Halo 2

Halo 2
Halo 2 cover art
Developer(s)	Bungie Studios
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios
Series	Halo series
Platform(s)	Xbox, Windows Vista, Xbox 360 Backwards Compatible (With HDD unit to store emulation files)
Release	Microsoft Xbox: NA November 9, 2004 AU November 9, 2004 EU November 11, 2004 JP November 11, 2004 Windows Vista: US: May 8, 2007 PAL: May 16, 2007
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, Multi-player, Xbox Live, Co-Op, System-link

Halo 2 is a science fiction first-person shooter developed by Bungie Studios. Released for the Xbox game console on November 9, 2004, the game is the sequel to the critically-acclaimed blockbuster Halo: Combat Evolved. From the day of its initial release, Halo 2 had been the most popular video game on Xbox Live, holding that rank until the release of Gears of War for the Xbox 360 nearly two years later. On June 20, 2006, more than 500 million games of Halo 2 have been played and a total of over 710 million hours have been spent playing with it over Xbox Live since its debut, and by October 30, 2006, this number was raised to four billion. Halo 2 is compatible with the Xbox 360, including its Xbox Live functionality.

The game features a newly built game engine and the Havok physics engine, new weapons and vehicles, new multi-player maps, and a storyline that picks up after the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. In the game, humans, who have developed faster-than-light travel and colonized several worlds, have been engaged in a war against a genocidal collective of alien races, the Covenant. The player assumes the dual roles of Master Chief and the Arbiter, and fights enemies on foot or with a collection of alien and human vehicles. As of November 9, 2005, over seven million units of the game have been sold worldwide, making it the best selling game for the Xbox. A Windows Vista version of the game is under development. It has been announced that game developer Pi Studios will be producing editing tools for this version of the game. With these tools, users will be able to create their own levels for the Windows Vista version of the game.

Gameplay

In-game screenshot of Halo 2. The player is holding a Close Assault Shotgun.

Halo 2 is a story-driven action-shooter game with a first-person perspective. The game features an expanded range of vehicles, including several from the original game, such as the Warthog, the Banshee, the Wraith (now pilotable by player), the Pelican Dropship (still unpilotable by player), the Ghost, and the Scorpion Tank. New vehicles include the Phantom Dropship, which replaced the Spirit Deopship in Halo:Combat Evolved, the Shadow, an unpilotable troop carrier with a Shade turret on top, and the Scarab Walker, featured in Metropolis and The Great Journey, and also introduces the MAC Stations Cairo, Athens, and the Malta. Additional ships include the Assault Carrier and the Guided Missile Frigate In Amber Clad.

Heads-Up Display

The HUD from Halo and Halo 2 changed to some degree, with some more than others. THe life bar is gone, replaced by a regenerating health, not represented. The shield is now on top of the Motion Sensor. The flashlight time, or Camouflage in the Arbiter's case, is located in the ring around the Motion Sensor. The most important thing is the addition of Dual wielding, which shows up as two different ammo counts, one on the left, and one on the right. The player is able to see the body of the Master Chief, instead of being like a floating camera.

Weapons

Halo 2 features more than fourteen human and alien weapons, many new to the series. New weapons are: the M7 Submachine Gun, known as the SMG, which replaced the MA5B Assault Rifle and is capable of dual-wielding, the BR 55 Battle Rifle, replacing the pistol from the original series and fires powerful 3-round bursts, the Covenant Carbine, single shot Covenant Weapon which is the counterpart to the Battle Rifle, and the Fuel Rod Cannon, a more versatile version of the Fuel Rod Gun from the original series, and a new pistol. Some weapons are also redesigned. The pistol in Halo 2 is not used in the same fashion as the pisol in Halo 1, as it is toned down. The plasma rifle and plasma pistol lost the ability to stun, however they are capable of dual-wielding. Needlers are seriously increased in power, and with the ability to dual-wield, makes this weapon lethal with veteran players. The rocket launcher gained the ability to lock on to vehicles are turrets, but decreased the splash damage.

