Halo 2

The Good
Okay so Microsoft decides to release a game which was outdated since its release. Yes, outdated on release!

Halo 2 was released in 2004 for Xbox and that year the PC had titles like Half Life 2, Doom 3 and the outstanding debut of FarCry.

There are few good things about this game. It's A.I is pretty impressive even with current standards. Some of the weapons are fun like the battle sword. Not to forget the dual wield feature was integrated with the mouse controls perfectly(carry two different one handed weapons). The overall production quality is good & multiplayer is promising.

The Bad
The single player campaign could have been more interesting if it had more depth. The gameplay is equivalent to an old arcade game. Its basically run and gun everything, occasionally drive vehicles. Think Painkiller with vehicles but not as enjoyable, insane or good looking.

The movement and control is a disaster. Still the same slow paced gameplay. Not to mention the zoomed in field of view(FOV) is back, what i mean is you keep getting the feeling that your weapon is zoomed in a bit. This was just making my head pain.

The graphics are okay for 2004 standards, but for 2007 its horrible. Not to mention the bad porting which was done. While games like Half-life 2 and Bioshock run fine on my PC with everything turned up Halo 2 tends to stutter or even lag at times.

Last but not least this game is a Vista exclusive, that means it doesn't work on Windows XP. I find this decision pointless as the game doesn't even use DirectX 10 nor does it do anything to at least enhance the graphics a bit. It does utilize "Tray And Play" which is a new Vista feature where you can play the game as it installs and Windows Live.

The Bottom Line
Over hyped and Overrated is the only way to address the newer Halo games. The only reason Magazines and sites give this game a high rating is to avoid conflicts with the "fanboys". While this game is below average overall, i would still recommend it to a person who is new to gaming or First Person Shooters as its very basic, bland, easy to understand and got pretty good production.

And should you upgrade to Vista for this? I wouldn't recommend it if you're solely doing it for this game but hey its your choice.

The Good
(Review for the single player campaign, normal difficulty.)

The best Gamepad support ever in a computer game. It feels just like a console game. If you just wanna play Halo, there's no need to buy an Xbox anymore. (But you will wanna get an Xbox 360 after this, because Halo 2 is so good, you will wanna play Halo 3 and Halo Wars.) The length is just right, not too long. The final level is challenging, with a memorable final boss fight. Overall, the normal difficulty is entirely reasonable, and never frustrates you, and you never get stuck at one point for very long. You NEVER need to read/watch any walkthroughs. The paths and what you should do next are entirely clear to you.

Dual weapon wielding creates some frantic battles. The firepower is doubled, and enemies die so much faster. As a result, they throw more enemies at you, expecting you to use the dual wielding ability to fight them off. The dual-Needler is the most useful combination. The action is so intense and fun. When you are wielding two weapons, you can still reload your guns with just one button, and it's a lot of fun watching your character do that, even though it makes no sense at all. (You only have two hands, so how are you able to reload without dropping a weapon first?)

Halo 2 is actually shown on the HBO series The Wire (I think it was season 4). There's some poor black kid playing the game at the end of an episode. It's not such a bad neighborhood after all huh?

Two best moments: - Driving a tank across a bridge, with your team launching an epic attack on this giant, futuristic-looking building. After playing this, I won't need to travel anymore. I got the best view in the world right here on my computer screen. It felt like the end of the world.

• Walking through a long tunnel. I walked for about two minutes with no enemies at all. It was a quiet, minimal, and mesmerizing experience. It's two minutes of peace during times of war. It changes you. I think everyone should experience two minutes of spiritual serenity everyday, as demonstrated in this particular level of Halo 2.
  
  The Bad
  Halo 1 didn't have any faults, and Halo 2 managed to introduce quite a few.

When you play as the Arbiter, some of the enemies (Covenant) in Halo 1 will become your allies. But it's not really easy/possible to tell which monsters are your allies. You'll end up shooting your own teammates a lot. This is the biggest problem in Halo 2. It feels horrible. I already killed a lot of those monsters in Halo 1, and now that they've become the good guys, I still keep shooting them. I can't forgive myself for this.

Too many weapons. The new weapons are mostly awkward to use. The balance is gone. In Halo 1 every weapon was necessary and useful. In Halo 2, some weapons are never useful. The best weapon from Halo 1 (Pistol) is gone, and replaced with a much inferior model. It's like your girlfriend who is a 9 is gone, and your current girlfriend is a 5. I want my 9 back. The fuel rod gun is the only new weapon that's good. It's a huge gun with a lot of destructive power.

The "health" bar is gone. You only have a shield bar. No more exciting moments when you discover "oh my god there's a med kit here! I can replenish my health!" Now, you can replenish your health at any time, as long as you're not being attacked. This really takes the thrill and anticipation away.

The "stealth" element is a bit lame and unbalanced. The Arbiter has the ability to cloak. Very cool and useful. During some levels, you can choose to kill all enemies, or you can just walk right past them and still able to get to the next checkpoint. Why put those enemies there at all then? Since first-person shooters are all about shooting, killing, explosions, I wanna kill my enemies. I don't wanna skip them and still be allowed to proceed. Halo 2 sometimes encourages you to skip the enemies, which is against the nature of FPS lovers.

The Bottom Line
If any game developer was wondering why their game didn't sell as many copies as Halo 2 did, I'll tell you why. It's almost certainly because Halo 2 was more fun to play.

The Good
Graphically this game is stunning. Back in 2003 when they showed the teaser I thought those were cinematics but they are actually the in game graphics. Its amazing. The duel wielding of the weapons and jacking cars is huge fun. The plot is probably the best ever for a First Person Shooter and the soundtrack is an extremely well done epic style of music. Master Chief has way more lines than before and now the Elites speak English. Speaking of Elites did I mention you PLAY AS ONE!?! Now lets talk multiplayer. I have many fond split screen and Xbox Tunnel Halo multiplayer memories for Halo and now with Halo 2 I can drop the split screen and Gamespy and play on Xbox Live!

The Bad
This game didn't have the impact of the first Halo. When I got Halo I was amazed and just didn't stop playing. With Halo 2 it does amaze me but my first time playing through the Halo campaign was much fun than I had playing through Halo 2 the first time. The levels in this game are insanely long and even on Normal they can be quite hard. One more little thing about Halo 2 is when you select a level you don't see the medal that tells which difficulty you have beaten the game on. That means no more showing off to friends. :(

The Bottom Line
Fantastic, Epic game. The essential for Xbox. If you havn't bought it yet get off your ass and go down to the store and Buy it, BUY IT!!!!