Lead to Halo on PC: Halo 2 Review

With Jak II complete, it's time to head back to Halo 2. Now I have a long history with this game, one of the people who worked for my Mom got the Limited Collectors Edition for me as a Secret Santa gift when I was 8 in 2004 and my Mom "acquiesced" to me playing it (turns out she bought the game and had them give it to me).  Halo 2 quickly became my go to game and I fell in love with shooter's as a result, putting me one a path that leads to, well writing in general. All this to say that, with 15 years experience, I could have easily reviewed this off memory alone, but I decided to give it a normal mode play-through and give it a fair judgement. How did that fare? Let's find out.

Set 1 month after blowing up Halo during, well, Halo, and arriving back in human space (and having a totally bitchin adventure in the process). The Master Chief is attending an award ceremony on a orbital defense platform when the Covenant decide to invade Earth. This begins a new odyssey that takes the Chief and Cortana from the halls of a giant space born cannon to the bowels of the Covenant homeworld as they race to stop the extinction of humanity.  At the same time, we get a look into the Covenant hierarchy as the Elite in charge of defending Halo is stripped of his rank and deemed Arbiter, the personal suicide soldier of the Covenant leadership, the three High Prophets, who are on the Master Chief's hit list as well. And within the bowels of yet another Halo, the Flood stirs yet again, this time with a ruler who is preparing to strike out from it's eternal prison.

The story of Halo 2, barring it's atrocious ending, is a lot better than Halo 1's in my opinion. The problem with Halo 1 is that it peters out towards the end and there's no real villain to take out. I mean Spark is a villain sure, but not till the final three levels and even then he does one, maybe two things, that make him a presence. While the Covenant didn't really have a leader to take on so they just feel like they're sorta there. In Halo 2 this is hardly an issue as there are at least five, maybe six villains to take on, which sounds like a lot but it's weaved in well and works to the benefit of the story. None of the villains really overstay their welcome and the Arbiter missions help establish the Covenant villains a lot more as they're always there and give the Covenant more definition and motivation than just "kill all humans." One could even argue that Halo 2 is in fact the Arbiter's story as more happens to him and he undergoes a more personal change than MC, actually someone did argue that.

Another thing that's also improved in terms of story is supporting cast, sure there was Captain Keyes and some of the marines but the marines aren't even in the second half of Halo 1 and Keyes was more of a plot dump than anything and just an excuse to go one of the better levels of the game. Halo 1 was really just the Chief and Cortana show and while it isn't bad, I feel like the introduction of characters like Commander Keyes, Half-Jaw, and Tartarus add to the stories of the Master Chief and Arbiter and make them feel less isolated than in Halo 1. And of course, we can't forget the man, the myth, the legend, Sergeant Johnson. Sure, he was in Halo 1 but it was more like, "generic Sergeant Character no. 1" in fact he has multiple uses in Halo 1 where it makes no sense for him to be where he would wind up. In Halo 2 he finally started reaching his legend as a fierce, fire spitting, loud mouth Sergeant who knows what the ladies like. So yeah, definitely a more colorful supporting cast than in Halo 1, though they did keep the personality and playful humor of Cortana and the standard NPC's, even amongst Covenant allies in the Arbiter missions.

But while the actual story is an improvement, the level design has, in my opinion, gotten worse in more places. Halo 2 is a much more linear and railroading game than Halo 1 was and the environments feel more close in and clustered.  The game swaps perspective between the Master Chief and Arbiter and I can safe
ly say the arbiter levels are the worst in the game, which is sad because I like the Arbiter. But Arby gets the worst in terms of level design monotnous and grey enviroments with long corridors and sometimes you stop to ride a slow moving platform and be assailed by hordes of enemies large enough that it gets tedious to deal with. At least Master Chief has more varied environments and more options in terms of gameplay to keep things fresh. There are only two MC levels where hallways are the course of the day and they're pretty well spread out. At least until the final act, where the tables switch on you and suddenly MC is going through samey and monotonous environments while Arbiter get's all the interesting stuff happen to him.

The good news is that enemy variety is changed up with some two new Covenant species, the Brutes and Drones. Brutes will berserk charge you and break your face while also begin major players in the games story towards the end. While drones will make you burn through ammo trying to kill them all as they fly all around you and use swarm tactics. Also Hunters now feel like mini-bosses to take on as opposed to one shot bitches like in Halo 1, so that's a plus. The cherry on top of this is that the returning Flood, while unchanged in terms of variety, can drive for the only time in the series, so that makes them a bit more threatening. Or it would if I couldn't just go around them with ease, which I can so it's not that intimidating.

