halo2

From the day of its initial release, Halo 2 has been the most popular video game on Xbox Live, even after the release of the Xbox 360. Halo and Halo 2 are some of the most played games for the Xbox console.^[1] On June 20, 2006, Xbox.com reported that more than a half-billion games of Halo 2 have been played on Xbox Live since its debut. The same article also reported that 7.4 million units of Halo 2 have been sold worldwide. Halo 2 can be played in online tournaments over XBOX Live at ^[2] The game will also be available for the Windows Vista operating system sometime in the near future. It has been announced that game developer Pi Studios will be producing editing tools for this version of the game. With these tools, users will be able to create their own levels for the Windows Vista version of the game. ^[3]

Gameplay

Campaign

The game's "Campaign" mode offers options for both single-player and cooperative multiplayer participation. When playing in this mode the player must complete a series of levels that encompass Halo 2's storyline. These levels alternate between Master Chief and a Covenant Elite called the Arbiter as the player, who occupy identical but diametrically opposed roles in the story's conflict. Aside from variations in storyline, the Arbiter differs from Master Chief only in that his armor lacks a flashlight; instead, it is equipped with a short duration rechargeable form of active camouflage that disappears when the player attacks or gets shot.

In Campaign mode there are four levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary (Extremely Hard). An increase in difficulty will result in:

• An increase in the amount, rank, health, damage, and accuracy of enemies
• A reduction of duration and an increase in recharge time for the Arbiter's active camouflage
• A decrease in the player's damage and shields

Legendary has been described as "suicide" by Bungie Studios. However, the game can be made harder by use of various skulls found during the game. Once the Mythic Skull is picked up, for example, enemy shields, damage, accuracy, and health all rise dramatically. Other skulls modify certain features, such as the "blind skull" removing the HUD (and thus removing the targeting reticule).

Multiplayer

See also: List of multiplayer gametypes in Halo 2

Unlike its predecessor, Halo 2 allows players to compete with each other via the Xbox Live online service, in addition to the original's support for split-screen and System Link multiplayer. Halo 2's Xbox Live mode offers a unique and, some would say, innovative approach to online gaming that is intended to alleviate some of the problems that have plagued online first-person shooters in the past. Traditionally, one player sets his or her computer or console up as a game server or host, specifying the game type, map, and configuring other settings. The game software then uses a service such as GameSpy to advertise the game to the world at large; other players choose which game to join based upon criteria such as the map and game options each host is offering as well as the ping times they are able to receive.

Halo 2 is often played in as tournaments, hosted by companies such as the World Cyber Games Tournament. The most recent introduction is of international competitions, such as the 2004 international Halo-fest.

In Halo 2, Xbox Live players do not choose to host public games, and they do not get to specify individual maps and options to search for. Instead, players select "playlists" that are geared to different styles of play. For example, the "Rumble Pit" playlist offers a variety of "every man for himself" game types, primarily Slayer or variations thereof; "Team Skirmish" offers a number of 4-on-4 team games, which are primarily objective-based games like Capture the Flag; "Big Team Battle" is similar to Team Skirmish but allows teams of up to 8 players. Other playlists allow matches between different clans. Bungie updates these playlists every once in a while, deleting the unpopular gametypes and adding new ones. The Xbox Live servers create games automatically from the pool of players that have chosen each playlist, choosing a game type and map automatically and selecting one player to serve as the game's host (being the host is generally a desirable position to be in, as the host experiences no latency. If the Xbox console hosting the game drops out, the Xbox Live service automatically selects a new host from among the remaining players so the game can continue.

Players can create small parties with their friends and enter games together as teammates in Team based games. Players may still choose to set up games for their own party to their own specification, and invite others into that game from their Friends and Clan lists; however, these games are not made publicly available.

