Halo 2 (Xbox)
After the first Halo game was such a phenomenon that the term “Halo Killer” was coined to describe anything that wanted to be the next big thing, one question emerged: how could a sequel “kill” the first Halo? One big step taken was the implementation of online multiplayer, Halo 2’s implementation of it ushering in console game online play becoming practically a necessity for any multiplayer focused title. However, allowing you to play the game online with friends or against random players wasn’t the only big step up from the original Halo, as the sequel seemed to, quite appropriately, try to take everything the original did and double it. Two playable characters in the campaign, dual wielding now allowed players to use two smaller guns at once, and the setting for a good part of the adventure would be on a second Halo. While Halo 2 is an iterative sequel in many ways, this science fiction first-person shooter aimed to take everything that the original did and do it better.
After the destruction of the Halo superweapon in the first game, the relationship between Earth and the religious alliance of alien species known as The Covenant has become more heated. The Covenant believed the Halo to be the key to a Great Journey of ascension while humanity had learned its true purpose as a means of wiping out all life, and The Covenant aim to get revenge for losing out on their chance to use Halo by attacking humanity on its home planet. Master Chief, assisted by the AI Cortana, returns to Earth to help in the defense efforts, but someone else tied to Halo has been sent down their own path. An Elite soldier in charge of the Halo operation has been branded a heretic for his failure, and to repent for his inability to protect it, he is made into a weapon of the prophets. Known as the Arbiter, this alien is tasked with taking down Covenant traitors, but soon he learns the truth of Halo’s purpose as well and ends up on a path more fitting for his role as the second character you control during the campaign.
Swapping between Master Chief and the Arbiter based on their point in the story, the player fights on Earth, a space station, alien worlds, and of course the artificial world built on the second Halo installation. One big improvement over the first game is that each location in Halo 2 is unique, and while it is more linear in how you progress through them, there is much less repetition in room and area design. There is a section where you ride horizontal elevators across open water a few times that borders on feeling samey, but most of the adventure has you explore areas where each new room or open area offers different sight lines, cover, and mixtures of enemies. Ancient temples, advanced alien structures, natural jungle areas, human cities, and huge battlefields full of vehicles all crop up as you progress, the game doing an excellent job of diversifying its location design both in practical means like how it effects the gameplay and in the visual design. The music is also more of a present force to back the combat properly, the game definitely breaking away from the natural instrument focus in the original to further embrace rock and explosive orchestral arrangements but still knowing when a moment is better backed by something that can draw out the mystery of an alien location or the calm respite between action-packed moments.
The enemies you face definitely hold up their part of the action gameplay as well, Halo 2 throwing in three major types of opposition each with their own unique approaches to combat and weapon types. The Covenant are the main antagonists, but their alien alliance’s inner turmoil means some foes will be fought by Master Chief, others by the Arbiter, and sometimes they’ll be on your side and its easy to accidentally kill a friendly one as you forget how the allegiances line up at that point in time. Grunts are essentially cannon fodder who use simple weapons, but the players need to worry about Jackals who hide behind energy shield and fire from afar, Elites who can turn invisible and take more damage to put down, and the Hunters with their destructive cannons and high defense. New to the series are flying bug-like Drones that fly around the sky to be more difficult targets to hit and Brutes, this new faction of ape-like aliens wielding heavy weaponry and charging at you in a blind rage when they feel their guns aren’t doing the job.
Covenant weapons tend to focus on limited energy designs where the player will need to constantly replace any pilfered weapons rather than refilling them with ammo. The Plasma Pistol allows strong charged shots if you have the patience for it, Plasma Rifles dish out consistent quick damage, and plasma grenades can stick to foes so they can’t escape the detonation. The powerful Fuel Rod Cannons work like rocket launchers in your hands, the Carbine is a quick firing rifle that draws on ammo instead of energy, and you can get yours hand on the incredibly satisfying Energy Sword that lets you easily kill most enemies with one swipe provided you can get in close safely to hit with it. There are some duds in the Covenant armory, the Needler still needing to hit with far too many of its delayed explosive needles before it becomes dangerous and the Brute Shot grenade launcher feels like it can swing from very effective to surprisingly weak based on how its explosives make contact, but they’re a good collection of guns to wield against the opposition and the distribution amongst the alien forces means different enemies play into their strengths. A Jackal with the Beam Rifle meant for sniping from afar for example matches enemy design with weapon intent excellently and allows Halo 2 to keep changing the dangers of a battlefield by shuffling Covenant members around to demand new strategies.
The second main enemy force are the Flood parasites, these reanimators of the dead being a mindless threat that relies on getting in close with heavy numbers. Some can wield weapons though and they’re often the best source for ammo when it comes to Earth’s guns like the highly effective shotguns, reliable but rather weak submachine guns, or the stronger automatic battle rifle, but The Flood’s threat is not only part of the big danger poised against both sides of the battle between Earth and the Covenant, but we begin to see how The Flood function better. In fact, Halo 2 does a much better job than its predecessor explaining its plot, lore, and twists, and the Flood actually feel like more than just a rampaging force once you meet the Grave Mind who connects their consciousnesses together. The last faction of sorts that appears in combat would be Halo’s own defenses, Sentinels firing sustained lasers that you can pilfer and use yourself while the much larger Enforcer variant’s high defense and shields mean you have to work much harder to take them down. While the few boss fights present in the story are mostly just big firefights with an important target who sustain more damage than usual at the center of them, the shifts in what you face regularly means you still get memorable and exciting battles such as when you hop on board a gigantic Covenant walker known as a Scarab to take it down.
