Halo 2 is out!

[Jean-Pierre Bazinet]

I agree on almost all points...

The only major addition to the first game worth mentioning, is the the duel weapons.
(even that has a problem, as you can't throw grenades with 2 weapons, and you'll usually ditch one, throw a grenade and then pick it up again).

The story was WAY too complicated for a FPS. Not that a good plot is a bad point... but they threw all kinds of chatter at us, in order to keep us from realizing that, really, not much is going on.

A lot of the levels (closer to end especially) can be run right through. As long as you can make your way around enemies, you don't really have to kill anything.

And the ending really left something to be desired.

Now.. having said that, it's close-to, if not as good as the first... which was fantastic. So this is still a great game. Just not worthy of the hype it's gotten.

Now... Multiplayer... ROCKS!
With a wide selection of game-types to choose from (capture the flag, deathmatch, team deathmatch, head-to-head..) and upto 16 players per game, Multiplayer is where most attention has gone.
The only drawback is that connecting to a game can take a long time (in some cases upto 5 minutes). Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

1 player Campaign - 3 1/2 out of 5.
Multiplayer - 4 out of 5.

[carl]

As far as the3 story goes I think it's just natural that people will be dissapointed with the ending, however I wouldn't want the game to end on a farty little run in, shoot guy, save world the end level when I could have an entire third game of flood bashing mayhem that would tie up all the loose ends and restore peace to the galaxy. However for the time being I think it's like any great sci fio trilogy (Matrix dont count) where the first one simply introduced the basic universe, the second opens up a whole big bag full of problems and the third answers just what the hell that was all about so I did really enjoy the story.

In the gameplay sections though I was extatic. Yes it was simply Halo with a few small additions, but then that's whythey called it Halo 2 and not Burnout 4. The A.I on the enemies was improved over the already smart originals and resulted in some of the most intense battles ever (surprisingly without getting repetitive), with some of the early levels feeling like a sci fi Medal Of Honour entry. IU loved the duel weapons option, since grenades are only useful for emergencies, the use of both triggers for both weapons was much better than simply having both weapons fire when you hit the fire button, and having 2 guns blasting tore through an enemies shield like it wasn't even there. Some of the new weapons were brilliant too, especially the energy sword that was just too cool for words, and running up behind the biggest enemies and taking them out with one hit was the bomb (even if it severely depleted the ammo). Oh and I loved the lack of ean energy bar since it's far more realistic that if you lose your shield and get shot then you're dead.

There were some small problems, the flood are no longer unrelenting and so stopped being scary and some of the levels where you had covenant allies while fighting against the covenant just got confusing. Hoiwever overall I was very happy with the finished product. I'd rate it as a very slight improvement over an already great game. 5/5