The Same Rather Short Campaign Over and Over Again to Complete All the Achievements
Despite a rather brusque campaign and a disappointing storyline, Halo ii is an infrequent shooter that oft delivers thrilling, memorable, and unique moments in its online, co-op, and unmarried-actor modes.
Halo ii, the long-awaited sequel to i of the virtually widely praised, most influential first-person shooters ever created, has a very tough act to follow. Fortunately, information technology's built on a foundation that's as strong as they come. The game'southward success was preordained--publisher Microsoft tallied more than than 1.5 million Halo 2 preorders in the weeks leading upwards to the game's release, which demonstrates just how confident Halo's fans are in the sequel'due south quality. But how is information technology, really? The good news is, the sequel to the Xbox's defining action game is an absolutely superb, fully featured game, boasting an splendid presentation, a highly replayable campaign, and the greatest, well-nigh complete online multiplayer component in a console shooter yet. A surprisingly disappointing story and a fairly curt unmarried-player portion are noticeable shortcomings, but there's just so much breadth of content in Halo 2, and the activity itself is so outstanding, that at that place can be no denying its quality. Overall, information technology's one of the very all-time action games available.
In that location are several reasons why the original Halo ranks up there with a very pocket-sized number of other first-person shooters as i of the definitive games in the genre. For one affair, Halo succeeded at establishing a cohesive, memorable, and original scientific discipline-fiction universe. For another, the Main Chief, Halo'due south cybernetic protagonist, made a great hero. A fearless, enigmatic human, the Master could succeed where pure flesh-and-blood humans could not, and guiding him to victory against the conflicting menace known as the Covenant, every bit well as the parasitic creatures called the Alluvion, made for a gripping story and an intense and satisfying gameplay experience.
Halo's gameplay was amazing in that it seamlessly integrated summit-notch beginning-person shooting with incredibly fun third-person vehicular sequences and outstanding friendly and enemy artificial intelligence. The game's subtle innovations--the tactical consequences of such things as having recharging energy shields, being able to carry only a couple of weapons at a time, the ability to throw powerful grenades in between shots, and the choice of dishing out fierce melee attacks--also did a lot to differentiate Halo from other shooters, and proceeded to influence subsequent games. Halo'due south multiple, well-balanced difficulty settings, two-player cooperative campaign option, and contrasted multiplayer modes besides ensured that the game had tons of lasting appeal. All these factors contributed to the game's well-deserved success, and they're all dorsum in Halo 2. For the about office, the sequel takes an "if it ain't broke, don't gear up it" approach to its gameplay--everything that you loved virtually Halo's action is back in full effect hither. At the same time, the handful of new additions in Halo ii are well thought out and well implemented, enriching the gameplay and making it seem fresh but notwithstanding familiar.
Everything that yous maybe didn't honey about Halo is pretty much back, as well. Allow's face it: Halo was an incredible game, but some aspects of information technology were relatively weak. Almost notably, many players felt that the game'south occasionally repetitive level designs undermined the action, such equally when the Chief Chief squared off against the Flood in the infamous Library level. Also, though the game'south visuals were terrific in the heat of battle, Halo's cinematic cutscenes using the game's 3D engine left a lot to be desired--they looked decidedly rough when compared with the rest of the game. These shortcomings rear their heads once again in Halo 2, at least during the game's campaign. Some of the in-engine cutscenes are kind of ugly, though they're much ameliorate than those of the original. Meanwhile, the action itself is as dynamic and intense equally ever, to the point where information technology can be tons of fun to replay the same sequence over and over, since you'll discover that the friendly and enemy forces you'll be contesting with will never act quite the same way twice. Even so, Halo 2's entrada--though it features a number of memorable, spectacular set pieces--frequently boils downwardly to straight-upwardly run-and-gun corridor crawls, one after another.
All your attending tends to become concentrated on the action itself, partly because the action is merely so adept just also considering there'southward ofttimes little of interest in the game's environments. The level design is quite striking at times--you'll find yourself stopping just to gaze at the architecture--but it's occasionally monotonous enough to exist confusing. Yous'll sometimes wander aimlessly for a few minutes, unable to tell which way is forward and which way is backward, until you happen upon the next signs of enemy resistance. Basically, the campaign is still a linear series of shootouts, some of which are open-ended enough to afford you the ability to choose from multiple weapons or vehicles, and some of which are more rigid. If the Flood levels of Halo didn't bother you, then you probably won't heed the similar sequences in Halo ii. If you don't fondly recall those $.25 of the starting time game, though, you might notice yourself frustrated that Halo 2 follows a similar formula.