Dual Wielding is a new aspect of the gameplay, as it allows a player to pick up another dual-wieldable weapon, increasing the overall firepower and trading it for accuracy. Weapons that are capable of dual-wielding are:M7 SMG, Plasma Rifle, Plasma Pistol, M6C Pistol, Needler. The weapons can be paired up with different weapons, or with the same one, according to the situation. Some tactics go with pistols, such as Plasma Pistol and the human pistol, where it can be used effectively to take down Elites, or dual-wield rapid-fire weapons for raw firepower. However, the player loses the ability to throw grenades, change weapons, and melee strike until the second weapon is thrown away. Players still retain the original amount of grenades allowed to carry, 4 Frags and 4 Plasma.

Campaign

The game's "Campaign" mode offers options for both single-player and cooperative multiplayer participation. When playing in this mode the player must complete a series of levels that encompass Halo 2's storyline. These levels alternate between the Master Chief and an Covenant Elite called the Arbiter, who occupy diametrically opposed roles in the story's conflict. Aside from variations in storyline, the Arbiter differs from Master Chief only in that his armor lacks a flashlight; instead, it is equipped with a short duration rechargeable active camouflage that disappears when the player attacks, takes damage, or when the 15 seconds is used up.

In Campaign mode there are four levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary. An increase in difficulty will result in: an increase in the number, rank, health, damage, and accuracy of enemies, a reduction of duration and an increase in recharge time for the Arbiter's active camouflage, a decrease in the player's health and shields, and changes in dialogue (in certain scenes).

Many levels of the Campaign are set in huge, intricate maps. The plot of the game takes the player from a futuristic version of Mombassa, Kenya, to a space station in orbit over Earth, to a massive floating city called High Charity, light-years from the solar system. Areas of the maps that players would normally never see due to design constrictions are still fully modeled and detailed, and experienced players can exploit gameplay flaws or glitches to explore new areas; notable examples are the mountains of Delta Halo, the outside of Cairo station, and the skyscrapers of Metropolis, which are called vacations with titles according to the level name.

There is a great amount of hidden content within the game including easter eggs, messages, hidden objects, weapons and super-weapons. The most well-known of the hidden content are the skulls hidden on every level. The skulls, which can be picked up like a weapon (or 'ball' as in the 'Oddball' multiplayer gametype) are located in hard-to-reach or concealed places. Many are exclusive to the Legendary mode of difficulty. Once activated, each skull has a specific effect on gameplay. For example, the 'Sputnik' skull found on the Quarantine Zone level alters the mass of objects in the game, meaning explosions can launch them across huge distances. Players can therefore manipulate this effect to jump to many previously impossible-to-reach places. Skull effects can be combined to provide various new levels of difficulty and/or novelty.

Multiplayer

See also: List of multiplayer gametypes in Halo 2

File:Halo2multi.jpg

Screenshot of a Halo 2 game in progress.

Unlike its predecessor, Halo 2 allows players to compete with each other via the Xbox Live online service, in addition to the original game's support for split-screen and System Link multiplayer. Halo 2's Xbox Live mode offers a unique approach to online gaming that is intended to alleviate some of the problems that have plagued online first-person shooters in the past. Traditionally, one player sets his or her computer or console up as a game server or host, specifying the game type, map, and configuring other settings. The game software then uses a service such as GameSpy to advertise the game to the world at large; other players choose which game to join based upon criteria such as the map and game options each host is offering, as well as the ping times they are able to receive.

File:Halo02.jpg

Production Screenshot of a Capture the Flag multiplayer game.

