If you’ve read my review of Halo: Combat Evolved you’ll know just how much I love that game, and just how much it means to me as a gamer. Suffice to say then that Halo 2 had some mighty big shoes to fill once I got my hands on a copy in 2006. By the time I got the game I’d spent over a year with Halo: Combat Evolved and played the game’s campaign dozens of times in search for every secret I could find. So, my expectations for Halo 2 were astronomically high, expectations I expected it to not only meet but exceed based off the information I already knew about the game.
Halo 2 had a launch quite unlike anything I had ever witnessed before. I remember this being the first game I saw actual advertising for. There were billboards, TV commercials, people were talking about it on TV and the Radio. It was monumental and looking back it’s incredible to see just how much Microsoft put into Halo 2’s marketing at a time when gaming was still yet to be mainstream. But it was Halo 2, it was the sequel to the biggest Xbox exclusive, and it was supposed to be the flagship title of Xbox Live. Halo 2 was going to be a huge deal to everyone and much like its predecessor did lay down a lot of groundwork for how console shooters would work going forward. But coming to the game after the hype had died down and dust had settled, was Halo 2 as incredible as everyone had made it out to be?
Shortly after the events of the first game, Master Chief is a celebrated hero who has made his way back to Earth following the destruction of Halo. He attends a ceremony where he, and the only other survivor of the Halo incident, Sergeant Johnson are awarded for their bravery and resolve. Captain Miranda Keyes is also presented with an award to commemorate the tremendous sacrifice her father made.
Meanwhile, aboard the Covenant city of High Charity, a commander of the Elite’s is put on trial for his failure to stop the destruction of Halo. He is to be given a punishment worse than death and become ‘The Arbiter’. The Arbiter is a warrior that is sent on the most perilous of missions to ensure the will of the Covenant hierarch’s, The Prophets of Truth, Mercy, and Regret, is carried out. Missions so dangerous that success is almost impossible, and death will most certainly be slow and painful.
When a fleet of Covenant patrols stumbles across Earth, Master Chief and the UNSC must defend what remains of humanity after the destruction of Reach and ensure Earth does not suffer the same fate.
Whilst this happens, The Arbiter is sent on a mission to kill a heretic who has defied the Covenant and claims to have information that the Prophets are lying to the Covenant. The Arbiter discovers that this heretic has recovered 343 Guilty Spark from Halo, who informs The Arbiter that there is a whole array of Halo rings, and that Installation 04 (the ring destroyed in the original game) was only one of many rings. With this information The Arbiter informs The Prophets who in turn send the entire Covenant armada to the nearest Halo installation.
Seeing the Covenant flee from Earth, Master Chief along with Johnson, and the ship ‘In Amber Clad’ piloted by Miranda Keyes hitch a ride aboard a Covenant battle cruiser and in turn are taken to Installation 05, another Halo ring.
Chief and the crew of In Amber Clad work to disable the new Halo ring, whilst The Arbiter seeks to uncover more information about what the rings true purpose is. The Flood are unleashed once again, but this time with the knowledge of what Halo is built for. The hive mind of The Flood, Gravemind, brings both Master Chief and The Arbiter together to stop the Prophets from activating Halo and inform all the species of The Covenant of what Halo’s true purpose really is.
Halo 2 had a launch quite unlike anything I had ever witnessed before. I remember this being the first game I saw actual advertising for. There were billboards, TV commercials, people were talking about it on TV and the Radio. It was monumental and looking back it’s incredible to see just how much Microsoft put into Halo 2’s marketing at a time when gaming was still yet to be mainstream. But it was Halo 2, it was the sequel to the biggest Xbox exclusive, and it was supposed to be the flagship title of Xbox Live. Halo 2 was going to be a huge deal to everyone and much like its predecessor did lay down a lot of groundwork for how console shooters would work going forward. But coming to the game after the hype had died down and dust had settled, was Halo 2 as incredible as everyone had made it out to be?
Shortly after the events of the first game, Master Chief is a celebrated hero who has made his way back to Earth following the destruction of Halo. He attends a ceremony where he, and the only other survivor of the Halo incident, Sergeant Johnson are awarded for their bravery and resolve. Captain Miranda Keyes is also presented with an award to commemorate the tremendous sacrifice her father made.
Meanwhile, aboard the Covenant city of High Charity, a commander of the Elite’s is put on trial for his failure to stop the destruction of Halo. He is to be given a punishment worse than death and become ‘The Arbiter’. The Arbiter is a warrior that is sent on the most perilous of missions to ensure the will of the Covenant hierarch’s, The Prophets of Truth, Mercy, and Regret, is carried out. Missions so dangerous that success is almost impossible, and death will most certainly be slow and painful.