Even the content of Halo 2'southward campaign isn't significantly different from that of the first game. Set up to take on many of the aforementioned foes in many of the same types of situations and locales. Of course, the game does have you into some new territory and pits you against some new threats (such every bit some difficult-to-hit flying enemies and an enormous spiderlike Covenant boxing tank), and sure plenty, these sequences turn out to be some of the all-time $.25 of the campaign. Early on, for case, you'll be defending Earth itself from a Covenant assail, rampaging through the war-torn streets on foot, at the wheel (or the mounted turret) of a Warthog 4x4, or in the belly of a devastating Scorpion battle tank. All this is thrilling. Yet while it's hard to imagine a better setup for Halo ii'due south activity than putting the fate of Earth's defense in your hands, the game turns out to accept other intentions, and rather of a sudden changes gears after but a few hours.
Halo 2 gives up some of its focus from a storytelling standpoint, which becomes especially apparent one time yous finish the entrada. A cracking deal of attention is paid this fourth dimension around non to the humans struggling for survival, just to the Covenant and what turns out to be a major political upheaval within their ranks. You spent the offset game indiscriminately killing these fiends--yet now yous're expected to be sympathetic to them and their hatred for humankind. To the game'southward credit, all this adds some newfound complication to the story (even the collector's edition version of the game's manual is written from the Covenant perspective), and the plot itself is executed quite well. Even so, chances are you'll wish that the game spent less time telling yous virtually the Covenant and more fourth dimension telling y'all nearly the Master Principal, his trusty AI companion Cortana, and, well, the fate of Globe.
As previously suggested, hands the worst function most the story is the way it ends, insofar as information technology doesn't. You lot'll see this game's cliff-hanger catastrophe similar a meaty automobile into a brick wall, and you'll certainly be left agonized for more. Cliff-hanger endings are not necessarily a bad affair--some of the most successful film franchises in history (Star Wars and Back to the Future, to name just two) have relied on cliff-hangers to sustain their audiences' feverish excitement over time. The departure is, those cliff-hanger endings arrived in the context of storylines that at least offered some resolution or catharsis, whereas there'due south little satisfaction to exist found in the ending here, and in that location'south no telling when the next Halo game will come up around to potentially wrap things up. There's a good chance yous'll feel emotionally betrayed past the story, and information technology certainly doesn't help that the campaign, at the default difficulty, is going to take an average player less than x hours from start to end. Many excited Halo fans volition apace accident through information technology in a twenty-four hours, or fifty-fifty a single sitting. Yes, the actual gameplay of Halo's unmarried-player campaign is a nail. But the campaign also winds up existence the most disappointing office of the game--probably the only disappointing function. Fortunately, Halo 2 more than makes up for these shortfalls in other ways.
From a technical standpoint, Halo ii's campaign features some significant improvements on the original. Some of the battles are on a noticeably grander calibration, with many more vehicles and enemies mixed in for chaotic, scenic results. Much like the original, Halo 2 features some pitched battles involving more than 2 opposing factions, and it's great to be able to either lie low and sentry the fur fly, or take advantage of the state of affairs. Halo ii too offers a virtually seamless gameplay experience, with only occasional divide-second pauses in the activity to divide up miles and miles of combat zones. Saving and loading is also handled extremely well, in that information technology's done automatically. Intermittent checkpoints punctuate the action, and yous'll beginning dorsum at these should you lot dice or quit playing for a while--you lot never need to manually salve your progress. Furthermore, the enemy AI is every bit impressive as e'er, fighting with nigh the same unpredictability as a man opponent. The AI has a few weaknesses, particularly when it'south in the driver's seat of a vehicle, where it has problem steering effectually obstacles, simply it'southward still interesting and fun to fight both with and against.
