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dkirschner's Halo 2 (XBX)
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| [February 12, 2013 03:31:55 AM]
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WOW. Halo 2 is awesome. Infinitely better than Halo 1. I beat it over this 4-day weekend that is (sadly) ending. Every single issue I had with the first game was addressed. The level design is no longer repetitive. They were well done, interesting and fun to play. Many environments had space for flanking, some had cover and some didn't, and the enemies were much more varied, with tough guys being thrown at you early and easy guys still being used in numbers late. Also in the late game were hordes of really tough enemies. These battles were epic.
The sparse story was fixed. This game dove into what was going on within the Covenant, what their goals were, and how they were internally divided and betrayed. You actually spend 1/2 the game as Master Chief, the human hero, and 1/2 the time as The Arbiter, who isn't the Covenant hero, but in digging through the lies of their leaders and being hunted by seemingly everyone, ends up inadvertently helping the humans. The story was *excellent,* and it ends smack on a cliffhanger where I assume Halo 3 picks up, which I will be playing next.
In Halo 2 you can dual wield! My favorite thing was to dual wield plasma rifles. In Halo, it was the Needler, which was still fun. There are also a bunch of other guns, including a shotgun, sniper rifle, missile launcher, rocket launcher, beam laser, and energy sword. The energy sword is iconic, and I remember it from multiplayer. There was always some guy at the top of the ranking who ran around slaughtering me with that sword. But it's fun to use! It was especially fun to use, as were most weapons, with The Arbiter's stealth ability. You can activate it for about 10 seconds, then it takes at least as long to cool down again. Usually, I could just run past enemies while stealthed, but occasionally I used it for a from-behind sword kill.
Halo 2 uses the same checkpoint system as Halo 1 did, which is sort of unfortunate because again I found myself just sprinting for the next checkpoint. These suicide runs were extremely challenging and fun though! It's like playing the game a different way. You can shoot your way through, or try and sprint (and stealth on and off with The Arbiter). I dare say I got very good at jumping, strafing, dodging, and one-shotting enemies as I darted around looking for a way through each area.
Halo 2 had a bit more/fun vehicle sections than the first game, which was welcome. I like that you usually get your choice of whatever is laying around, and the same with weapons. You're quite the scavenger. But it gives you choices of what guns to equip and which vehicle to drive almost all the time, and that's a nice feeling.
One thing I thought might be an issue is that the game would look dated, being 2003 or 2004 on Xbox. But this must have been one of the best looking Xbox games ever because I barely noticed. It looks great. I did have this odd issue where the game would burn an image on the top 1/2 of my TV screen, and keep that image there as the game continued. It was hard to see through, and I ended up having to reset my console every so often if it didn't go away after a few minutes. I imagine that's just something to do with playing it on the 360, or with my TV, but I have no idea.
Anyway, top notch stuff. After Halo 1, I was sure Halo 2 would be better. But now after the excellence of Halo 2, I am *hoping* I am not let down by Halo 3!
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dkirschner's Halo 2 (XBX)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Sunday 10 February, 2013
GameLog closed on: Tuesday 12 February, 2013 |
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