Halo 2

Did we mention dual wielding?

Halo 2 was the most anticipated sequel of 2004. Wait, no; that's probably Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Fine; It's the most anticipated First Person Shooter of 2004. No, hold on; Half Life 2 came out that year. One more time: Halo 2 was a game released in 2004 to critical acclaim. Did I get that right? Okay, cool. Let me be clear here: 2004 was the greatest year for video games in all of history. Halo isn't even remotely why though. Halo 2's competition was Metal Gear Solid 3, and the others I just mentioned. Also for you Gamecube owners, the worst Metroid Prime came out. Everyone got something.

indeed, every game I just mentioned was a sequel. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas improves the GTA formula dramatically. Rather than just Vice City, you had three whole cities to explore now. There were RPG mechanics, and your character was heavily customizable. I can't possibly describe every improvement here. You've played it; you know. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was a prequel that took place in a russian jungle. Yes, I said that. Kojima's geography is suspect, I must say. The sneaking mechanics were improved dramatically and the setting encouraged you to try things the first two games couldn't possibly deliver. Half Life 2 had gameplay mechanics that were unimaginable in 1998 when it's predecessor was released. So what does Halo 2 do to improve upon it's predecessor?

Well, Halo 2 doesn't expand on it's core gameplay at all. What few changes exist were made to further simplify things. Halo’s health system was a decent balance between challenging and welcoming to new players. You had an regenerating shield that protected your overall health. Halo 2 throws that out the window in favor of all out regenerating health. Since you're playing as a 26th century super soldier, this makes sense. Not so much when you're playing as an early 20th century cowboy or a some random soldier. The pistol has been heavily nerfed, and the assault rifle is gone. It's been replaced with the battle rifle. It's satisfying by Halo standards, but would be unacceptable in any other FPS. There are other things, but I don't care and neither should you.

Aside from that, Halo 2’s claims to fame were Online Multiplayer and Dual Wielding. Dual Wielding? Really? Well, it looks like we're finally we're surpassing a few Nintendo 64 games mechanically. You could carry a plasma weapon in one hand and a ballistic weapon in another to take down a shield and then the person behind it. Really, Halo 2 feels like an expansion to the original rather than a true sequel. That's not inherently bad. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Sonic The Hedgehog 2 both share a similar philosophy. They're both fundamentally the same game as their predecessor but with small updates. They don't reinvent the wheel, but they're appreciated.

The online multiplayer is the main innovation here; supposing "innovation" is the right word. We don't know who invented things like the cup, or shoes, because these things just make sense. I'm not trying to be an ass here, I swear. I just know for a fact that if Halo 2 hadn't done it, someone else would have. PC games had been doing it for a decade at that point. What Halo 2 did right was it's matchmaking system. You'd pick from a very intuitive menu and suddenly you were playing online. PC games weren't that simple and some of them still aren't. Imagine your dude bro cousin trying to set up a Doom match. It'd never fucking happen. Halo 2 made it easy.

I enjoyed my time being called various slurs over the Microphone for having the audacity to be good at this game. Halo's multiplayer is decent, but it's kind of rudimentary. Especially by the time I gained access to a broadband connection. There was this mechanic where you could design your own logo and have it represent you. I don’t even have to tell you how that went. Surprisingly, you can still play Halo 2 online today. You'll need a modded Xbox and it's hell finding people to play with, but it works. Should the inclusion of online multiplayer be lauded? I don't know. It's certainly not as big a leap as anything San Andreas or Half Life 2 did. Since it was 2004, how many of the millions of people that played Halo 2 got online? Less than half I would think. High speed internet wasn't exactly common back then. In fact, my town didn't get it until 2009. If you got to play Halo 2 online in it's heyday, I'm happy for you. You're part of a very, very small group. I remember it working quite well. If I had to guess, most of the development time went into this mode. It's a shame so many people had to wait so long to play it. I don't know a single person that played online within even a few years of it's launch. It really was a post Xbox 360 thing for me. I played this online because I could, not because I wanted to.

