Halo 2 (XBOX)
Price: $69.90
Date of Release: Available

TV Sets And Sleep Not Included

By Saw Lidong • UrbanWire
email reporter • email story • print version

The wait is over, Halo 2 has finally hit retail outlets all over the island. Master Chief and the Covenant are set to duke it out on Earth after the cat and mouse games on Halo. However, the wait just got longer for my family whenever they wanted to use the TV set. Only when my parents threatened to smash it up did I relinquish my stranglehold on it. Not because I cared that much for it, but rather, it was the only TV set we have.

Regardless, I still managed to squeeze out an hour or 2 on the Xbox every night after they hit the sack. And mind you, it didn’t take that many nights to finish the game (about 10 hours). Reminiscent of the highly acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved, from which it evolved, Halo 2 is essentially a beefed up version of its predecessor. Still, it’s hard to fault Bungie Studios for sticking to a proven formula. After all, as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Halo 2 packs the same great looking action, exciting gameplay and over the top movie sequences, which made the original as addictive as a Hollywood blockbuster on steroids

Significant improvements to the graphics (lots of bump mapping), great voice talents (David Cross, Ron Perlman), compelling musical scores featuring the bands of Hoobastank and Incubus, and the occasional Steve Vai guitar riff, also help fully immerse you in the action. And despite the pacing of storyline being rather choppy and confusing, and culminating to an extremely disappointing conclusion (I’ll get to that in a while), Halo 2 is still an exhilarating console first person shooter experience and should be on every Xbox owner’s Christmas wish list.

Pulling off a Wachowski

Halo 2 kicks off right after the destruction of Halo at the end of Halo 1. There’ll be this cut scene of a Covenant fleet commander (the one that lay siege on Halo) being put on trial, intertwined with scenes of the Master Chief receiving military commendations from an admiral. This is exactly how the whole game plays out. Initially, you’ll assume the role of the Master Chief, repelling a Covenant invasion of Earth on a space station and then in a city on the African continent. Before long, and a few more Covenant cut scenes later, it’ll dawn on you that you’ll be playing as a Covenant Elite as well.

This shift in focus, away from the Master Chief, allows you to discover more about the Covenant, their existence and motives. Interestingly, siding with a badass alien race that’s after humanity’s hide isn’t as awkward as you’d think, in fact, telling the story from a Covenant perspective opens you up a whole new dimension in the Halo universe, enriching the already existing plotlines. However, this constant switching of sides is rather poorly executed. The game always leaves you at a mini cliffhanger whenever it’s about to switch focus. By the time you resume that portion of the story, you’d have lost all interest in it as you’d already have been exposed to another critical moment in the tale, and would like to see how that plays out. This happens about 5 or 6 times in the campaign, resulting in a very anti-climatic feel to the game. Also because of this, you might experience some rather confusing moments while playing the game. For example, Covenant Grunts who would frantically fire at you, as the Master Chief, upon 1st sight, would suddenly rally around you, as the Covenant Elite. Thankfully, the game, in this stop/start fashion, still (albeit barely) manages to command your attention right to its conclusion.

Now, Halo 2 did manage to keep me hooked onto it until the very end before it, quite literally, cut me clean off. Remember how cheated you felt after watching The Matrix Reloaded? It was like that scene of Neo being in a coma and then BAM, the words “To Be Continued” appear on the screen and then the credits started rolling. The ending of Halo 2 is pretty much the same, except they mercifully left out those 3 dreaded words. Honestly speaking, everything was starting to converge nicely into a satisfying ending. You could almost look pass the blurred plotlines throughout the game, but then this had to happen, spoiling everything.

Then again, there’s probably some Microsoft marketing gimmick behind this stunt, after all, the Halo franchise is supposedly what’s selling Xbox consoles all over the world, so they’ll naturally want to prolong its existence instead of just stopping at Halo 2. Overall, the story of Halo 2, although intriguing at times, ultimately fails to fully engage you given the anti-climax and such a disgusting finale.

When in doubt, break glass, grab gun, shoot

The original Halo was all about high-octane action and gameplay, punctured with scripted story sequences. Where the story component in Halo 2 fails, the action and gameplay excels. Not only is the action excellent, it even manages to drive the whole game single handedly at times. The gameplay in Halo 2 basically builds on what was great about Halo 1, and adds more depth while increasing the coolness factor of being the Master Chief or a Covenant Elite.

For starters, the HUD has done away with the health monitor, so it’s just the Master Chief’s rechargeable energy shield standing between him and the many plasma bolts aimed his way. Once the shield depletes, the Master Chief is just as vulnerable as the average marine and can only sustain a few hits before collapsing. This may seem unfair at first, seeing that you don’t really have as much room for error as you had in Halo 1. However, the Master Chief’s suit has been upgraded to a Mark VI, and the shield now recharges much faster. This major change basically simplifies HUD letting you concentrate more on the glorious action as you’d only have 1 survival parameter, the energy shield monitor, instead of both your shield and health monitors, to pay attention to. If your shields are down, get behind some cover, let it recharge automatically, then resume your assault. You won’t need to worry about health packs anymore.

Now that you can fully concentrate on the action and carnage, you’d be glad to know that Halo universe armory has gone through a major overhaul. Since you’ll now be playing as a Covenant Elite, a whole new assortment of Covenant weapons, other than the standard plasma pistol and rifle, will be available to you. There’s the Covenant Carbine, the equivalent of a human battle rifle, the Particle Beam Rifle, which is essentially the Covenant version of a sniper rifle, and lastly, the Brute Shot which is sort of a grenade launcher. And remember how those Hunters blasted you to death with their Fuel Rod Cannons back in Halo 1? In Halo 2, you’ll be able to turn the tables on them with some spectacular results. Lastly, we have, my favorite Covenant weapon, the Covenant Energy Sword. This is a 1 hit kill melee weapon, which dispatches enemies in style. Just centre your targeting reticule on an enemy and then ZAP, he’s down for the count.

