I'm sure anyone in their 30s is more than sympathetic to the difficulties of making friends. Work beats you down, leaves you worn out, and schedules are hard to line up when those in your orbit are also trying to pay the bills and feed a family. People grow apart, they change, and eventually you stop hearing from your friends you used to play Halo with in high school.

Not that those four years were some kind of halcyon, but I do pine for those nights when my buddies and I would lug CRTs two neighborhoods over on foot with Xboxes and copies of Halo 2 in tow. There are many aspects of my teenage and childhood years that I think are best left behind and which I don't envy younger generations for missing out on, but setting up LAN parties is my "walked ten miles both ways in the snow," a sick point of pride for a moment in time that can never be experienced again by young or old. Four greasy, pimple-faced teens huddled around CRTs in a dark and tiny apartment bedroom shooting rocket launchers at each other in Beaver Creek, the way Peter Moore intended... I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss nights like that.

The CRT I have now weighs well over a hundred pounds, and since I'm built like a teacup pig, I won't be carrying that over to anyone's house, even if I had someone's house to go over to. So, while I cannot recreate the sensation of playing Halo 2 with friends back in 2004, I can at least experience the single-player campaign on period appropriate hardware, and that's something; and for what it's worth, I had a really good time going back and revisiting this game for the first time since release.

For the most part, Halo 2 is just more Halo, only with the added level of production you'd expect from a follow-up to one of the most popular and profitable games of its time. The set pieces are bigger, levels more varied, there's more guns, more vehicles, and they even paid big bucks to get legendary comedian David Cross to voice a character. Oh yeah and Michelle Rodriguez is here-- BUT HAVE YOU SEEN MR.SHOW!!?

Halo 2 certainly makes a strong first impression. The opening cutscenes jumping between the UNSC celebrating Master Chief's victory and Thel 'Vadam's punishment for allowing him to destroy Halo sets up the game's main conflict wonderfully. I was initially led to believe that The Arbiter would serve as the main antagonist of this story but was surprised (at least in 2004) when the game relinquished control of him to me. Introducing a deuteragonist and cutting Master Chief's screen time by about half was a bold choice, but one that I think pays off, as The Arbiter is a vastly more interesting character. The way in which his faith is shattered as he learns of Halo's true purpose, and his fight to expose the Hierarchs for their deception gives him more depth than Master Chief, who mostly shows up to say cool guy stuff like "I'm gonna need a gun B-)" and "Sir, finishing this fight." Perhaps there's something to criticize there about how little character Chief actually has, and how he could have been used to better effect in exploring the uneasy alliance that begins to emerge between the UNSC and rebelling Elites, but my vague recollection of Halo 3 tells me that I'll eventually get what I want, and there's still a lot more narrative here to sink into than the anemic story of the previous game.

I have more mixed feelings about Halo 2's gameplay, however. The opening few missions are the strongest, and the game wastes little time in introducing new weapons and vehicles for you to play with. Some may lament the loss of the Starship Trooper inspired assault rifle, but I personally favor the more focused burst action of the battle rifle. If that doesn't do it for you then you can always pick up an SMG and, through the power of dual wielding, it can as powerful as a single gun! Even the Covenant get some new weapons, like the plasma sword which can one-shot most enemies when timed right, and vehicle sequences are better about offering multiple rides, affording the player some freedom in how they have their fun. As good as these weapons and vehicles may feel, none of it would work if they weren't complimented by good level design, and for most of Halo 2, that is the case.

Things really start to drop off towards the end of the game. Levels design starts to backslide into Halo 1 territory, with identical hallways and samey arenas that break any momentum the player may have been building, reducing what should be the most climatic moments of the game to a total drag. It doesn't help that the Brutes - who effectively replace the Elites in the end game - are profoundly spongy and present in great numbers, which causes every firefight to be protracted just beyond the point of being fun. Master Chief's last level sends him through the corridors of the Covenant's stronghold during a Flood attack, and nothing about the level is set up in a way that encourages you to be an active participant in the fight. Just avoid combat and run to the goal. Boring.

There may be good reason for this, however. Enough has been written about Halo 2's underwhelming conclusion, but a significant amount of cut content has bubbled to the surface in recent years to imply that the game was at one point much larger in scope. Take the opening sequence in which Master Chief "returns" the Covenant's bomb, which in the original gameplan would've instead saw him boarding and infiltrating their ship, or Alphamoon, a level that was far too large to reasonably ship. To quote Chris Butcher while talking about Alphamoon: "We were building stuff that just couldn't be played, in any engine, we built, and detailed, and went a huge way down the path with a whole bunch of environments and levels for the game that just totally didn't make it."

