‘Most Anticipated Game of All Time’ is quite a title, one which most developers would both love and hate for one of their upcoming titles to have. On one hand, you essentially have guaranteed commercial success come release of the title, as history has shown us that in the age of mainstream gaming, hype sells. On the other hand, there is the fear of what disappointment may yield in terms of consumer loyalty and brand name damage. For the past three years the gaming community, and certainly the talented staff at Bungie, have felt the anticipation build to a fevered pitch, to the point where names such as Metroid, Metal Gear, Half-Life - names that over time have come to define an industry and its fanbase - have taken a backseat to the impending entity that would be Halo 2 in the minds of a huge number of gamers. No longer impending, the wait is over, and Bungie need not fear the monster they and the Microsoft marketing department have created.

Halo 2 was worth the wait and belongs in every Xbox owners’ collection, a fact which is clearly known by most of the Xbox-owning populace, given the success of the title at retail. That being said, time has past since the launch of the game and in that time the initial excitement and emotion has diffused to the point where we can now look at the title with an objective eye, unaffected by hype or personal investment/anticipation – two forces which have undoubtedly had a generously positive effect on the scores the game has received, both by fans and journalists. You see, despite what you may have heard to the contrary Halo 2 is neither perfect (i.e., 10/10, %100, or any other way you want to spell out perfection), nor a shoe-in for game of the year. That being said, for all of flaws inherent to the Halo 2 formula, the game is still very much worth picking up – a fact which many of you likely don’t need me, or anyone for that matter to tell you. While Halo 2 may not be the best first person shooter of all time - even the title of best console FPS is arguable - it is one damn fine game and unquestionably the provider of the single best multiplayer experience on any console, ever.

Story

One of the major facets of the original Halo that served to separate it from the FPS pack was the storyline; brilliantly-paced and intelligent, wrought with clever twists and quality dialogue, the narrative provided players with an engrossing glimpse into a universe that proved deep enough to spawn an entire series of novels. The fact that the central character, Master Chief, happened to be a stoic, battle-hardened badass didn’t hurt either, as he was immediately likeable from the outset. Players were consistently reminded of how powerful Master Chief was by every English-speaking presence in the game, and at the same time were reminded just how vulnerable he was every time the low-shield warning blared. Powerful but mortal, Master Chief was an effective fulcrum on which the storyline revolved. The same holds true in Master Chief’s return to action, as the character and his personality is slightly more fleshed out through his interaction with various members of the cast, though not enough so to spoil the stoic nature of the character or the intrigue surrounding him.

If there was one significant weakness to Halo’s narrative, it was that the role of the antagonist wasn’t particularly fleshed out. The entity that was the Covenant was never truly developed in terms of character, motivation, or personality, leaving players with essentially nothing but waves of faceless soldiers as their primary foe. Players were informed that a) they didn’t like humans and b) they wanted Halo for themselves – that was pretty much it. Halo 2 does much to remedy this problem, to the point where the entire story essentially revolves around the Covenant hierarchy and interactions within it, giving players a firm grasp of the Covenant belief structure, and infusing members of the opposition with an enormous degree of humanity. At this point just about everyone, whether they’ve played the game or not, is aware of the nice surprise Bungie included in the single player campaign which specifically relates to the unfolding of events from the Covenant viewpoint, but for the sake of the admittedly people out there who don’t know, I’ll refrain from spelling it out. In any case, the first response to the new addition is that of a ‘holy ****’ moment, but after the initial excitement has worn off, it is quickly relegated to only mildly cool status by a lack of any significant gameplay changes. In terms of the storyline alone however, the surprise is a well-done interactive narrative device and one that will certainly please fans of the Halo universe.

Contrary to the impression given by the marketing campaign surrounding Halo 2, specifically approaching the November 9th, the entire storyline does not revolve around a Covenant invasion of Earth, nor does it take place Terra Firma exclusively. Starting with an orbiting defense network of satellites, players will visit a variety of locales over the course of the single-player plotline, some of them familiar, others of which tie nicely into the immediate universe players became familiar with through the events of the first Halo whilst expanding upon it. All of the locations feature diverse combat situations with slightly varying rosters of opposing and allied troops and vehicles, with no one level clearly superior to any of the others in terms of layout, look or enjoyment factor. Everyone will likely have their own favorite level, based entirely on their own experience and preferences for combat dynamics – for my money, Halo 2’s best levels come early on the Earth missions, with a great mix of urban combat scenarios vehicular warfare, and a ‘boss’ scenario featuring a giant walking battle tank presented as a sequence of events in brilliant cinematic fashion. This boss scenario is a brilliant example of the kind of storytelling that won gamers over in the first Halo, one which – sadly – Bungie seems to have grown away from. More so than the first Halo, many key scenes are expressed via real-time cut scenes. For the most part these are high quality and entertaining, but the increased frequency was definitely noticeable, as was the decrease in the amount of on-the-fly narration, where players would watch events unfold while they were still in the heat of battle. Granted, the Halo 2 storyline is an entirely different beast than its predecessor, but one still gets the feeling that Bungie took two steps forward in narrative content and one step backward in means of expression. That said, the pacing of the game is just as brilliant as Halo’s, as players are never kept out of the action for two long, and the major plot points come up in just the right places to keep players motivated to proceed.

Finally there’s the ending, or more specifically, a lack thereof. In an ongoing universe such as Halo’s its understandable that not every conflict would be resolved by the end of the game, but the frustrating fact is essentially nothing is resolved when the credits roll. One focal character comes to a breakthrough that in some ways signifies an ending to the human/covenant conflict is in sight, but that battle that initiated Halo 2 is still raging by the end of the game, the chief antagonist is still at large, and a new, apparently very important antagonist introduced within the game goes completely undeveloped. While it’s hardly a crime to end a game with more questions than answers, these types of endings are generally built up to, whereas Halo 2 has one of the most abrupt endings in recent memory, essentially setting players up for the next mission right before rolling the credits. It hardly breaks the game, but all the storyline development is essentially proved pointless, as it didn’t develop toward any tangible conclusion.