In Halo 2, however, Xbox Live players do not choose to host public games, and they do not specify individual maps and options to search for. Instead, players select playlists that are geared to different styles of play. For example, the "Rumble Pit" playlist offers a variety of "every man for himself" game types, primarily Slayer or variations thereof, while "Team Skirmish" offers a number of 4-on-4 team games, which are primarily objective-based games like Capture the Flag. Bungie updates these playlists every once in a while, deleting the unpopular gametypes and adding new ones. The Xbox Live servers create games automatically from the pool of players that have chosen each playlist, choosing a game type and map automatically and selecting one player to serve as the game's host (being the host is generally a desirable position to be in, as the host experiences no latency). If the Xbox console hosting the game drops out, the Xbox Live service automatically selects a new host from among the remaining players so the game can continue. Players can create small parties with their friends and/or clan and enter games together as teammates in Team based games. Players may still choose to set up games for their own party to their own specification, and invite others into that game from their Friends and Clan lists; however, these games are not made publicly available. For fairness and balance reasons, certain gameplay aspects from the Campaign mode are disabled or missing in Multiplayer: an example is the absence of the hand-held Fuel Rod Cannon and the removal of the Banshee's fuel rod cannon.

Technical Lead Chris Butcher's commented on the development of Halo 2's multiplayer in Edge, a British gaming magazine, in January 2007. Responding to a rash of subsequent news articles, Butcher clarified his position on Halo 2 multiplayer. He noted his original intent with the game, but he also reiterated disappointment. "For Halo 2 we had our sights set very high on networking," Butcher said. "We thought about the great LAN parties you can have with Halo 1 and decided to try [to] recreate that awesome experience of having all your buddies over to play, but using Xbox Live instead of having to lug consoles and televisions around. Going from having no Internet multiplayer to developing a completely new online model was a big challenge to tackle all at once, and as a result we had to leave a lot of things undone in order to meet the ship date commitment that we made to our fans."

Synopsis

Setting

Main article: Halo universe

Halo 2 takes place in the same science fiction universe created by Bungie Studios for Halo. According to the story, humans have colonized numerous worlds thanks to the development of superluminal travel. More than thirty-two years before the beginning of Halo 2, the outer colony world of Harvest was utterly destroyed by a collection of alien races, called the Covenant. Since then, the humans and Covenant have been locked in a bloody war, with the UNSC forces continually losing major engagements. The Cole Protocol was created in the hope of preventing the Covenant from discovering human population centers, particularly Earth itself. However, shortly before the events of Halo 2, the Master Chief heads to Earth after destroying a Covenant fleet to warn of an impending Covenant attack upon humanity's home planet.

Characters

Main article: List of Halo series characters

The main player characters are the "Master Chief John-117", one of the few surviving super-soldiers of the SPARTAN-II project, and the Arbiter, a disgraced Elite Commander turned into a holy warrior serving under the command of the Covenant's Prophets. Throughout much of the story, the Master Chief is assisted by a feminine artificial intelligence construct, Cortana, who resides in a neural implant and is connected to his MJOLNIR battle armor. The Master Chief is also assisted by the Marines of the UNSC ship In Amber Clad and its commander, Captain Miranda Keyes, who is the daughter of Captain Jacob Keyes (captain of the Pillar of Autumn during Halo: Combat Evolved). The Arbiter, meanwhile, is assisted by the varied races of the Covenant and the Special Operations Commander Rtas 'Vadumee. The Covenant are the story's antagonists, although due to the action shifting between the Master Chief and his Covenant counterpart, the Arbiter, these enemies are sometimes allies. Playing an antagonistic role in the later stages of the game is the Gravemind, a Flood intelligence of unknown motives.

Plot

The story of Halo 2 is told through in-game dialogue as well as cutscenes; the back-story to the game can be found in the game manual. The game opens with Master Chief and Sergeant Avery Johnson receiving awards aboard Cairo Station, a MAC gun platform orbiting Earth, alongside Miranda Keyes. Miranda is the daughter of Jacob Keyes, who died during the course of Halo: Combat Evolved, and Miranda is accepting a posthumous award for her father's bravery. This ceremony is juxtaposed with the judgment and torture of the former Covenant Elite Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice, who is being punished for his incompetence. Both events are in response to the destruction of Halo during the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. The Master Chief and newly promoted Sergeant Major Johnson are awarded medals for their bravery and sacrifice, and the unnamed Covenant admiral is being tortured for his inability to prevent the destruction of Halo. It is also revealed that the Covenant's interest in Halo lies in the belief that the activation of Halo would bring about the "Great Journey", which would cleanse the universe of lesser lifeforms (including the Flood) while providing salvation for the Covenant.