Bungie.net records every single statistic that is displayed on-screen in the end-of-game "Postgame Carnage Report". Anyone can visit Bungie.net and look at any Xbox Live player's stats. If a player logs in with a Microsoft Passport, they can also access the "Gameviewer". This presents an image of the level that was played from the player's choice various angles, superimposed with a summary of the crucial game events. For example: for each kill, the attacker and target's locations and the attacker's weapon are displayed, and the paths taken by flags in Capture the Flag games are shown. Bungie keeps the stats for each game for 7 days before purging them to save space. The stats are also used as evidence when banning suspected cheating players (see "Xbox Live updates").

Vehicles

Halo 2 offers a larger array of vehicles to choose from, such as the Ghost, Spectre, Banshee, Wraith, Scorpion Tank, Warthog, and advanced maneuvering abilities, such as boarding (hijacking) any vehicle and boosting (for Covenant Vehicles only), features that were not offered in Halo: Combat Evolved.

Powerups

There are two types of powerups available in Halo 2 Multiplayer.

• Overshield: An enhanced, non-regenerating shield which gives the user three times the strength of a normal shield. The overshield adds a strong glowing effect to the user, which can give his or her position away more clearly. The overshield functions on top of the regular shield – when it is active, the normal shield does not take damage. In addition, when an overshield is picked up, the player is invulnerable until it finishes charging, which takes a second or two. In multiplayer Halo 2, the overshield gradually depletes over time, and can be used as a default shield that recharges and can be completely taken out along with the normal shield with a charged up plasma pistol shot. The overshield is still present in the campaign mode of Halo 2, although it is harder to find. Also, the Black Eye Skull will enable the player to charge his/her shield into the overshield range by using a melee attack on enemies. In certain Multiplayer gametypes, one or more players start with a regenerating overshield.

• Active Camouflage: Essentially a device used for stealth by The Covenant, active camouflage drastically reduces the player's visibility for a period of time, making all but a faint outline of him invisible and producing a lensing effect as they walk. This effect (which is almost identical to that of the alien armor in the Predator movies) is reduced if the player is hit by weapon fire, or if he fires a weapon. The stealth camouflage also removes the auto aim players usually receive when targeting an enemy because the reticule will not turn red if held over someone with the camouflage active. Weapons such as the Sword, Plasma Rifle, and Plasma Pistol can give someone with cloak away because of the glow each produces. Curiously, the glow from the Needler and Beam Rifle do not shine through the cloak. The ability to use active camouflage is included in the Arbiter's part of the campaign, although its effect only lasts a few seconds, and the user can be given away if he fires, but not if he performs a melee attack (unless he hits an enemy). Since the AI technically does not rely on sight to locate targets (because they are bots and don't technically see at all) the glow from the plasma rifle, plasma pistol, or even the sword will not give the player away. The power-up is not available in the Halo 2 campaign as it was in the first; it is only given to the Arbiter to use as the Master Chief uses his flashlight. The Envy skull, only accessible on the Legendary difficulty, gives Master Chief access to the built-in generator, and has the same duration as arbiter's would on legendary difficulty. During multiplayer, active camouflage is acquired as it is in the first game, and is located often at a relatively hidden or remote location on the map. Anything that requires a red reticle to function properly, such as the tracking ability of the needler and plasma pistol, and the lunge ability of the energy sword will not function against an invisible target.

Gametype Settings: In some gametypes, the overshield and/or active camo are always active on one or all of the players, and if disabled, will recharge over time. One common mistake for new players is to mix the overshield and the active camo; the overshield creates a faint halo around the player, rendering the active camouflage useless. However, if a player with the overshield is not concerned with being invisible, taking the invisibility in addition to the overshield will deny his enemies the power-up, which could be said to be more strategically sound than leaving it there.

