Halo 2...let me tell you my thoughts on this title.
Up to a year before its release, Halo 2 was hyped to be lightyears above and beyond its predecessor (Halo).
I even waited in one of those midnight launch lines for the game that would rock my, and all other faithful's, world.
Don't get me wrong, but Halo 2 was touted to be the best ever produced FPS - with all new abilities, a major portion of the fighting was to be brought back to Earth, and many surprises.
Starting with the controls - if you played the original Halo, then you already know most of the controls. For those that haven't, left stick controls foot/body movement (forward, back, left, right). The right stick controls the direction MC's face looking. The left trigger controls grenade-launching or firing your dual-wielded weapon. The right trigger controls firning your main weapon. 'clicking' your left stick allows you to duck (push in any direction to move in the lower position), the white button turns on/off your flashlight, the A button jumps, the X button reloads your weapon(s), the Y button switches weapons, the B button allows MC to use the weapon as for melee fighting (use the butt of the gun to knock enemies out).
Movement and combat is smooth as can be and checkpoints are about as often as in the original.
Environments are varied, numerous and huge. There are many rocks, crates, vehicles to hide behind.
The game's AI has been improved to handle driving vehicles, take cover/provide better cover fire, and generally assist the MC in his endeavors.
One BIG plus is that you get to play as a Covenant soldier in various portions of the game!
Graphically, the cut scenes have some real issues. they start out with flattened images of the on-screen characters which eventually fill-out to be the expected images the developer was trying to show you.
Though this does not affect gameplay success or failure, it sure can disappoint those who expected more.
For the most part, Halo 2 has more color and variety than its predecessor, but they could have just released this portion of the Halo story as an add-on disk.
The sounds are up to par in comparison to the original Halo, so you can expect no real negative issues in this category.
Just because it's from the Halo universe, it deserves several play-throughs...there's just so much you can see and do each time you play the game from beginning to end, so you're likely to have missed something!
Gameplay: 8.5 - no real improvements over its predecessor, but that's not a bad thing.
Graphics: 9.0 - cut scene graphics needed more work. Otherwise, this installment was on par with the original Halo.
Sounds: 9.0 - no real improvements, but none were really needed.
Replay Value: 9.5 - Come on! It IS part of the Halo universe, and Bungie did do a wonderful job, despite M$ rushing them to market!
The BAD thing is all the material that was promised that was cut out prior to Halo 2's release!
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