GAF - Import Review - Halo 2 (Xbox)

Import Review - Halo 2 (Xbox)

Overview

Review

Release Date: 11.09.2004
Platform: Xbox
Developer: Bungie Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Corporation

Reviewed by Ian Pueschel on 11.21.2004

Review Rating: 10/10

User Rating: 7.19/10

This review is a two parter, with the initial campaign mode reviewed by Ian G. Pueschel, and the online mode reviewed afterwards by Sam Altersitz.

Enjoy.

So what does three years of hype, a viral marketing campaign, a leak nearly a month before the street date, and $50 bucks get you these days? I'm gonna say 'Your money's worth,' to start.

Halo 2 gives you a bit of a dilemma when justifying all the hype and fannish gushing it inspires. More than once I've overheard or even participated in a conversation that goes something like, "So what's so good about Halo 2?"

Well, see, you have to shoot a lot of aliens. And they shoot back. It's great!

"And this is different from the first Halo and just about every other FPS how?"

You can do it with two guns at once now!

"...And?"

Uh, do you know what bump-mapping is? It, ah, makes things look...bumpy. And shiny. Listen, do you wanna play or not?

It really is hard to pin down any one thing that makes Halo 2 so much fun. Enemies with keen A.I., organic well-designed levels, an array of finely balanced weapons, an engrossing story, exceptionally high production values--a lot of games have these things, and yet I'm hard pressed to think of any other game that's inspired this level of out and out craving when I'm not playing it. Not every game with sweet gameplay and cutting edge graphics inspires one to play until the sun rises, dream about it when you finally do go to bed, and wake up wanting and ready to play some more. Not since I was seven, anyway.

Much like a lot of the high-profile sequels that have come out and are coming out this year, the designer's mantra has been "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and Halo 2 follows this to the letter. If you've played Halo, you're going to be right at home playing number two. Getting the hang of dual wielding will take you ten minutes tops to get used to, and if you're anything like me, several play-throughs to get tired of. Unloading twin SMGs into an enemy's face never really loses it's charm.

The folks at Bungie have also made it abundantly clear in both the media and the game itself that they were paying attention when everyone collectively said "Goddammit, wasn't I just in this room?" while playing the first game. Very rarely will you have to wonder if you're going the right way this time around, and not just because you'll know where the Chief has been by the bodies he leaves in the dust behind him. Most areas are linear enough to be easy to navigate while large enough so that you'll never have to kill through it the same way twice.

The enemy A.I. this time around has also been beefed up, with Elite's bounding over obstacles and debris to get at you, Grunts cowering behind corners and taking pot shots at you, Jackals ducking and weaving to keep their shields between you and them, and one of my favorite new enemy maneuvers, the Hunter's backward overhead smash, always delivered at the worst possible moment immediately after their signature charge. And considering they can make just about any loose part of the environment go flying with that charge now, you can be certain the last thing you'll see on more than one occasion is that graceful pirouette followed by an up-close of their shield.

And those are just the old standbys. New enemies include the airborne Drones and the melee happy Brutes, both very good at playing to their strengths. Drones buzz about nailing you from afar with light weapons, while Brutes will drill you with their high-speed, high damage guns until you inflict enough pain on them to bring out their berserker nature, in which case they chase you down with their shoulder charges like smaller, faster Hunters.

Add new weapons, vehicles, and enemies to this mix and you'll start to realize the first Halo was practically a walk in the space park. Jackals are now expert snipers with their new Covenant Beam Rifle. Elites zip around in jetpacks, dual wielding plasma rifles. They steal your vehicles. They steal your NPC allies' vehicles! But thankfully you can steal them back. You can jack just about anything and everything in this game, with the exception of a few Banshees in certain areas.