Soon after the commencement of Master Chief's ceremony, a Covenant fleet jumps out of slipspace near Earth. The Covenant proceeds to send boarding parties towards a battlecluster of stations. These boarding parties are secretly carrying explosives designed to take out the MAC (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon) guns which protect Earth from attack. Master Chief finds and disarms a bomb located on Cairo Station with the help of Cortana, while the flagship of the Covenant fleet speeds past Earth's defenses and heads toward Earth itself. Master Chief and Cortana join the UNSC ship In Amber Clad, which is en route to New Mombasa to deal with the Covenant flagship.

Before reaching New Mombasa, Cortana decodes transmissions revealing that the flagship carries the High Prophet of Regret. The UNSC successfully repels the Covenant invasion force with the help of Master Chief, and the Covenant ship begins preparations for a slipspace jump to an unknown destination. The ship makes the jump, and the city is destroyed in the shockwave. To avoid destruction In Amber Clad follows, and discovers a second Halo installation dubbed "Delta Halo". The crew of In Amber Clad learns more about the Covenant's belief regarding the Halos, and Master Chief ultimately slays the High Prophet of Regret while Keyes attempts to secure the Index to prevent the activation of Delta Halo.

The action switches to the condemned Covenant fleet commander assuming the role of the Arbiter. His first mission is to silence a heretic who doubts the Prophets' teachings, in turn starting the Arbiter along a path which ultimately results in Arbiter doubting his own beliefs. Seeds of discord are further sown within the Covenant when the Prophets decide to grant the Brutes the job of protecting the Prophets instead of the traditionally favored Elites. During his missions, The Arbiter realizes the danger that the rings represent: they are weapons designed "to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy" according to the Oracle, not the religious artifacts the Covenant believes them to be.

File:Halo2cutscene masterchief a.jpg

The Arbiter (left) and Master Chief, the game's protagonists.

The Master Chief and the Arbiter meet upon the release of the Flood from Delta Halo. A mysterious Flood creature called the Gravemind sends the Arbiter and Master Chief in separate directions to prevent The High Prophets from activating Delta Halo. Master Chief finds himself aboard the Covenant Holy City High Charity, a gargantuan space station, and pursues the remaining Prophets. During his mission, he finds himself in the middle of an erupting Covenant civil war between the Brutes and the Elites. After capturing In Amber Clad, the Flood, led by Gravemind, arrive at the city and begin to consume and infect the populace. The only remaining High Prophet, Truth, escapes on a Forerunner vessel hidden in the core of High Charity. The Master Chief stows away on board while Cortana stays behind in order to detonate the In Amber Clad's engine reactors to destroy Delta Halo and High Charity if Tartarus activates the ring.

The game comes to a close with the Arbiter's mission to stop the firing of Halo, aided by fellow Elites as well as surviving members of In Amber Clad's' crew. Together, they pursue and kill Tartarus and his Brutes in Delta Halo's control room. Tartarus, however, has already succeeded in inserting the Index, making Delta Halo fully operational. After the Arbiter kills Tartarus, Miranda Keyes manages to pull the Index out of Delta Halo's control panel, thus halting the firing sequence as the Oracle mentioned. Despite this success, Delta Halo's deactivation sends a signal out to the other remaining Halos, sending them all into a "standby" mode so they can be remotely activated from 'the Ark'. Meanwhile, the Forerunner ship that Master Chief has stowed away on approaches Earth. One of Earth's remaining orbital forces contacts him and asks what he is doing aboard the Forerunner ship. He replies, "Sir, finishing this fight," ending the game with an abrupt cliffhanger and setting the tone for Halo 3. After the game credits finish rolling, a scene appears in which Cortana and Gravemind are conversing. This is meant as a further teaser for Halo 3.