Vehicles play a big role in the story and multiplayer, with tanks and cars equipped with turrets coming in both human and alien flavors. The Banshee spacecraft used by the Covenant allow for aerial combat though, and the Ghost is a hoverbike that is far faster than the tanks with rapid fire weapons the driver can use rather than needing two people to both drive and fire the turrets like with the Warthog and Spectre vehicles. The Ghosts are also the easiest to destroy or flip though, but while flipping a vehicle forces you out, you can easily flip even a tank to right it and get back in to continue the action. Another interesting touch in vehicle combat though is if you aren’t riding one, you can hop on someone else’s and start destroying it to force them out so you can steal it, although being right on top of a dangerous vehicle comes with pretty expected natural risks.
Vehicles and on foot combat mix together well in the game’s multiplayer especially, and while not every level features them, Halo 2’s default set of 12 maps not only features areas with different focuses like wide open maps friendly to vehicles and tighter quarters for quick combat, but it remakes some of the best maps from the first game like Blood Gulch returning as Coagulation. A tight focus is kept on having big areas of importance to draw players in with weapons and objectives so they’re more vulnerable to sight lines from multiple angles, but there is still enough cover or hallways to make a retreat if you’re clearly going to be on the losing side of a conflict. One strange change from Halo 1 to 2 though was how the health was handled. Gone is a true health bar and now you instead only have the recharging shields, the player needing to avoid damage to regenerate any lost energy and dying if they are hit without enough shield to take an incoming hit. Jumping is still the main means of outmaneuvering enemy fire in a fight, combat focusing on aggression and movement since you’re not going to feel the damage permanently but you still need to know when to get away and hide so you can wait for your shields to return.
There’s very little bad to say about the multiplayer as the maps, weapons, and vehicles play together well, and the story’s attempt to flesh out its world does wonders for developing the enemy forces you’re up against and explaining how this science fiction universe actually works. However, once Grave Mind introduces the idea that the Flood have some sense of purpose to their actions as well, things do get a little bit more intricate and complicated and it starts to be easier to lose track of what’s happening as important details enter the picture one after another. The only really mark against the plot’s structure and ideas though is the game’s rather sudden conclusion, the climax not feeling like the punchy finale it needed to be before a sequel hook leaves resolving the major conflicts in play until Halo 3. The action and more detailed story line makes it easier to accept the delayed conclusion, but even just one more mission with some stronger sense of purpose would do wonders to make the finale satisfying.
While Halo 2’s Xbox release was the revolutionary one, it is also probably prudent for most modern players to play Halo 2: Anniversary by way of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Not only does it get a graphical upgrade and feature Halo: Combat Evolved – Anniversary‘s nifty feature to swap between old and new graphics in real time, but it features terminals with plenty of extra cutscenes that flesh out certain parts of the plot. Halo 2: Anniversary’s gameplay, mechanics, and level design are all the same as well, meaning you still get to experience the phenomenal first-person shooting with its great selection of weapons and strong level design unaltered, but if an original Xbox copy does make its way into your hands, you’re thankfully getting the same experience, just without the polish of the gussied up version found in the compilation.
THE VERDICT: Exciting multiplayer, maps and levels that draw out the best in the shooting mechanics, a layered campaign with two perspectives and plenty of diversity in your opposition, a strong selection of weapons and vehicles, and new ideas like dual-wielding all make Halo 2 such a huge step up from an already excellent first game. Some choices like the abrupt ending do impact the experience a bit, but Halo 2 manages to build both a satisfying action shooter and an intriguing science fiction universe to set it in, the player getting to explore areas built both to further that story and serve as excellent arenas for the fast-paced firefights. With most of the focus going into improvements to its predecessor’s design, Halo 2 really does feel like Halo 1 but better, which ultimately makes it an even more phenomenal shooter.
And so, I give Halo 2 for Xbox…
A FANTASTIC rating. Taking a look at what worked and what didn’t in Halo 1, Halo 2 is able to provide both the much-needed changes and nice little features you’d hope to see in a sequel. The repetition in campaign level design is gone, and the Energy Swords your enemies had sole claim to in the first game are now yours. These aren’t what make Halo 2 such a spectacular shooting game, but the sum total of all the ideas and improvements are definitely what allows Halo 2 to have a diverse campaign, entertaining multiplayer, and memorable plot. The Covenant aren’t just aliens to kill now that the Arbiter gives you an inside look to their society and internal struggles, Grave Mind sows the seeds of The Flood being more than a parasitic menace, and Earth being on the line in the battle means humanity plays a much more active role in assisting Master Chief in his battle to protect the universe. Regenerating energy shields are great for urging the player to be involved but stronger weapons and vehicles can still tear through players so that the fights are never slowed down by this feature, and the options for fighting against such strong offensive options mean a battle can shift in many different ways. The weapon selection, despite still featuring some duds like the Needler, brings a lot to the table as well and their different capabilities change your play style and how you approach a situation. This means that the single player can throw situations at you that favor different approaches while the multiplayer finds greater longevity from the fact that so many unique scenarios can emerge just from the intersection of these well designed mechanics.
Halo 2’s online multiplayer pretty much guaranteed its increased popularity over the original, but it was having a keen eye for where improvement should be made and coming up with simple but enjoyable small changes that made Halo 2 into a game worthy of “killing” the original game. The greater amount of effort put into the campaign’s all-around design was crucial to making its single player and co-op so memorable and exciting, but small touches like being able to wield a plasma pistol in one hand and an SMG in the other expand how the gunplay works in tiny yet meaningful ways. Both the universe and action of Halo 2 have the level of depth that keeps you invested in playing through the main adventure or spending hours fighting in a solid set of multiplayer maps, so while it’s certainly better to play Halo 2 as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection due to its small improvements, even back on the original Xbox you can find all the ingredients that make Halo 2 such a stellar shooter.