When a fleet of Covenant patrols stumbles across Earth, Master Chief and the UNSC must defend what remains of humanity after the destruction of Reach and ensure Earth does not suffer the same fate.
Whilst this happens, The Arbiter is sent on a mission to kill a heretic who has defied the Covenant and claims to have information that the Prophets are lying to the Covenant. The Arbiter discovers that this heretic has recovered 343 Guilty Spark from Halo, who informs The Arbiter that there is a whole array of Halo rings, and that Installation 04 (the ring destroyed in the original game) was only one of many rings. With this information The Arbiter informs The Prophets who in turn send the entire Covenant armada to the nearest Halo installation.
Seeing the Covenant flee from Earth, Master Chief along with Johnson, and the ship ‘In Amber Clad’ piloted by Miranda Keyes hitch a ride aboard a Covenant battle cruiser and in turn are taken to Installation 05, another Halo ring.
Chief and the crew of In Amber Clad work to disable the new Halo ring, whilst The Arbiter seeks to uncover more information about what the rings true purpose is. The Flood are unleashed once again, but this time with the knowledge of what Halo is built for. The hive mind of The Flood, Gravemind, brings both Master Chief and The Arbiter together to stop the Prophets from activating Halo and inform all the species of The Covenant of what Halo’s true purpose really is.
It’s a significant step up in terms of narrative complexity from the first game and is quite possibly the best Halo story in the entire franchise. However, that synopsis I gave you is basically the entire game because it spends its entire runtime building up to a climax that never comes. Halo 2 had a notoriously difficult development, and it’s a miracle it even exists, simply because developer Bungie’s ambition simply got far too large for what was possible on the hardware. Late in the development period everything had to be scaled back massively, and what’s left is a story that feels as though it only really hits the midway mark. It’s fantastic and is roughly the same length as the first game, but you can’t help but feel you’ve been sold short because it ends on such a huge cliff-hanger just as things started to get going.
The addition of The Arbiter’s storyline gives such a huge amount of depth to The Covenant, and as a result the Halo universe is expanded upon in massive ways. We get to see how they operate, how each race contributes, and how the hierarchy manages such a large collection of civilisations. We are also introduced to new Covenant species, Brutes and Drones. Whilst Drones done have much story significance, the Brutes are very central to the plot of Halo 2 and the politics of Covenant life.
In fact, The Arbiter is arguably the main character of Halo 2. Whilst Master Chief is on the box art, much of the actual plot happens with The Arbiter. His humiliation, his attempt at redemption, his realisation of how blind the Prophets are, and finally, his attempt at sparking a rebellion against the Prophets and the Brutes. He’s also a much more interesting character than Master Chief thanks to him actually having a personality and his understanding of the world being more than simply see aliens, shoot aliens. The fact that he’s even willing to convince the Elites to have an alliance with the humans shows that he’s far more willing to be cooperative with those he has perceived as enemies in comparison to Chief.
Gravemind is also an interesting addition to the formula. This hive mind entity is extremely intelligent and despite only appearing in two scenes of the game (one of them a post-credits sequence), it holds a lingering presence in your mind because of how disgusting and clever the thing is. Understanding that if The Covenant activates Halo it will die of starvation, Gravemind manages to convince Chief and The Arbiter to work towards the same goal of stopping the Prophets from activating the ring. Having The Flood as a semi-ally is an interesting concept that comes late in the game and never truly flourishes, but a nice addition nonetheless.
Part of what made Halo: Combat Evolved such a monumental success was in how it set a new standard for console FPS games with its intuitive gameplay design. Halo 2 does little to change this formula with almost everything about the control scheme remaining the same. What Halo 2 does change dramatically though is the level design and combat mechanics. Firstly, I’ll cover the combat. Whilst Halo 2 is potentially my favourite Halo game narratively, it is without a doubt my least favourite regarding gameplay and most of my issues with the gameplay do fall into how the combat works. My first major issue is that all the human weapons feel as though they do very little damage. The Assault Rifle has been removed and is replaced by the SMG. The only issue is that it’s a rubbish substitute as you can’t carry as much ammo for it as you could the AR, the recoil and spread on the thing makes it impossible to hit anything unless its standing right in front of you, and as I stated earlier it does barely any damage. You’ll often have to empty over two clips of ammo into an Elite or Brute in order to actually kill one, and by that point you’re almost out of ammo entirely. Some weapons do now have the ability to be dual-wielded, and whilst this sounds like a great idea in concept (and it certainly does have its uses occasionally) more often than not it is actually a hindrance because you lose the ability to throw grenades or melee, and human weapons then take twice as long to reload as usual.