Halo 2 plays very similarly to the original, but in that location are some fundamental differences. Your jump is higher and floatier this fourth dimension, and you don't endure damage from falling anymore. There's no longer a wellness meter to worry about, which might sound like a pretty severe change, merely it simply ways that, unlike in the original game, you never demand to concern yourself with finding health packs. It'south merely you and your recharging free energy shields, which once more give the game its tactical pacing--a slightly faster pacing than before, actually, since your shields recharge more quickly than in Halo. Y'all can run and gun for a while, but when your shields are depleted, it's time for a hasty retreat behind cover. You can withstand a few light hits after your shields are drained, but that's it.
It's now possible to dual-wield some weapons--the smaller, ane-handed ones. This isn't exactly an original feature, but Halo two implements it very well, both in single-role player and multiplayer. When you're dual-wielding, you can independently burn down both weapons using the left and right shoulder buttons. This leads to double the stopping power, makes some previously underpowered weapons (such every bit the needler) quite potent when used in tandem, and creates the potential for some inventive weapon combinations. On the other paw, while dual-wielding, yous cannot throw your frag grenades or plasma grenades (which any Halo player knows are extremely useful), and you cannot execute melee attacks without automatically dropping the off-hand weapon in the procedure. So, dual-wielding doesn't dominate the game; it has its place, and it'due south an interesting add-on to the game's tactics.
Halo 2 also sports a few vehicles not seen in the original, but the showtime game's vehicles get most of the attention. Fortunately, they've all been freshened up a bit. The Warthog tin can at present powerslide for even tighter turns than it was capable of before. The Ghost, which you'll remember as the Covenant's ane-man attack hoverbike, is probably the almost fun-to-bulldoze vehicle in the game at present, thanks to the addition of an afterburning that makes it superfast and very deadly as a battering ram (the Ghost'south plasma cannons are disabled while boosting, though). The Banshee, the Covenant'south hang-glider-style flying vehicle, can now perform barrel rolls and loop-de-loops, and it also has an afterburner-style heave. It has a powerful main cannon that yous'll get to employ in the unmarried-player portion of the game, but in multiplayer it's express to its rapid-burn plasma guns.
Likewise, all the vehicles in Halo 2 now noticeably sustain damage when struck, simply this effect is generally cosmetic. It looks really terrific, to be sure--location-specific damage means yous'll encounter the vehicles get shot apart piece past slice, depending on how you lot hit them. However, even if yous're piloting a called-for husk of a vehicle that seems held together by duct record, chewing glue, and hope, it won't blow upwardly unless your shield meter is depleted and y'all're killed as per usual. This seems counterintuitive, but so once more, not having to worry about your vehicle's wellness independently of your own certainly doesn't hurt the game. And too, if your opponent is sporting a shinier ride than yous are, you can try to take what isn't yours.
The power to hijack vehicles is probably the unmarried greatest improver to Halo 2's play mechanics. It'south done by simply pressing the Ten button when you're in the proper position, but getting into position tin can be tricky when you're face-to-face with a vehicle bristling with deadly weapons. Still, should you flank a vehicle and execute the command, you'll meet yourself "remove" the opponent from the commuter's seat and supersede him. The particulars of the act depend on the vehicle (for case, you'll actually have to bash open up the hatches of the game's tanks and flush the coiffure out with grenades before taking command), merely the bottom line is it's possible to turn the tables on a heavily armed opponent. This can lead to some incredibly satisfying unscripted moments in both the single-histrion and multiplayer portions of the game, such as when you spring up and grab onto a low-flight Banshee and fling its airplane pilot into a abysmal pit, or when you jack a Ghost and make crushing its former owner your commencement order of business.
Halo two also features a number of new weapons. The nearly exciting of these is the free energy sword, which some of the Covenant used to brand your life miserable in the starting time game, but which you lot couldn't apply--until now. The energy sword is equally deadly as you lot recollect, though the obvious disadvantage is its lack of attain. However, its accomplish is meliorate than you'd wait. If you lot go within nearly x feet of an opponent and center him in your sights, you tin execute a very quick lunge that will instantly kill the target 90 percentage of the time. In the single-player entrada, the energy sword will prove to be a reliable tool whose only existent drawback is its limited energy capacity--basically, it tin can run out of ammo. In the multiplayer modes, for whatever reason, there's no ammo limit on the sword, which tin can make it seem somewhat overpowered in some of the more-confined multiplayer maps. Whatever the example, the free energy sword is a lot of fun to use. Information technology sizzles with crackling energy and looks as as deadly in action equally it truly is.