Audio

Main articles: Halo 2 Original Soundtrack: Volume One and Halo 2 Original Soundtrack: Volume Two

The Halo 2 soundtrack was composed primarily by Martin O'Donnell and his partner Michael Salvatori, the team that had previously composed the critically-acclaimed music of Halo. O'Donnell noted in composing the music for Halo 2 that "Making a sequel is never a simple proposition. You want to make everything that was cool even better, and leave out all the stuff that was weak." O'Donnell made sure that no part of the game would be completely silent, noting "Ambient sound is one of the main ways to immerse people psychologically. A dark room is spooky, but add a creaking floorboard and rats skittering in the walls and it becomes really creepy. " Halo 2, unlike its predecessor, was mixed to take full advantage of Dolby 5.1 Digital Surround Sound.

In the summer of 2004, Producer Nile Rodgers and O’Donnell decided to split the music of Halo 2 into two separate volumes; the first (Volume One) would contain all the themes as well as the “inspired-by” music present in the game; the second would contain the rest of the music, much of which was incomplete, as the first soundtrack was shipped before the game was released. The first soundtrack was released on November 9, 2004, and featured guitar backing by Steve Vai. Additional tracks included various outside musicians, including Joe Satriani, Incubus, Breaking Benjamin, and Hoobastank, who are all featured on the official soundtrack. The Halo 2 Original Soundtrack: Volume Two, containing all the music present in the game organized in suite form, was released on April 25 2006.

Development

Halo 2 was officially announced in September 2002 with a cinematic trailer. The trailer was subsequently packaged with later Halo: Combat Evolved DVDs. A real-time gameplay video was shown at E3 2003, which was the first actual gameplay seen by the public; it showcased new features such as dual-wielding and improved graphics.

Bungie informed the public on development with weekly Halo 2 development updates which started on January 16, 2004 and ended June 25, 2004. (Archives are still available.) Towards the end of development, Bungie employees noted that they were under "immense pressure" to finish the game in time, including all the promotional tie-ins. Bungie was notoriously secretive and occupied with security; large pains were taken to make sure development builds were not leaked when used for marketing purposes.

The release of Halo 2 was preceded with numerous promotions, product tie-ins, and movie trailer-like commercials. There was a Halo 2 Celebrity Pre-Release Party at E3 2004, in which a private home was transformed to replicate the world of Halo, complete with camouflaged marines and roaming Cortanas. In addition to more traditional forms of promotion, Halo 2 was also part of an elaborate Alternate Reality Game project titled I Love Bees which cost an estimated one million dollars.

On the morning of October 14 2004 a leak of the French version of the game was posted on the Internet, and circulated widely. Microsoft, the parent company of Bungie Studios, tried to contain the spread, and pledged to bring legal action against anyone who spread the leaked version.

Additional content

Halo 2 Limited Collector's Edition

Contents of the Limited Collector's Edition

The Limited Collector's Edition features the regular edition, but includes several promotional offers, a special cover and a special DVD of the making of Halo 2. Also enclosed is the "Conversations from the Universe" booklet that contains additional information from both the human and the Covenant side of the Halo storyline; transcripts are available online. The game is enclosed in an aluminum case with the Halo 2 logo.

Xbox Live updates

A common complaint regarding Halo 2's online play has been the widespread cheating, which began occurring almost immediately after the game's release. Users exploited bugs in the game and vulnerabilities of the network to win ranked games and thus increase their matchmaking rank.

Some players used "standbying" to cheat, in which the player hosting the game intentionally presses the standby button on his or her modem; this results in all player except the cheaters freezing in place. This way, the cheater would be given time to accomplish an objective in the game. "Dummying" involves using an Elite character and a vehicle, exploiting a glitch which would cause a doppelganger of the player to appear. Cheating also includes softmodding, in which a player uses devices such as Action Replay and computer programs to gain unfair advantages, and bridging, which uses computer programs to give a player 'host' status, and therefore the ability to disconnect other players from the game session.

Many players became frustrated and demanded that Bungie create solutions to the widespread cheating. In response to these complaints, Bungie released an automatic, mandatory update for Halo 2 on Monday, April 18, 2005, which eliminated many of the bugs and cheats. In addition, the update reduced the split-screen HUD information, and rebalanced certain weapons to promote use of single-wield weapons, grenades, and melee attacks over dual-wielding. For example, the melee attacks and grenades were made more powerful than they previously were, and the battle rifle now shoots more accurately. Bungie maintains a full list of updates.

