Halo 2 is an incredible game packed with new features that would later revolutionize console gaming, being the flagship title for the Xbox Live service back in 2004.

In Halo 2, the story goes more in-depth about the Covenant's inner workings and has two protagonists with different perspectives and situations.

The game, in my opinion, does its presentation very well, and it's really more than just being "style over substance" as its story beats are emotionally charging, intriguing, and filled to the brim with effect.

Now the reason I take a star away is simply cause of the design. It makes sense considering its crunch after the E3 2003 demo, but I'm going to say things anyway idk

The level design is much, much more hallway-filled and linear, the legendary difficulty is very unbalanced, the colors feel washed out in comparison to its predecessor, and overall I had slightly less fun than I did Combat Evolved when we take away everything else.

The music? Oh God, the music. Riffs, guitars, Blow Me Away, Follow, these are L-I-T. Remember when I said in my first review that the music in CE virtually asks you to shoot as you dance in the middle of a jungle? Well in here, you've gone Doom Slayer, holding two SMGs while you desecrate the massive Covenant army that was floating above Reach.

The multiplayer is fine, not too much to talk about as personally I had more fun with Halo 3's, but overall still solid foundation for what's to come.

All-in-all, a flawed game but at the same time, another masterpiece by Bungie. It had the scars to show it, but it sure still managed to pull off unspeakable things at the time. I'd honestly rate it even higher than CE if I think more about it, but still, great game, go play it with a friend or something on MCC.

A perfect example of a sequel that manages to improve on simply every aspect of it's predecessor. With Halo 2, Bungie took the Halo Universe into much more experimental storytelling, and I have to just say how much I loved the device of introducing the game through our supposed "enemies", showing us how the covenant view master chief and his actions.

Looking outside this game had the disadvantage of appearing as any other generic first person shooter of the time, however this game truly goes the extra mile to not fall into the tired tropes of "evil aliens want to destroy earth because reasons".

I have to say, I really appreciate the fact that I'm playing all these entries years later, as I really cannot imagine having to wait 3 years after the cliffhanger of this game for Halo 3. Now that I think of it, the amount of hype surrounding the release of Halo 3 back in 2007 now makes sense though....

Halo 2 is visually a quantum leap above 1, and introduces a lot of neat new mechanics, but it is ultimately the inferior package.

Dual wielding sure looks cool, but it's inconvenient to use as you need to drop your secondary weapon whenever you want to do anything with your other hand, such as throwing a grenade.

The story is....far less compelling. Things happen, it's a bit of a mess, the perspective will suddenly switch between Master Chief and the Arbiter, and it's abruptly cut off at the end.

The Arbiter was a nice attempt at a change of pace, but most of his stages (as does the entire second half) suffers from awful, messy and repetitive level design. The levels past the halfway point are utterly unfun and are nowhere near the quality of Halo 1.

All in all, it's an acceptable, but somewhat disappointing sequel and easily my least favourite of the Bungie Halos.

I spent a lot of time playing Halo 2 against my will at LAN parties because it was the only game that my friends liked, and I still carry that grudge to its day. Halo 2's campaign is far worse than Halo 1's - it's the kind of experience where you sit down to replay it, and you realize that you only like two of the game's dozen levels - but its multiplayer is definitely an improvement over the constant pistol duels of Halo 1. As I said in my Halo: CE review, the series's formula actively made the FPS genre worse compared to my preferences, so I can't say I like the game that much. That said, you can still definitely have a good time with it with the right group of people.