The other new weapons include the Covenant beam rifle, a highly effective sniper gun that tin fire as chop-chop equally you tin can pull the trigger but overheats if y'all don't space out your shots. At that place's also the Covenant carbine, a semiautomatic burglarize with a decent telescopic, and its hateful-looking human counterpart, the battle rifle, which fires in three-round bursts and is effective from afar. The submachine gun is some other new addition, and information technology effectively replaces Halo's dearly departed assail rifle, which is nowhere to exist establish in Halo 2. The submachine gun doesn't pack much punch on its ain, but dual-wielding them can exist very effective. Likewise, the massive Covenant hunters' devastating fuel-rod cannons from the original Halo can now be wielded (which was first possible in the multiplayer mode of the PC version of Halo). Another new weapon, the brute shot, is a semiautomatic grenade launcher that requires practiced aim but causes terrific impairment.
Most of Halo's weapons are back, with the magnum (which no longer has a scope, to the benefit of the multiplayer game), the shotgun, the sniper rifle, the rocket launcher (which can now lock on to vehicles, making it even more dangerous), the plasma pistol, and the plasma rifle all making a return. Once once more, the human weapons are basically more satisfying to use, since they pack a more visceral punch. Just, all in all, Halo 2's armory is diverse, counterbalanced, and interesting. Yous'll frequently be challenged to make tough decisions on the fly about which weapons you should hang on to.
Of course, the core of Halo two's activity is withal totally top-notch. It gets all the small, important stuff right. For case, the game gives you splendid feedback using both graphical and audio cues about when you're hurting the opponent and when you yourself are being hurt. There are intuitive indications when your shields are charging upwardly, when your ammo's running low, when you need to reload, and and so on. As a issue, you actually don't demand to spend much time glancing at the heads-up display elements in the corners of the screen--y'all can squarely concentrate on the activity in front of you. Likewise, in multiplayer, onscreen waypoint indicators help you lot go on runway of friendly players, turning into Xs when they're killed and more often than not letting y'all know where your help is needed in a clean, unobtrusive way.
Melee attacks are once over again immensely satisfying and very strong, and consequently are a great way to cease off an opponent, specially in multiplayer. Fans of Halo's melee attacks volition be pleased to discover that there are even more attack animations this time effectually, although for some foreign reason, some of Halo's best melee attack animations (the overhead shotgun bash and the needler slap, to proper name a couple) accept been replaced with less-severe-looking moves. No matter--these are just as constructive as before.
Given that the fundamentals of Halo two's gameplay are then outstanding, information technology's fortunate that the campaign offers some breadth beyond the initial less-than-10-hour play-through. There's a two-player cooperative mode, which tin can exist tremendously fun, as anyone who'southward played the first Halo in co-op could adjure. The game runs great in split-screen (fifty-fifty in a iv-player multiplayer friction match), so the co-op mode again is ane of the highlights. Unfortunately, yous cannot play the co-op entrada online or via system link, for whatever reason. The unmarried-player and cooperative portions of Halo two are given additional lasting entreatment cheers to the game'southward multiple difficulty settings. At the normal setting, the game is actually going to be mostly a cakewalk for experienced Halo players. The next-hardest "heroic" setting is a amend challenge, and should exist your choice for co-op play, unless you lot've been practicing and are upwardly for the toughest experience that Halo two can throw at you lot: the suitably named "legendary" setting, which will bring even the all-time Halo players nearly to their knees. If you lot really want to stretch out the offline experience of the game, merely play on "legendary" from the get-get and you'll have your easily full for a long, long time, thanks to the droves of incredibly deadly enemies you'll be facing. Really, once you finish the entrada for the first fourth dimension, you tin can play through whatsoever of the game'due south capacity either solo or in co-op at any difficulty setting.
Similar its predecessor, Halo 2 supports up to sixteen players in its multiplayer modes, though many Halo fans never got to experience the original game's full-scale multiplayer activity. They possibly played four-player multiplayer on a unmarried system, but participating in a xvi-player arrangement-link game (ideally requiring 4 TVs, Xboxes, and copies of Halo) wasn't exactly applied. Still, organisation-link play remains a welcome pick in Halo 2. Obviously, the ability to play with and against others online this time effectually is a very big deal, especially since Halo ii'south multiplayer is so good. In brusk, this is one the best multiplayer activity experiences bachelor on whatsoever platform. Though the PC is dwelling house to some of the best-ever multiplayer-focused shooters, Halo 2 stands firm even in directly comparison with the PC'southward finest, thanks partly to its unprecedented player-matching features.
