Halo 2 was by far one of the most anticipated games of 2004 that was programmed by Bungie and published by Microsoft. When it was released in November, 11 th in 2004, most fans had already pre-order it months before. Sadly because it was so over-hyped, most people see this game see as the best, no questions asked. While in truth it is a good game, it is not the best.

In Halo 2 you again take control of Master Chief, who gets a new armor that recharges its shields faster but for some reason, it's less resistant to hits after the shields are gone. It also seems to defy the law of physics cause no matter how high you jump you'll never get hurt. Later on you also take control of a Covenant who was the commander of the first Halo attack. Even if it's for the story, taking control of your enemy feels very awkward especially when you have to fight humans. In the first game you had to kill the enemy and that's it. In Halo 2 is more like kill the enemy but have sympathy for them as you watch their blue blood spurt around. Anyway the Covenant has found Earth and is attacking it. How they found where earth is I have no idea. If you are interested in knowing how they found it, read the books.

Halo 2 has some good concepts like the dual-wielding which you can do with any weapon that's one handed, letting you experiment with many different combinations. This time the vehicles can take damage, aside from the Warhog, with damage that's just for looks. In the first Halo game, you had a machine gun that could hold 600 bullets and fire extremely fast. They replaced that with the battle rifle which can hold 120 bullets, fires in bursts of 3 bullets, and has a scope which is completely useless. They have also taken out the magnum's scope, but its firing power still remains the same at best. The Hunter which was the most hardest to kill enemy in the first Halo is even harder to kill in the second one. Bungie made it so that the Hunters will only take damage if you hit their orange skin. You also have five new covenant weapons, the rocket launcher that the hunter use, the Brute weapon which is really just a grenade launcher; the covenant versions of the sniper rifle and the battle rifle, and finally the energy sword which can kill anyone with one hit that it is within range, as long as you have enough ammo for it.

The single player in Halo 2 is very short, it will take anyone less than 10 hours to beat the game. The graphics between Halo and Halo 2 aren't much different, aside from some minor details, and the game's level design are very repetitive. During the course of the game you'll be switching on and off between Master Chief and the Covenant. Which gives you information about the Covenant. The changes between Master Chief and the Covenant are mostly during cliff hangers. Also you take control of the Covenant more than the Master Chief. Most people were anxious about this game because now you'll fight on Earth, sadly though you won't be on Earth much of the game. The cut scenes of the game are worse than the first game; the reason for this is when a cut scene happens, you'll first see the model of the characters then see a bit more detail, and then you'll see the character on full detail. Every cut scene in the game is like this, and the transition between models and detailed characters happens in between 10~20 seconds.

The multiplayer aspect of the game is the real highlight of the game. It is very fun since you can talk to your teammates or trash talk your enemies. Unfortunately the community is mostly overrun by annoying immature people. In the multiplayer of Halo 2 you have ranks in each type of game. These ranks are completely useless aside from making a higher rank person not want to fight a lower rank because if the lower rank wins, the higher rank person loses a rank. Also the energy sword is too over-powered since in the multiplayer it has no ammo consumption. The Phantom, the slow-speed flyer of the covenant, is just a flying death trap of doom in multiplayer. Since Bungie decided to take out the missiles it had during the single player, in the multiplayer. In the multiplayer you have all sorts of game types, which are all following the same concept as capture the flag. The only type of game that is different is Slayer which is just Death match. There are three type of Slayer games, 1-on-1, team slayer, or normal slayer which is everyone against everyone. Since you were only on Earth for a brief time, you'll only get one multiplayer map in Earth. When you start a game, the computer randomly chooses a map, but for some unexplainable reason, it always chooses the same maps, over and over again.

So Halo 2 isn't really the best game as most of its fans would make you believe, but it is a good game all in all. Some things could have been done better and the multiplayer is not really that great and very repetitive; but for a First-Person-Shooter it's very fun with all the variety of vehicles and weapons it offers. So if you're into blowing up aliens, humans, and robots and can tolerate annoying immature people, grab $49.99 and head to your nearest EB. 7/10