Additional content

Xbox Live updates

A common complaint regarding Halo 2's online play has been the widespread cheating which occurred almost immediately upon the game's release. Users exploited bugs in the game and vulnerabilities of the network to win ranked games and thus increase their matchmaking rank. The first forms of cheating that took place were standbying, in which a player would intentionally press the standby button on his or her modem so that everyone in the game would freeze except for the cheater, so that the cheater would be given time to accomplish an objective in the game. "Dummying" is another cheat that exploded in the XBOX Live community, in which an elite model of a character enters and exits a vehicle in a manner that on the cheater's screen his or her character is still in the vehicle, while on everyone elses screen the character is out of the vehicle and standing still. When the cheater finally decides to exit the vehicle, he or she can grab the flag and then warp back to the body that remains motionless in a different location. Cheating also includes softmodding, in which a player uses devices such as action replay and computer programs to give his player unfair capabilities, and bridging which involves computer programs that are used to give a player 'host' status and therefore give him/her the ability to disconnect other players from the game session. Many players became frustrated and started demanding that Bungie create a solution to the widespread cheating. In response to these complaints, Bungie released an automatic update for Halo 2 (a mandatory patch) on Monday, April 18th, 2005, which fixed many of the various bugs and cheats in the game, slimmed down split-screen HUD information, and rebalanced various weapons to promote use of single-wield weapons, grenades, and melee attacks. For example, the melee attacks and grenades are now far more powerful and the battle rifle is now more accurate. Bungie maintains a full list of changes. [1] This brings Halo 2 up to Version 1.1. A game exploitation called "Superbouncing" or "Superjumping" is labeled cheating by many of the Xbox Live community, and has been described as cheating by Bungie employees when it is used in Matchmaking [2]. Another group of glitches, which involve the use of certain button combos, have similarly been described as cheating by both fans and Bungie employees. [3] Despite this, whether Superjumping or the use of button combos is cheating or not is still disputed by some players. Bungie has not made a patch to fix Superjumping, and many people claim that a patch would not be able to fix this exploitation because the whole game engine would have to be changed in order to do so.

Halo 2 also supports downloadable content, with Bungie making various new multiplayer maps available. Four maps were made available to download on Monday, April 25th, 2005. They are now all completely free. On the 5th, 5 new maps were made available for free on Xbox live. The Map Pack disk was also released on that date.

Another update was added in July, 2005 (a week or so after the release of the map pack). The update added a detection tool that would automatically detect and ban 'modders' using modified content on their Xboxes. Modified versions of the downloadable maps would allow people to use cheats such as 'autoaim' and 'automatic reload' during matches on Xbox Live. Any players who are detected using modified content would be automatically banned from Matchmaking on Xbox Live. The update also fixes a teleporter glitch on the map, Relic. The players who use 'modded' content to have an unfair advantage over other players now resort to using 2-month free trial accounts to cheat on Xbox Live. Many players hold their rank (or level) in high regard, and these people will give 'modders' 2-month free trial cards so their rank can be 'boosted' up from winning unfairly. Anyone who knowingly and willingly plays with 'modders' will be banned from Matchmaking.

In June 2006, an additional online matchmaking update was released. This update removed the Clan Match, 6v6, and Big Team Battle playlists, as well as made other changes within existing playlists. New additions to the matchmaking playlist included Big Team Skirmish and Big Team Slayer, which are objective only and slayer only playlists, respectively, and Team SWAT (Unranked matches in which shields are disabled, and non-default starting weapons are used.)

On August 22nd, 2006, Bungie also added a new playlist called Team Carnage, that was devoloped by players at Halo.Bungie.Org.[4]

Inevitably some cheats and exploits remain. As users typically aim to increase their matchmaking rank by using these, some users avoid these by not entering games with particularly high-level players.

Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack

The Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack is an expansion pack for the video game Halo 2, intended to make Xbox Live content and updates available to offline players. The disk contains the game's automatic update, all nine new multiplayer maps, a documentary about the making of the maps, and a cinematic called "Another Day on the Beach", amongst other features. It was released on July 5, 2005. At release, it cost £15 in the UK and $19.99 in the U.S., available at par in Canada.

The new multiplayer content can be used on Xbox Live, System Link and Split-Screen modes.

