Halo 2

When i first played the original Halo i was hooked on its suprisingly original story and handcrafted world filled with intresting and (mostly) likable characters, so when i got a chance to pick up Halo 2 i had pretty reasonable expectations, Let me stop you there, before you continue reading my review you should know that i love the Halo games for their Design and single player qualities NOT their multiplayer so this review will be about the single player experience of Halo 2 as i can't stand the multiplayer.

This review will cover three primary parts of Halo 2 -

1-Story and presentation

2-Gameplay and design

3-Graphics and Sound

So to start off im going to review Halo 2 from a story perspective, it continues the story from the original and expands the world of Halo in such great ways, basically in Halo 2 the perspective of the story switches between The Master Chief and a new Protagonist named the Arbiter, One of the star qualities of the Halo games has always been the presentation which is dead on here from epic vehicles levels to the creative level names.

The Gameplay in Halo 2 takes everything from the original, gives it a new coat of paint and adds some new features on top of all that. New weapons like the plasma sword and battle rifle are added as well as new covenant and UNSC vehicles such as the Wraith tank or Scorpion tank. The levels in the Halo series have always been known for being very well designed and this is present in Halo 2 with Bungie giving you the right amount of linearity for the experience to be a tight action packed adventure and enough freedom for you to take the tools at your disposal and go through the game with your own sytle.

Halo 2 features stylized yet somewhat realistic graphics similar to the original and also features an excellent selection of music composed by Bungie( Martin O'donnell FTW).

With a game this great there is bound to be things that bother me such as in the PC version The Master Chief is overly glossy and doesn't look like he belongs in the game, the controls feel too consoley and the cliffhanger ending may dissapoint some but overall Halo 2 is a great game and i recommend it.