There are new additions in both types of weapon, human and Covenant, but the best additions by far are the Battle Rife (Human) and Carbine (Covenant). Both are medium to long range precision weapons that have a zoom scope on them. If you manage to land just a few successful shots on enemy weak spots then you can put them down very quickly. The problem is that much of Halo 2 takes place in tight spaces, meaning you don’t often get to take advantage of the long-range abilities of these weapons.
The addition of The Arbiter’s storyline gives such a huge amount of depth to The Covenant, and as a result the Halo universe is expanded upon in massive ways. We get to see how they operate, how each race contributes, and how the hierarchy manages such a large collection of civilisations. We are also introduced to new Covenant species, Brutes and Drones. Whilst Drones done have much story significance, the Brutes are very central to the plot of Halo 2 and the politics of Covenant life.
In fact, The Arbiter is arguably the main character of Halo 2. Whilst Master Chief is on the box art, much of the actual plot happens with The Arbiter. His humiliation, his attempt at redemption, his realisation of how blind the Prophets are, and finally, his attempt at sparking a rebellion against the Prophets and the Brutes. He’s also a much more interesting character than Master Chief thanks to him actually having a personality and his understanding of the world being more than simply see aliens, shoot aliens. The fact that he’s even willing to convince the Elites to have an alliance with the humans shows that he’s far more willing to be cooperative with those he has perceived as enemies in comparison to Chief.
Gravemind is also an interesting addition to the formula. This hive mind entity is extremely intelligent and despite only appearing in two scenes of the game (one of them a post-credits sequence), it holds a lingering presence in your mind because of how disgusting and clever the thing is. Understanding that if The Covenant activates Halo it will die of starvation, Gravemind manages to convince Chief and The Arbiter to work towards the same goal of stopping the Prophets from activating the ring. Having The Flood as a semi-ally is an interesting concept that comes late in the game and never truly flourishes, but a nice addition nonetheless.
Part of what made Halo: Combat Evolved such a monumental success was in how it set a new standard for console FPS games with its intuitive gameplay design. Halo 2 does little to change this formula with almost everything about the control scheme remaining the same. What Halo 2 does change dramatically though is the level design and combat mechanics. Firstly, I’ll cover the combat. Whilst Halo 2 is potentially my favourite Halo game narratively, it is without a doubt my least favourite regarding gameplay and most of my issues with the gameplay do fall into how the combat works. My first major issue is that all the human weapons feel as though they do very little damage. The Assault Rifle has been removed and is replaced by the SMG. The only issue is that it’s a rubbish substitute as you can’t carry as much ammo for it as you could the AR, the recoil and spread on the thing makes it impossible to hit anything unless its standing right in front of you, and as I stated earlier it does barely any damage. You’ll often have to empty over two clips of ammo into an Elite or Brute in order to actually kill one, and by that point you’re almost out of ammo entirely. Some weapons do now have the ability to be dual-wielded, and whilst this sounds like a great idea in concept (and it certainly does have its uses occasionally) more often than not it is actually a hindrance because you lose the ability to throw grenades or melee, and human weapons then take twice as long to reload as usual.
There are new additions in both types of weapon, human and Covenant, but the best additions by far are the Battle Rife (Human) and Carbine (Covenant). Both are medium to long range precision weapons that have a zoom scope on them. If you manage to land just a few successful shots on enemy weak spots then you can put them down very quickly. The problem is that much of Halo 2 takes place in tight spaces, meaning you don’t often get to take advantage of the long-range abilities of these weapons.
Tight spaces? You may ask. Yes, Halo: Combat Evolved may have prided itself on some truly expansive levels, as well as some clever level design to make the levels feel larger than they actually were. But Halo 2 ushered in the era of pretty skyboxes, meaning that levels are generally extremely narrow and empty to make the most of the lovely backdrops Bungie created. Whilst not all Halo 2 levels are guilty of this, the majority of them are. Now whilst this complaint may seem odd because Combat Evolved was not without its fair share of narrow levels, the way Combat Evolved visually designed these levels made them feel much larger than what they actually were. On top of this, enemy placement was generally much better in Combat Evolved. In Halo 2 it often feels like Bungie wanted to cram as many enemies on screen as it could, ergo making the tight spaces feel even more cramped because you have no option but to stay stationary and slowly advance as you kill more and more enemies.