On the human side of things, the assault rifle in Halo 1 has been replaced with the battle rifle. Major differences to note are that while the assault rifle was fully automatic, the battle rifle fires semi automatic 3 round bursts and has an extra 2x magnification scope. If you still crave the power of a fully automatic lead pump, there’s the new SMG, which isn’t as powerful as the assault rifle, yet still extremely satisfying to use. Also, the pistol now doesn’t have a magnification scope, and has been weakened. Other human weapons, like the rocket launcher, shotgun and sniper rifle, remain relatively intact from the previous Halo.

Since you’ll be spoilt for choice with that many weapons at your disposal, you’ll be interested (maybe even excited) to know that Halo 2 allows dual wielding, which means having firing weapons with both hands simultaneously. This opens up plenty of tactical options for you when it comes to choosing weapons in the heat of battle. With dual wielding, you can experiment with various weapon combos, or just go for more firepower. For example, you can use a plasma rifle in one hand to penetrate an enemy’s shield, before firing your needler in the other hand sending explosive barbs over to finish the job. Or if you just want to earn style points, grab 2 SMGs and enter the battle guns blazing, like a character from a John Woo movie.

Let’s not forget about the vehicles either. Vehicles in the original Halo weren’t just showpieces; they genuinely added depth and character to the game and even became essential in some of the missions. Hence, it’s not much of a surprise they’ve all been included in Halo 2, with a few nice little upgrades on the side. The Covenant Banshee (a light aerial assault vehicle), Ghost and Wraith (both used for ground offensives) are now all fitted with afterburners. The Banshee can also perform some pretty neat maneuvers, such as loops and dives, which will come in handy for aerial dogfights in certain missions.

The humans, on the other hand, only have the Warthog and the Scorpion tank in their vehicular arsenal. The Warthog, a crude and efficient 4 by 4, can be mounted with either a manned Gatling gun or Gauss canon. Your allies can also ride the passenger seat, providing fire support. Throughout the game, the Warthog is probably the most entertaining vehicle you’ll get to use. You’ll be surprised at how fun it is, in certain missions, to do drive bys on Covenant stationary placements, or just run them over.

But let’s say you’re surrounded by a pack of enemy vehicles, without any allies of your own. You can either shoot them and hope for the best, or hijack 1 and make your odds a whole lot better. Yes, you heard me right, hijack. You’ll actually have the ability to engage in some grand theft auto in the game. Just picture the Master Chief jumping on to the wing of a fast approaching Ghost, before sling shooting himself into the driver’s seat, kicking its occupant out in the process. What about armoured vehicles you ask. No problem. Just sit back and watch the Master Chief board a Wraith, smash open its steel hatch and toss its stunned driver out. Or, if you’re feeling more sadistic, you can smash open the hatch and pop in a grenade or 2. It’s an extremely fun maneuver to use (and to watch), and also immensely satisfying whenever you manage use the stolen vehicle to destroy your opponent.

Although Halo 2 (also taking its atrocious ending into account), only consists of about 10 hours of game play, you’ll have as many as 4 different difficulty settings to play in, each representing a whole new challenge. Not only does the enemy AI get smarter and tougher with each progressive setting, your allies do as well. You can also play though the game with a friend in the co-op mode, permitting some interesting tag team action.

War never felt this good

No, I’m not one of those Republicans who put George W. Bush back in the White House for another 4 years. But even if you aren’t one too, you won’t even feel guilty playing Halo 2, sowing death and destruction in your wake. The level of detail in the game’s graphics is simply astounding. From the large spaced out combat areas to the textured building interiors to even the dull sheen of the Master Chief armour, everything looks brilliant and alive. It’s commendable how Bungie Studios managed to pack in all this eye candy into the game and yet keep it running at a respectable frame rate of 30 per second. Indeed, computer motion graphics have come a long way since Halo 1.

Then there’s the audio component of Halo 2. As wonderful as the graphics are, the audio in Halo 2 is what really makes everything tick. You still have the same haunting choir vocals from the original, but there’ll also be arrangements of strings and some new age stuff which will cue at the right moments while you’re playing the game to add to the overall atmosphere. Guitar maestro, Steve Vai even lends a couple of his orgasmic guitar solos to the soundtrack. The game’s scripted dialogue is also very well voiced by a stellar cast of David Cross (Men In Black II), Orlando Jones (Runaway Jury), and Ron Perlman (Hellboy). And since Bungie had written more than 10,000 lines of dialogue for Halo 2, you won’t hear the same random comment from an NCP twice throughout the whole game. In fact, the AI interaction is so diverse, they even interact among themselves during or in between battles, which really portrays the whole war scene instead of making you, the protagonist, just a 1-man army. These little things all add up to give you a truly great experience in Halo 2.

On the double marine!

I’m almost at the end of the review already, so why aren’t you (Xbox owners) already on your way to the nearest game store to purchase Halo 2? If you’ve been saving up your $69.90 for an Xbox title worthy of your all-time favorite game collection, this game is it. Yes, the glitches in the storyline are regrettable, but the overall game play and Hollywood like blockbuster action experience more than compensate for it. And yes, I’d also recommend investing on an extra TV set as well. While you may think the world of the Master Chief, your family most certainly won’t.

4/5 Stars

Images courtesy of Microsoft Game Studios