Halo 2 was a huge improvement. It has better graphics, soundtrack, presentation, multiplayer, and campaign. Lots of my issues with CE have fixed with this one. New enemy types finally make the game more strategic, playing as two different sides of war makes the game's story more thoughtful and increases weapon variety. Dual-wielding makes shitty small weapons somewhat useful. Levels are not recycled and landscapes are more diverse. Anniversary edition is gorgeous. CE also has anniversary edition but it doesn't look this good. Amazingly well-done PC remaster.

I hate one thing about this game and that is, it's way too linear. It's linear in a boring way. I love lots of linear FPS games but this just so closed down and uninteresting. Where are all the big and open levels from the first game go? Delta Halo and Regret have some kind of sandbox elements but damn half of the campaign levels have that long as fuck hold-out levels that you wait in a room or elevator and kill every enemy coming your way.

Overall its a better and more linear version of CE. Besides its design flaws, it is a very good game.

Campaign: 7/10
Multiplayer: 7/10

Pardon me for overreacting but Halo 2 campaign is a disaster. You can see how much of it was cobbled together by overworked devs trying to salvage a project that clearly went way too out of scale for an underpowered original xbox. It was the most frustrating and underwhelming game on my Halo campaign binge.

The first level is the last good level, this is when the game doesn't show its flaws as intensity of encounters is still low and pacing is tight. The second level where the game establishes its worst trope is when it all falls apart. Let's lock the player in an arena and dripfeed 7-10 scarce enemy waves while they die of boredom. Let's do it again! And again! Bungie clearly didn't have enough levels and layouts for a substantial campaign in time, but this desperate attempt to pad out the play time is even worse than copy paste rooms in original Halo as the encounter pacing is totally out of player's control and it's frustratingly, ABYSMALLY slow. I'm baffled how they thought it's a good idea

On the other hand, the balance was hastily retouched to be all around wack: health is no more, hitscan is way overtuned and so is enemy melee which renders close quarters combat ineffective and makes attempts at weaving around enemy positions easily punished. Thus the best tactic is taking a mid-range to high-range hitscan weapons (of which there are quite a few new types in Halo 2) and trying to take out enemies from safe distance and cover. It's boring, and it's a preferable way to do things every time and you'll be in for a bad time if you're intent to do things differently on a heroic-legendary difficulty. These issues are exacerbated with introduction of brutes who are an awful damage sponges and have absolutely no good counter-approach except blowing them off with well aimed plasma grenade or 3 beam rifle headshots from a kilometer away.

The campaign itself is a hot mess with uninspired and constrained level layouts and slow uneventful venicle sections taking up way too much time. There's no Keyes, no The Covenant, I struggle to come up with any level that genuinely stood out. Nothing as dreary as the Library this time, but flood exclusive levels take up one too many spots on mission select screen yet again.

Is it all so bad? No. Arbiter is a good addition and his cloak ability adds some strategic opportunities in combat the game so desperately lacks. The plot is kinda trashy but I definitely appreciated how the story enriches the universe by adding some lacking nuance to covenant and flood. And there are plenty of situations in the back half of the campaign when it pits two hostile opposing forces against each other and lets you use an on-going conflict to your advantage, which is when the game shines the most. Oh and Anniversary visuals are just beautiful, one of the better realized visual remakes I've seen that genuinely enhances the game with some subtle touches original lacked.

But all in all, incredibly frustrating balance and sloppy encounter design makes it the worst Halo campaign in my eyes. It aged way worse than Combat Evolved which was a rough game with genius DNA and it doesn't hold a candle to Halo 3 which made away with almost every issue listed in this review. It presents an interesting case study of what can go wrong during game development when you have a remarkable framework but make unfortunately bad decisions to sink it down. Kind of a bummer.

this game's campaign disappointed me, and i feel that it's very overrated. the first master chief levels are amazing and exciting, but the arbiter levels are stressful, and the brutes are a pain to fight.

the multiplayer is such amazing casual fun, that i can recommend it to anyone who wants some casual fun.

gameplay gets a 3.
story gets a 5.

almost a banal bore of a game

better than 1 only because of little things like the arbiter being hot, but even then 1 has more vehicle sections which is better than 2 being way too fucking long and made up of half levels that're just "spam invisibility and run"

still, 2 only has one "that mission", whereas 1 has two or three of them; 2's undoubtedly the better game but it isn't until 3 that the devs actually hit their stride

Terminei de primeira no heroíco e pelo amor de Deus que DOR.
Ahem de volta para a análise, gostei muito do jogo, trouxe algumas mudanças que continuariam na série até os dias atuais, como o sistema de vida e novos personagens como a Miranda Keyes e o ilustre Arbiter. Também foi responsável por diversos momentos icônicos na campanha que até os dias de jogo são lembrados pelos fãs, sem contar na maravilhosa trilha sonora, onde o jogo se destaca, encaixa perfeitamente em todas os momentos, servindo para te inspirar a terminar a batalha ou para te emocionar em momentos sentimentais, muito obrigado por nos proporcionar isso Martin O'Donnell. A respeito dos pontos ruins do jogo, de fato concordo com a maioria, e acredito que houve um desperdício de potencial enorme ao jogo, grande parte dele se dando pelo prazo dado ao seu desenvolvimento (engraçado, até porque esse é um dos títulos com mais missões). De qualquer forma, um ótimo jogo que todo fã de FPS deveria testar.

A complete fucking mess in every regard, basically held together with sticky tape and prayers, but its so stupidly ambitious and massively overdone that i still think its kind of charming. Campaign is painfully slow, plot is the most typical post-9/11 american shit imaginable, but kid me thought that the in-fighting covenant near the end & the weird direction they took the flood in was cool (i still do). Why is breaking benjamin in this game at the dumbest moment?

Never played MP back in the day but it's pretty good on the rerelease, altho the map quality is all over the place. Lockout and midship are amazing, but what the fuck is burial mounds supposed to be?

MASTER CHIEF, DO YOU MIND EXPLAINING TO ME WHAT YOU'RE DOING ON THAT SHIP?

Really fun game. Huge improvement over Halo 1. Better levels, better weapons, dual-wielding, THE ARBITER, amazing music and hugely improved visuals, Halo 2 is a great time.

There are still weaknesses - the bosses suck, there are some bad levels, the flood are a pain in this game, and some enemies really are just bullet sponges. But these are compartively minor issues.

It's a fantastic followup that adds improvements I didn't even know I wanted when I played Halo 1.

The cliffhanger is great too, leave it alone!