A game exploitation called "superbouncing" or "superjumping" is labeled cheating by many in the Xbox Live community, and Bungie employees have described it as cheating when used in Matchmaking. Another group of glitches, which involve the use of certain button combinations, has similarly been described as cheating by both fans and Bungie employees. Despite the condemnations by Bungie employees, players still dispute whether or not superjumping and the use of button combinations is cheating.

Halo 2 supports downloadable content, which allows for new multiplayer maps to be retrieved offline. Four maps were made available to download for a fee on April 25, 2005; in subsequent weeks, five new maps were also made available for free on Xbox live. The Multiplayer Map Pack was also released on that date, as an alternative for those who did not have Xbox Live.

Another update was released in July 2005 (a week after the release of the map pack). The update added a detection tool that would automatically detect and ban modders using modified Xbox's. Modified versions of the downloadable maps allow people to use cheats such as 'autoaim' and 'automatic reload' during matches on Xbox Live. Any players who are detected using modified content are automatically banned from Matchmaking on Xbox Live within six hours. Anyone who knowingly and willingly plays with 'modders' is banned from Matchmaking. Online matchmaking was updated again in June 2006. This update removed several game playlists, and made other changes within existing playlists.

File:Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack.jpg

The Multiplayer Map Pack cover art.

On August 22, 2006, Bungie also added a new playlist called Team Carnage, developed by players at Halo.Bungie.Org. On October 10 of the same year, Bungie rotated the Team Carnage playlist. The current Team Carnage playlist was developed by players from Real Custom Games. Inevitably some cheats and exploits remain. As users typically aim to increase their matchmaking rank by using these, some players avoid cheaters by not entering games with high-level players.

Multiplayer Map Pack

The Multiplayer Map Pack is an expansion pack intended to make Xbox Live content and updates available to offline players. The disk contains the game's automatic update, all nine new multiplayer maps, a documentary about the making of the maps, and a bonus cinematic called "Another Day on the Beach", amongst other features. It was released on July 5, 2005. At release, it cost £15 in the UK and $19.99 in the U.S., available at par in Canada. The new multiplayer content can be used on Xbox Live, System Link and Split-Screen modes. Five of the new maps (Elongation, Terminal, Backwash, Gemini, Relic) were released online through Xbox Live's downloadable content service on July 5, the same day as the map pack. The other four maps (Turf, Sanctuary, Warlock, Containment) were released earlier that year. All of the multiplayer maps are now available as free and mandatory downloads on Xbox Live.

Additional maps

On November 15 2006, Bungie stated that they will be releasing new Halo 2 multiplayer maps in Spring 2007. They will only be available for download for those with an Xbox 360. The maps are being developed by Certain Affinity.

Reception

The first official release of Halo 2 was in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States on November 9, 2004. Anticipation for the game was high; three weeks before this release, a record 1.5 million copies had already been pre-ordered. Massive lines formed at midnight releases of the game; the event garnered significant media attention. This was followed by releases on November 10 2004 in France and other European countries, and November 11 in the UK. The game sold 2.4 million copies and earned up to US$125 million in its first 24 hours on store shelves, thus out-grossing the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest as highest grossing release in entertainment history. As of November 9, 2005, exactly a year after its release, Halo 2 had sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. Official Xbox Magazine reported that the Halo 2 launch was the biggest event in entertainment history, grossing $125 million on the launch date alone. The game sold 260,000 units in the United Kingdom in its first week, making it the third fastest-selling title of all time. On June 20, 2006, Xbox.com reported that more than a half-billion games of Halo 2 have been played on Xbox Live since its debut; it also reported that 9.2 million units of Halo 2 have been sold worldwide. From the day of its initial release and up until mid-November, 2006, Halo 2 was the most popular video game on Xbox Live, even after the release of the Xbox 360; its position was only recently surpassed by the 360-exclusive Gears of War. Halo and Halo 2 are still some of the most played games for the Xbox console.