However, of Halo 2's cut content, Earth Ark is the most relevant to the final product's abrupt ending. Originally conceived as an ending to Halo as a series (there was no plans to make another game at that point in time), Earth Ark would've sent the fight back to earth for three final missions that would alternate between Master Chief and The Arbiter. A complete walkthrough of how these missions would have progressed can be read here, but my personal opinion is that it would have been a vastly more interesting conclusion to Halo 2, and arguably more than what we eventually got in Halo 3. It's a shame that development troubles and a prevailing need to actually ship a game resulted in a truncated conclusion to Halo 2, having a clear adverse effect not just on the narrative but the quality of gameplay during these final missions.

It's fun to think about this theoretical "true" version of Halo 2 and how it would've radically altered the way the franchise developed, but doing so is a exercise pleasant yet pointless as reminiscing on high school LAN parties. It also should in no way be taken as a sweeping condemnation of the game we got, which I think is very good despite circumstances leading to a compromised end product. It also has David Cross in it, which is at least worth a full star. Oh and Michelle Rodriguez, who is worth like, I don't know, 1/6th of a star. The system doesn't let me go that low so I'm going to round it down to zero.

Halo 2 é uma melhora em praticamente tudo do seu antecessor, as suas novas implementações, como o manejo de duas armas, veículos, novos inimigos e um novo personagem jogável deixaram o que já era bom ainda melhor. Sua trilha sonora está entre as melhores que já ouvi, e ajuda bastante carregar a história que tem mais momentos inspirados que no primeiro jogo. Talvez a única coisa que não tenha curtido tanto é sua conclusão, que apesar de entender o motivo, achei muito abrupta, esperava algo mais grandioso pra recompensar essa Grande Jornada.

Halo 2's campaign is something I both love and hate. The story is significantly more interesting with the politics of the Covenant and the whole story of the Arbiter. The levels themselves are a mixed bag of fantastic ideas and awful ones (that start of Gravemind might be the worst part of any Halo game). The difficulty is all over the place, and the game loves to throw droves of enemies at you seemingly out of nowhere. Not to mention the sniper Jackals. However, despite my issues with it, it's still one of my favorite FPS games ever. Some pretty low lows are balanced by extremely high highs. Stuff like boarding the Scarab, cutting the cables on the gas mine, riding the gondolas on Delta Halo, and so on. There are a ton of iconic moments that make the single player great despite its issues.

Plus, it has quite possibly the best multiplayer of any FPS game. Amazing maps, amazing weapons, and to this day some of the best gunplay in any shooter. I think Halo 3 is the better game overall, but Halo 2's multiplayer will always dominate.

Blow Me Away is still an absolute banger. More games need ridiculous insert songs like that.

Halo 2 is a legendary game with a amazing narrative. If youve been thinking about playing it its a game everyone has to experience. From its defining multiplayer to its legendary campaign. Or the amazing ost. This game for the standard of 2004 is insane. And its such a shame halo games arent made with as much love and passion as these were back then. I will always have so many good memories on this game whether it being one of the first games i picked up for my og xbox or the countless hours ive spent playing it in the master chief collection. Absolutely one of the best games ever made

Still as much of a slog as the other one but it only became boring half-way through instead of a few missions in. I also had the benefit of going in and not knowing what the fuck the arbiter was and actually being intrigued by what's going on with him. It was a real breath of fresh air especially since mister chief himself is still doing the same boring shit.

The battle rifle is such an improvement in terms of raw feel and feedback that it makes you forgot every other weapon is like shooting the nerf guns they resemble.

replayed via Master Chief Collection w/ co-op partner MagesticSapling on Heroic

Halo 2 was the first ever FPS I played, back during its release of November 9th, 2004, when I was merely five. I have no idea how or why my parents were able to let someone my age touch an M-rated game like that, especially since the disparity between mine and my older brothers’ age were rather minimal to begin with, but whatever. It’s the game that cemented not only Halo’s status as an icon of gaming, let alone one for the new generation of FPS franchises, but also gave Microsoft a solidified position on the console market that they’ve been holding over with scattered, rather downtrodden results. That last part is also accurate to the development of Halo 2, due to it being so rotted with crunch and issues influenced from personal life and suit meddling that its bleeding turmoil permeates throughout the campaign, especially during its closing hours and on Legendary difficulty, that it’s a miracle this was ever released and held to high acclaim to begin with. Though, words from the people involved are able to detail this…

