to his own ship. They are show cases for the art and skill of Bungie's movie people, cut in with just enough smart ass dialouge from the seargant to keep your attention. I like a pretty cutscene sure. But I don't like people flaunting their FMVs when I barely have a handle on the story they presented. If as much time had gone into the story as the freaking FMVs, Halo would have pissed off far less people. Or maybe not. While I won't spoil the ending for you, think Matrix: Reloaded, and how much that ending pissed you off. The ending for Halo 2 will make you want to climb up on a MS executive's desk, punch them in the face, and stuff a plasma grenade down their gullet. Suffice to say, Bungie and MS are planning to hump the Halo intellectual property for all it's worth, if the ending of the game is an indicator. I can almost smell the Halo 3 hype from here.
Sound-
Mixed marks from me in this area. Halo 1 stuck out in my mind because it included a bunch of really big thematic pieces that were pretty good, using stuff from Gregorian Choir chant, to synthesized music, to good 'ole electric guitar. The music in Halo 2 is even broader. You still have the big swelling, heroic theme piece, slightly altered. You still have the electric guitar(although it breaks off into solos here and there and sounds kind funky). You get some hard driving techno beats that will make your sub woofers thump(if you have 'em). You even have more than a few soft emotional pieces on piano. Were Bungie to offer a Halo 2 sound track, I'd call it an ecletic mix at best. Even though the scores are bigger, more dramatic, more swelling than in Halo 1, I found I liked them less. Probably because Bungie tries to beat you over the head with them. The tracks pick up at key points in game play, usually when fights break out, and the volume on them is cranked UP. So that you go from light ambient sounds, so a sudden pounding bass rythym, or that damn guitar going crazy on the whammy bar. There are some good pieces at work in the game, but to be honest, some of them are presented like shit.
There are few familiar sounds from Halo 1. Most of the Covenant speech is now in English(spoken by very articulate and proper sounding voice actors), as opposed to alien babble. About 1/2 of the weapon sounds are different now, in tune with about 1/2 of them being new weapons altogether. There are still the familiar ambient elements like the Marines belly aching or talking trash, the Covenant mocking you, but in my opinion there is far less of this than there was in the first game, and it is far less amusing. Maybe I haven't played enough to pick all the voices out, but the Grunts definetly make less noise in Halo 2, and they were my favorite part of the first. Most of smart assing and "hoo-rah" stuff comes from the USMC Seargant, who is at least fairly funny. I dunno, I miss the underlying humor of the original Halo. It looks like they are trying to take the theme and the world a little more seriously this time around.
Graphics-
I'm not 100% sure how to describe Halo 2's graphics. They are very definetly still Halo. It's hard for me to say if the overall quality of the graphics has improved form Halo 1, but here is what I do notice about them. They've made some real changes to the fauna in game. It is fairly sparse, and never comes above waist level. You will be hard pressed to find an enviroment like the swamps from the 343 Guilty Spark level, or anything close to it. But there are tons and tons and tons more particles on the screen than you ever got in Halo 1. Between a Drop Ship firing 4 Quad Plasma Cannons, 2 Snipers, 3 Grunts with Needlers, and a few Elites with Plasma Rifles, the screen is litterally a riot of colors and light in combat. The dynamic lighting is pretty good, nothing spectacularly realistic like Doom 3, but enough to get the job done.
Something has also been done to the player perspective. Again it's one of those things I can't really put my finger on, but the scale and proportion of things on the screen have changed. Some think it better reflects the size and scale of things in comparison to the size of the Master Chief, but I disagree. The screen, to this day, feels cramped, like I'm not getting enough of my peripherial vision in.
There are lots more moveable objects in Halo 2 as well. Barrels you can knock over or blow up, pieces of the terrain that you can destroy, all that leave chunky remains all over the place. Combined with bodies laying around, I was fairly impressed at the amount of extra "stuff" the game was able to leave on the screen for long periods of time. Usually games phase out debris and corpses quickly to preserve frame rates, but they last a considerable amount of time in Halo 2.
The graphics in Halo 2 are constructed from Halo, with improvements. They aren't as pixelated in some instances, and things like the water, the sky, reflections and specular lighting are a big improvement. The complexitiy and depth of enviroment textures is also an improvement. I still can't help feeling there is something less in the engine of Halo 2 than in Halo. I think it really has to do with fauna. Load up Beaver Creek map on Halo 2, then load up Battle Creek on Halo 1, and I think you'll see what I'm talking about.
So what do I think?
I think that overall, it's a solid game. If you liked Halo, you're going to like Halo 2. If you didn't like Halo, chances are, you still won't like Halo 2. It's not the greatest thing since sliced bread, that's for sure, but it measured up to about 80% of the hype. The fact the campaign is pretty short is probably what robs Halo 2 of being an absolute smash hit(and the fact *I* could write a more coherent story, drunk and/or otherwise).
BY THE NUMBERS:(Out of 10)
Theme: 4/10
Between the overblown FMVs, the bouncy and incomplete story arcs, the surprise plot twists and characters, and the obnoxious lack of an ending used as a marketing ploy, I was really soured on Halo 2's theme. Not that I was a big fan before, but I can definetly tell you I'm not waiting for Halo 3 because I need to know what happens to Master Chief.
Sound: 7/10
Some pretty good tracks, a few pretty weak tracks, and a couple attempts to be artsy in a game devoted to wasting stuff. Not much drove me wild, or insane here, except the volume at which the music decides to play during the gameplay.
Gameplay: 9/10
I had a great time playing through Halo 2. Soaking up the new mechanics, weapons, and vehicles was pure bliss. Halo 2 retains the same white knuckle, seat of your pants combat that you loved from the first one. Points off for having some of the same pitfalls in design as Halo 1, and some very uninspired boss fights.
Graphics: 8.5/10
The graphics increase was enough to please. Nothing changed drastically enough to upset what you normally expect from Halo. Frame rates remain constant and high throughout. Some inconsistency and texture popping occasionally spoil an otherwise solid presentation.
RAGEBRINGERS(Out of 5): 3.5 Daggers
Good enough to buy.
Thanks for reading.
"We are picking up on a Covenant transmission. Not sure what it means, it just keeps saying over and over again. Regret, regret, regret...."
"Maybe they are saying "Dear Earth, we regret being alien bastards. We regret coming to Earth. But most of all, we regret the fact your marines just kicked the tail out of our fleet. HOORAH".
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