Reviews and awards

Publication	Score	Comment
IGN	9.8 of 10	Best Xbox game of all time
Game Informer	10 of 10
EGM	10/10/10	Platinum Award
GameSpy	5/5
GameSpot	9.4 of 10.	Editor's Choice
Compilations of multiple reviews
Game Rankings	95 of 100 (based on 112 reviews)
Metacritic	91 of 100 (based on 91 reviews)
Awards
2005 Game Developers Choice Awards	Excellence in Audio
2005 Interactive Achievement Awards	Console Game of the Year, Sound Design
2004 Game Critics Awards	Best Console Game

Generally, the game was positively received; many reviewers praised the audio for being especially vivid. Multiplayer especially was noted in being the best on Xbox Live at the time. Game Informer, along with numerous other publications, rated it higher than Halo: Combat Evolved, citing enchanced multiplayer and less repetitive gameplay. Halo 2 received multiple awards, including Best Console game and Best Sound Design from the Interactive Achievement Awards. Most critics noted that Halo 2 stuck with the formula that made its predecessor successful, and was alternatively praised and faulted for this decision. Edge noted in its review, “It's fitting that we're able to steal a line from the script to sum everything up. No spoilers here, just an epitaph, from the moment Cortana turns to Master Chief and says this: ‘It’s not a new plan. But we know it’ll work.' " According to Xbox.com, the game has received more than 38 individual awards.

The game's Campaign mode has received some criticism for being too short, in addition to some dissatisfaction with the abrupt, cliffhanger ending that sets up the sequel, Halo 3. GameSpot noted that the story switching between the Covenant and Human factions made the plot more intricate- but distracted the player from Earth's survival and the main point of the game. There is also some criticism of the game's on-the-fly streaming and level of detail adjustment, which can sometimes result in textures loading erroneously. Bungie has stated that this issue has been fixed for Halo 3 and the Windows Vista port. A common point of contention between Bungie and tournament players such as MLG is that Bungie uses SMG starts (meaning players will spawn with a sub-machine gun), while tournament players prefer battle rifle starts. Bungie has since adopted settings similar to the ones MLG used (battle-rifle starts) and dubbed the playlist "Team Hardcore" (for team games) on Xbox Live.

In an interview with Edge magazine in January 2007, Jamie Greisemer, one of Halo's design leads, said that the main reason for Halo 2's shortcomings was a lack of "polish" period near the end of the development cycle. Staff member Frank O’Connor admitted the cliffhanger ending was abrupt, noting “we drove off Thelma & Louise style". Nonetheless, in the interview Greisemer promised that they would make Halo 3 a more than worthy successor.

Legacy

On February 9, 2006, Nick Baron announced that Halo 2 would be released on PC exclusively for the Windows Vista operating system. The game is to be ported by a small team at Microsoft Game Studios (codenamed Hired Gun) who will work closely with Bungie Studios. On December 7, 2006, Microsoft visited IGN and revealed plans, as part of their Games for Windows brand campaign, to have Halo 2 be playable from disc via streaming during its own PC installation. It was announced that Halo 2 Vista, as it is called by Bungie or Halo 2 for Windows, as called by Microsoft, would be in stores before the end of 2006, but this was pushed back due to the push of the Windows Vista launch into 2007. There will be a map editor included that will be made by Microsoft (in cooperation with Bungie Studios). The extent of the map editor's capabilities have not yet been made available.

Halo 2 for Windows will link with the Live Anywhere network and have some operability with the Xbox Live network, as stated in the new FAQ section of Halo 2 for Windows on Bungie's official website. Bungie has stated that it will also have networking features of its own, resembling Halo PC's inclusion of free internet capabilities.

External links

Official websites

• Bungie's Official Halo 2 site
• Xbox.com's Official Halo 2 site
• Halo Wikia
• Halo.Bungie.org, Halo news and associated productions

Reviews

• Halo 2 reviews at Metacritic
• Halo 2 at MobyGames