And there's definitely a bigger emphasis on vehicles this time around, with NPCs able to drive you around while you ride shotgun, or just drive themselves around while you ride solo. You can expect to see more than one large scale battle involving several factions, with the full spectrum of vehicles represented all going after one another. New to your transportation choices are the Wraith tank and the Spectre, the Covenant equivalent to the Warthog, a speedy hover vehicle with a plasma turret on the back. New to the human side is the Gauss Cannon load-out for the Warthog, which is basically a giant sniper rifle with a big pause between shots but no reload time. And a damned satisfying KUH-CHUNK sound effect. It's like God's nailgun.

I'll try not to go too much into the new weapons or the changes to the old ones. But suffice it to say, slicing and dicing your way through the ranks of the Covenant with an Energy Sword is as fun as it sounds, and yes the Pistol has been toned down quite a bit and is now no longer the only weapon you'll ever need. Also be prepared to switch arms mid-fight more often, as ammo is slightly more scarce and no one gun will win every fight.

As you can probably tell by now, it's almost hard not to go on and on about the new toys you get to play with in Halo 2, quite a few of which I won't mention for fear of giving away too much. Because there are indeed aspects of the game, both plot and gameplay related, that really do deserve to stay surprises. Even if you haven't read all three of the novels, or kept up with ilovebees.com, I think most people will be pleasantly surprised at presentation and quality of the story here.

Actually, you may even better off if you haven't delved deep into Halo's peripheral mediums as they're pretty damned coy about making any reference whatsoever to anything outside of the first Halo. Indeed, the only answer you'll get about Sgt. Johnson's miraculous survival of the previous conflict is "That's classified." Of course, not even the books go into what Johnson was doing during the last few minutes of the game as seen on the Legendary setting, but that's probably a good thing.

Further bolstering the game's thematic strengths are the addition of several high profile names to the voice acting cast, with performers from film, television, and the cover of this month's Maxim providing lines for the major characters to the NPCs that accompany you into battle. So if you've ever fantasized about handing Michele Rodriguez a rocket launcher and giving her a ride on your tank--and who hasn't--Halo 2 has got you covered.

Aurally speaking the voice portion of the game isn't the only aspect to get the celebrity touch with Incubus, Breaking Benjamin, and Hoobastank all contributing instrumental pieces to be featured during gameplay. I have to say I was pretty impressed with the pieces they made, for the most part they fit the context and the action of where they were played and I actually wouldn't have minded hearing them more than once, a rarity for most "specially composed for the game!" songs I hear. It probably helped that being a hardcore fan of the first game was apparently a prerequisite for working on the soundtrack.

While I can't personally make a direct comparison to Doom 3, I can compare Halo 2 to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, a game that has been graphically compared to Doom 3. Halo 2, for the most part, stacks up pretty well against the highly detailed first person stealth game. While you won't see the same amount of realistic detail in the character models or extensively motion-captured animations, Halo 2 is sufficiently impressive enough to inspire quite a few "Wow" moments inside and outside the entirely game engine-created cinematics. Everything and everyone more than surpasses any recently set bar for graphical excellence.

The biggest complaint I would have had about the graphics was one Bungie recently addressed, a nasty case of texture popping during cutscenes in which you would see the textures and bump maps be applied to a scene as you watched it, causing everything to "pop" into existence one layer at a time at the beginning of any graphically intense section. In most cases it doesn't last longer than a second, but it's still enough to be mildly surprising and sometimes distracting.

The reason for it, however, more than makes up for it. These noticeable but inconsequential pops are due to the fact that Halo 2 has no appreciable in-game loading sequences. Save for a somewhat long one when you very first turn on the Xbox and begin Campaign mode, the only loading you ever have to put up with is a half-a-second pause when you step into a new area. Considering the load times of similar, recent titles and how much those annoyed me, I have to say this is my favorite feature of Halo 2 that I totally didn't notice until it was pointed out.

As I said in the beginning of the review, it's hard to hold any one aspect up as a shining example of what the game does right, and not necessarily because it does everything so well, and especially not in some radically new way. Halo 2 is very much Halo's sequel, and I can't honestly say it's broken any new ground or radically challenged the way one thinks about game making or playing. But even so, at the end of the game my biggest complaint is also probably one of the best compliments I can give any game: I want more. Not for lack of content, but for the fact that I just can't get enough. Halo 2 has, and this is ever the reviewer's caveat, "for me," that undeniable and elusive quality of "fun." To give it less than a ten is to set that bar just a little too high.

