This review contains spoilers
Well talk about a step up in quality, huh? Pretty much everything that I didn’t like about CE is improved upon here. The level design is greatly improved and isn’t nearly as repetitive as CE was at several points, the stories way more compelling, and thanks to the remastered graphics and cutscenes add a greater cinematic quality that wasn’t able to be fully achieved with the OG Xbox’s hardware.
Starting with the plot as that’s easily what I have the most to say about, I really love the split narrative which frequently swaps between Master Chief and the Arbiter. Seeing the villains get more solid expansion on their hierarchy and how they reacted to our actions in CE was really intriguing, and I’m honestly shocked that a lot of fans actually derided the game for not solely focusing on Chief again. We also get a fair share of great new characters introduced such as the Prophets, Rtas ‘Vadum, Miranda Keyes, Tartarus and the Gravemind. Sgt Johnson is also way more prominent here then he was in CE which is definitely a welcome. Of course how could I be talking about the characters without mentioning the Arbiter? Between Keith David’s fantastic voice work and the development over both this game and Halo 3, he’s easily my favourite character in these games so far, even more so than Master Chief.
Now moving onto the gameplay. As mentioned I find the level layouts to be way more engaging than in CE, which I stand by. There aren’t reused areas in excess, and if there were (I never noticed any myself) a clear effort was made to try and change it up enough that it still felt distinctly different from before. The combat hasn’t seen many changes from last time, chief exception being the introduction of dual wielding. While I like the spice it can bring to fighting enemies, I’m 90% sure it was why the Assault Rifle went unused for this game, and that really disappointed me. But hey, we can finally use Energy Swords!
Overall I’d say Halo 2 was more than a worthy follow on from CE, taking the things that worked about that game while building and improving upon the flaws present as well. 9/10
Starting with the plot as that’s easily what I have the most to say about, I really love the split narrative which frequently swaps between Master Chief and the Arbiter. Seeing the villains get more solid expansion on their hierarchy and how they reacted to our actions in CE was really intriguing, and I’m honestly shocked that a lot of fans actually derided the game for not solely focusing on Chief again. We also get a fair share of great new characters introduced such as the Prophets, Rtas ‘Vadum, Miranda Keyes, Tartarus and the Gravemind. Sgt Johnson is also way more prominent here then he was in CE which is definitely a welcome. Of course how could I be talking about the characters without mentioning the Arbiter? Between Keith David’s fantastic voice work and the development over both this game and Halo 3, he’s easily my favourite character in these games so far, even more so than Master Chief.
Now moving onto the gameplay. As mentioned I find the level layouts to be way more engaging than in CE, which I stand by. There aren’t reused areas in excess, and if there were (I never noticed any myself) a clear effort was made to try and change it up enough that it still felt distinctly different from before. The combat hasn’t seen many changes from last time, chief exception being the introduction of dual wielding. While I like the spice it can bring to fighting enemies, I’m 90% sure it was why the Assault Rifle went unused for this game, and that really disappointed me. But hey, we can finally use Energy Swords!
Overall I’d say Halo 2 was more than a worthy follow on from CE, taking the things that worked about that game while building and improving upon the flaws present as well. 9/10