I got Halo 2 last month when I bought FF4 and Fight Night. It was at the bottom of the pile and I just started playing it a little over a week ago. To my surprised enjoy it a lot more then I thought I would, I thought the original Halo was worth the 15 bucks I spend to download it from Xbox live market place but it had problems. Repeated stages that were often times way to large, confusing, and just plain not repeating. Along with not enough variety of bad guys in till the flood showed up. Halo 2 changes a lot of that around and while a few weakness may still be there over all it’s a really enjoyable game.

Story.

Master Chief destroyed Halo a weapon that was ment to save the universe from the Flood by destroying all current sentient life in the galaxy. He is back on earth receiving a medal, while his counterpart the leader of a group of aliens called the covenant is back on his planet getting the snot kicked out of him. During the ceremony the covenant attack earth and it’s up to the master chief to repel them. Has the story goes along after he finishes saving the earth he finds another Halo that has to be defended from the covenant. Meanwhile the failed leader has been given one last chance to redeem himself by taking up the mantle of arbiter, a hero chosen by the prophets (leaders of the covenant) to keep order in the covenant. The two rivals will of course meet.

The story follows both characters the Master Chief and the arbiter. While you play has the arbiter you get to see the inside covenant and see what the group of aliens are really after. They believe that the activation of Halo will start them on a long journey towards god hood. The animation for all the characters is improved with better looking character models, even including the faceless master chief allowing the more elaborate cut scenes to add more to the story.

Of course the ending does indeed end with a cliff hanger has Master Chief enters battle saying the lines I am finishing the fight (a tag line to sell Halo 3), despite the disappointing ending the story mode was a lot better then the campaign mode was on the original Halo.

Graphics.

The graphics have been greatly improved. Now widescreen 480P support, out dated now but compare that to the original Halo on a high definition TV even a small one like mine and you can tell the difference. Greater resolution aside better facial features for the human characters and terrific animation during cut scenes involving covenant aliens. The repeative areas of the original are out and the new ones are all unique and while there where a few corridors I lost my way in the whole have I been down this room or not repeativeness of the areas are gone.

Sound.

All the VA’s from the original are back and Keith David does an excellent job of doing the arbiter. The writing is fairly witty and the music is pretty good. The only bad thing about the sound is some of the marines that follow you around key words get annoying when they shout the same thing about 2 or 3 times in a minute. Made me lead a few of them into a cross fire fight, or just eliminate them myself if I had the ammo.

Gameplay

Halo 2 is a FPS shooter just like it’s brother. The levels are linear for the most part accomplish your objective while shooting any alien that moves, pick up ammo and guns to keep on playing. The original Halo added a new aspect in the form of a shield that master chief had on him, the first couple of shots hit his shield and caused no damage, any damage after that took damage to his life bar, his shield regenerated after a period of time of not taking damage. Halo 2 scraps the life bar completely and instead just uses the shield, while the chief can take a few light blows without the shield any serious wound and he’s dead now once that shield is down. The good news is that the shield takes more hits and regenerates faster and it’s actually makes the game easier. The most annoying thing in the original Halo was hitting a check point in a middle of a fight with a bunch of aliens with no shield and next to no health and have to survive the best you could in till you found a health pack. No more of that has it’s just your shield sit back and let it regenerate and your back to kicking butt.

And of course there is now duel wielding of weapons. When your duel wielding you can fire both weapons at the same time, meaning if you have the same weapon twice the fire weapon, or different weapons like an oozi or a needler that different combos can be set up based on there strength and weakness. Of course duel handling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you can’t melee attack at close range, and you can’t throw grenades. Also reloading weapons with the exception of the needler takes twice has long. Some strategy has to be used when is it the right time to duel wield. The chief is also still restricted to two regular weapons at all time so you can’t just pick up any and all weapons off the battle field.

Like any good FPS sequel new weapons have been introduced. The energy sword will be a big one for the multiplayer matches, it’s a short range sword melee but it can cause damage. The covenant also gets some more reloadable weapons with the covenant caribore, a battle rifle that can zoom in, and the grenade launching brute shot. They also get there own version of a sniper rifle which is pretty powerful but you can only fire it twice in a row before it over heats and you have to wait a few seconds before you can fire again.

The original Halo also had repeative enemies, you fought the same 4 types of covenant in till you hit the flood. Grunts, elites, jackals, and the hunters. The flood return the same annoying enemy has they always were but the covenant now has two new enemies to add to there ranks to torment you. The first are drones which are annoying wasps with pistols that are hard to shoot down, some elites with air packs similar to the air pirates from the metroid series will also join them making these areas difficult. But the most annoying of all are the brutes, these amondable snowman type aliens don’t use shield to protect themselves but they don’t have to, they take a lot of ammo to take down and they use things like faster firing covenant machine guns and grenade launchers to make Cheifs job more difficult. When out of ammo they charge and can do a lot of damage if they connect. The brutes make the last few areas of the games even harder.

Xbox live.

The game can still be connected to xbox live even on a 360 console. But you have to download new area maps and that can take a while. Once done though you can connect and play online and despite it’s age there are still quite a few people online playing Halo 2 right now. The games are easy enough to set up and allow for the option of voice chat and the party system. Despite Halo 3 having a lot easier online set up there is a lot of fun on the online multiplayer still to be had to make it worth the 20 bucks for those who go hardcore into those sort of things.

Final Recommendation

Halo 2 is worth the 15 bucks with improved graphics, story telling, and game play all around. And a pretty good if a bit ages online multiplayer. There is plenty of bang for your buck.