Five of the new maps (Elongation, Terminal, Backwash, Gemini, Relic) were released online through Xbox Live's downloadable content service on July 5, the same day as the map pack. The other four maps (Turf, Sanctuary, Warlock, Containment) were released earlier that year. All of the multiplayer maps are now available as free & mandatory downloads on Xbox Live. This also upgrades Halo's multiplayer to be 1.1. This makes the fuses on the grenades have a shorter timer until they detonate, and additionally both grenades are more powerful, and as of now one plasma grenade can kill an opponent. The magnum has become less powerful, and when dual-wielded, it has a decrease in it's auto-accuracy ability. The SMG and Plasma Rifle dual-wield combo has been toned down. Melee damage has been doubled, so now instead of 6 hits it only takes three to take down an opponent with any gun. If the player jumps and hit an opponent his shields will be knocked down instantly. If done in midair as a mid-air melee with the Brute Shot it will be a one hit kill, as the Brute Shot takes 2 regular beatdowns to now kill someone, and the weapon itself is more powerful because of the increase in grenade damage.

The disc also includes a documentary about the making of the new maps and a short bonus movie.

Halo 2 Limited Collector's Edition

The Limited Collector's Edition features the regular edition, but some extras include an aluminum case, many promotional offers, an in-depth game manual with a special cover and a special DVD of the making of Halo 2. One of the most notable bonuses of the limited edition is the Conversations from the Universe booklet that contains information from both the human side and the Covenant side of the story.

See also the contents of Halo 2 Limited Collector's Edition.

Plot and setting

Setting

Halo 2 is set after Master Chief destroyed Alpha Halo. He has returned to Earth, where a few levels occur. Threshold, Delta Halo, and the Covenant holy city of High Charity are a few of the places visited during the course of gameplay. On Earth, the locations are in Mombassa, located in Africa. The Covenant have invaded Earth, but only landed in Mombassa.

Plot

Halo 2 opens with Master Chief receiving an award aboard Cairo Station, a MAC gun platform orbiting Earth, alongside Miranda Keyes. Miranda is the daughter of Captain Keyes, who died during the course of Halo: Combat Evolved, and Miranda is accepting a posthumous award for her father's bravery. This ceremony is juxtaposed with the judgment and torture of the former Elite admiral of the Covenant fleet Particular Justice, who is being punished for his incompetence. Both events are in response to the destruction of Halo during the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Master Chief is awarded for his bravery and sacrifice, and the unnamed Covenant admiral is being tortured for his inability to prevent the destruction of Halo. It is also revealed that the Covenant's interest in Halo lies in the belief that the activation of Halo would bring about the "Great Journey", which would cleanse the universe of lesser lifeforms (including the Flood) while providing salvation for the Covenant.

The action begins during the Master Chief's ceremony. A Covenant fleet jumps out of slipspace near Earth and sends boarding parties towards a battlecluster of stations. These boarding parties are secretly carrying explosives designed to take out the MAC (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon) guns. Master Chief finds and disarms a bomb located on Cairo Station with the help of Cortana, while the flagship of the Covenant fleet speeds past Earth's defenses and heads toward Earth itself. Master Chief and Cortana join the UNSC ship In Amber Clad, which is en route to New Mombasa to deal with the Covenant flagship. In Amber Clad is carrying Sergeant Major Johnson, and is commanded by Miranda Keyes.

Before reaching New Mombasa, Cortana decodes transmissions revealing that the flagship carries the High Prophet of Regret. The UNSC successfully repels the Covenant invasion force with the help of Master Chief, and the Covenant ship begins preparations for a slipspace jump to an unknown destination. In Amber Clad follows, and discovers a second Halo installation dubbed "Delta Halo". The crew of In Amber Clad learns more about the Covenant's belief regarding the Halos, and Master Chief ultimately slays the High Prophet of Regret while attempting to prevent the activation of Delta Halo.

