The first game I played online was Halo 2. What must be two decades ago now, I played duos with a buddy of mine every night I could. I queued up. I played with my friends. I hauled my Xbox to their houses, to summer camp, set up 8 player games on 4 tvs - I had so much fun with this game that I doubt another multiplayer experience will ever compare.

I have no doubt my enjoyment of this game hides some of the flaws from me, but this is the quintessential ‘game’. Great story that builds on the first. Fun, memorable campaign levels that you replay with your friends, complete with hidden guns and secrets. It’s what a video game can and should be. It’s storytelling and gameplay and endless hours of fun. Oh, and they added car jacking. Dope as hell.

I love this game man. I probably could have learned a new language and how to play an instrument with the time I spent on just Coagulantion alone. Great game. Fun time.

A masterpiece of gaming, especially for the time.

Bigger and better than the first game, more characters, more new weapons (sadly the assault rifle and magnum doesn’t make an appearance), more enemies variants, and a really cool campaign with a story that has more layers to it with characters that are awesome. Pretty impressive game considering that it was made in 10 months. Yeah the campaign does feel rush especially at the end. But overall it’s a pretty damn good game. Expect on higher difficulties Ive only played on heroic (sadly I'm not “estoy pro hardcore gamer” enough to play it on legendary on all games btw) but i was pulling my hair out due to how difficult it is. Thanks to the internet... I know what lies on legendary. Overall this is still a masterpiece.

baita evolução comparado com o Halo CE, a história nos conta de uma forma que nos prende diferente do Halo CE que só te largava nas missões com diálogos e poucas cutscenes, esse Halo é muito mais complexo já que aborda sobre a religião dos covenants nos colocando na visão do Arbitro um dos novos personagens e também mais importantes pra franquia, já que foi por causa dele que o Covenant não teve sucesso em ativar o anel em Halo 3, a evolução dele conforme passa os eventos do Halo 2 é bem nítida, ao ponto de se unir com os humanos pra parar seus antigos aliados.

JOGAÇO.

Halo 2 is one of the biggest messes of a game that I enjoy. The singleplayer campaign is ridiculously imbalanced, inconsistent, and yet fun. The usual pillars of Halo combat are still there: great AI, great weapons, great enemies, great (albeit inconsistent) missions. The story is also extremely good, easily my second or third-favorite story in a shooter. Co-op play is also still really fun, as per usual in Halo. However the game's difficulty and encounter balancing is astonishingly bad, especially on the highest difficulty where the game is borderline unplayable at moments. Those are what hold the game back from anything higher.

What a step up from Halo 1 - this game took everything Halo did right, and amplified it, and improved upon most of the flaws. The story was much larger in scope, with the added worldbuilding elements attaching me to the world and the characters in a way the first game just couldn't quite get right. Not only this, but the missions felt much tighter in their design - not completely missing out on the choices of weapons and the different feel that choice would give the level - but refining it so that no matter the choice you made, you'd have an absolute blast along the way.

I loved the two separate stories converging into one, and the new weapon choices were a lot of fun to play with (energy swords are still one of my most nostalgic video game weapons.) The vehicle controls felt much better, and more enjoyable, and the variety of enemies was also much more fun.

The only reason this didn't quite get the 5stars from me was some slight level design issues towards the end, and the cliffhanger ending after quite a disappointing final level (the level was fun, it just didn't quite feel like an endgame encounter).

I can see myself replaying this again certainly, very glad I went back to explore this series properly after only playing around on multiplayer as a teenager. Much recommended!

Halo 2 improves a lot about what I liked about Combat Evolved while adding a lot more meat to areas that I thought needed it. The big improvement comes from the story. Combat Evolved had a story, though it wasn't what I was mainly looking forward to for the most part. I knew Halo had some good lore, and Combat Evolved had some interesting parts but that wasn't the highlight for me (though the Keyes mission was really good). In Halo 2, the story takes more importance, even going as far as to have a second playable character and that was a really cool perspective. The other elements of the game are also improved like the level design, music, and graphics, though I feel like some missions were a little weaker than in Combat Evolved (though that's a minority of missions). Still, I had a lot of fun playing this and it definitely was a step up from Combat Evolved, though I wouldn't say it's perfect, just really great. Overall, very great game with improved elements to its predecessor.