Halo 2 Online Multiplayer reviewed by Sam Altersitz:

One thing people asked for, ever since finishing the campaign of the original Halo, was the ability to take Halo online. Many people asked, nay, demanded that Bungie and Microsoft release a Halo 1.5 after the release of Xbox Live. Alas, this was not to be, and gamers wanting to take Halo online were stuck with laggy tunneling software solutions like XBconnect or GameSpy Tunnel.

Halo 2 changes all of this.

Bungie has finally granted us the wish many of us have had for nigh on three years now: Halo online. Halo 2 is fully Xbox Live compatible, and this is good. This is beyond good, really; this is great.

Getting used to the way Halo 2 works on XBL can be a little daunting at first, but after just a few short sessions, it becomes almost second nature. This is mainly because of how Halo 2 differs from other XBL games in the way it works its matchmaking goodness. To put it bluntly, Halo 2 takes everything you know about XBL, turns it inside out and upside down, and then throws it back in your face.

There are two types of games that can be played on XBL in Halo 2, ranked and unranked. The ranked games are what you will be a little surprised with at first... so let's focus on the unranked games. The unranked games are listed as custom games, and they are made and played like any other XBL game you're used to. The host sets up the game options, including the types (Slayer, Team Slayer, CTF, etc.), weapons used, and map. Then the host starts the game, and everyone in the room goes to play. This is classic XBL, and it is very easy to get into.

For the ranked games, though, things work differently. When you join a ranked game, the game type is chosen randomly, as are the rules, from the basic type of game mode you have chosen (Rumble Pit, Team Skirmish, Minor Clan Battle, Big Team Skirmish, Major Clan Battle, Training Grounds-- unranked games chosen at random); you have no control over the type of game chosen, at all, beyond the main game type you chose. This might seem a bit strange, but the reasons behind it are sound, in theory, since it allows all types of games to be played, while not letting people who are really good at one aspect to just dominate in that particular game all the time, while never playing another game type, ever.

Halo 2 also ranks you based on your performance in each type of match, so while you may be a level 8 Rumble Pit player, you could still be a level 1 Big Team Battle player. Ranks are used to try and keep people of similar skill level together in matches.

For both types of games, though, Halo 2 uses an incredibly useful system of keeping friends together: the party system. To join a party, simply find a friend and select join party if the option is available; or start your own and invite your own friends to play. The nice thing about this is that when finding ranked or Training Ground games, your entire party goes to join the games; and for team games, Halo 2 attempts to keep your party on the same team as much as possible. This is very helpful, especially since you often want to be on the same team as your friends.

Halo 2 also supports clans. Finally, a game which supports clans, and allows you to play clan matches easily. The party system works with this, for as long as everyone is in your clan, then you can go looking for other clans to skirmish against.

Also, if you are the party leader, and you get invited to another party by a friend, you can bring your entire party with you to keep everyone together. All in all, the party system is incredibly useful, and a great idea, both in theory and in practice.

Voice use in Halo 2 on XBL is also done well. Press the white button (or up on the D-pad) to talk to your entire team (or everyone in a Slayer every-man-for-himself-match), or just talk in order to talk to anyone who is very close to you. The proximity voice aspect can be used to talk to your entire team when they are close to you, but they can also alert the enemy to your location, since they can hear you as well if they are close enough. By default, proximity voice comes out of your speakers on your TV, and your team chats come through your headset; but this can be changed in the options of each profile. Be warned, even using team chat can make proximity voice alert the enemy; be sure to use at your own risk if you are in enemy territory.

Still, nothing is perfect, and Halo 2's online aspect is no exception.