Halo 2'due south multiplayer options build on the stiff foundation established by its predecessor, mostly past taking the action online and introducing a diverseness of great player-matching features that help make the online play much easier to go into hither than in most shooters. In fact, these rather subtle features plough out to be Halo ii's greatest innovations. For starters, you lot tin can customize your appearance past choosing from a large variety of unlike color options and insignias (you can also look similar the Master Main or like a Covenant elite--a purely corrective pick). One time you get online, expect Halo 2 to play but as responsively equally it does offline; during the class of several days of Xbox Live testing on a standard DSL connexion, we experienced perfectly smooth, lag-costless gameplay in almost every friction match.
Halo's archetype multiplayer modes, including slayer, capture the flag, king of the hill, and oddball, render in the sequel, and are joined by a new mode called territories, which replaces Halo'southward gimmicky race mode. There are 7 dissimilar multiplayer modes in total, and each one has several variants, which translates into literally dozens of dissimilar possible game types. Multiply this by Halo ii's dozen-or-so multiplayer maps, all of which support each of the unlike modes of play, and consider the fact that you tin customize the game rules to suit your preferences, and information technology'due south easy to see that the potential lasting value of Halo 2's multiplayer component is extreme.
Each way of play is entertaining in its own right--some more than than others, though. Slayer, Halo'southward deathmatch equivalent, is the simplest mode but however one of the highlights. Squad-based and free-for-all variants are available, and you tin can also limit the activeness to item weapons (for case, swords-merely matches can be cracking fun), or enable the use of cloaking shields for some cat-and-mouse action. Again, since the core gameplay of Halo 2 is then not bad, just slugging information technology out confronting other players--or stalking them using the onscreen motility sensor--can be very fulfilling. Too bad there's no selection to play with or against reckoner-controlled bots, which is a noticeable omission, specially given how good the AI is in the single-role player portion of the game.
Too slayer, capture the flag is another returning favorite. It offers one-flag, two-flag, and other variants that considerably modify the dynamic of the action. King of the hill forces players to fight for superiority in a key location on the map. The new territories mode is similarly themed, filling maps with unlike strategic points that can be captured and recaptured tug-of-state of war-style for some truly tense and exciting battles reminiscent of the PC'due south Battlefield series or Unreal Tournament 2004's onslaught mode. Assault is sort of a reverse CTF, requiring players to driblet bombs into the opposing side'southward base. Oddball is a great game of proceed-away, in which you're trying to hang on to a skull-shaped "ball" for every bit long as possible. Juggernaut imbues one player with super force, and compels everyone else to gang up on him or her. You might easily play Halo two for dozens of hours without ever experiencing all the variants of these modes, just chances are, you'll quickly observe several mode-variant-map combinations that actually arrange you.
One potential effect of being able to freely customize a multiplayer gameplay feel is that you might discover some combinations of modes, maps, and numbers of players that aren't very good. For instance, a juggernaut lucifer in which the juggernaut can fly off to safety in a Banshee isn't necessarily much fun, and a four-histrion CTF match won't work well on some of the larger maps. Withal, the game's flexibility is ultimately to its great credit, and the quick match and optimatch features on Xbox Live exercise a great task of throwing yous into ideal game sessions based on your basic preferences, an optimal number of players, and those players' relative skill levels (based on their rankings). To whatever extent is possible in a multiplayer shooter, there'south something here for everyone.
The maps themselves are clearly designed with well-balanced multiplayer competition in mind. You lot'll spot some of the classics from Halo back in full issue here, along with some new maps, including a few that are asymmetrical and therefore very interesting in team-based game types. The maps include sprawling vehicle-focused battlefields and close-quarters corridor crawls, and pretty much every discernible shade in between. There isn't an exhaustive number of maps, but since you need to learn a map to be competitive on it, this isn't a bad affair. Too, any given map tends to take a noticeably different feel to information technology, depending on how the called mode of play focuses the action. For instance, much like in Halo, being in the driver'due south seat of a Warthog won't be terribly effective in a free-for-all slayer match, but since the vehicle tin transport several of your allies, it'due south much more useful in CTF or i of the other team-based modes.