The real threats however are Jackals with beam rifles, they may not have shields but they basically have sniper rifles and on higher difficulties will straight up end your playthrough and bring it to a screeching halt. You can't see them but they can see you and the kill you in two shots and there are multiples of them so they can rapid fire and end your life before you know what happened. They're in fact the reason I cannot recommend Halo 2 on higher difficulties, it's so much trial and error that it's not worth it.

As for the actual gameplay in these levels it's seen some improvements, movement feels tighter, health packs have been dropped for regenerating health, and the weapon selection is more refined. Most of the covenant weapons are the same they were in Halo 1 but the UNSC weapons have undergone a massive overhaul. The Assault Rifle is now the SMG while the Pistol is now the Battle Rifle, which does less damage but is accurate enough to be my favorite weapon of all time. The Battle Rifle is like my best friends old 1998 Honda Accord, you put it through so much but it never fails you. The Shotgun and pistol have seen massive nerfs but other than that the rest of the UNSC weapons are unchanged. The Covenant finally gained some precision weapons, the aforementioned Beam Rifle and on top of that the Covenant Carbine, which is like the Battle Rifle but does less damage while having more shots in it and a faster rate of fire.

The biggest change to weapons though is dual wielding; the Pistol, SMG, Plasma Rifle, Plasma Pistol, and Needler can all be dual wielded, adding to your fire power and allowing you to mix and match. However, the downside is that you can't use grenades, can't keep both guns in your pocket, and melleeing drops your  second gun. And that ruile about not keeping them in your pocket makes no sense, in the E3 2003 demo you could do it, but not in the final game. It's a tad frustrating and if dual wielding is in the next Halo, I want to see that fixed.

Then there are things that were unusable in Halo 1 that are now accessible in Halo 2. Namely the Fuel Rod Cannon, a Covenant Rocket Launcher with less damage but more rounds; the energy sword, a covenant sword that kills in one hit; and the Wraith tank, the Covenant main tank that has a boost and fires plasma mortars. These help open up the Halo sandbox a bit, especially with the new Wraith tank, sort of a "different but equal" stance at play here as each new addition has it's one benefit against their UNSC counterpart which adds a layer of thought in strategy with how you loadout.

Speaking of which, changes have been made to vehicles, the UNSC only gain a Gauss variant of the Warthog with a more powerful main cannon. While the Covenant gain the Spectre, a Warthog answer with a less powerful cannon but a boost and four man seating in return. The biggest change made to vehicles however is two things, one is that vehicles now degrade and can be destroyed. Sure the Ghost and Banshee had healthbars, but now all vehicles are destructible and degrade in visual quality the more damage they take until they, ya know, explode. Another change is the ability to hijack vehicles, if you maneuver just right, you can steal vehicle from the enemy and kill them with it. It's a great feeling to pull off and makes the vehicles feel like they belong more in the sandbox.

Now as for multiplayer, there's an online mode and you can now play as Elites... that's it. Yeah outside of the new sand box changes that I mentioned in the Campaign not much has changed, which given this was the first truly online Halo makes sense. But it does damper replayability a bit because once you play some matches for around and hour or so, there's nothing stopping you from getting bored, especially with online being no more. That said, my Dad, Brother, and I squeezed three years out of this game on local play alone so it's not all bad, but it is worse when compared to later installments.

Final thing worth mentioning is that, on a technical level, Halo 2 is a mess. Sudden texture pop in, choppy frame rate, muddier graphics, and weird facial designs. Halo 2 is painful to look at, even compared to Halo 1 which never had these issues. Though composer Marty O'Donnell, whose excellent score I didn't even mention last time, is still at his A game here with memorable tunes and fantastic remixes. Also some new artists join in, such as emo rock band Breaking Benjamin popping in with an instrumental mix of "Blow Me Away." Which is weird but they make it weird, unlike with Hoobastank doing a song on the Halo 2 soundtrack. Which is one thing Halo did before Sonic, Hoobastank music. Though I am glad it never was in the game, that would have been a weird tone pace to move from instrumental compositions to semi emo "Please take me seriously" rock.

Halo 2 improves in some areas, adds some new refreshing characters, refines the Halo sandbox and fixes Halo 1's second half issue. However, repetitive levels, monotonous design, and lack of real multiplayer innovation from Halo 1 earn this game a once over. Something you should only play once every few years, if that, easily the worst of the original trilogy and possibly all the Bungie Halo games. It's not awful, just not one I want to return to anytime soon. Though who knows, that may just be 15 years of experience talking and I won't lie, going back was a good time. So make of that what you will.