The action switches to the condemned Covenant fleet commander assuming the role of the Arbiter. His first mission is to silence a heretic who doubts the Prophets' teachings, in turn starting the Arbiter along a path which ultimately results in Arbiter doubting his own beliefs. Seeds of discord are further sown within the Covenant when the Prophets decide to grant the Brutes control of the military instead of the traditionally favored Elites. During his missions, The Arbiter realizes the danger that the rings represent: they are weapons designed to destroy most of the life in the galaxy, not the religious artifacts the Covenant believes them to be.

The Master Chief and the Arbiter meet upon the release of the Flood from Delta Halo. A mysterious Flood creature called the Gravemind sends the Arbiter and Master Chief in separate directions to prevent The High Prophets from activating Delta Halo. Master Chief finds himself aboard the Covenant Holy City High Charity, a gargantuan space station, and pursues the remaining Prophets. During Chief's mission, he finds himself in the middle of an erupting Covenant civil war between Brutes and Elites. After capturing the In Amber Clad, the Flood, led by the Gravemind, arrive at the city and begin to consume and infect the populace. The only remaining High Prophet, Truth, escapes on a Forerunner vessel hidden in the core of High Charity. The Master Chief manages to stow away on board while Cortana stays behind in order to detonate the In Amber Clad's engine reactors to destroy Delta Halo and High Charity, stopping Tartarus from activating Halo.

The game comes to a close with The Arbiter's missions as he is aided by a group of Elites as well as surviving members of In Amber Clad's crew. Together, they pursue and kill Tartarus and his Brutes on Delta Halo. Tartarus, however, has already succeeded in inserting the Index, making Delta Halo fully operational. Miranda Keyes manages to snatch the Index out of Delta Halo's control panel, thus halting the firing sequence. Despite this success, Delta Halo's deactivation sends a signal out to the other Halos, sending them all into a "standby" mode so they can be remotely detonated from the Ark. Meanwhile, the Forerunner ship that Master Chief has stowed away on approaches Earth. One of Earth's remaining orbital forces contacts him and asks what he is doing aboard the Forerunner ship. He replies, "Sir, finishing this fight," ending the game with an abrupt cliffhanger, and setting the tone for Halo 3.

After the game credits finish rolling, a scene appears in which Cortana and Gravemind are conversing. This is meant as a further teaser for Halo 3.

Characters

Main article: Halo characters

• Master Chief SPARTAN-117 John
• Cortana
• Sergeant Major A.J. Johnson
• Lieutenant Commander Miranda Keyes
• The Arbiter {former Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice}
• Spec-Ops Commander Rtas 'Vadumee
• Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood
• High Prophet of Truth
• High Prophet of Mercy
• High Prophet of Regret
• Brute Chieftain Tartarus
• 343 Guilty Spark Monitor of Installation 04
• 2401 Penitent Tangent Monitor of Installation 05
• Gravemind
• Heretic Leader

Development

One note regarding the release of Halo 2 was an estimated one million dollar Alternate Reality Game project titled I Love Bees. For those who are not familiar with the "ARG" premise: a story is put forth on web pages and other media devices. Players are invited into a part of the story they might not otherwise see.

On the morning of October 14, a leak of the French version of the game was posted on the Internet, and circulated widely. Microsoft, the parent company of Bungie Studios, tried to contain the spread, and pledged to bring legal action against anyone who spread the leaked version.^[4]

The first official release of Halo 2 was in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States on November 9, 2004. Anticipation for the game was high; three weeks before this release, a record 1.5 million copies had already been pre-ordered.^[5] This was followed by releases on November 10 in France and other European countries, and November 11 in the UK. The game sold 2.4 million copies and earned up to $125 million US in its first 24 hours on store shelves, thus out-grossing the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest as highest grossing release in entertainment history.^[6] As of November 9 2005, exactly a year after its release, Halo 2 had sold more than 7 million copies worldwide.^[7] Some observers saw this as another milestone in the emerging dominance of the video game industry. Halo 2 won "Game of the Year 2004" at GPhoria, among other awards (Best Boss Battle, etc.), including different award shows.