Halo 2 has arguably the weakest and least memorable missions of any Halo game. In an attempt to make the game appear longer, the game has fifteen levels in comparison to ten in Combat Evolved. But one of these levels has no gameplay and is just a long cutscene, and another level is a tutorial that takes place entirely within one room, also with a long cutscene accompanying it. Now don’t get me wrong, these cutscenes are incredible (more on that later) but that then leaves thirteen levels. Combine that with the fact that the game isn’t any longer than Combat Evolved and it becomes clear that the levels are actually significantly smaller in size.
To combat this feeling of tiny levels, Halo 2 often has two very similar missions in the same area back-to-back. These make the levels feel much larger in comparison to anything Combat Evolved offered, but if you view the level structure like that then you have around six levels in the entire game.
Many of these levels aren’t as diverse or interesting as many of the missions in Combat Evolved either. They’re mostly in urban areas, Covenant ships, or Forerunner structures. Perhaps the most egregious example of all of these problems is the mission ‘Regret’. It comes around the midpoint of the game and sees Master Chief needing to cross a large body of water to reach a temple at the middle of it. The skybox is gorgeous and tries to make the level feel very large, but to get to the temple you need to go underground and travel through a tunnel system. So, despite the level being a great opportunity for some large level shenanigans akin to The Silent Cartographer, it just shows you a nice skybox for a few minutes and then shoves you underground into some caves for the remainder of the level which only lasts around fifteen minutes because it’s the second ‘half’ of the previous mission which sees you tasked with journeying to the lake in search of the temple. Many of the Halo 2 missions feel like this, and there isn’t a whole lot of mission variety either unlike in Combat Evolved. So, whilst Combat Evolved certainly had issues with recycling levels in the late game, at least it made you do something different in those levels. Halo 2 just has you venturing through cramped corridors for much of its campaign and doesn’t offer anything to break up the monotonous flow of unsatisfying shooting mechanics.
What about those cutscenes I mentioned earlier though? They're good right? The cutscenes are great, I won’t deny it. The amount of depth and detail in these sequences is incredible, especially for the limited power the Xbox could offer, especially considering in the original version of the game they are rendered in-engine. The result can sometimes mean that there’s some very noticeable pop-in with textures on character models, but it’s a small issue for just how ambitious Bungie were with these things. In the 2014 Anniversary remaster though, these cutscenes have been given the full-on CG animation treatment from Blur (the folks behind the cutscenes for Halo Wars, Halo 4, and Halo 5 which are all gorgeous). These updated cinematics not only give even greater depth and detail to what Bungie had conveyed the decade before, but are in some cases even extended with new information that gives the plot even more oomph. My one criticism about the cinematics in the Anniversary version of the game is that the game opens with a cinematic that takes place around the midpoint of Halo 5 and sets the game up as a retelling of events from The Arbiter’s perspective to Sergeant Locke as he hunts down Master Chief. It’s kind of stupid that it’s there because, assuming you’re playing the games in chronological order, you have no idea who this elite is, why it is cooperating with humans, or who this Locke fellow is hunting Chief. If you’re replaying the game, it also doesn’t make any sense because why would The Arbiter bother to go through the entire story of Halo 2 with Locke? He doesn’t even know Master Chief’s side of the story!
Halo 2 has arguably the weakest and least memorable missions of any Halo game. In an attempt to make the game appear longer, the game has fifteen levels in comparison to ten in Combat Evolved. But one of these levels has no gameplay and is just a long cutscene, and another level is a tutorial that takes place entirely within one room, also with a long cutscene accompanying it. Now don’t get me wrong, these cutscenes are incredible (more on that later) but that then leaves thirteen levels. Combine that with the fact that the game isn’t any longer than Combat Evolved and it becomes clear that the levels are actually significantly smaller in size.
To combat this feeling of tiny levels, Halo 2 often has two very similar missions in the same area back-to-back. These make the levels feel much larger in comparison to anything Combat Evolved offered, but if you view the level structure like that then you have around six levels in the entire game.
Many of these levels aren’t as diverse or interesting as many of the missions in Combat Evolved either. They’re mostly in urban areas, Covenant ships, or Forerunner structures. Perhaps the most egregious example of all of these problems is the mission ‘Regret’. It comes around the midpoint of the game and sees Master Chief needing to cross a large body of water to reach a temple at the middle of it. The skybox is gorgeous and tries to make the level feel very large, but to get to the temple you need to go underground and travel through a tunnel system. So, despite the level being a great opportunity for some large level shenanigans akin to The Silent Cartographer, it just shows you a nice skybox for a few minutes and then shoves you underground into some caves for the remainder of the level which only lasts around fifteen minutes because it’s the second ‘half’ of the previous mission which sees you tasked with journeying to the lake in search of the temple. Many of the Halo 2 missions feel like this, and there isn’t a whole lot of mission variety either unlike in Combat Evolved. So, whilst Combat Evolved certainly had issues with recycling levels in the late game, at least it made you do something different in those levels. Halo 2 just has you venturing through cramped corridors for much of its campaign and doesn’t offer anything to break up the monotonous flow of unsatisfying shooting mechanics.