You can still play Halo 2 online. Switch 2 included at the bottom to prove this photo was taken in 2025 cause my decor is so outdated

While the gameplay is more or less intact, the campaign this time blows. Halo 1’s campaign was unremarkable and slightly repetitive. The simple story being the only thing to keep you interested. Halo 2 splits its campaign between Master Chief and “The Arbiter" , an alien religious figure of some sort. I don’t remember a lot of the plot of this game beyond the fact that eventually the two team up. Earth is miraculously the location of an ancient super weapon. As if humanity itself reaching the stars wasn’t a plague on the universe. The first game was written like a dollar store science fiction novel. Halo 2 rectifies this with writing so shitty Will Wheaton would reject it. There’s always gotta be some kind of punch line, right? Characters spout random phrases like “I knows what the ladies like”. You hugged an alien and died horribly. Why the fuck are you here?

I didn’t talk about Halo 1’s story at all because there’s little to say about it. It's a perfectly fine sci-fi story. The game had a nice atmosphere and it served the plot well. Halo 2 throws the atmosphere out the window and the writing shoots it in the head for good measure. The storyline here has devolved into something akin to a marvel movie. You know what I'm talking about; it's all here. Halo 1 told it's story with integrity and it wasn't lost on me. It's faults in writing came from the fact that it had been done better elsewhere. With Halo 2, characters are cracking jokes amidst civilians being gunned down in the streets. Within the first hour, Master Chief commits a war crime and it’s treated as some kind of epic event. This scene is cool until you think about it. If Master Chief can do all of that shit and survive, humanity isn't on the ropes. What are the odds that a man could jump out of a space ship, drop to Earth, and survive? Why is this same man easily gunned down?

Most characters are poorly defined. The Marine captain is a cigar chomping hard ass, or at least, that was the intention. Every single line that comes out of his mouth is a "witty" quip. It’s no wonder his soldiers run into the line of fire so often. They’re trying to escape from his shitty jokes. Then there’s the dead captain's daughter. Graphical issues make it look like she’s talking through gritted teeth constantly. I think she gets kidnapped or something. Cortana must have been given some kind of "attitude" upgrade here. She's far more "feisty" but none of it is charming. They've given up all nuance in an attempt to appeal to 14 year olds. Playing this at 18, I remember asking myself if I was too old for the game. That's despite the fact that the box makes it clear that it's for ages 17+.

So we have a smarmy group of jerks running around committing war crimes. What of Master Chief? Is he good? Not really. Bungie could never decide whether or not he was a player surrogate. He's ill defined beyond your typical "Legendary Warrior" crap. From Dragon Warrior to Half Life 2, this characterization is tremendously common for video game protagonists. He's got no personality but everyone around him knows he can do the job. Which video game character did I just describe? Exactly. The difference here is that in most games the supporting characters aren't important or they're fun to listen to; Halo 1 included. In trying to turn the script of Halo 2 into some proto-Marvel movie, they ruined everything that made the plot interesting including Master Chief. Master Chief's saving grace is within supplemental material, apparently. I'm not here to judge that, I'm here to judge this game.

I don't have any issue with games having brainless stories. Perfect Dark and Doom are guilty of this and I put those on a pedestal. The problem comes from how jarring the difference between the first game and Halo 2 is. They're so tonally different that it's difficult to believe that the two take place in the same world. It feels like some kind of what-if scenario where everyone became an idiot.

If you're wondering why Halo 2 isn't finished, it's because executives were so set on a specific release date that they were willing to tattoo it onto themselves. I'm serious.

I don’t care to remember the details, but Halo 2 ends on a cliffhanger. Cliffhangers are great if you're looking to serve a specific narrative purpose. Who Shot Mr. Burns? The Walking Dead's season 6 finale? They're basic, but they left you questioning everything. Halo 2's cliffhanger didn't serve a narrative purpose. It happened for marketing reasons. Frankly, so were those other examples. The difference was that the marketing on their part was planned well in advance. Halo 2's launch was planned in advance too. Problem is, the game wasn't finished. November 9th 2004 was so important that some fool at Microsoft went and tattoo'd it on himself. Worse yet, people would have to buy a completely new console in order to resolve that cliffhanger. Halo 2 was released less than a year before the Xbox 360 launched, and Halo 3 wouldn't be released until 2007. I think the Xbox 360 is a worthy curse to bestow upon anyone that actually gave a shit about how this whole thing ends though.