[bad soda]

[XBOX] Halo 2 – SCORE:  7.75
Highest Level Achieved:  Campaign mode only twice, once the day of its release and once the day before Halo 3’s release; I played only on Normal, and only Co-op.  But hours of online game time, days possibly.
Description:  Halo popularity, but this time it went online.  Xbox Live owes its life and current dominance to this game.  Still Co-op through the story, except this time with awkwardly glitchy graphics during every cut scene.

While not an entirely unique game for its time if including PC titles, Halo firmly established the standard for console shooters from the speed and feel of the controls to the selection of weapons and multiplayer modes.  And it’s not entirely surprising that it became such a standard, this is an amazing game had a drive to be the best.  From the custom consoles to the promised sequels, Halo was not an underdog.  Halo 2, however, was the payoff of all the set-up and marketing.

Its release was huge, and the expectations were astronomical, but even in the face of such hype I can’t give Halo 2 a break:  the campaign mode sucked.  The story had inflated since the original game, and now full of its own importance it decided to introduce another playable character: the Arbiter, the enemy alien general who apparently was leading the forces in the original Halo.  Now dishonored, he is assigned to various suicide missions and begins to see the folly of his species.  How sweet, but epically unnecessary and unwanted.  The remaining twists to the story feel so amateur and self-appreciating they’re not even worth mentioning, despite the significant changes it made to the overall story.

The levels, as Master Chief or as the Arbiter, were frustrating and boring.  The most common “area” would simply be a room with a dozen doors locked for no explained reason with enemies occasionally coming out to die.  At some point the enemies would stop coming and I had to hunt down which of the doors was now unlocked, often times with absolutely no indicator because it didn’t unlock until I rammed it with my face. 

Other areas were clearly “vehicle segments,” that were either ridiculously f!@#ing long without a Ghost (the underground highway) or forced dogfights with the Banshee.  In the first Halo I felt as if I had an advantage when they had a vehicle for me, in Halo 2 it felt like I couldn’t participate in the battle without the offered vehicle.

While Halo 2 also introduced “boss fights” into the franchise and it brought the whole series lower, it also brought in dual-wielding and made weapon choices a lot more diverse and allowed for totally new playing styles.  The weapon selection was expanded, and the enemy types received some upgrades and new members. 

And, of course, players could now take the fight online.

Halo 2 multiplayer online was amazing, the maps were solid and getting into a game and playing was painless.  New features like being able to take over enemy-occupied vehicles tripled in cool-factor when executed online.  The years of playing only gradually diminished as players at my skill level (read: bad) eventually got better or went on to other things.  This saved Halo, it made it worth all the waiting and all the money, and I think that could be said by Microsoft just as much as the players.

Greatest Moment:  Despite all the great moments in multi-player, leaping onto the back of the Scarab in the campaign was one of the greatest moments I’ve had in all gaming.  In a flash of brilliant design Bungie took a spot where in almost every other game it would have been a cut scene and gave me the reigns and let me choose where and when I was going to grab a few weapons and jump off a bridge and onto the Scarab.

Worst Moment:  Of all the times getting lost, every anti-climax filling the ending sequences, having to play as the Arbiter, the worst moment was during just some random level where the “switch” that had to be activated to move on had to be shot by a specific kind of gun.  How the Hell was I supposed to know that?