What about those cutscenes I mentioned earlier though? They're good right? The cutscenes are great, I won’t deny it. The amount of depth and detail in these sequences is incredible, especially for the limited power the Xbox could offer, especially considering in the original version of the game they are rendered in-engine. The result can sometimes mean that there’s some very noticeable pop-in with textures on character models, but it’s a small issue for just how ambitious Bungie were with these things. In the 2014 Anniversary remaster though, these cutscenes have been given the full-on CG animation treatment from Blur (the folks behind the cutscenes for Halo Wars, Halo 4, and Halo 5 which are all gorgeous). These updated cinematics not only give even greater depth and detail to what Bungie had conveyed the decade before, but are in some cases even extended with new information that gives the plot even more oomph. My one criticism about the cinematics in the Anniversary version of the game is that the game opens with a cinematic that takes place around the midpoint of Halo 5 and sets the game up as a retelling of events from The Arbiter’s perspective to Sergeant Locke as he hunts down Master Chief. It’s kind of stupid that it’s there because, assuming you’re playing the games in chronological order, you have no idea who this elite is, why it is cooperating with humans, or who this Locke fellow is hunting Chief. If you’re replaying the game, it also doesn’t make any sense because why would The Arbiter bother to go through the entire story of Halo 2 with Locke? He doesn’t even know Master Chief’s side of the story!
Visuals in gameplay were pretty good for what the original Xbox could offer. The character models were well detailed and I’ve already talked about the pretty skyboxes. But environments certainly looked a little bland even back in 2004. Halo 2 suffers much the same fate as Combat Evolved did where the art design certainly allows for interesting architecture but it’s not particularly pleasing to look at. Lots of texture-less grey surfaces return for the Forerunner structures, whilst any area with nature involved looks as though you’re playing in a soon to be desert because it’s so brown and barren.
The Anniversary upgrade does a lot to help this by making environments look vastly more interesting and populated with details. But even it was not particularly interesting to look at for a 2014 game. It certainly does fix a lot of the pop-in issues the original release had, which was notorious for frame rate drops and struggling to load in assets fast enough for how quickly you can move through environments.
The score is once again incredible, Marty O’Donnell’s work in the Halo series is second to none and truly elevates the game from being just a good shooter to being a great one simply by having the right music for the right moment. The revamped main theme with the shit hot guitar solo in it is arguably the series most iconic piece of music and perfect for large scale battles. Halo 2 even managed to get in some licensed songs to play during some of the biggest battles in the game, and whilst these are good and all I would much rather just have Marty’s score.
There is definitely a lot of like in Halo 2, but for me it’s an entry I have extremely mixed feelings for. The story is incredible and I love experiencing it no matter how many times I replay the game. But the gameplay is downright horrible at times, mixed with the uninspired level design and the so-so art style it’s an entry I loathe actually playing. The multiplayer was great, but that’s a story for another time; in terms of a single player experience there’s definitely better Halo games out there, and even in comparison to much of the competition it tends to fall short.
The Anniversary upgrade does a lot to help this by making environments look vastly more interesting and populated with details. But even it was not particularly interesting to look at for a 2014 game. It certainly does fix a lot of the pop-in issues the original release had, which was notorious for frame rate drops and struggling to load in assets fast enough for how quickly you can move through environments.
The score is once again incredible, Marty O’Donnell’s work in the Halo series is second to none and truly elevates the game from being just a good shooter to being a great one simply by having the right music for the right moment. The revamped main theme with the shit hot guitar solo in it is arguably the series most iconic piece of music and perfect for large scale battles. Halo 2 even managed to get in some licensed songs to play during some of the biggest battles in the game, and whilst these are good and all I would much rather just have Marty’s score.
There is definitely a lot of like in Halo 2, but for me it’s an entry I have extremely mixed feelings for. The story is incredible and I love experiencing it no matter how many times I replay the game. But the gameplay is downright horrible at times, mixed with the uninspired level design and the so-so art style it’s an entry I loathe actually playing. The multiplayer was great, but that’s a story for another time; in terms of a single player experience there’s definitely better Halo games out there, and even in comparison to much of the competition it tends to fall short.
STORY: 9/10
GAMEPLAY: 6/10
PRESENTATION: 8/10
LIFESPAN: 7/10
SCORE: 7/10
Halo 2 is a favourite for many, but for me its a mixed bag of an excellent story marred by disappointing gameplay.