Unlike the first game where it felt like a retrofitted Marathon entry, 2 feels more akin to Bungie’s lesser known (and equally harder to access) Myth duology, which in turn was a large homage to the dark fantasy series The Black Company. It’s not quite as apocalyptic or doomed by comparison, but similar inkling is felt: Chief may have won the battle on the first Halo ring, but the war on the Covenant - soon revealed to be the Prophets and Brutes specifically - was ever brewing into catastrophic degrees, and one Thel ‘Vadamee became branded as a heretic due to the immense failure that had occurred for that faction, yet was given a chance, albeit suicidal and high in cost, by becoming the Hierarchs’ newly designated Arbiter. The dualist approach of storytelling gives way to both heroes’ conflicts, with Thel learning about the corruption and outright lies the Prophets have utilized in their false ‘religion’ to propagandized and weaponize sects of the troops for their own gain, Chief once again picking up arms to fight back against the threat, and both of them learning that there’s far harsher secrets the Rings have below than anyone could imagine. Although the depth in narrative isn’t quite significant, and to reiterate the inharmoniously turbulence of the development unearths obvious changes (Miranda Keyes lol), there’s a grander, more palpable pulse beating throughout the campaign’s oscillating beats, there being differences and unveiling of the key individuals involved as the progression continues. It also helps that the attempts of humor is more potent, not luxuriating in the solemn revelations for too long if one cares more about the action than the inspection.

The two sides of Halo 2 also give way to the gunplay, because as everyone knows it’s called such since you can wield two guns. This makes certain weapons more viable, such as the Plasma Pistol becoming a better way of softening up any enemy, but it also serves to crutch others, such as the Needler’s capped damage output for faster speed can only ever become as powerful as it once was by procuring both and going to town. There’s similar improvements and blows outside of this, where the Energy Sword’s dominance is established as one of the best close-encounter finishers, while the Shotgun’s pellet spread and range deduction means it’s nowhere near the force of nature it once was and serves as a mere sidegrade at best to some of the other arsenals it shares favors with. Weapon swaps tend to occur more frequently from either helpful ammo drops, or from beneficial gains via enemy or careful observations in the environments that allows for management and hold of the situations at hand. Plus, a lot of things sound cooler, be it from the arsenal as I hear the pings and energized blasts from each piece, ambiances to , or the way, way improved music, incorporated more often to help give weight to the type of things you’d be doing even if it was in the smallest of doses. Those benjamins knew what they were doin from their breaks, it’s easy to revel in hard-ironed bravado if I had some backing music accompanying me.

It also helps that level design feels a lot more fleshed out as to what it wants to be, emphasizing the linear nature but using that open-space philosophy 1 tried to dabble in more succinct manners. They still couldn’t quite get the reuse aesthetics down, but it’s not as egregious as before at the very least, with better signage and distinctions made to guide the protagonists throughout the structures. Both may be lone wolfing it for a majority of the time, but the way they go about it is fairly unique. Chief’s able to push forward with little issues, while Arbiter needs to camo in quick pace to gain the upper hand, or altogether avoid the firefights. Arbiter largely deals with corridors or otherwise tight compactors in the places he visits, while Chief is able to breathe more often until the chokes tighten up. Of course, the biggest hurdles to go over are all the times you wait for things to happen. Like, a LOT of waiting. Like oh my god why is Oracle like that and why must I and my friend suffer through connection errors that just got patched the day we finished this. You also got the dang gondolas and transfer vehicles in Delta Halo that could seriously use a speedboost. I believe people mark Quarantine Zone as the game’s worst level, but at least you can rush through to the end and only have to deal with a slow ride against the Flood! The last quarter, specifically when Gravemind starts, is when it truly begins to showcase its uneven and cobbled together nature, cause it’s when the first game’s trapping of “just throw a lot at them” rears its head again, only this time worse because of the aforementioned balancing muddying up the encounters. As far as I’m concerned, being able to beat this solo on Legendary is a mark of a hardened player, something I doubt I’ll ever do at any point in my life.

It’s easy to deride 2 for a lot of things, since it’s the second Halo entry to have the flaws out in full force (I’ll go over Reach later…), but when all’s said and done, I’m not sure I can bring myself to agree fully. Top to bottom, I’m fairly confident in saying this is one of the best FPS titles to have graced the genre, especially considering the period it was released in where more landmarks were either on their way, or already established themselves. This one’s definitely a case of rose-tints being tied on, but what can I say, when I first laid my eyes on this, I was blinded by its beauty.

I can now see why Halo became such a big deal after the release of this game.

Everything that was set in the first game was dialed up to 11. The combat is deeper, the levels are more structured, the story and lore are better, and the stakes and battles are bigger. It expands and doubles down on everything that made the first Halo so good.

The campaign here was amazing; I enjoyed everything from start to finish and never got bored. Unlike the first game, levels are reused. There aren't infinite respawning enemies, and the story is so compelling due to the expansion of the lore and the fleshing-out of the characters.

After completing Halo 2, I am officially a fan of the franchise. I look forward to seeing how the story turns out and how the rest of the series progresses.