The first and foremost of the problems with Halo 2's online multiplayer (and I'd assume system link and split screen) is in how respawns work. I'm not talking of the time for respawns, that's just part of how Halo's multiplayer worked, and it is carried through into Halo 2. What I am speaking of is how the game handles respawning in team based matches. In every team based game out there, when you die, you spawn inside your base or starting area (depending on map and game type); but not Halo 2. Instead, it seems that the calls and flags used for respawn points don't change much from every man for himself Slayer matches. This means in capture the flag matches you can spawn almost anywhere on the map after dying... including the enemy base on certain small maps (which happened to me).

Also, there seems to be some form of 'balancing' issue in Assault games (where you have to hold a bomb in the enemy base until it is ready to blow up), wherein if you die in your base, and the enemy begins arming the bomb while you are dead, you will simply not respawn in your base. This also happens in CTF matches when the enemy is close to the flag. This goes against all conventions of team based games; when you die you spawn in your base, period. That's how these games work, and have worked for over a decade online.

What this means is that if you die in the enemy base, you have to go all the way back to their base to work on your objective, but if they kill you in your base they have to worry about you coming up on them again (although you are not guaranteed to have weapons capable of handling them when you respawn). This helps balance team based games out.

By going against conventions of team based games, especially FPS games, Bungie has given the attacking team an unfair advantage in many situations. Simply kill everyone in their base, and go for the objective. They'll take 5-10 seconds to respawn, and they won't respawn anywhere close by you to hamper you in completing your objective. In Assault, this means an easy scoring of objectives.

I don't know if this problem can be attributed to laziness, Microsoft pushing to get the game out on time, or simple ineptitude at how team based games work. Or, worse still, trying to be genre defining and going against the grain in order to be 'revolutionary' in gameplay. It doesn't work, and those of us who have played team based games for years know how they are supposed to work; and Bungie's way of working it doesn't work.

Another problem is the design of the maps and what game types can be played on them. Basically, all the maps can have any game type played on them. The problem is that this doesn't always work well in practice. Some levels are just not designed to work well for one type of game or another. Many of the maps have an asymmetrical design to them, and playing Capture the Flag or Assault on them can give one team a tremendous advantage over the other. Asymmetrical designs for CTF maps have been tried before, and they didn't work then; and they still don't work in Halo 2.

Congratulations, Bungie, on being one of the few developers who can completely screw up a basic concept such as team based games. That is no small feat, really.

Another problem is weapon balance, as some weapons are incredibly underpowered for what they do (SMG) and others can be way over powered (Plasma Sword). For example, the SMG can be completely unloaded, at point blank range, and not kill your opponent; while the Plasma Sword's one hit kill can be initiated in the middle of the air in a jump--wherein the player with the sword just suddenly changes direction in the air to come down and kill his foe-- completely ignoring anything such as the laws of physics (which they try to follow by having the SMG drift up if you hold the trigger down). The other real fun thing is in how the game completely skips the animation of the Plasma Sword's one hit kill when the guy wielding the sword is coming right at you; he simply disappears from where he was, then appears next to you and you die. The other problem with the Plasma Sword is that in multiplayer it has an unlimited charge, while in campaign mode it has a set number of charges. It would behoove Bungie to put the charges in the multiplayer mode as well, since in many cases it becomes a mad dash for the sword, because it is powerful and has unlimited usage.

The final problem is a lack of maps. If I play single flag CTF on Zanzibar three times in a row one more time, I might just scream. We need more maps, and we need them quickly. There are simply too few maps to play on, even with the three unlockable maps. And, two of the stock maps are just renamed and retextured Halo multiplayer maps, which makes the map count even less, when you think about it.

At least they fixed the 480p problem with the HUD in a recent update, since that got on my nerves to no end in both campaign and multiplayer. For those without XBL, and with TVs capable of doing 480p, though, they will still have this problem of the entire HUD not fitting on the screen.

Overall, though, playing Halo 2 can be a real fun experience. Nothing beats playing with friends, online, that I can't always get to because of where they live and such, and Halo 2 delivers here in abundance. But, Bungie needs to patch the balance issues, get us new maps, and especially fix the respawn issues in team games; and fast.