by jason - November 16, 2004

The story begins on November 9th, 2004. After waiting in line for two hours in the freezing cold outside the local Gamestop, I finally got my grubby paws on the game I'd been waiting on since I beat the first Halo a few years ago. So I spent a week playing it...and heres what I found.

Hey! That was Low!

The gameplay seems to be the same as the first game. The controls are a no-brainer, and Master Chief responds crisply to your input. Enemies crumple or fly, depending on how you kill them, and I swear I even saw one or two twitch. The levels seem pretty standard too, though quite a bit...larger. In order to get the review out in a half decent time, I walked through it on Heroic. Which brings me to my first gripe. The game seems way too short. It's almost like Bungie decided to focus so much on the multiplayer (which is absolutely marvelous) that they neglected to finish up the story. Which leads to my second gripe. How in the heck can you expect people to wait through the three years since Halo originally came out, to hand them a 10-15 hour game? And then drop the ending dead-smack in the middle of the story?! I won't spoil it here, but yes, in this writer's opinion, the ending is terrible. Another interesting aspect of the gameplay is that you're given the opportunity to play as a disgraced Covenant Elite known as the Arbiter. Being able to play from the other side of the field is pretty entertaining, though the "Arbiter" stages take away from the time you get to spend as your favorite Spartan-armored soldier. Playing the game on Xbox Live is more fun then I ever thought I'd have with a FPS online title. I was never a big R6 or Counterstrike guy, but there is some sick joy in taking a Scorpion tank and splattering some poor sob across the map with it. Very therapeutic.

So many pretty surroundings...go litter them with corpses.

Halo 2's graphics can be summed up in a word--wonderful. The scenery is magnificent, the characters are detailed to the point that I found myself wandering up to my allies and staring at them. Looking over a beach cliff rewards you with great water, replete with the coral visible beneath it. The visuals are just...wow.

Music to kill by.

Something I found kind of refreshing was the rock & roll sounding tracks that played through the levels. It always seems to kick in at just the right time, giving you the perfect aural joy to splatter Covenant, though after awhile it seemed to get repetitive. Even still, I'm actually tempted to go out and pick up the soundtrack, which is kind of surprising.

Because it's Halo 2.

Multiplayer. That gives Halo 2 the boost it needs to overcome the weak ending, and the occasionally repetitive music. Xbox Live play has kept me awake more than one night since the game's debut, and it will probably continue to keep me awake for a good while.

Plasmafactor

Did I mention how much fun it was running people over with Warthogs, or splattering them with the tank's main gun?

There had better be a sequel.

I find myself hoping the sequel shows up before the XBox 2 does, but knowing Microsoft and Bungie, theres no way Halo 3 will land before the XBox 2 is slated to hit shelves. So, I guess I, and the rest of the planet, will have to wait 3 more years until we get our next fix, and finally find out what happens to Master Chief & Co.