Many of Halo ii'southward multiplayer modes encourage or require teamwork, and to this cease the game affords you a variety of tools for coordinating with your allies. Online, it's possible to find open sessions non just when playing solo, only also when playing equally a team--your entire party can hopscotch to and from unlike sessions. More than than one actor can get online with a single Xbox, too, so while you can't play the co-op campaign over Xbox Live, yous tin take office in multiplayer matches online together in split-screen. During a match, you can utilise your headset either to speak to whoever's in the general vicinity (friend or foe), or only to your team by pressing the white button. Furthermore, Halo 2 basically gives you all that you lot need to set up and manage a competitive team (or "clan," to use the long-continuing first-person shooter slang, as Halo 2 does), and to track its ongoing progress confronting other such groups. As a association, it's besides easy to jump into ranked games against other clans, and Bungie's official Web site records some ridiculously detailed statistics about your time spent playing online, so Halo 2 seems well suited to back up its hardcore fans.
The game also incorporates a variety of systems to punish players who become out of their fashion to try to ruin others' feel, including one that penalizes them with increasingly lengthy respawn times. Halo 2 even dynamically switches host servers in the event that the role player who created a game session quits out. These types of nether-the-hood features may non exist obvious, but they should assist ensure that the stability and integrity of Halo 2's online play feel lives up to standards set by the gameplay itself.
Another aspect of Halo 2 that'southward incredibly impressive is its audio. The game features Dolby Digital 5.i support and puts it to skillful use, since the positional audio can give you a tactical advantage. The sound itself is stunning, likewise. The weapon effects are memorably violent, and they're made fifty-fifty more effective through some excellent apply of the Xbox controller'due south strength feedback. The phonation interim in the campaign is convincingly delivered, and some of information technology comes from some recognizable talent: actors Keith David and Ron Perlman and comedians David Cantankerous and Orlando Jones, to proper name a few. Tons and tons of voice work permeates the campaign, and though you'll frequently hear friendly marines shouting in battle, you'll practically never hear them repeat themselves. Hearing all the Covenant speak English is jarring at first, but their voices still fit them well. With all that said, the music is the best role of Halo two'south sound. It's truly the all-time "graphic symbol" in the story, kicking in at the nearly opportune times and delivering an eclectic sound that includes the stirring strings and choruses of the original Halo, as well as some driving guitar stone that'll really become your blood boiling.
The game's visuals are also very impressive, though they aren't quite as pristine as the sound. Equally mentioned, some of the cutscenes don't look so hot, and you'll also sometimes see low-resolution textures jarringly switch to much sharper, higher-resolution textures every bit you approach an object or when the scene changes. Also, some of the game's environments are relatively lacking in item, despite a prodigious use of bump-mapping, which gives everything in the game a realistically textured look. These rough edges are a fleck of a shame, since the remainder of Halo ii's visuals present themselves beautifully. The Master Primary, with his well-worn Spartan armor, has never looked better, and the game'due south outdoor environments seem to stretch for as far as the eye can see. The game commonly maintains a respectable frame charge per unit regardless of how much devastation is being waged, and its animations, conceivable physics, weapon and vehicle designs, and colorful explosions and other effects look terrific. All this makes the game just a lot of fun to watch, especially during densely packed multiplayer matches. Halo two of class looks especially good running in progressive-scan manner on a compatible widescreen display. This benefits the game's carve up-screen modes, also, giving players more real estate and higher resolutions to piece of work with.
To say that there's a lot to similar about Halo ii would be an understatement. Despite a rather curt campaign and a disappointing storyline, Halo 2 is an exceptional shooter that frequently delivers thrilling, memorable, and unique moments in its online, co-op, and single-histrion modes. Depending on what you lot most want from the game, y'all may find that Halo 2 leaves you lot desperate for another installment in the series--but even if it takes Bungie another several years to produce that game, there's plenty first-rate action and lasting value here to keep you happily entertained till that time comes.
Dorsum To Superlative
Source: https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/halo-2-review/1900-6112628/
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