Halo 2

Halo 2
First Person Shooter - Xbox
1-2 players campaign / 1-4 players deathmatch

As the sequel to one of the most beloved recent franchises, Halo 2 has a lot to live up to. Even though Halo 2 follows most of the conventions of the first game, Halo 2 carves up its own game. Unfortunately, I just don't care for what it has become.

Let's get the good out of the way. Supposedly Halo 2 is awesome on XBox Live. I don't have a subscription so I never tried it out. But from what I hear, Bungie concentrated on making it a blast to play online against other people. The interface, maps, balance patches, etc are all geared toward an awesome competitive experience.

But for all the work they put into the multiplayer, I'm a campaign player. And I just didn't enjoy the experience. Most people bash on Halo 2's ending, but that's a non-issue for me. In fact, I thought the ending was one of the highlights of the game. Not that it was great. It just wasn't that bad.

Halo 2 feels like a totally different game than its predecessor. It's faster paced and more action-focused. I'm sure some people would appreciate the change, but I personally played Halo for its emphasis on strategy and resourcefulness. Halo 2 is more of a blast-a-thon in that the situations are more wild. You have to run around like mad shooting enemies left and right. In Halo, many times you would want to be more discreet and sneak behind enemies to whack them on the back of the head. Halo 2 isn't any more difficult because of the action emphasis. It's just different.

Nevertheless, Halo 2 does have some cool aspects. Vehicles play a bigger role here than in Halo. There are more types of vehicles that you can ride, and you find yourself having many more vehicle-vs-vehicle battles here, distinguishing it from other FPS. Halo 2 also has a lot more weapons to play with, although a lot of them are unnecessary.

The big thing Bungie was plugging for Halo 2 is the ability to double-wield, and I have mixed feelings about it. Basically for the smaller weapon types, you are allowed to hold two guns simultaneously. They don't have to be the same weapon, so you can mix and match at will. And with each gun mapped to the L and R triggers, you have perfect control over them. The nice thing is that dual-wield has a cost. With two guns, you give up the ability to perform melee attacks and the ability to throw grenades. So there will be times in the game where you'll dual-wield, drop a weapon, toss a grenade, pick up another weapon, and starting firing out of both guns again. Nevertheless for all the trouble, it mostly feels gimmicky and propagates the action-oriented experience of Halo 2.

There are other changes to the game that I don't like. The guns have been rebalanced - but not always for the best. Now rocket launchers can shoot homing missiles against vehicles. In Halo, there was a certain sense of satisfaction that I got when I perfectly aimed and timed a rocket to blow up a tank. In Halo 2, you just home in on an enemy and press the trigger for effortless killing. It just makes the game less challenging. Halo 2 also gives up what I was most impressed with in Halo - the scope of the environments. Whereas Halo had these expansive immersive worlds to explore, Halo 2 is very confined. Sure, Halo level design had its issues, but Halo 2 is completely uninteresting.

I admit that I am sorta biased because I played Halo on Normal and Legendary and had a blast. Halo 2 I've only played through on Normal, and didn't find it challenging at all. I'm sure if I turned up the difficulty level, it may force me to be more strategic. But even after finishing Halo on Normal, I knew I wanted to play it on Legendary. The fact that I don't want to play Halo 2 again speaks volumes about the changes implemented in the game. Bungie pointed the series in a direction I don't enjoy. I'm skeptical, but I hope Halo 3 makes Halo proud.