Since Halo 2 was a successful killer app for the Xbox and its Live online service, Microsoft took advantage of Halo 2 to ban modded Xboxes from the network when they tried to log on for online gaming.

On February 9, 2006, Bungie Studios announced that Halo 2 would be released on PC exclusively for the Windows Vista operating system. The game is to be ported by a small team at Microsoft Game Studios who will work closely with Bungie Studios.

Music

Main article: Halo 2 Original Soundtrack

The Halo 2 soundtrack was mostly composed by Martin O'Donnell and his partner Michael Salvatori, the team that had also composed the music of Halo. Steve Vai provided guitar backing for many tracks, including the album's signature piece Halo Theme- MJOLNIR Mix, which also serves as the theme song for Halo 2. Additional tracks included various outside musicians, including Joe Satriani, Incubus, Breaking Benjamin, and Hoobastank, who are all featured on the official soundtrack, and to a certain extent, in the game.

The Halo 2 Original Soundtrack: Volume Two was released on April 25, 2006 and features much more of the original score by Martin O'Donnell with special guest appearance by Steve Vai.

Reception

From the day of its initial release and up to this day, Halo 2 has been the most popular video game on Xbox Live, even after the release of the Xbox 360. Halo and Halo 2 are some of the most played games for the Xbox console.^[8] On June 20, 2006, Xbox.com reported that more than a half-billion games of Halo 2 have been played on Xbox Live since its debut. The same article also reported that 7.4 million units of Halo 2 have been sold worldwide.

The game's Campaign mode has received some criticism, from the lack of Earth-based missions, to dissatisfaction with the abrupt, cliffhanger ending that sets gamers up for Halo 3.^[9] There is also some criticism of the game's on-the-fly rendering technique, which can sometimes result in textures or models being loaded into a cutscene in full sight of the player (or less frequently, during gameplay, though these incidents tend to be less obvious).^{citation needed]} Bungie has stated that this issue has been fixed for Halo 3 and the Windows Vista port.^[10] A common point of contention between Bungie and tournament players, such as MLG is that Bungie uses SMG starts (meaning the player will spawn with an SMG if they are killed), while tournament players prefer the Battle Rifle.[5] Bungie has since adopted settings similar to the ones MLG used (battle-rifle starts) and dubbed the playlist "Team Hardcore" (for team games) on Xbox Live.[6]

Legacy

Halo 2 is being ported by Microsoft Game Studios, with the help of Bungie, to Windows Vista. On February 9, 2006, it was announced that Halo 2 Vista, as it is called by Bungie, would be in stores before the end of 2006,^[11] but this now seems unlikely due to the push of the Windows Vista launch into 2007. There will be a map editor included that will be made by Microsoft (in cooperation with Bungie Studios). The extent of the map editor's capabilities have not yet been made available.

Halo 2 Vista will not link with the Xbox Live network, as stated in the new FAQ section of Halo 2 Vista on Bungie's official website. However, Bungie has stated that it will have networking features of its own, resembling Halo PC's inclusion of free internet capabilities.

Halo 3 is also currently in development by Bungie Studios.

Guiness World Records

Halo 2 player Cody Miller recently completed the game on Legendary difficulty in under 3.5 hours without dying. This play-through was recorded in the Guiness World Records of 2007. ^{citation needed]}

See also

• Red vs. Blue
• The Codex Series

References

Official Websites

• Bungie's Official Halo 2 site
• Xbox.com's Official Halo 2 site
• Halo.Bungie.org, Halo news and associated productions
• Halo 2 at Halopedia
• H2Wiki

Reviews

• Halo 2 on GameSpot
• Halo 2 on IGN.com
• Metacritic.com - Reviews & Scores from Leading Critics
• Halo 2 reviews on MobyGames
• Halo 2 on 1UP.com
• Halo 2 on The Shadow Sun